Reference Nestle on Facebook and now More Magazine on Twitter. What’s interesting about both cases is not that the companies responded but that they were perceived as acting more like a hostile individual than an objective brand trying to smooth over consumer criticism.

I have run and continue to run corporate accounts for brands from time to time [Tempero for one, and yes, always transparently] and while the temptation is always there to operate those accounts the way I would my  personal one, you have to maintain a sense of professionalism and accept you represent a brand. That means in the heat of the debate you have to keep your cool.

[Image: ACC Fan Blog]

I sit on the Legal and Best practice hub with Stephen Groom from Osbourne Clark (@OsborneClark), Joel Daves from Agency 2 (@agency 2), Adam Paulisick (@paulisick) from Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Paul Taylor (@Paul_TaylorUK) from 6 Consulting.

We have an initial list of issues to cover, ranging from privacy, to staff use of social media, to managing reputation, but we’re also currently gathering additional thoughts for the 2nd paper.  International concerns have cropped up more than once, as have geo-location services and user responsibility around viral campaigns.

If you’d like to add a topic to the debate or find out more about the DMA activity, drop me a note via @domsparkes

The reason it’s popped into my head is that I’ve been reflecting recently on the seemingly circular transition of online communities into social media and back again.  When we started Tempero in 2003, after 4 years of forum and text-to-screen management within Granada Media/ITV, social networks were still years away, Facebook was a term only used by models, and engagement was something you did on one knee.

To us, the power of community was obvious: folks chatted on your site, became loyal and hopefully bought stuff.  Senior management saw it differently, seeing a geeky collective talking nonsense on their dime.  Seven years on, return on investment is still a little flaky at times but with the nerdy persona behind it, community has evolved into social media and marketing managers everywhere are scrobbling (sic) for fans, likes, comments and tweets.

Social media management is what we do, but I sometimes feel that doesn’t convey that the fact that community is at the heart of it all.  With that in mind it’s been heartening that many recent meetings with global brand names have had community as the focus and not the phrase ‘social media’.  This I hope, is a trend that will continue, with people coming together for contact, content and cause  – my preferred definition for social media and community.

It does bring up the question though, what is the difference between social media and community? You could answer it based on platform, purpose, or a more evolved anthropological basis – any of which could be correct.  More importantly, does it matter?  Right now I’d say no.  The community/social media industry is growing nicely so perhaps I should stop reflecting and enjoy the ride.

If you fancy adding your thoughts, concerns, betting tips, to my ruminations, comment away

Thank you to one of our community managers, Frank, who wanted to share his thoughts on the impact of The Times paywall – Darika

So The Times & Sunday Times has begun to charge users for accessing its online content.  Prior to this, the Financial Times was the only UK paper to do so.

This is an interesting development as The London Evening Standard announced that it had recently broke even, which is remarkable for a paper that is freely handed out around London.  Major advertising leading up the World Cup may have played a part so time will tell if this continues.

One wonders what impact the daily charge of £1 (£2 per week) to access the Times will have on exposure from a marketing point of view. Users may well choose not to pay, what admittedly is not a large amount, whilst there is a wealth of alternatives still available to the reader.

The key development will be who moves next and also charges for online access.

Where do you sit? Will you pay?

[Image: Giuseppe Bognanni]

I’ve deliberately tried to avoid using certain words in this post about the rejection of a Privacy complaint by the Press Complaints Commission. (This is not link bait and I don’t want to attract unwelcome traffic alongside often more sobering content.)

Suffice to say, a young lady posted some perhaps misguided pics on her Bebo page in 2006 which had since become widely circulated online.  Earlier this year Loaded magazine offered a £500 reward in a stunt to find the girl in the photo, causing her to complain the article had intruded on her privacy. The Guardian says:

The commission did sympathise with the woman, and accepted that the tastefulness of the article was questionable… but didn’t think it possible to censure the magazine for commenting on material that had already had such wide circulation, and which had already been contextualised in the same way.

Ouch. As we covered in our free eBook UGC and the Law there are no Privacy laws in the UK but how does a situation like this look under the European Convention on Human Rights? Any ideas?

It’s easy to say that the girl was foolish in the first place and Loaded shouldn’t be penalised over all the other sites which have used the pictures for years. But, I’d argue that it’s not unreasonable to want to complain about an “official” media outlet reviving this in the UK vs. the [un]reality of chasing down 100s of smaller sites and ISPs all over the world.

By trying to publicly identify the girl nearly four years on were Loaded encouraging readers to breach her privacy as it stands today?

I’m also intrigued, as the pictures were posted in 2006 and on youth network Bebo, what was the complainants age at the time of posting the pictures? Does accountability change based on age and experience? Should it?

Image: hyku

The Guardian summises the story perfectly

Released on Monday, removed from YouTube the same day, reinstated with an “age restriction”, then taken down once more (and possibly for good) on Tuesday. The life of MIA’s new video seems destined to be a nasty, brutish and short one.

