During these three years we’ve seen how social media has evolved, redefining how companies and brands engage with their audiences because ultimately it has changed how people communicate and live.  Social media is becoming a mandatory requirement for any successful PR outreach and Text 100 has been a leading proponent of this platform since the early days of the internet.  Our heritage means we understand the impact of technology and, combined with our global outlook, we’ve been able to lead in the social media space from the beginning. Today Text 100 is not talking about social media – we are living it.

Our strategy for the next three years focuses on building our strength and expertise in the social media arena.  We see the opportunity for significant growth in our business, to expand our client base beyond the traditional technology brands and to truly excite our industry through innovation.

Already we have started to implement changes (March 2010) such as welcoming Sarah Howe onto our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) as global director for campaign innovation. Our next steps have just been announced, creating a flatter management structure in APAC and EMEA to support our continued growth around the world.  Dividing all our regions into five separate business units allows for our regional directors to stay close with clients, support and develop staff, and to drive Text 100 forward to a new decade of opportunity.

This means we are welcoming four new people with new ideas and creative minds to the ELT ; Anne Costello former Senior Vice President Asia Pacific, promoted to Regional Director South Asia, Steven Murphy former Regional Operations Director, Asia Pacific, promoted to Regional Director North Asia, Rowan Benecke, former Asia Pacific Regional Director, will relocate in August to Madrid to run the newly formed Central & Southern EMEA region and Sarah MacKenzie, former Global Head of Digital Lifestyle, promoted to Regional Director for Northern Europe.

This new structure supports our drive for growth, innovation, flexibility and diversification and I truly see the next three years as being one of the most exciting periods in Text 100’s history. While we will soon be celebrating our 30 years in business, we are looking into a future of digital innovation, which has changed the world of communications more than anything, and Text 100 is more ready than ever to lead this. So stay tuned – there is much more to come.

What’s your take on the trends in 2010?

The world is looking to Copenhagen where the UN climate conference 2009 is currently taking place. At Text 100 we advise many clients on CSR and social media communications and have therefore been very interested in considering the communications landscape surrounding the conference this year. We want to find out how Web 2.0 and especially the rise of social media has revolutionized the way politicians are communicating their positions, how NGOs are trying to influence the discussions and how COP15 is bringing climate experts to the “blog table” to offer insights into the climate discussion. It is very interesting to take a look behind the scenes and understand how many different stakeholders can stay up to date every minute of  the day.

Prior to the start of COP15 we created an international Text 100 COP15 team with the objective of monitoring the social web including blogs, Twitter, social networks, online forums, YouTube, Flickr etc. and analyzing what we found. The team started its work with the COP15 pre-conference in Barcelona, on 2^nd November. After six busy weeks we have observed the following, topline trends.  We will be pulling together a thorough analysis of our findings in early January.

• NGOs, politicians and journalists are important users of social media today. Interestingly, companies and  industry associations do not seem to be  exploiting the potential of social media.
• Twitter and blogs are the social media tools used most. An interesting example is the twitter wall of Greenpeace on 5th December in Berlin: Greenpeace put a big screen in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate. At the end of the day, it received 15,000 tweets with the hashtag #savetheclimate. There were people in Germany sending messages to Angela Merkel and what she should focus on. One can see this twitter wall also in the Greenpeace GreenAction blog: http://twitterwall.greenaction.de/. 
•  NGOs leverage social media to inform their members and followers about current activities, to call for action and to report about progress made in Copenhagen. A good example is WWF Climate Blog. 
• Interestingly, social media is mainly used as an information channel. In many cases there aren’t a lot of comments and dialogue that show a vivid discussion about the climate conference. However, a positive example in terms of interaction and dialogue is the Climate Thinkers Blog of the Danish government which invites some of the world’s most renowned climate thinkers to participate in a virtual global climate debate. 
• Prior to the conference, topics discussed in social media were about expectations, attendees and results, as well as practical questions about how to travel to Copenhagen, how to find a hotel etc. With the start of the conference we can see a big shift in the discussion. Now it is more about climate content such as negotiation progress, positions and opinions of different parties as well as news-worthy activities of NGOs.

If you would like to hear more about social media usage at COP15 please listen to the Englisch radio show of Deutsche Welle or read the related article on their Web site.

In the next segment of our regional social media snapshot series,  I thought I’d share insight from the Text 100 Munich office into the region’s unique online behaviors and cultural considerations: 

• Social media usage in Germany lacks behind other major European markets and globally compared to the USA or Asia/Pacific. According to the a recent report from Universal McCann, only 57% of the active Internet users in Germany regularly read blogs and 50% have created a social network profile.  A recent ReadWriteWeb story noted that Germany is five years behind the US in terms of social media adoption.

