Have a question for Lance? Leave a comment here, tweet him @concannon, or email him directly at lance.concannon@text100.co.uk.

While both sets of lists presented interesting – if not yet nostalgic – reminders of some of the year’s events, it also gives a chance to reflect on the impact of social media in the mainstream news agenda.

Simply by casting a cursory eye over some of the top global trends and reflecting on stories that have gripped the consciousness of the UK, the role of social media (and largely Twitter and Facebook) has cast a very wide shadow.

Social media has not simply helped amplify the reach and speed with which these ‘happenings’ have spread, but in many instances has been at the core of the news itself.

Just taking a couple of global examples, the speed with which the news about Osama Bin Laden’s downfall spread and the tweet sent by a local resident about unusual activity he was seeing in the area became the lead supporting stories.  And incredibly this moment contributed to 10% of all English-language FB posts this year.

And on a slightly lighter note, Charlie Sheen’s one man crusade against his producers exploded into the public conscious due to how he was communicating.  Not exactly #winning.

Closer to home, whether it be the London riots, the phone-hacking scandal, or the philandering footballer being publicly exposed, the news agenda has evolved from how social media made these news events possible to what implications this has had on privacy, criminality and protesting.

From the serious to the glib, social media has dominated the news agenda this year in a way unlike any before, in the same way that social media has pervaded public life.

As debate rages in Text Towers about our favourite digital moments of 2011, the only thing we can be sure of is that 2012 is set to be just as exciting.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

The report found that directors of communications are less interested in what is said about their brands online than they were 12 months ago, and are less likely to be engaging daily. However before we start deleting Twitter handles, Facebook pages and get ourselves lost in whimsical reminiscing about the good old days of faxes and late night mail bags, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect.

Social media certainly isn’t any less important to the audiences that communications people are targeting; quite the opposite. Facebook celebrated its 800 millionth user just last month and Twitter has seen an increase of at least 250% for tweets sent between early 2010 and early 2011. And it’s not just confined to consumers – 78% of business execs believe that having a social strategy is critical to the future of their business.

So why are communications directors engaging less?  A stat in the study that caught the eye, which could help to explain this, is that less than 50% of those surveyed have a social media strategy in place.  So perhaps the reason people are less interested in what is being said about their brands is because they don’t know what to do with that insight.  This renders it pointless.  You could argue that if you are not going to respond or act on the insight, then there’s little point in wasting resources on listening.

Parallels could be drawn with any bright new shiny idea that initially draws lots of attention, but then falls into disfavour when the lustre wears off.  To wrap it in a bit more theory, this is what Gartner calls the trough of disillusionment in its hype cycle, which arrives soon after inflated expectations peak.

However this is obviously limited both in foresight and in the value that can be delivered back to the business and the audiences it’s trying to nurture. Having real-time insight into how audiences perceive brands and what they are looking for isn’t just a nice novelty, it’s an invaluable asset that needs to provide the foundation for any effective communications campaign.

This also extends much further than comms. To evolve and truly become a social business, customers increasingly expect to be helped and have their concerns not just listened to but responded to in something close to real-time. If businesses are not set-up and structured to do this, they will lose goodwill, support and ultimately customers. So don’t stop listening, but just think more carefully about what you do with the insight you gain.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

It is a platform that has publicised protests in the Arab world, spread riots across English cities, and even helped to coordinate a mass cleanup effort in the wake of London’s unrest. The UK riots have reminded the public of the power of social networking as a tool of instant mass communication. The British media have been vociferous about the role of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry in sparking unrest among youths intent on destruction.

It is not just crowd mentality, social problems or police actions that are being coined as the catalyst for London’s unrest: it is technology.

While the Daily Mail reports protesters were rallied through text messages, Twitter and Facebook, one constable speaking to the Evening Standard pointed the finger at video games in inciting violence: ‘When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they’re playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.’ The Sun writes rioters used Twitter to rally looting in Tottenham by encouraging their followers to join in the robbery of local businesses.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has led the debate for the role of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in coordinating the riots. This is on the back of a recent Ofcom report which found almost half of British teenagers own a smartphone. The argument for BBM’s role in inciting the riots was so strong that, according to a Daily Telegraph report, BlackBerry manufacturer RIM is helping police investigations into disturbances coordinated over BBM.

Is it right to blame social networks for what we are witnessing on the newsreels? While Twitter has been slammed for its media-prescribed role in provoking the violence, today the platform has demonstrated its capacity as a force for good.

