House of Lords member Lord Stoneham of Droxford yesterday used Parliamentary Privilege to make public details of an #injunction that former #RBS Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin had on the story that he was involved in an extra-marital affair while the bank was collapsing in front of him.

The comments were made in the Chamber at the Palace of Westminster hours before legal teams met at the High Court to discuss said gagging order, with one party seeking to have it overturned.  Sir Fred himself did not object to the removal of the injunction, which enables the media to run with a story that will put plenty of heat on him once again.

Injunctions and super-injunctions have been making the headlines recently because media outlets have been unable to report on the more salacious stories that are doing the rounds about high-profile personalities.  The pub gossip that people take part is censured.  Some people criticise the judiciary, claiming that it undermines the press.  Others believe that Privacy is a basic human right that requires individual mistakes to not be splashed in the press.

My view is that the press and the individuals using these injunctions and super-injunctions are right.  The problem is that in between both arguments lies what is known as public interest, a term used by the media as a ‘catch-all.’  With this self-regulated tool, the media can invade the privacy of anybody and any organisation.  And there lies the problem.  Organisations need to be accountable, as do the people working for them and for government.  That said, there is a fine line that divides a mistake from the effect it has on an organisation.

The law has always been a tool in the public relations armoury.  Reputation management has used the law to gag a story from being discussed in the media, very much under the impression that if the media is not able to run the story then nobody will know the issues that can be damaging to their clients reputations and trust.  This is naïve, stupid and out dated.  Public relations is rarely able to repair the damage that requires this kind of force.

Yes, there is a need for Privacy and there is a need for injunctions and super-injunctions.  The question is, should they be made available and affordable to everyone?  Yes.  Should there be further debate on which applications receive one?  Yes.  Duplicity and double-standard needs to be outted.  From a public relations perspective, reputation management is always harder when the damage has been done, even though said damage is not yet in the public arena.

How many times have we as PR professionals held our head in our hands wandering how we can repair the damage by some ill-conceived decision or action?

The current debate about injunctions and super-injunctions is of course in the media because details of many of these have been outted to social networking sites.  The fact is that we live in a less media centric world where consumers of news can obtain gossip and stories online.  It is this that smashes the legal structure and protection that the law affords to individuals to protect, rightly or wrongly, the privacy and reputation.  But this in itself is a misnomer, because sites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are based overseas in jurisdictions with firm legal structures.

Social and search sites can be notified and given due time to remove content that libels clients.  But this course this course of action to protect one’s soiled reputation carries it’s own risk – reputation is about trust and trust is won and lost in the court of public opinion.  It is the members of this court – you and I, that gathers information and consumes it.  The fact is that we live in a world where there is less control, which is why PR should learn this and work within the new structure that social networking has created.

I have given presentations to a series of law firms, highlighting how social media and it’s central pillar of information sharing, which happens cross jurisdictions can undermine their work.  The skills and ability to share information without leaving a trace is there.  The internet is a channel that crosses geographical boundaries.  There is concern that such tactics are being used within journalism to undermine the case for privacy.  It is a case of cat and mouse, and at the moment the media is the mouse the law is the old lethargic cat.

Social media has become a tool that can undermine law and if not undermine then push it into the 21^st century.  For many the law is just a form of censorship that prevents free speech and public interest.  In fact a well-known blog has made available a Google Document listing all the supposed injunctions that currently exist.  Today it is a question of if you search you will find.

Reputations today are being saved and more importantly destroyed by our own human willingness to engage in hearsay and gossip.  Individuals, companies and brands spend a lot on projecting an image that attracts business.  They should be protected, but only if the actions for which they seek an injunction or super injunction are not duplicitous.

Reputation management is today a skill amongst public relations practitioners that requires real-time management.  Controlling a crowd is nigh on impossible.  Once the damage is done an injunction will only act as a plaster.

PRs have to work not just with the legal court, but importantly the court of public opinion, a court that is a well briefed by content that is available online.

BREAKING NEWS:

It appears that a UK Premier League player has started legal proceedings against Twitter to secure the disclosure of the currently ‘unknown persons’.  Legal firm Schillings said in a statement, “to obtain limited information concerning the unlawful use of Twitter by a small number of individuals who may have breached a court order.”

