Social media-The good the bad and the Indefensible-A masterclass from CityPress' Paul Smith

As people who live and work in Manchester know-we have a lot of social media experts plying their trade.


I don't think Paul Smith of Citypress would describe himself as a social media expert but what he had to say at MMU last week in a guest lecture about social media,brands and crisis management was worth a listen.


Whether social media has changed our life,well it did for Paul who had an accident about seven years ago which left him in a wheelchair.

He found people from around the world who shared the situation that he was in and it was his first real experience of the social side of the internet. “It has so hugely changed what we do as communicators” But for brands it was an eye opener in more ways than one-they suddenly found that people were coming back to them and it was easy for rivals to set up.

The power of social media comes with a trade off and businesses have to develop a thicker skin,predict the unpredictable and be prepared to anticipate issues that they may never have thought.

Before the days of twitter,a crisis management plan gave you a certain time to respond but social media has flipped those timescales on their head. News distribution changed when the 24 hour news channels hit the airways,but the importance of news is no longer necessarily been determined by the media.

Twitter has now become part of the story now with reaction being part of the story itself.It has helped to topple regimes,that is it power so organisations need to be aware 2012 is the year he says that social media will go mainstream for businesses.

Many are still ignoring it and failing to engage.The next generation of customers for these businesses are the Face book generation and will expect to be engaged in this way. Previously crisis management was a relationship with your customers engaged via the traditional media.

Social media has thrown a massive spanner in the works says Paul and the old rules of being honest,responding quickly and carefully although still applying,no longer rule the roost.

Paul told the story of the Cadbury Salmonella outbreak in 2007,before the days of corporate social media and tried to imagine what that story would have done in the age of social media.

Cadbury were not on social media then,but this week they became one of the first companies to launch a brand on Google +,how times have changed. We are still in the early days og Google + but Paul believes that brands will embrace it because it strips out any anonymity along with this week’s announcement that Google is to take more notice of + when it comes to search. But back to the strategy.It was always based on you know your critics.

Our natural instinct as a species is to seek out the alternative view and argue.The internet makes it easier to do this because we feel we can air our views without consequence.(Just read the comments on You Tube videos).

Many brands struggle with that unparalleled feedback and the skill for the next generation is how to cut through that noise. Engagement opens up a “Pandora’s box” says Smith.

GAP decided that it would rebrand its logo,going through all the cost of redesign before throwing it open to the world and ended with thousands of angry responses and decided to abandon the redesign.Rather a “kneejerk reaction according to Smith Starbucks has had four changes of logo.the first three were in the age before Social media,the fourth produced the same reaction as for GAP but decided to crack on.

A lesson to learn perhaps?

It stems from having a wider crisis management plan when it comes to social media which involves thinking of a response to every single negative question that can come out in the age of social media.

His top tips for brands in this situation is to try to respond to the questions as soon as possible because that is what people are expected and secondly where you can try to take the conversation people off line.

In conclusion says Paul,driven my the mobile revolution,social media will continue to dominate the way we communicate.

Poet Laureate and Manchester Metropolitan University professor Carol Ann Duffy has won the Costa poetry prize

Some good news for Manchester this morning.

This from an MMU Press Release


Carol Ann, who is Creative Director at the University’s Manchester Writing School, won the poetry category for her latest collection, The Bees, her first since being appointed Poet Laureate in 2009.

Andrew Miller beat Booker winner Julian Barnes to take the accolade for best novel, while debut children's writer, Moira Young, won the children's book award for Blood Red Road. There were also categories for best first novel and best biography.

All five books will now have the chance of winning the 2011 Costa Book of the Year, which will be announced in London on 24 January.

MMU's students display 'follies' at Dunham Massey

Undergraduates from MMU's Manchester School of Architecture have displayed seasonal sculptures in the grounds of the National Trust estate at Dunham Massey.



The students designed 3-D artworks in the Winter Garden which were erected this weekend and are on display until January 3, 2012.

“We were delighted to be approached by MSA, which led to 180 students visiting the Winter Garden in early October” says Dunham’s visitor experience officer Helen Appleyard.

“We worked closely with their Head of Year to come up with a brief - to design an appropriate architectural feature,such as a folly – which would compliment either the Winter Garden or the architecture of Dunham Massey house.

The sculptures are made of a variety of materials, with a large proportion wood being used.

Source-http://www.mmu.ac.uk/news/news-items/1519/

MMU study could hold the key to a manned spaceflight to Mars

Could human beings fly to Mars?

Well a scientific study being held at Manchester Metropolitan University could hold the key to the viability of a manned space flight to the Red Planet.

Scientists suspect that the toll on the human body of a 15-month round trip could jeopardise any potential manned mission to earth's neighbour.

But intervention by physiologists at the Institute for Human Movement (IRM) could help astronauts develop coping mechanisms against the draining effects of weightlessness.

The team,led by Marco Narici, IRM Director and Professor in Physiology of Ageing, the Sarcolab Project conducted its first tests on astronaut Andre Kuipers, who flies into orbit to the International Space Station in December and will return to Earth in May 2012.

They will conduct tests on another nine astronauts to understand why weightlessness makes muscles intrinsically weaker.

Professor Narici said: “In spaceflight humans lose muscle and bone, we do not know why the loss of force exceeds that of muscle size.

“Neither do we understand why intensive strength training exercise effective in increasing muscle force and size on Earth, fails to do so in space.
“The record for a sojourn in space is 483 days – the approximate duration of a round-trip to Mars – and it is clear that more effective countermeasures against muscle and force loss should be identified before undertaking this mission.”

Professor Narici has been collaborating with astronaut performance research year for nearly 20 years and flew a project on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1996.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Gerry Kellher said: “This is tremendously exciting research which shows this University’s scientists making an impact on a global stage. I congratulate Marco and his team. It will be fascinating to follow progress on this research with the European Space Agency, which could be key to the future of manned space exploration.

Manchester to host launch of Chinese migrant workers in the UK: experiences of exploitation and forced labour

The Joseph Rowntree foundation (JRF) will be launching in Manchester research which is to look at how the Chinese migrant workers in the UK have experiences of exploitation and forced labour.

The research has been conducted by Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with the Wai Yin Chinese Women Society, Manchester, and in collaboration with the Chinese Welfare Association in Belfast and the Chinese Migrant Network in London.

This research drew on the experiences of 32 migrant Chinese workers, mostly in the Chinese catering and hospitality business and it explores the experiences of exploitation among low-skilled Chinese migrant workers in the UK.

It highlights the extent of exploitation at work, examines what makes workers vulnerable to forced labour, and considers the complex relationships between migration, work and family.

This free event will take place on the 1st November.

More details HERE