A fascinating example of this is the way that professional footballers have made use of Twitter. Obviously, a case could easily be made to say that footballers’ use of social media is as commercial as any business; akin to a celebrity feeling the need to consolidate or bolster public profile to attract sponsorship or advertising opportunities. Only last week, Rio Ferdinand used his Twitter account to effectively advertise (much to the chagrin of Twitter itself) with a somewhat unsubtle twit-pic of him sucking on a Snickers bar.

And yet, I dare say that most footballers lack the business ingénue to really use Twitter solely for commercial gain. Instead it would seem that most footballers, media trained to within an inch of their life, relish the chance to engage a wider public with their own voice; a rare chance to speak beyond the weird cliché riddles that make up the entirety of pre and post match interviews. Indeed, it seems to be of increasing concern to the FA that players have begun to express themselves through the medium – with one senior figure inside the sport (name not disclosed by The Daily Telegraph) likening footballers on twitter as the equivalent of ‘giving a monkey a chainsaw’. However, regardless of how they view it, Twitter is a tiny bit of personal PR that seems increasingly precious to players regularly dissected in the press on both front and back pages.

Of course, it takes a bit of nous to use Twitter well. While some players have successfully combatted the stereotype of footballers as people who would lose a battle of wits with a pebble, others have not.  Step forward Ryan Babel. No one expected the former Liverpool player to be a closet genius; which was lucky, because his Twitter activity has confirmed his claim toward village idiot status.  Not only did he post a picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt following a match last January (leading to a hefty fine from the FA) but his general (and frequent) posting strikes the tone of a pre-pubescent child who has been necking skittles behind his mum’s back.

But at least it is entertaining – I for one would much rather learn about the finer details of Ryan Babel’s new swimming trunks (which he has disclosed) in Anglo-Dutch gangsta-patois than read homophobic comments posted by (former) Leicester player Michael Ball. It’s one thing to be stupid enough to actually be a homophobe; it is a whole other level of stupid to reveal them on a public forum. Having been fined £6,000 and released by his club conveniently soon after the incident, this was perhaps the most extreme example of a personal PR catastrophe on Twitter, and the demonstration of the potential damage that 140 characters can really do.

On the other hand, there is one footballer that has used Twitter in a quite ridiculously brilliant way, dragging his reputation out of the U-bend and into the periphery of respectability. Joey Barton’s renaissance as a public figure has been as swift as it has been surprising. Pre-Twitter everything that anybody knew about Barton suggested a manboy destined to spend his life in the slammer. It was true that he had proved to be a moderately decent player, but in his spare time he primarily liked assaulting people he passed in the street (or teammates – whoever really) and poking lit cigarettes into the eyes of others to settle arguments. With a criminal record longer than Tolstoy novel, his public and professional reputation seemed utterly irredeemable.

But then he got himself on Twitter. Suddenly, the person whose actions had hitherto suggested a walnut-sized brain was revealed as articulate and intelligent. Opinionated yes, but his tweeting is also interesting, engaging and in possession of an insightful perspective of the sport that obsesses the nation. But he was also keen to talk with fellow tweeters about other things; lyrics by The Smiths, politics and even Greek philosopher Aristotle (ARISTOTLE!!). When warned for his tweeting candour relating to recent criticism of former QPR boss Neil Warnock last week, Barton railed against the ‘Orwellian’ tone of the FA letter. Accordingly, it has become clear not only that Barton is no dunce, but that following him is really worth it. He currently has upwards of a million followers – a figure most businesses would kill for.

In short, Barton has used Twitter to reveal his personality. He has made himself accessible to fans and journalists alike, and in doing so has cultivated a new level of respect as both a professional and as a public figure. He remains a controversial character of course, but controversial in a way that makes him good pundit material (he recently appeared on Match of the Day), as opposed to controversial in the whether-or-not-he-should–be-incarcerated sort of way.

And all because of Twitter. Barton’s tweets make the most of an inclusive medium, allowing him to slowly re-mould the perception of his character before our very eyes. Of course, this new perception as is not necessarily any closer to reality than the old one as an ignorant thug (for all we know Barton’s Twitter may be operated by a crack PR team of super-tweeters) but the fact is that the account has demonstrated just how powerful a tool Twitter can be in public relations. Moreover, Barton’s Twitter has provided a handy little blueprint for social media marketers: be interesting, be engaging, be responsive, but above all, give your account a genuine sense of personality and make followers believe that you offer the promise of something more than simply the service/product/brand that you promote.