We assume that such action will be taken by a partner law firm in California, though given that the unlawful act has taken place in the UK, a separate legal jurisdiction, it is going to be tricky to see how this works.  Of course, if those people who started the allegations are in the UK then they will not be eligible to America’s Constitution First Amendment, which allows free speech.

BBC DG Mark Thompson

Convergence.  This was one of the keywords that came of out of this year’s 2011 Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcast Conference.  It’s taking me some time to pen this, but I wanted to share some of the key points that were discussed.

Last year the conference coincided with the BBC unveiling the results of it’s Strategy Review.  This year gathering started on the same time as Apple unveiled its much-anticipated iPad 2, Facebook announced the rollout of its Comments plug-in and the all-important decision from the Department for Culture Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt MP to allow News International’s full take-over of BSkyB.

Chief executives and senior board members gathered in London to outline their thoughts on an industry that is changing at breakneck speed.  It’s an industry that is no longer operating by itself, but a sector that is being driven by the technology that their own consumers are engaging with.  And the speed of adoption is forcing many boards to re-evaluate how they engage with their audiences.

Mobile and social networking are the two platforms, the two elephants in the room, that media and broadcast organisations are still struggling to grapple with.  They are also the platforms that public relations professionals must fully grasp for themselves and their clients.

BBC Director General Mark Thompson highlighted this year how ‘new media’ and the consumer have shaped how it offers content.  The corporation accepted that consumers want the BBC’s content on every platform.  Its iPlayer is today available on the iPhone and iPad, with Thompson confirming that people even watch BBC content on their mobiles in bed.

Thompson understands simplicity and highlighted that the iPlayer works because it is straightforward.  In January of this year 162 million downloads were made through the iPlayer, this in a country of 25 million households.

Thompson confirmed that 2011 is the year of convergence, stating that strength is with those that have a strong presence online and understand the value of simplicity.

One of the areas that the BBC Director General is looking at is the power and influence of social recommendations and how this will shape how we all watch television.  Indeed Thompson confirmed that the BBC and Facebook are having conversations.

Speaking at the conference Facebook’s EMEA Managing Director Joanna Shield confirmed that the company now has 30 million active users in the UK, accounting for 1 in 2 of the population.  Talking about how it ‘supports‘ UK media Shields highlighted that 10% of the Daily Mail’s web traffic now comes from Facebook and that the sites plugins have helped The Independent gain up to a 700% increase in traffic.

Talking of Facebook, Sales and Marketing Director for mobile provider 3 Marc Allera in a separate session said that a staggering 75% of their data traffic is directed to Facebook – an incredible statistic.  Allera also said that 90% of 3’s sales are Smartphone’s.

Facebook is the platform of choice for the consumer.  For business it is the ‘frenemy’, a business that delivers eyeballs to those with an online presence, but a business that can quickly cannibalise those that work with it.  Take Groupon and Livingsocial for example.  Both living in the hype, but both under the knife of Facebook, who a few days ago announced ‘a new service that will sell discounts deals to consumers.’ Sound familiar?

So, Facebook is becoming an entity in itself.  The stats show it, but for the time being, it is a fact that business needs to learn to live with it.  Equally, it needs to retain control of the data that makes it’s business a business.

I was going to ask, remember when clients used to ask about needing a Facebook Strategy?  Something that made PRs and Strategists cringe?  Well, there is a need to have a Facebook Strategy, but a strategy to manage them and avoid each business being cannibalised by this growing entity.  The data that companies share with the social giant make the same businesses vulnerable.

Convergence and Facebook, and of course all the other offerings.  The tables have turned and consumers are showing businesses how and where they want their content.

Following on from the CIPR’s acclaimed Digital Impact conference last month the institute will be hosting a series of social media meetings this summer.

Entitled The CIPR’s Social Summer events will take place every Thursday until the end of August and will bring together leading PR and social media professionals to discuss and debate this ‘not so new’ communications channel.  Speakers include Philip Sheldrake, who yesterday presented a session on analytics, Andrew Smith, Stuart Bruce, Stephen Waddington, Steve Earl and myself.

