Reports from the USA suggest that facebook is doing more than just keeping people connected…it’s helping police to fight crime!
Local police across America have started using Facebook to post information on local cases and to ask the public for help.
Feedback from officers suggests that Facebook users really are helping them to catch the bad guys. “Witnesses are using our local page to give us really useful information,” said Sgt. Joe Smart of the Conroe Police Department (Texas). Police in the area have been using Facebook to profile suspects and criminals since May this year. Local people have through facebook directly helped to arrest three people and to gather leads on several other open cases.
Police are also using the networking site to posts heat maps to tell the public where thefts, burglaries, car break-ins and other crimes are happening in the local area.

Across the border in Canada, the Toronto Police Service is joining in on the facebook action. The force has a new social media initiative, encouraging officers to sign up for Facebook, specifically stating that they are a member of the local police force.
The goal is to have around 200 officers with online profiles by early November. The program is designed to improve communication between police and the public. “We’ve prevented some pretty serious incidents simply because people reached out to the few police officers that openly stated that they were in the police on their social media sites,” said Const. Scott Mills, the force’s social media officer.
Mills continued to explain that two years ago, a Facebook friend alerted him to someone posting anti-Semitic rants on their Facebook account, which led to the person’s arrest and prevented what police deemed to be a violent attack threat.
Earlier this month, the Toronto police website added a facebook page where users can report lost property, crimes under $5,000 and traffic complaints.

Across the country in Vancouver, police received more than 3,500 email tips (many linked to Facebook photos of the rioters) in the week following the Stanley Cup riot which resulted in 140 civilians and nine police officers being injured, and saw 101 people arrested after trouble broke out at the annual ice hockey tournament.

Social networking certainly seems to be helping law enforcement in the USA. What do you think about the police using social media? Would it work in this country? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

We like a bit of banter too so decided, just for fun, to start a game with the witty, intelligent people who follow our blog and Twitter account.

To take part all you need to do is tweet your “caption” followed by the hashtag #RevolverPR or add your comment to the blog.

Image courtesy of vivivava.com.

This week’s winner, drum roll please….is the newcomer …. Liz Hardy with her caption “upon seeing his ex with someone new, Rich turned to the classic escape: ‘I can’t see you, so you can’t see me”.

Honorable mention to Ben Smith for his enthusiasm and persistence.

Congratulations and your invisible prize is winging its way to you now…

Our involvement in the management of the PR strategy of NEoN, and specifically the recent  ’Character’ design competition,  strengthens our belief of the importance of integrating digital PR into the overall communications strategy in order to fulfil the client’s objectives.

In addition to good old fashioned, traditional public relations, which included making use of the office telephone to ensure the most influential people were being targeted with news of the design competition, the Revolver PR team employed our digital strategies to facilitate a publicity ‘push’ on a global scale. The results speak for themselves.

The NEoN judging panel were inundated with entries from far and wide, receiving over 500 entries from South America to Asia, and everywhere in between. Noteworthy is the group of entries from pupils aged between 11 – 16 from Invicta Grammar School, Maidstone in Kent, who entered the NEoN design competition as part of a school project.

The winner of the Industry Guru category is David Rafael Leyva Silva, an Illustrator from Peru, whose character is named Guzzler.

Industry Guru category winning design by David Rafael Leyva Silva

The winner of the Layperson category is Ivana Strukelj, a Copywriter from Croatia whose character is named neOne-eyed Fred.

Layperson category winning design by Ivana Strukelj

The winner of the For the Kids category is Josh Beech, a student from Lincolnshire, England, whose character is named: Dot.

For the Kids category winning design by Josh Beech

It is certainly true that the calibre and quantity of the winning design entries demonstrates the growing importance of digital to the art world, however there are definitely issues relevant to PR to be drawn upon from the success of the NEoN ‘Character’ design competition.

The diversity and sheer range of entries from all over the world reiterates the power of online and digital PR when it comes to publicising a brand, and strategically managing a specific campaign. Digital PR is now a necessary component of any public relations consultancy‘s PR campaign to ensure optimal coverage and target audience reach.