• While Facebook is seeing tremendous growth, the biggest social network in Germany is SchuelerVZ, a community of 7.4 million students from 12 to 18 years old.  In June, Facebook cracked the top three with more users than competitors StudiVZ and Wer-kennt-wen. Companies planning to launch a consumer social media campaign in Germany should keep in mind that Facebook isn’t the only place to target and SchuelerVZ has a bigger reach.

• Looking to make business connections in Germany? The most important German business network is Xing, which dominates LinkedIn in the German market. At the end of July Xing boasted more than 8 million users; among them are 635,000 premium users who pay for their accounts. Like LinkedIn, Xing has lots of different groups around targeted business topics like SMB or social media marketing, etc. 

• Interesting cultural tidbit: Germans are very hesitant to change and known for their habitualness. This translates to their lives online:  Each time Facebook introduces new features, Germans express their outrage.  Be sure to spend time listening before you launch your social media program in Germany to make sure you understand their social media preferences and patterns. The use of these norms will increase your project’s chance of success.

A few weeks ago Vodafone launched a marketing campaign in Germany with a large social media component (see Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace and Microsite),  one of the first of its kind in this region. Vodafone faced harsh criticism of the campaign for a handful of social media 101 offenses that you should always keep top of mind:

• Social media is a conversation, not a megaphone: Vodafone was criticized for purely taking its marketing messages and pushing them through this new channel, not tailoring their approach for the community or trying to start a dialogue. In addition, the company received more than 2,000 negative comments within two hours on Facebook, but did not respond or adjust their approach.
  
• Don’t fake it. Always be authentic: Vodafone hired a popular Germany blogger to support the campaign. This blogger was well known as an iPhone and T-Mobile customer, so his work for Vodaphone was immediately seen as a shame.  Vodafone should have more closely evaluated their partners and insisted they be transparent about their involvement.
  
• Get to know your audiences likes/dislikes before you engage:  The Vodafone campaign used Denglisch (German mixed with English terms, in an attempt to sound cool and interesting), but some didn’t even seem to be sure how to pronounce the buzzwords they were using. This tactic backfired as Germans complained they would have preferred to be reached via German or English language, not a combination. 

Want to learn more about social media in Germany? Leave your questions in to comments or get in touch with me on Twitter or Xing.

Extending your social media strategy into new a country requires a strong understanding of that region’s online behaviors and cultural considerations. To help you build your strategy, I thought I’d share insight from Text 100’s Sydney office and provide a quick look at what makes social media engagement unique my country:

·      Australia currently lags behind other developed nations in what we consider to be fast Internet connectivity. Rural areas are waiting for their connection speeds to catch up their city counterparts. If you’re looking to reach people outside of the major metropolitan capitals, YouTube might not be your best bet. However, earlier this year the Australian Federal Government announced that it would invest $43 billion over 8 years to build a National Broadband Network. The new network is expected to deliver high-speed Internet access linking metropolitan cities, major regional centers and rural towns, eliminating existing ‘blackspots’ and in turn driving uptake of online video, e-commerce, online education and social networking.

·      Flickr use grew by 14 percent last year, making it the third most popular social media site in Australia by year’s end. Be sure to consider a photo stream as part of your strategy to not leave this audience untapped.

·      2009 really saw the critical mass adoption of Twitter in Australia. In fact traffic to Twitter grew by 1,067% in January, with Australia’s being the 4^th largest group on new users globally. However, Aussies still only make up 2 percent of the total Twitter users.

·      According to research by Forrester, Australians are more likely to be creators of social media content than their US counterparts and 41 percent have published opinions specifically about brands. You’ll see this trend in action the most in blogging. In fact, in the tech space the ratio of “journo bloggers” to true” bloggers who are simply passionate about their technology is beginning to change. More true bloggers are becoming more prominent in the social media-scape.

Interesting cultural tidbit: While Australians have long been known for their sense of adventure it doesn’t translate to their love lives. Aussies are very reluctant to use the Internet for online dating.

Want to learn more about social media in Australia? I’m happy to share a larger presentation on the topic or answer specific questions in the comments.

Image Credit: Forrester’s 2008 Australian Adult Social Technographics Report.

In the 12 months since we surveyed bloggers in Asia Pacific, we’ve seen more PR people contacting bloggers, we’ve also seen more bloggers indicate they’re happy to be contacted. This is great news, but it does come with a warning. And that warning, put simply, is give us what we want. Corporate press releases are still spamming their way into the in-boxes of the world’s bloggers.  I don’t have to explain why this is approach is tragically flawed.