The events will be held at the institute’s London head-office with sessions ranging from social media analytics and the rise of mobile networking to insight and tips on how to get ahead in social.  I will be hosting an after-work session on how social media is used in the newsroom and broadcast television.

The fact of the matter is that while social media has affected how we do public relations – forcing many of us into real-time reaction and into a culture of conversation and dialogue, newsrooms and television programmers have had to adapt to ensure that their own industries survive the change in the balance of power between providers and consumers of news and content.

But how does the communications industry adapt?  What does we need to learn from sectors that for so long we’ve work with?  How do we work together to make sure that the people that we wish to speak with engage with us?  These and so many more questions will be debated during my session on 15^th July.

To find out more about this and other CIPR social summer sessions visit the wiki and sign-up soon.  Tickets for each session are only £10 on the door, to cover the cost of beer and a seat!

Below is my presentation that I gave at the Digital Impact conference and which I’ll be expanding from in July.

So this summer, remember, PR is getting social!

Laura Oliver, Nic Newman and Julio Romo

Nic Newman summed up the impact that social media is having on journalism when he said that based on volume and time spent on site, “Facebook was six times bigger than CNN.”  People today spend more time on social networking sites than on news sites, with industry commentators citing this to highlight the reason for the supposed death of news and quality journalism.  For others though social media represents an opportunity – a resource that adds value to journalism, which is why the Chartered Institute of Public Relations Greater London Group (CIPR GLG) wanted to host an event to discuss how social media is re-shaping journalism and the news industry.

For this debate we were delighted to welcome Nic Newman, the BBC’s Future Media and Technology Controller for Journalism and Digital Distribution and Laura Oliver, Editor for Journalism.co.uk.

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Nic had just returned to the BBC after three months at the Reuters Institute for The Study of Journalism at Oxford University where he wrote a paper on ‘The rise of social media and its impact on mainstream journalism.’ A document that gave insight into how social media was being adopted and used within the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.

As has been well publicised, the reach of news organisations has been in decline for many years, ever since publishers implemented a business model that gave away its content for free online so that they could get a slice of the at the time new revenue from online advertising.  Of course as we now know this strategy ended up ‘cannibalising’ revenues from print, broadcast and other news focused incomes as consumers stopped buying newspapers and magazines and moved online where news is free.

The double-whammy came with the rise of social media, as people moved to Facebook, Twitter and the like and stopped visiting news websites.  And it was through these ‘herds’ – their friends and followers – that people started to get the breaking news stories that for so long had been the preserve of news outlets.

While some industry commentators saw social media as the final nail in the coffin for quality journalism and the news industry, others viewed it as an opportunity, as it confirmed the belief that through social media journalists could ‘better reach out to people who know more about a given subject.’

Newman stated that what we are currently seeing in journalism is a, “quiet revolution.”  Between 2007-2009 there’s been an explosion in participation, ‘driven by user-friendly internet tools, better connectivity and new mobile devices.  Social Networking and UGC have become mainstream activities, accounting for almost 20 per cent of internet time in the UK and involving half of all internet users.  This dramatic change has forced traditional news organisations to take note.’  And news outlets have reacted by abandoning attempts ‘to be first for breaking news, focusing instead on being the best at verifying and curating it.’

Social media expert Clay Shirky says in Newman’s report that ‘you trade speed for accuracy’ by getting updates from Twitter.  And this is what the news industry is now focusing on, accurate and in-depth reporting.

The BBC’s user generated content (UGC) hub on an average week processes over 10,000 email comments, 1,000 still images and 100 video clips.  Staffed by 23 people the hub can access breaking news images and stories, supporting news producers for programmes such as the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News.  They also act as a contact point for people with stories to tell – a case of this was when it was contacted in February 2009 by an HBOS whistleblower.  Social media is a platform that links people with quality news.

We were told by Newman and Oliver that social networks allows journalists to find and tell better stories and engage with new audiences.  I asked if this meant a reduced role for PRs as journalists could go ‘straight to source’ through social networking channels.  “No,” we were told.  Just as journalists could use social networks to gain facts, insight and case studies, PRs could and were bypassing the media and taking their messages direct to their audiences.  Oliver added that, “PRs would always be involved in the conversation.”  The right to reply we should remember is to a certain extent enshrined in journalism and the editorial guidelines of many news outlets.