We would like to congratulate the winners of the NEoN ‘Character’ design competition and wish them every success in the future!

Let me explain myself a little more. A very well-known high-end high street store, to which I am rather fond of, had recently captured the attention and more important the purse string of a close friend. 

However, not to be too frivolous with her hard earned cash she took her time to make the right decision with her purchase, afterall a half a day’s worth of soul destroying work was at stake.

But when it’s right it’s right, right? To say she was content with her purchase was an understatement. Polishing for 10 mintues after every day’s wear of the patent gems.

It wasn’t until our reunion, and her bragging, that we discovered not all well-respected brands get it right every time. Yet it does depend on how you deal with the problem when it arises.

I can safely report that the matter was swiftly taken onboard and my friend got a brand new pair of ones & twos.

Not forgetting, she continues to have only good things to say about the shoe masters in question. So when it goes a bit pete tong, the answer is.. sort it.

Your public relations program could encounter deficiencies if it is not redesigned for the digital era.

Digital public relations requires rethinking and restructuring on conventional public relations techniques, not just a digital overlay.  Several high-tec companies have attained industry visibility that is not necessarily justified by their market position or technical leadership, but rather by their ability to leverage the concept of digital public relations. You should be one of them.

However, when adopted in the political sphere attention to detail and hightened care must be taken.  This is evident in the latest spin conjured up by the Tories, with quite funny consequences.

It was supposed to display how the modern Conservative Party could harness the power of the internet, yet instead, the Tories’ latest attempt to engage the web backfired outstandingly.

They launched the “Cash Gordon” website over the weekend as part of an internet campaign to highlight links between the Prime Minister and Unite. The Party then invited the public to contribute through social networking websites Facebook and Twitter.

Things somewhat went array in their plan when this morning, the website had been flooded with mocking and abusive messages.  In the end, hackers infiltrated the page so that visitors to Cash Gordon were redirected to the Labour Party website, porn sites and an infamous video of Rick Astley singing on YouTube.  In a matter of hours the Conservative Party was forced to take down the site, saying it was due to “techinical problems.”

Cash Gordon had entered the digital world as a slick webpage, using the latest features of Facebook and Twitter in an effort to gain public interest in the campaign but exited in a much more bashful manner.

Silly silly silly.  Key to the Tories’ strategy for Cash Gordon was to invite the public’s comments.  It published all tweets that included the phrase #cashgordon.  This meant that the Cash Gordon website would feature comments praising the campaign, but also, as was more the case, those criticising it.  Clever hackers also wrote tweets that included simple computer codes, meaning that visitors to the site were automatically redirected to toher pages.

It is clear that the Conservatives had built the website in haste and had not learned from the mistakes of others.  Avoid this by teaming up with an effective digital PR team.

End clients are more digitally savvy and they request more digital projects than they did before.  Kate Fitzpatrick, digital marketing manager at publishing house HarperCollins, holds the belief that dedication to the craft doesn’t go unnoticed and is the key to success on the digital platform.

This is a growing requirement as consumers are getting used to high standards online; they expect to be wowed.

Saying that, technology is easy accessible but there are still only few who can master it and use it in creative ways.  For instance, by participating in the social web with digital PR, you’re going to inspire attention for your brand. And attention on the web almost always equals links.  Links earned through PR in and other link building tactics can be a major boost in both rankings and referral traffic.  In addition, editorially earned links are some of the most powerful around.

Everyone in the marketing/PR world know this is true – what is visible is all that matters, and what is unseen counts for nothing.  Attention is one of the most valuable assets of the current economy, and focused attention is a rare resource on the web.

When people come to you through a trusted referral you’re far better positioned than if you had to pay directly for that attention through advertising.  Pull is the most powerful strategy on the web, whereas push is largely ignored.

As Mike Masnick of Techdirt pointed out last year, advertising is content (and content is advertising).  So if you can permeate a niche with content that people spread and share like crazy, you’ve amassed a group who will handle your brand’s advertising for you.

