The social network had made the decision to pair advertisements with relevant social actions from a user’s friends to create Facebook Ads. This is supposed to make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends. But the service is opt-out, not opt-in, which some may see as an infringement on their privacy.

To stop your photos from being used in the way click here to update your privacy settings.

Share this on Twitter

(Cross posted on the Speed Tech Blog)

The Blog Council was setup in 2007 to give senior executives in charge of social media at the largest corporations in the world, a platform to share ideas and to learn best practices. The Council now has more than 40 members, including the Coca-Cola Company, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft.

I caught up with Bob to find out why he thinks blogs can benefit businesses.

How long have you been blogging?
I have been communicating online for many years, but I really started blogging during the last 3 years. I blogged a lot internally for Dell’s One Dell Way and Marketing Blog to reach Dell’s 80,000 employees and I did a series called ‘TechKnowledge’ on Direct2Dell where I interviewed leading experts about the future of technology. You can expect me to blog on a regular basis related to social media trends on the Blog Council’s blog.

Why did you start blogging?
It’ important to listen and learn with your customers, which is a two-way street. Blogging allows any of us to share a point of view and then listen to the comments. I have to admit I read every comment every time for my posts. You learn a lot from what people enjoy and, quite frankly, just as much when your post is greeted with silence.

How can businesses benefit from writing a blog?
This is a long list, but here’s a few key points.

• Customers are co-creating messages of brands everyday. If you aren’t communicating online, you aren’t really shaping your brand effectively.
• There are hundreds or thousands of conversations occurring everyday about a brand. At Dell, we could see 5-10,000 conversations per day. If you know what customers are interested in, your blogging can become a relevant part of the conversation.
• Blogging is really symbolic, in my view, of telling your story, which is also done well with video, photos, twitter, facebook and many other ways to round out how you share content.
• Overall, it’s really a company’s approach to joining in the conversation that matters the most. Customers can see who really cares and, most importantly, who is trying.

What concerns do businesses have about blogs – and why?
I would flip that around. What concerns should businesses have about how their brands are being shaped without their knowing it? What issues do they not know about due to a lack of strong blog monitoring? How well is a company preparing for a future where 500,000 new people go online everyday for the first time in their lives? Social media is a new discipline that is transforming how we speak with customers, how we conduct e-commerce and how we unlock the knowledge of our employees. The leaders are realising their social media strategy may start with a blog, but this is only a first step.

Should every business blog?
Yes. Every business has conversations with its customers via the phone and in person. Why not via a blog? In a few years, this question will sound like “should every business have a website?” Of course so. Same with a blog.

Which blogs do you particularly admire?
I enjoy reading Jeremiah Owyang’s Web-strategist. If I want to listen to a podcast, I think Neville Hobson and Shel Israel do great work. If I want to see what the world is saying, I look at my customised Netvibes screen or my new Tweetdeck summary.

How do you think Twitter has affected the blogosphere?
Twitter is making people think, which I love. Twitter is showing us that people are willing to follow accounts where they can get information they want at their convenience. Unlike email, which shows up in your inbox whether you like it or not, you have a choice on Twitter to visit or not visit a site. Someday, people will receive the content they want wherever they want it, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, MySpace and they will receive it all at the same time. It will redefine how we distribute content. For example, if I want an update from Starbucks, I might want to only receive it in Twitter and if that can be done, I’m in. If I’m looking for a new bike, maybe I only want updates that contain reviews and new videos delivered to my Facebook account for a certain period of time. So, give Twitter a lot of credit for opening up new ways to reach people effectively. Its power goes well beyond the fact that it is a microblogging tool.

Follow Bob on Twitter: @bobpearson1845

(Please note that this interview was previously posted on the Speed Communications blog)

Following on from Barack Obama’s successful use of Facebook as part of his Presidential campaign last year, and the National Union of Students’s victory over HSBC 18 months ago, John Prescott has launched a group on Facebook to call the British public to action to protest against the Royal Bank of Scotland’s planned bonuses.

On his blog Prescott recognises Obama’s use of Facebook. He said:

“He has also been very successful in creating an online army to support his fiscal stimulus package through Congress – and we should use that people power here.”