Newman pointed out that “as if to add insult to injury, these new networks and individuals are also acting as a check on traditional media, questioning our accuracy and standards, and forcing transparency.”

Oliver confirmed that outlets are having to be more transparent.  I asked if social media is opening journalists’ notebooks.  “Yes,” was her answer.  In Oliver’s case, and from what she knows from journalists in nationals and business-to-business titles, there is a lot of sharing of links through social bookmarking sites and the like.  Links that allow people to build a better picture of a journalist and their ‘beat.’  It also allows readers and PRs to build better relationships with them, which can only be a good thing.

But how is social media being used in journalism?  Laura Oliver confirmed that journalists now use sites to gain opinion and case studies on stories that they might be working on.  People can be found on networking sites discussing most subjects and this is invaluable to journalists.  These people are consumers, potential customers and stakeholders.  They share thoughts and knowledge with other people.  If they complain about a bad experience with a brand, they’ll share it, and journalists will hear it and if it’s newsworthy enough report it

Journalists and media outlets know that people carry mobile devices with which they can stay in contact with their networks.  They know that people can now compliment a story that they are working on as these devices can capture images and audio.

The new tools of the trade for journalists include Tweetdeck, Facebook, Audioboo – an application that allows users to post and share audio files.  Newsrooms I am sure also have the ability to monitor conversations through Viralheat, a social measurement platform that covers hundreds of viral video destination sites, Twitter, and millions blogs & websites.

News outlets like the BBC for example use Twitter to get case studies for news packages about any story.  Newman gave the example of how the BBC Ten O’Clock News wanted case study that related to an engineering story that they were putting together.  News producers asked Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones if he could help.  Rory obliged by putting a call for help on his Twitter feed.  Within minutes his request was met by numerous offers of help, one that was local to London was used.  It was that easy and by the look of it not a PR in sight!

As PRs we have to remember that thanks to social media journalists have better access to the opinions and comments from consumers and stakeholders.  Social media is not just a platform for technology story, but a platform through which people can have conversations about any given subject.

The one thing that is certain is that social media is here to stay. It is even influencing journalism training and editorial control as the industry evaluates how to meet the changing dynamics of how and from where people get their news.  Griffith University in Australia has even made Twitter part of the mandatory course load for journalism students.

And it is affecting how we PRs do our job.  It isn’t just an add-on for monologue campaigns that we have been so used to developing.  It is a platform through which our clients can better engage with current and potential consumers.

Social media is open, it is transparent.  The conversations that our customers have can be seen not just by us, but by journalists that judge and hold us to account, and that does not have to be an issue.

This evening I have the pleasure of hosting a CIPR Greater London Group event on journalism and social media at Hill & Knowlton.  As speakers we have Nic Newman, the BBC’s Future Media & Technology Controller, Journalism and Digital Distribution, and Journalism.co.uk Editor Laura Oliver.

Journalism has been changing for a number of years, with many people claiming that news and media as we know it is dying.  A slight exaggeration.  Social media though is having an effect of newsgathering and it is this and what PRs should know about it that we’ll be investigating this evening.

Amongst the many questions I’ll will be asking:

• How the BBC and other news outlets use social media to research stories and generate contacts?
• How social media is being integrated into the newsgathering process?
• How journalists use social media to share content and links with their audiences.  Is social media opening up journalists notebooks and making newsgathering more transparent?  And what can PRs learn from this?
• Importantly, given that social media is about the now – feelings and reactions of people, what do journalists look for online and on social media sites to generate a story and what can PRs learn from the change in power and how this helps journalists?

Social media is not just redefining news but changing how PRs work.  Long gone are the days when the reputation was at risk of a negative piece in the media.  Now people, consumers, on social networks can generate a feeling that can affect a brand.  Power is moving to the people and this is something that as PRs we need to understand.

If you’d like to know more then guests will be twittering live from the event using the #LondonPRlive hashtag.

I’ll be updating my blog tomorrow with my thoughts.

“Be human, all this is still experimental” is how Media140 founder Ande Gregson summarised everybody’s expectations of Twitter and social media at the end of the Media140 Brands conference in London this week. And he is right.

