PR nowandthen

Shame on you

There is a mighty internet storm brewing and one of the UK's leading retailers is right at the heart of it.  Habitat has attracted a certain amount of, ahem, negative attention for their supposed Twitter spamming (basically they attached trending topic hashtags to their tweets in the hope it would gain them some attention).  Bad - yes definitely. But would you believe it, there is worse.

When the spam tweets were discovered, devoured and retweeted by twitter users, did Habitat hold their hands up, say, "oh dear, we're sorry, we f***ed up"? No, they turned smartly around, raised their hand and pointed their finger at...the intern. 

I mean there's lame and then there's disgraceful behaviour.  It's going to be a treat watching them dig themselves out of this PR nightmare.

A wild social media ride*

A trip to London on the same day as the tube strike was not looking promising.
Although delighted to be going to see the good people of econsultancy, particularly the uber talented
Michelle Goodall, the prospect of fighting my way through masses of peed off Londoners was not something to relish.

And then, thanks to Twitter, my day took an unexpected turn...

.....keen biker and digital man (not simultaneously) Paul_Clarke, came up with an inspired 'social experiment'.  Use the power of Twitter to give a helping hand to those in need of transport in London aka #tweetbike.

Next minute I am speeding along Euston road leaving tourists and pigeons in my wake. 

Truly a Knight on a Shiny Bike and an example of why I love my social networks, (gushy I know, but it's true).  It demonstrates the true power of social media - people, connections and trust. Five years ago I would never have got a lift on a motorbike from a complete stranger for nothing.  I wouldn't have been involved in organising a massive charity event with loads of people I'd never met from hundreds of cities across the globe and I wouldn't know any of the great people I do now.

Awesome.

Just don't tell my mum about the bike thing.

*NB very pleased with my self discipline for avoiding the 'I got a great ride in London' gag.

 

11/06/09 UPDATE: the BBC covered the story today

Into the Twitterverse

After the incredibly useful and much reproduced Conversation Prism, PR superstar Brian Solis unveils the Twitterverse - a graphical representation of Twitter's world divided up by the functions of some of the key apps.  Very neat and bound to be included in many a pitch document.

By Brian Solis and Jess3

A larger version available here.