MIA’s controversial 9 minute video for ‘Born Free’ is achieving the desired publicity generated from the dubious honour of having your work “Banned on YouTube”.

But has the world’s largest video site been heavy handed in their swift removal of the film?

Parent company Google is under increasing pressure to support online free speech while also  fighting convictions in Italy on their failure to remove offensive content fast enough. But many commentators have noted the film, which is trying to make overt political observations, is no worse than other content on the site and by pulling the video they have only increased the chances of it widely circulating on the web.

Not sure whether to hire a moderator or community manager? Wondering whether you can just get someone in part-time? Two great posts last month explored both these questions.

Holly Seddon, from new agency on the block Spoke Digital, has written “When does a moderator become a community manager?” sparking a lot of response from many running communities. The article is a good discussion on the difference between these two roles and shows the variety of interpretation.

Another Tempero fave Blaise Grimes-Viort has written “Can a Community Manager be part-time?” outlining four main approaches and the pros and cons of each. Yours truly waded in to the debate where I tried to avoid demonising the humble intern which seems to be the target of choice these days for social media gaffes – don’t you think?

Image: laurakgibbs

It’s a well thought-out and researched report. Point 9 picked up on the increasingly debated concerns over Erosion of Privacy. Are we becoming a society of over-sharers? Are we risking our safety and reputation on a daily basis while getting caught up in the heady excitement of new social networking technologies?

There are as many opinions on this as there are social networks themselves. In my mind though the most important issue is personal choice. While I’m as permanently connected as the next Social Media geek I, like others, have requirements for privacy. These can be easily breached with a quick tweet including @darika or a Flickr photo tagged darika which may not conform to the way I want to be represented either on- of off-line.

Brand reputations are also sensitive to unknown content appearing online. There are a few tools which can  help at least track online, so that damaging content does not lie un-noticed.

Social Media monitoring software

This has been well covered by others, here’s a selection of good analyses

• Dave Chaffey: review of 26 tools
• Econsultancy Online reputation and buzz monitoring buyers guide: slightly out of date but lists the main ones

Image search

• Photo Tagger: find photos of you on Facebook even if you’re not tagged
• TinEye: Reverse image search engine (try it out by uploading your brand logo, there’s also a commercial API)

Comment tracking

• YackTrack.com: Tracks comments about content you’ve created or posted online, even if the conversation shifts elsewhere
• Disqus: Useful for collating conversations across multiple platforms to remain under the original content

Other

• 123people.co.uk: Type in your name or your CEO’s name and see what it pulls in from the web…

What other tools are people are using? Specifically to protect brands online?

We were astounded to read of the Italian Google convictions last week, but the timing was uncanny – the announcement came on the very day of our UGC and the Law event and eBook launch.

We issued an official statement to the press below:

“Many publishers feel the risk of not moderating and relying on alerts from users is worth taking with ‘safe harbour’ providing a cushion against prosecution. This case has potentially created a landmark ruling for those reactively moderating content on their sites and will send a warning shot across the bows of those operating within Social Media.”

“For sites such as YouTube, moderating every single video is near impossible but such large scale sites are going to have to implement additional protection measures to avoid similar cases. Law lords are going to have to think carefully about how such a ruling is implemented in the future to avoid an onslaught of appeals and lobbying from many corporations.”

In reality we agree with Econsultancy that the Italian Google convictions are a wake up call for UGC services. The convictions seem likely to be overturned and are predominantly symbolic. But is this kind of industry shake-up necessary? Can the UK expect more of the same?

We fully expect the UK to follow suit with some high-profile legal action against one or two service providers here. If there’s anything our work on the eBook highlighted it’s that even basic and pre-existing legislation is  being breached on a regular basis in the land grab for social media. [*cough* Data Protection Act *cough*]

Does it really matter? Aren’t most of these just minor infringements? Yes and no. We love the social web and don’t want to be the fun police, but we’re particularly concerned at the lack of safeguards being put in place for young people online.  For adults, with no privacy laws in the UK, it’s particularly important that we feel assured our data is being protected and sites are contactable and responsive to requests to investigate or remove content.

So now the world waits – What Will Google Do?

Twitter currently has millions of users, has grown more than 2000% this year, and is working successfully for brands like Innocent Smoothies who use their 20,000 strong following to speak daily with their customers. Why then are brands like Proctor and Gamble, with a huge product offering, not yet engaged?

James Nunn, brand communications manager for P&G Grooming, who heads the company’s social media strategy in the UK told NMA that P&G was looking at all forms of social media and wanted to “work out strategy rather than have separate P&G brands doing it ad hoc”.

This is contrary to Innocent’s non-defined approach:

“If we’d had a set strategy at the start and defined some sort of ROI, then it wouldn’t be successful because Twitter doesn’t deliver on that,” said Dan Germain, Head of Creative. “For us it’s just another channel for talking to people.”

Who’s approach is right?