A lot has been said about social media and how it is the saviour of all things marketing and communications. Yet, it is the saviour of nothing, or at least the saviour of nothing yet. What social media is though is a great concept that helps brands come alive. It gives brands the humanity that so many have lacked.

Robin Grant, managing Director of London agency We Are Social, captured this feeling perfectly when he said, “social media is making peoples experiences with brands transparent”. It gives consumers power, the power to choose. It is making brands work for their money and loyalty. In fact, as Grant pointed out, “social media is helping define a brand”. If a consumer has a bad experience with a brand at the drop of a tweet they can share this with their own community, who in sympathy might re-tweet it to their own followers.

This shift in power is starting to have an effect on business. Nuria Garrido, British Airways Digital Marketing Innovations Manager, commented “social media is good for companies that are born on the web. For us [at BA] it is complex to work to the same objectives. A lot of people do not understand internally the power of social media. The PR department, they are coming around. We do have them onside”. And that’s the issue. Internally, within many companies, social media is seen as something you do, you add on, just because it is still seen as the latest cool thing.

Getting social media understood and integrated into a business is a slow process. You have to have your facts, your case studies and your metrics to hand to get senior executives on board. And all this is available.

Some people might only accept social media if it can be used as an income generating tool. Others will see social media as a tool that allows their companies and brands to develop and enhance relationships. It is seen as a tool with which you can have a dialogue with consumers and thanks to this enhance the brand. Think about is, if you use it for the latter and a customer’s expectations haven’t been met then you are better positioned to react and by doing so, in the future, to promote other offerings.

Mel Exon from BBH Labs summed it up by saying that, “there is a move from short term campaigns to longer term conversational initiatives”. Relationships take time to be built and social media is a platform that will help brands with this. But there has to be buy-in from the top, from traditional marketers.

Twitter is human, it is a snap-shot of conversations that we are all having about brands that we have or want. To give you an example, we turned up at RIBA to blog and tweet from the event only to discover that while the wifi was working the net wasn’t. So we had to do as much as we could through our iPhone, not ideal but we managed. Anyway, we decided to share our complaint with @btcare – BT’s twitter account. It took them some time but just after lunch they subscribed to our feed and started posting updates on the problem. One of the best updates came at 14.29, and said, “We’re investigating this issue and will update you in two hours #media140”. Then at 17.09 another update, “I can confirm that all is up and running. If there is anything else let me know”. Of course by the time I got this the conference had finished. But, credit where it is due, they contacted me and gave me an update. All this after letting them know that their service in London W1 amounted to a ‘FAIL’. So, if you have a complaint they will listen. Shame it came too late, but at least it showed that they are real-time.

There are a lot of dos and don’ts in social media. The main point for me being, as Daljit Dhurji from Diffusion PR said, “rules go out of the window. Most marketing directors are clever, when agencies are going in and be prescriptive you are not doing it right”.

What we need is common sense. We need to remember what we as people and consumers want. What we react to. And that is attention. We want to feel unique, special. George Nimeh from Iris summed it perfectly, “You listen first. And then you engage with them [the consumer]”.

Social media is a tool that goes across the company. It isn’t just for advertising, marketing, PR or customer care, it is for the company, the brand. It is a door for consumers into the brand, and that is the fear that directors have to deal with. How do you engage with customers who can now go public and share their opinions with their own network?

Social media is making consumers critics that brands must influence for their favour. That is the best way to put it, and business better wake up to this new world.

And to all those who say that it is a tool for the intelligentsia, think again. The number of people on Twitter, YouTube and other sites is rising. People who’ve in the past complained privately are learning to do so publicly. Not just that, but they are sharing their positive and negative experiences with their own networks.

Social media is about the now, it is real-time and as PRs that is what we should be ready for. Promoting and protecting brands now, today.

Media140 is doing a great job of championing social media, of making sense of social media for companies, of demystifying it so that companies can better communicate with people.  If you haven’t been to an event yet then look them up.

Social media is about the now, about the networking and the conversations positive or negative that we have with people who share our work and interests. And for consumers that is power. Consumers can now complain and find people who share their grievances with specific companies, brands or products.

