There have been some good examples of how writers have used Twitter to experiment. Most notably in May Jennifer Egan released an 8,500 short story on Twitter, called ‘Black Box’, in a serialisation experiment with the New Yorker’s fiction Twitter account @NYerFiction. There was also  Teju Cole’s ‘Small Fates‘ and Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel.

At the weekend The Guardian got in on the act. It challenged some well-known writers – from Ian Rankin and Helen Fielding to Jeffrey Archer and Jilly Cooper – to come up with a story of up to 140 characters in a Twitter fiction experiment.

I liked  Rankin’s take: “I opened the door to our flat and you were standing there, cleaver raised. Somehow you’d found out about the photos. My jaw hit the floor.” The are plenty of other good ones there and now this from Twitter: a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival. Read More »

Brands that have an international presence just got a major and long awaited boost, courtesy of Facebook who recently announced the roll out of one global identity, localised per market.

Facebook’s own Marketing page as seen above, has had this structure for many months – we’ve known it’s been coming but yesterday it was finally announced to the masses.

Quite possibly one of the biggest developments for brands since timeline was introduced, global pages now allows brands that have one page or multiple country-based pages to have a universal, yet localised, presence. Read More »

A big week in the story of ‘Print is Dead’ as Tina Brown axed Newsweek, signalling its online only future, and more speculation about the future of The Guardian in print.

The closure of Newsweek has been on the cards since-owner Barry Diller suggested earlier this year that print could be scaled back in 2013. Newsweek closes in December. Besides Brown has been digitally centric since launching The Daily Beast and combining, under Diller’s IAC/Interactivecorp, with Newsweek two years ago.

Another dispatch from the front-line of ‘Print is Dead’ came about The Guardian and further speculation that it was ‘seriously discussing’ an end to its print edition. This speculation echoed something we ran on The Wall earlier this year: Is the Guardian planning to ditch print for digital future sooner rather than later? It is a rumour that will just not go away.

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In the past, many marketing communications directed at mums have been misguided, depicting idyllic situations and outcomes that often don’t resonate with the target audience and its aspirations. In some cases, the perception still seems to be that mums are living the dream, or at least wish to, with a spotless kitchen and 2.4 children.

Certainly, this is a traditional approach, but is it what women really want? In a world where even fashion magazines are realising that using images of “real women” is more appealing, why are some brands selling this overdone and unrealistic dream to mothers and talking at them as if their lives and interests are limited to home, husband and children?

With the explosion of social media, the role of the community manager is becoming increasingly central to engaging with a given target audience. Read More »