They also told us they liked social media news releases – and that they’d seen more of them used over the past 12 months. Encouragingly, the majority said they’d use content from this type of release in the coming year. If you take nothing else out of this post, take this point to heart if you’re looking to get cut-through via a mass communication.

What was also interesting is that many of these views were universal.  Bloggers were more similar than different in many areas. For example, they typically like emails, want photographs and, most importantly, want something unique for their community.

When it came to who they trusted for information, our global bloggers were also united.  “Other bloggers” were the number one source – and they also wanted data via RSS. Two lessons here – you’re more likely to be listened to if you’re part of the blogging community. And if you want blogger eyes on your content, deliver it through RSS.

But the differences were interesting. As we drilled down into each of the 21 countries, we found unique trends that will help our teams and their clients work better with their blogging communities. One point to note that will help shape tactics is the amount of time bloggers typically spend blogging each week. We found that most Asia Pacific bloggers spent less than nine hours each week blogging – while two thirds their North American counterparts exceeded this. So bloggers in Asia are typically part-timers – which means adapt your tactics (and expectations) accordingly.

So where do I think the next 12 months will take us?  Hopefully to a point where PR people realize that bloggers are influencers – not (typically) broadcasters. They create and attract communities around their content – and need to be treated as individuals. Only through the creation of a shared agenda – providing the right content in the right context – can our clients hope to play an effective role in these influential communities.

Jeremy Woolf

Global Social Media Practice Lead

And I suspect our Text 100 teams around the world didn’t quite appreciate the significance of launching the first global Chinese tech brand when they unveiled Lenovo in 2005 either.

I’m not claiming Text 100 has changed the world (well, not that much anyway!) but by virtue of being the granddaddy of tech PR firms, we’ve often had the privilege of a ring-side seat at great moments in technology industry history.

I got that feeling again this week when Text 100 had the opportunity to represent the Russian Venture Company on its first US press tour and business development visit. Like India and China before it, Russia is starting to build up its technology industry and it’s not hard to imagine this country of 140 million people offering 60,000 new IT and engineering graduates each year could soon live up to its billing as one of the high-potential ‘BRIC’ countries.

And if Russia does realise its technology potential – aided by the investment dollars of our newest client and the expertize of entrepreneurs and VCs from Silicon Valley – then we’ll be proud to say: "Text 100 was there at the beginning!"

David McCulloch

I wouldn’t go so far as to dispel the value of Friedman’s work, but what I like about Ghemawat’s book is that it diffuses the notion we’re all racing towards a homogenized global society where one-size fits all. If you’re a Japanese PR manager trying to make a communications strategy forged in San Francisco work in Tokyo…then you’ll understand what I’m getting at. The truth is that cultural, political and even economic factors still have a massive impact on how companies communicate around the world.

What I really like about Ghemawat’s book is his assertion that smart global strategies comprise three elements: Adaptation (adjusting to local markets), Aggregation (finding efficiencies and commonalities that overcome distance), and Arbitrage (exploiting specialist skills or lower costs wherever they happen to be).

In that three-piece-suite, Ghemawat nicely sums up our philosophy to globalization too. Text 100 has taken 26 years to build 31 local businesses market-by-market. We continue to invest in technology to ease collaboration and in sharing local knowledge globally (10 percent of our workforce has spent time in another market in the past five years). Last but not least, we’ve set up our GRO group (yes, we have to get a new name for it!) to take advantage of both specialist skills and cost advantages in Asia.

We’ll find out whether the PRWeek judges think all of that adds up to a great Mid-Sized Company strategy in a few months!

David McCulloch

The various sponsors and speakers of the event gathered at the fabulous Institute of Directors building on Pall Mall tonight and despite only managing three hours sleep on the flight from San Francisco overnight, I got a real buzz of excitement about the event over dinner. London seems to be buzzing, thanks partly to the regulatory tightening of the American financial markets (and consequent boom in London), and partly due to a resurgent entrepreneurial scene.

Being in Silicon Valley for the past six years, I’ve grown rather used to (and depressed by) Europeans complaining about the lack of innovation in the technology industry here, so it’s a refreshing change to sense that Europe is once again on the rise.

Nick Giles, MD of our UK business tells me Text 100 London is on the rise too. The London team has received a nomination for PRWeek’s Specialist Agency of the Year award and finds out whether there’ll be an extra trophy to add to the cabinet on October 24th. Good luck all!

David McCulloch

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-Radley Moss