“We must utilise these same online grassroots tactics to force these greedy and indifferent banks that the taxpayer bailled out to give up their bonuses.”

But can Prescott replicate Obama’s success in the UK?

With just 4,991 people signed up to the Facebook group so far things don’t look too positive. Especially if you consider that the average tax payer in the UK has paid £1,000 to the banks in tax. Therefore the tax paid the by all of the users in Prescott’s facebook group equates to less than half a per cent of the £1bn that the Royal Bank of Scotland plans to give away to its employees as bonuses. That said there were only 4,955 people signed up when I started writing this blog post.

I shall watch how this campaign evolves with interest. (No pun intended)

I’m not sure I agree. Certainly paid for blogs produced by professional bloggers or PROs has had an impact on the blogosphere, but I don’t believe that it’s killed off the blogosphere as professional and amateur bloggers blog for different reasons.

Professional bloggers blog to share news or their opinions about issues affecting the industry they work in, as well as to network, whereas amateur bloggers blog to share their thoughts and ideas, and to keep in contact with friends and family. As long as the barriers to entry stay low, amateur and professional bloggers can co-exist.

Further proof that the blogosphere is far from dead comes in the form of Technorati’s recent ‘Blogosphere 2008′ report, which reveals that 79 per cent of bloggers write personal blogs. This hardly makes amateur bloggers sound like a dying breed.

Instead of pointing the finger at PROs or professional bloggers I would suggest that social networking sites, such as Facebook, have had the biggest impact on the blogosphere. Since many amateur bloggers blog to share news and photographs with friends and family it is no surprise that some have swapped blogs for social networking sites.

Prior to the meetup I was sent a personalised email, containing the ingredients to make a cocktail reflecting my blog, or at least my initals. Apparently Mint, Pineapple and Watermelon are all you need! I thought this was a great idea, and by providing an image of my cocktail they made it very easy for me to blog about it.

I was invited to join Smirnoff’s facebook group, and even sent a video on YouTube showing how to make a Moscow Mule.

If I happened to have any questions I was invited to contact Smirnoff via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, e-mail, phone or even by post. Not by carrier pigeon though!

All this before the event even took place.

Following the meetup, photographs were added to the London meetup group, for attendees to check out. And those like me who regret not going!

Cheers to you, Smirnoff.

If every night was like Saturday night I very much doubt the club would be shutting down. So why is it shutting down? I put that down to mediocre marketing. Although the club has built up an impressive level of brand loyalty with its customers, by providing a good quality service, it hasn’t taken advantage of this. The club could have easily and cheaply used social media to interact with its customer base.

Here are a few ways that the club owners could have engaged more with their customers.

• Invite clubbers to get involved by voting for what music should be played or what drinks should be sold
• Provide an online space for customers to share their photographs and videos
• Issue a regular newsletter informing customers about changes to the night club
• Write a blog to provide information about bands that will soon be performing, recommend new artists to listen to and songs to download, and talk about changes being made to the club
• Invite the public to review music

The Underground did run a Facebook group that regularly issued messages about what bands were playing each week. But this can quickly be seen as spam and the message is lost. Nobody wants to be told the same thing each week. It’s boring and it could actually harm your brand.

Setting up a poll on Facebook was incredibly simple, whereas coming up with the right question and answers was a little trickier.

Here are three ways to get the best out of facebook polls:

Pose an interesting question.
Facebook users don’t have to fill in your survey, so attracting their attention with an interesting question is a key factor in generating as many responses as possible.

Be concise.
Your question can be a maximum of 100 characters long, and your answers can only be half that length. So it’s crucial that you keep the word count down. Also, a lengthy question and answers could be offputting to some users.

Keep it simple.
Terms like Web 2.0 and mobile applications may make perfect sense to you but they could appear like gobbledygook to some users who might not know their RSS from their elbow.

Do you have any more tips for improving Facebook polls? Or have you conducted any interesting surveys recently? Please let me know!