Every company is now a media company.  And what defines a successful media company?  Attention – something that is a result of creating content with the purpose of spreading.  Without attention, which in time will lead to a subscriber base, you’re invisible.  Start to think more like a media company would – in other words, how do I actively court the attention of a like-minded group of people?  If your success as an individual or business is tied to visibility, this is essential.  Whilst also considering that ultimately the type of content you’re producing doesn’t matter, it’s more about activating your audience.

Digital technologies have made media more personal and more accessible.  The brands with a face behind them are the ones emerging as the most trusted.  They are the ones building followings of users in a way that encourages transparency and authenticity.  They are also connecting their users in meaningful ways, and building followings behind shared ideas.  They are tomorrow’s big successes and the people/brands with real influence.  Do you want to be one of them?  Part of the buzz?

With 71m Europeans accessing the internet via their mobile each week, 121m people using broadband and 46% of homes owning at least one laptop, their is obvious impetus for European businesses to jump on the bandwagon and invest of digital PR.

In addition, and particularly more interesting, is the fact that Eastern European countries are expected to see increasing internet pentration. Polish people already spend more time browsing the web on their mobiles than any other nationality, 10.3 hours a week on average.  As accurately put by Alison Fennah, executive director of the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the study provides a “compelling case for brands to explore” and incorporate a growing number of complemetary interactive platforms into the marketing mix and public relations strategy.  She goes on further to highlight that “mobile is the only medium” you can plan regionally in a properly centralised way.

Embarking on a campaign using Facebook’s new sampling ad format, Marmite is looking to encourage users of the social networking site to test its new offerings.  Being the second advertiser to use the format, this is actually the first Facebook ad unit that allows users to input their address in order to receive product samples or information from advertisers.  They’ll then be asked to join Marmite’s facebook page and report whether they love or hate the product.

As well as free sample offerings, Facebook goes one leap furtherby signing a payment and ad deal with PayPal.  Those with a PayPal account will now be able to run an ad campaign on Facebook as well as use the online payment system to buy virtual gifts from the Facebook Gift Shop.  The partnership allows payments accepted in key parts of Facebook’s advertising and developer systems.  The availability of ad campaigns to PayPal users will inevitably entice a more rounded offering of smaller, international companies to advertise on the site.  What a partnership huh? Not to mention a fantastic form of online  pr for the soon-to-be companies involved.

Industry leaders have revealed that the world’s top companies are increasingly turning to social media to convey their messages to both the public and their stakeholders, with 79 % of Fortune Global 100 companies admitting to using at least one social media platform as part of their communications strategy, according to a study by Burson-Marsteller.

On average, companies claimed to have 4.2 Twitter accounts, 2.1 Facebook fan pages, 1.6 Youtube channels, and 4.2 corporate blogs.  More specifically, Asia-Pacific companies are more likely to have blogs than engage on other social media platforms.  50% of companies surveyed have a blog, while 40% use Twitter and 40% use Facebook.

Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific’s lead digital strategist, Charlie Pownall, noted that regional companies have been slower to integrate social media into their strategies, but are changing. “International firms are leading by example in their use of social media; Asian companies have proved more conservative, remaining concerned about resourcing, costs, measurement and the potential reputational risks,” he said. “As their domestic audiences continue to move online, and as the technology infrastructure improves across the region, Asian companies will come to use social media as the core business tool that it has become in the US and Europe.”
Globally, 82 per cent of the polled companies had tweeted in the last week, and 59 per cent had posted content on their Facebook fan page.  In the prior month, 68 per cent had uploaded a video on YouTube and 36 per cent had posted an entry on a corporate blog, reveals Media Asia.

Media Asia further adhere that companies have used social media to interact with audiences as well as using the platforms to relay their own messages.  Thirty-eight per cent of companies affirmed that they respond to audience tweets, and 32 have reposted user comments.
This is interesting to note when news comes that Twitter has passed the landmark figure of 50 million tweets per day and passes Myspace, whilst also considering to allow businesses to personalise accounts used by multiple memebers of staff by adding their own ‘byline’ to tweets in what is the first of a series of additions for business users.