Think about this, ‘positive news stories are repeated on average 3 times, while negative stories can be repeated up to 11 times’. On twitter and social media platforms though the figures for repeating negative experiences is far, far higher.

Just imagine what would happen if somebody who’s on Twitter has a bad experience with a brand. Chances are that they’ll share that with their network, some of whom will have empathy and re-share this with their own network. And so it starts, at the drop of a tweet, a brand can find itself at the centre of a maelstrom.

Companies and brands are now more sensitive that ever before to consumer criticism, which is why they are investing marketing and communications budget on social media.

But because social media is about real-time conversations, it also helps in brand development and product promotion. The walls that divided consumers and brands are blurring.

Since it was founded in February 2009 Media140 has focused on exploring the impact of social and real-time media in media, marketing and communications.

The first event in May focused on how social media is changing journalism, while the second this Monday, 26 October will look at how brands are using social media to stay ahead of the competition.

A full day of debate will touch on the pro-active use of social media for brands as well the power that consumers have and how brands can protect themselves from, well, themselves and the bad customer service that irates us all.

Guest speakers include Media140 founder, Ande Gregson, Head of Customer Experience for Easyjet Paul Hopkins, Daljit Bhurji, Managing Director of PR Week’s 2009 New Consultancy of the Year Diffusion PR and Hill & Knowlton’s Director of Planning Candace Kuss.

I’ll be blogging and tweeting from the event, so follow my twitter feed and visit us from 09.00 GMT.

And if you have any questions then tweet or email me.

However you want to describe it, online and social media is playing an important part in shaping the reputation of brands around the world.  It’s been doing so for some time now, certainly a few years. The issue at hand though, the one that New Media Knowledge (NMK) raised at their ‘What happens to online PR?’ event last week was if the Public Relations industry was best suited to lead clients through the ever-changing digital media landscape.

Led by New Media Age Editor-in-Chief Mike Nutley the NMK team brought together MD and founder of Wolfstar Stuart Bruce, Head of Social Media at iCrossing Anthony Mayfield, Global Head of Digital at Weber Shandwick James Warren and Founder and MD of Content and Motion Roger Warner. A great panel, though apart from Mike, sadly lacking journalists or independent bloggers that make their living from building or knocking down the brands that PRs work so hard on.

On one side we had the argument that PR is and should be just about press and media relations, which is what we were told clients expect from their PR teams or agencies – an outdated thought.  Some of those present even claimed that PR agencies find it difficult to re-invent themselves, which is why online PR should be left to niche digital agencies, which “better understood this channel.”

Fifteen years ago this might have been the case when it was all about the technology and not the PR or the message.  It was about something new that only a few people understood yet everybody wanted a piece of the action.  Not any more though.

On the other side you had those who believe that it’s PRs that should continue guiding clients through the digital world.  PRs that have experience in reputation building and management, people who know how integrated communications campaigns work.  Who know have experience in developing influence and creating relationships.

The interesting point that came through from the evening was that digital media is still seen as niche and not a communications channel that would be part of any overall campaign planning.  Some even complained that within certain agencies, they were seen as an ‘add-on’.  They weren’t integrated, mainly because clients had the ‘get me in the FT’ attitude to their work, even though their reputation was more at risk from bloggers and social networkers.  Something that is true given that staff in newsrooms around the world are experiencing a bloody cull.  But, educating clients and employers takes time.

There was broad agreement on the fact that online and social media is all about credibility.  There is a difference between a pastime and a service.  Comms teams need to have social media people within, they need to be able to use their knowledge to develop campaigns.

Clients and employers know and are used to buying press relations services, but they need to understand about social and online media.  This new channel needs to be quantified and measurement tools need to be refined so that they can understand the importance and influence that it has on audiences that they want to communicate with.

At the end of the day, PRs are here to serve clients, to put on the table solutions to issues they face.  Communications is becoming much more integrated, with PR moving more to the centre of decision making, shaping the strategy not just for consumer campaigns, but advertising ones.

Social and online media is a new channel and needs to receive the attention that it deserves.

The Government recently unveiled an advertising and communications campaign to promote the export opportunities that exist to British industry.  Some might consider the timing to be odd given that the nation is in the middle of the worst recession in living memory.  But a recent UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) conference in London at the beginning of the month proved otherwise.

