A savvy and speedy move here by US public service broadcaster PBS after it took advantage of Mitt Romney’s attack on the network during the first presidential debate earlier this week.

During the debate, which set a new record for the Tweeting of a political event, Romney said in reference to PBS that he was not prepared to “to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for”.

His remark sent #BigBird trending and saw a rash of parody Big Bird accounts launched, including @BlGBlRD. Now PBS itself has responded by buying the character’s name as keyword ad campaign on Twitter. Read More »

We already know how important digital campaigning has become and that those standing for office have to be increasingly careful of what they say and do online.

This story from Maine in the US, however, takes that to a new level and delves into what are the essentially the hobbies of political candidates and uses the information against them.

Local Republicans have launched an attack on Democratic Party candidate Colleen Lachowicz, who is standing for the State Senate, on the basis that she plays the online role playing game World of Warcraft. That’s right it is an Orc attack. Read More »

A useful infographic here to help you be smarter with your social media activity on Twitter and LinkedIn and get better results for the content you share.

We’ve looked at the ideal length of Tweets and where links should go in tweets through some of the work that Dan Zarrella has done.

He looked, for instance, at where is the best place in a tweet to place link?  He also did research into how to get more clicks out of our tweets by identifying factors that tend to lead to higher click-through rates on tweeted links. This is a nice addition to that work. Read More »

Having been gifted some free PR by Apple, and its well documented map troubles, Intel has launched its M8 map into the UK.

It’s a tough market to break into. You already have Google maps as well as the likes of Nokia, TomTom, which also this week launched its Android app — although that comes with a price tag.

But unlike that, Intel’s M8, which it’s dubbing “Your Local Mate”, is free and combines mapping capabilities with community information, traffic updates and social media. Read More »

It is a logo that is plastered worldwide on cans, on drinks machines, and around major sporting events, but Coca Cola want someone to re-imagine their iconic logo.

What is more, they are throwing it to the masses and are going to crowd source the process.

The competition is going to be run in association with design agency Blank You Very Much, and is open to US residents only. It is a good choice of partner for Coke, as Blank You Very Much focus on reinventing iconic brands and symbols that we already know.

Read More »

Good piece in the FT this morning looking at how public relations is changing and how the humble press release is no longer quite as humble as it used to be.

The rise of PR has gone hand in hand with the ever shrinking news rooms, number of journalists who inhabit them, and the rise in churnalism, which demands a constant stream of digital news to fill magazine and newspaper websites.  That has resulted in as much as 41% of news now being driven by PR.

The story quotes a figure from the US that says the ratio of PRs to journalists has shifted from 1.2 to one to four to one between 1980 and 2010.  Read More »