The iPhone 3G becomes the New Facebook

4 days into owning one of these devices (which I said was the marketing tool of the future), I realise it’s become the Facebook of the Now. You remember when Facebook starting getting bad? When all those naff applications  started turning up. Well – bizarre apps for iPhone have started turning up.

Let me just remind you. The iPhone is a communications device for talking and sharing information across a variety of networks. So this old thing will really help. I wonder  if the iPhone is going the way of Facebook. I hope not.

Social Media Press Releases

Well it looks like the PR industry (not necessarily the traditional PR industry mind you) is starting to get its head around social media, in the form of this Social Media Press Release Template (opens a PDF from Shiftcomm). Now – a US agency may well have to do things differently for a different psychographic or behavioural market in the US, but it’s nice to see the development of a “methodology” emerging from what is pretty much a chaotic state of affairs. What’s interesting is that whilst the US lags somewhat behind in certain subtle aspects of digital marketing, the preponderance of American bloggers means that social media PR seems to be further developed over there – to the extent that social media PR people are trying to show clients that it is is not a dark art that certain (digital) PR/full-service agencies in the UK seem to suggest.

A nice example of open social PR is used up at Democracy PR. Director Jennifer O’Grady is responsible for the Digital PR aspects of the launch of the new Yang Sing Oriental Hotel in Manchester. Despite the performance of the traditional PR agency (whose PR choices I have to question), the digital PR side of things is done in a very open and interesting way. A media launch last week involved plenty of non traditional audience turning up. Jennifer has actively used informal social networks on Facebook to create some noise and traffic (both virtual and real) to the hotel. In response, she’s got plenty of nice people talking. Shove “Yang Sing Oriental Hotel” into Google and you’ll see an excellent write-up from prodigious blogger Julia Shuvalova, a well respected and (key point here) independent writer.

My only worry is I don’t seem be able to find a web site for the hotel yet – but as the hotel itself is not quite finished, I suspect the same for the site. But I know this is an area that another agency is having to deal with (which shows what issues emerge from using many different agencies). Anyway – hats off to Jen for the 1st page on Google which shows the results of an excellent open social media campaign. I hope she gets to run more of the publicity operation for what is such a lovely business.