At UKTI’s ‘Digital Business: India and China’ two day conference which I worked on (Reuters TV news above) small and medium sized technology and communications companies came together to share knowledge on the opportunities that lay in two countries that are bucking the downward global economic trend.

Companies from Britain’s digital, technology, mobile and gaming sectors agreed that while growth in the UK was hard, business opportunities in these two countries gave them hope for the future.

During the second day, which was devoted to China, representatives from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology gave an insight into the help that was available to UK companies thinking of investing in China, a country that is looking to move its economy towards value-adding products and services.

Welcoming The World To Britain

We’ve seen UKTI’s ‘Take It To The World’ campaign message on billboards at stations up and down the country.  And companies like Playfish.com are an example of how Britain can take gaming to the world.

But what has this got to do with PR and communications?  Well, it was wisely pointed out at the conference that China was not just looking to bring expertise to its home country.  Businesses in China are looking to enter the British and European marketplace, thus increasing the need for services such as PR, advertising and the like for them.

And let’s be honest, Britain has usually been concerned about China and it’s new financial muscle.  But with the UK PR industry suffering in the current recession the opportunities that might exist from Chinese companies wishing to expand into Europe might help.

Some of the big agencies, such as Burson-Marsteller already serve and support Chinese companies, such as  online business-to-business trading company Alibaba.com, which last week announced a 39 per cent increase in revenue to over £300 million.

Agencies are getting ready for business from merging markets.  Maybe Brazil will be next.  Not a bad place for a business trip me thinks!

Never doubt how Social Media can help develop and drive a brand.  To give you an example of its power you need look no further than Spotify, a company that’s taken the online community by storm since it was founded in 2006 and launched in the UK in October 2008.  Six months on and at a OpenMusicMedia event in London last week Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek confirmed that the company had just days before secured its millionth subscriber, with tens of thousands more joining by the day.

To a certain extent Spotify has been challenging Twitter for UK tech media coverage in the last month.  And you can see way, with a business model that is based on quality and simplicity: streaming music with almost no buffering delay to users.  In fact Daniel was proud of the fact that it takes 200th of a millisecond for somebody to access content.

Founded in Sweden in 2006 from a concept first talked about in 2002 Spotify offers free access to a huge catalogue of music from major and a growing list of indie labels.  And it has to be said that until very recently the majors would have been very much against opening up their catalogues to such a service, even though piracy affects their margins.  Daniel and his team though had a business model that they were confident in and which would help claw back some of the 15-20% drop in revenues from CD sales alone that they have been experiencing.

The Spotify model is not about ownership, but generating income through access.  And if somebody still wants ownership then they can be directed to an appropriate online retailer.

Daniel believed that the music industry could either let things stay as they are with people accessing pirated content online or give them access to a high-quality service that will generate the labels money through advertising.  Oh, and Spotify streams at 160 kbit/s Ogg Orbis, higher quality than Britain’s derised 128 kbit/s Digital Audio Signal, which many people compain about.

Spotify has two business models, a free service that makes money from advertising which is heard every 30 or so minutes on a stream and the second model based on a subscription, which removes the ads and offers other exclusive content to subscribers.  Daniel outlined how this paid service will work by brining artists closer to the users with interviews, demos, pre-releases, artwork and, the next big thing, portability on mobiles.

With a non-music industry background Daniel has certainly brought in new thinking to this game.  He firmly believes that the future of music is about access and portability.

But how did he deal with the recent hack to the Spotify servers? Well, with just two PRs working for Spotify it took a fortnight to repair the damage.  But he takes the reputation of the company seriously, he likes to meet users, like at this event, and sell them the service face-to-face.  In effect making users into advocates for Spotify.  And he follows comments on the company on Twitter.  He was emphatic that Twitter chat helps the company stay focused on the quality of the service they offer.

As for the future, well, they are working on an iPhone app and will be making API’s available to developers and are looking at benefiting from other companies ‘issues’.  I wonder if this could mean the offering of music videos to complement the streaming music service?

One thing is for sure, by going out and meeting people that spread the word of Spotify large and indie labels are taking notice of his offering and are signing up to a service that will only get better.

More from the BBC.