My first week at Rainier PR has been great. I’ve attended lots of meetings and training sessions, and even had a chance to do a bit of proper PR – phoning journalists. Prior to this week I’d never sold a story in to a journalist and truthfully I’d been dreading it a little. However I found it was actually okay and by the time I’d reached the end of my list I was quite enjoying it.

On the first day I was introduced to the staff and given a laptop and smart phone. One of my clients sells mobile advertising so I’ve been trying out the mobile internet since then. I think it’s important I practice what I preach. Also I haven’t had broadband installed yet and a life without facebook isn’t worth living. Some of my other clients include Ntl:Telewest, Dante and Seniqua. As well as this I’ll also be working with one of Rainier’s sister companies, Lighthouse PR, developing their new blog.

I received my exam results and degree classification on the second day. I got a 2:1! I’m very pleased with that and thrilled that I got a 1^st on my dissertation, which asked is blogging the future of PR, as well as a 1^st for the Opus project. I think I averaged about 67% but every time I try to work it out I get a different figure so it’s lucky I didn’t study mathematics.

Thursday was the 5^th birthday of this blog. I started it at 16 as a sort of online diary documenting nights out and silly stuff from school for my friends to read, without the ability to comment. The blog was part of my website, which hosted photos, videos and displayed some information about myself. If only I had known a bit more about web design and thought to make my website into an interactive network I could have had the next Facebook or YouTube on my hands. Alas I was more interested in writing Biggish Sibling, my series of blog posts about a fruit bowl where the fruit got evicted and a mango died from using hoof paste instead of tooth paste. What was I thinking? It seems mad to think I’ve passed my GSCE’s, A-Levels, and driving test, and even gotten a degree since then. Here’s to the next five years!

Friday kicked off with a celebratory champagne breakfast and movie premiere to celebrate some of the team completing the three peaks challenge last weekend. Rather them than me. See the video here.

This weekend I had a look around a few of the sights; Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, China Town and the Topman store on Oxford Street. I remember a few of the places from a school trip to London when I was in primary school. Having never really holidayed in London since then it’s very strange living there now as it half feels like I’m on holiday or doing work experience and going home soon.

Reactions to negative messages:

• If a blogger has been made redundant offer them a free trial of your recruitment service.
• If a Facebook group has been started to complain that your product is now more expensive, apologise and explain why the price change has been made. Maybe even offer a one-off discount to members of the group.
• If someone isn’t happy with their mobile phone. Offer them a free trial of your company’s phone. Chances are they will want to keep the phone at the end of the trial so offer them the option to buy it.
• If a blogger can’t find any holidays in their price range, suggest some cheap options.
• If someone tweets to say their taxi is late, offer your services instead. (See feverbee)

Managed correctly bad news can really be good news for your company.

UPDATE: Stephen Davies of Prblogger.com gives a good example of the Carphone Warehouse reacting to a negative blog post here.

In less than 24 hours it has ‘sold out’ which means that people have given all of the 250,000 gifts. As far as I’m aware I think it’s the first time one of the free branded gifts has sold out on the day it was released. That’s quite an achievement not least because it means that they have gained a minimum of 500,000 exposures in one day from people sending and receiving the gift. Not to mention all the people who have seen the gift on people’s facebook profiles, newsfeeds and the homepage, and will continue to do so. I don’t think gifts are ever removed from people’s Facebook profiles.

The facebook application is a clever concept too. It’s like some of the other applications in that it allows you to send free gifts to your friends. The difference with the Ben and Jerry’s application is that it allows you to send pictures of the different flavours of ice cream. Like mini adverts for their products. Furthermore it’s sparked discussion amongst fans of the company. People are waxing lyrical about their favourite flavours and making calls for Ben and Jerry’s to bring back discontinued flavours. I hope they make great use of that feedback.

Giving away free Ice Cream in the Scoop Shops is a great idea too. I just wish I lived near to somewhere that was participating in it!

UPDATE: Presumably due to popular demand the availability of the free gift has been doubled from 250,000 to 500,000. I wonder how long it will take for all those gifts to run out.

UPDATE: All 500,000 free gifts have now sold out. A minimum of 1 million exposures globally isn’t bad going in under 36 hours.