Under the Influence: Part 1, The event
I attended Iris’s 2nd annual Under the Influence event last week. I spent my afternoon mainly camped out at the sessions held in ”The Dive Inn” aka The George Inn near Borough Market listening to speakers from Iris Experiential, Contagious Magazine, Frukt and Poke.
For my round-up of their “best bits” I’ve written a series of posts.
Restaurant reviews: why DIY?
User generated product and service reviews, particularly regarding going out and travel, seem to be a growth area right now in social media. But with a range of communities springing up across niche and general areas like Trip Advisor, TrustedPlaces, and Epinions how do brands get users commit to commit to their community and remain engaged? And what are the opportunities & challenges for these types of sites?
I posed some questions to Rob Hinchcliffe, Community Manager for Qype who position themselves as a ‘local reviews site’. I’ve been spending a bit of time recently attending their sponsored events, drinking their free bar and wondering how it’s all going for them.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall bloggers’ preview
Somehow someone let me in to the Forgetting Sarah Marshall preview last night. Thanks to Mecca for inviting me as part of her fold (the Moo crew).
Annie Mole’s written a great review over on Going Underground which I think sums up perfectly how I felt about the film. All in all an entertaining film and evening.
Feels like not so very long ago that film marketing to bloggers was pretty cutting edge, like Snakes on a Plane, doesn’t take long for this stuff to start to become best practice.
[BTW it didn't suck. That's a promo poster]
You have 1 new message: Little Jimmy has lice
Interesting application of mobile communications.
“British parents are enlisting their mobile phones in the fight against head lice. A campaign called ‘Beat The Bugs’ is letting them sign up for text messages whenever there’s an infestation at their child’s school. They’re called ‘Outbreak Alerts’, which sounds very exciting. After a trial run in Northampton, 77% of parents said they were supportive of the idea.”
Is Ghost Blogging wrong?
I added my 2 cents to this article by Brendan Cooper the other week. It’s been interesting watching the discussion develop and it’s worth checking out to see the range of arguments for and against.
Simon Collister wrote a good response post which is closer to what i think. He also raises a great point that it’s probably a matter of personal perspective as well.
What’s your perspective?
Where’s Waldo 2.0?
I don’t come from a search marketing background but it’s something I like learning about right now as it so clearly crosses over into social media comms campaigns. Something else I like, is having misguided, tech dummy ideas about technology I think should exist or be invented. I’m going to create a new category for these posts called “Random Thoughts” so you can just skip through reading them, or, if you are a brand which has already invented this technology you can come and tell me about it.
So….I live in an area of London where there are a lot of tourists. Just walking to and from things in my area frequently puts me in the path of camera toting tourists and, although it demonstrates an intolerant part of my nature, I often don’t pause every metre so they get the perfect shot. Admittedly it’s not only recently I’ve developed this “outta the way tourists” attitude. Living in Rome, Bath and Wellington N.Z. during filming of Lord of the Rings may have finely tuned this approach.
But, I was thinking the other day “I wonder how many people have photos with me striding through the background?” Then I thought if I can Google my name and see how many people have mentioned me, why shouldn’t I be able to search for how many people have photographed me? There are probably a lot of places I’m captured on camera which I don’t know about, or where my friends haven’t told me they’ve posted the photos.
Meeting virtual friends IRL
I partook of another Qype bar tab last night. This was their own party and it was fun to meet people who are part of this seemingly tight-knit online community.
There seemed to be a bit of a multi-national turnout with people having joined the site as they were new to London and wanted to find places to go and a way to meet new friends. It was really social and kinda makes a mockery of people who say that ‘this social networking nonsense means people won’t leave the house anymore to meet real friends’.
I met another female in tech blogging/presenting, LJ of Geek Chic and Virgin’s Digital Agony Aunt; I couldn’t believe our paths haven’t crossed before but I’m sure I spotted her one late night on QVC so felt like she was an old friend already.
Thanks for the hospitality Qype.
Meeting Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfzD25qDXZM&hl=en]
I was lucky enough to meet up with Tim Ferriss the author of The 4-Hour Workweek while he was here on a flying visit to launch the book in the UK. I loved the book and would recommend reading it.
Katie Lee from Shiny Media was my partner in crime stalking Tim round London and put some of the tough questions to him in this exclusive interview. (I take no responsibility for the slightly blurry camera work…)
[Thanks to London Girl Geek Dinners for the intro]
How to meet bloggers: London Social Media Cafe
It’s another good opp, particularly for PRs, to meet bloggers, start-ups, new media service providers and all sorts of people interested in social media. So if you or your clients are looking for an event of this kind to sponsor, or even want to host the cafe somewhere, get in touch with Lloyd Davis of Perfect Path.
About:
I'm Darika Ahrens and I help brands develop marketing strategies for Social Media. My background is in Public Relations for companies like Orange, Microsoft, Philips, HTC, Yell.com, and Estee Lauder. I've worked with and trained some of the UK's top agencies.