#riotcleanup is trending worldwide as Londoners use Twitter to coordinate a voluntary cleanup effort. Created this morning, @riotcleanup already has over 50,000 followers at the time of writing. Facebook groups including ‘Supporting the Met Police against the London riots’ and ‘Post Riot Clean-Up: Let’s Help London’ have gathered hundreds of thousands of followers within a matter of hours.

There’s undeniably a technology-fuelled method to the madness that has erupted in London. Yet it’s the force of the social network that has brought together its victims – ordinary people living in the cities – to repair the damage to their communities.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

This isn’t unlike the use of social media in Egypt, Lybia and Syria to combat their dictatorial governments. Or the uproar resulting from the shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California and the Vancouver riots in June around the Stanley Cup finals. Similarly, London citizens began voicing their fury via the BBM private messaging application, Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms over Duggan’s death, expressing views that he was unfairly targeted, which spiraled out of control to physical violence.

As Matthew Ingram acknowledged in his GigaOm post yesterday, riots like these have been happening for centuries – long before social platforms and smartphones were even a glimmer of our imagination. We can’t blame social platforms or BBM. That said, while real-time social media and mobile platforms like BBM have their benefits, they certainly can be used to pour oil on the flames, and in the case of London, to coordinate gatherings and lootings for the riots, and fuel anger upon seeing the gut-wrenching brutality taking place in the city on YouTube and other video platforms that nauseates me just thinking about it. Not to mention people wanting to be around the hysteria to capture content and promote it on social media platforms and with friends.

Yes, real-time social media lacks the control mainstream media outlets have over the messages being communicated to the public, and immensely increases the ability for people to communicate quickly and easily.  But we can’t lose sight of the positive – during the Haiti crisis, the Red Cross text message campaign raised tens of millions of dollars, and the revolutionary change in Egypt brought upon by people leveraging Twitter and Facebook. Surrounding the situation in London, #RiotCleanUp is picking up steam in the Twittersphere, in effort to bring London citizens together and establish a community to reclaim the city. @RiotCleanup has built nearly 80,000 followers in about 10 hours, and the London Cleanup Facebook page currently has 14,942 “likes.” People are leveraging the highly spreadable, heavily trafficked platforms to mobilize cleanups and instill hope and a sense of community among Londoners.

Social media and technology is what we make of it, and can level the playing field and enable people to peacefully have a voice when used right. London isn’t the first and won’t be the last uprising we see of this sort. It’s on you and me, and everyone around us, to educate and facilitate positivity out of these innovative tools and platforms that didn’t exist centuries before.

We wish our colleagues across the pond, friends and families well and that they stay safe in the midst of the riot clean up…

Tweets Generated Using #RiotCleanUp

Talk of #LondonRiots Unfolds on Twitter (generated via Topsy)

Talk of #LondonRiots unfolds on Twitter (generated via Topsy)

I couldn’t agree more.

On February 2, 2010, I set off from New York City on what was to be a seven-week secondment to London.  Nearly three months later, I returned home with more novel experiences, expanded skills and amazing relationships than I ever thought possible.

Sure, I had experienced the true global nature of Text 100 by working on the IBM business for more than 5 years. Sharing content, collaborating on outreach and receiving local insights from teams on the ground everywhere from Mumbai to Sydney was a regular part of my job. At least I thought it was…

Physically being in the UK working with both local clients and my Text 100 colleagues – while maintaining many of my responsibilities in North America – gave me valuable insight into our processes and people.  It also showed me how easily people can lose sight of the big picture when working with colleagues or clients internationally.

For one, working with colleagues in countries such as France, Denmark, and Germany showed me how different every market is, even if they are geographic neighbors.  Driving initiatives and new business pitches on both sides of the Atlantic also allowed me to witness how quickly a minor detail – such as a verb tense or email tone – can cause a major miscommunication.  The lesson?  Well, I will never write an email without considering the translation again!

Overall, my time in London taught me the proper channels to take to get things done around the world, how to manage my workload to be effective across time zones, and how to effectively relate with people from dramatically different backgrounds.  However, probably most importantly, my secondment taught me how to successfully motivate people with a fresh spirit of enthusiasm – something too easily lost in our day-to-day work lives.

Successfully surviving this balancing act gave me a greater appreciation for our network of Texties.  I returned to New York with a fresh appreciation for Text 100, our people and our business goals.  As a team leader, I manage with an open mind and renewed willingness to question goals and priorities, testing people to always think outside the box and on a global scale.

It wasn’t always easy or predictable (Icelandic Volcano anyone!?), but I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world!

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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