“Ah, Facebook…”

This is the usual response I get when conducting social media training sessions with PR teams and I mention the world’s number one social network. Unfortunately that all-too-familiar ‘I know about Facebook’ grin is usually just a symptom of one of the most prevalent myths in PR today: that using Facebook every day means you know how to use it on behalf of a brand.

A large proportion of PR consultants (usually at junior levels, which is worrying in itself) have set up a Facebook fan page for a client. Usually, in my experience, this is a Facebook fan page that keeps them and everyone else on the six-strong PR team, plus a couple of people in the client’s marketing department perhaps, fully up-to-date with hot news fresh from the day they set up the fanpage last year, following which they quickly regarded it as a box ticked and left it alone. It’s sometimes quite difficult to explain that this does not constitute a social media strategy – a Facebook page left to gather digital dust with little more than syndicated news releases and product photos will do very little to garner a community of online advocates. It might even do more harm than good.

Despite it’s frequent misuse for marketing, nothing can detract from the fact that the leading social network can be an incredibly effective tool for engaging with audiences online and achieving broader communications objectives. Here’s our Social Media 101 guide to using Facebook…

Should we use Facebook?

It might seem like a no-brainer; Facebook is the world’s largest social network with (as of right now) over 24.4 million accessible users in the UK. For consumer brands, you would need a pretty strong reason to avoid trying to connect with audiences through the network – the potential opportunities are just huge. For B2B brands it’s a bit different, but all the same, Facebook can be very effective in professional circles too when coordinated properly. The key starting point is to look at the existing relevant and related communities for a brand – the existing reach of these unofficial channels gives an initial yardstick measurement of potential reach for your Facebook presence. However, it is essential to look at these communities from a qualitative standpoint as well as a quantitative one; as with any PR activity, risks and opportunities must first be identified and outlined before you get involved.

What’s the difference between a fan page, a group or an event?

Fan pages, compared with groups and events, are relatively new and developed principally as a reaction to brand involvement in groups and events, as well as a key driver for Facebook ad sales. Fan pages do exactly what they say on the tin – they are a hub for fans of a specific brand, personality, event or even turn-of-phrase. Groups usually (although rarely, when managed by brands) are focused on a movement of some kind – a cause or activity to support. It was a Facebook group, not a fan page, that got Rage Against the Machine to number one this Christmas. Events are simply that – a great way to coordinate and organise events, whether you are a multinational brand or someone arranging a hen night. These three tools are not mutually exclusive – all can be used by one brand if done correctly – but a fan page offers by far the best analytics (which I’ll get on to).

How do I set up a Facebook fan page?

That’s the easy part – if you’re not a member of Facebook already, become one. Then on your home page, you will have a set of icons on the left, one of which reads ‘Ads and Pages’ (as pictured below). Click on that icon, and it directs you to a page whereby you can build your page. Easier still, if you access another brand’s fan page, there is an option at the bottom of the page to ‘create a page for my business’. Simple. If you want to customise your page – there are the usual Facebook options with regards to your avatar, or you can get a design agency (such as, ahem, Manifest) to code an entirely customised page for you.

It's simple to set up a fan page

How do I grow our Facebook community?

This is the obvious question and one that doesn’t have an easy answer. The only way to both build and maintain a sizable community on Facebook is through quality, relevant content that is updated regularly. However, there are a few ways to give your Facebook community a kick start (I’m not going to list them all here but…). First of all, if you’ve read the above sections, you should have already discovered the existing related and relevant pages and groups on Facebook. Interact with them. Tell them about your site, but make sure there is a reason behind it. Tagging posts on Facebook is a technique rarely used by brands but this is the most polite and effective way to gain exposure on other fan pages/groups, whilst also requiring you to be relevant to that audience. For instance, when promoting the fact T3 had picked a SANYO camera in its Hot 100 on the SANYO Facebook page, simply linking to T3’s community through an @tag to the T3 fan page meant our post automatically appeared on T3’s wall as well, giving the brand relevant exposure to 4,299 gadget fans, as well as SANYO’s own community.

What should I post on Facebook?

In a word: everything. People only become fans in order to be more connected and involved with a brand. As such, content should be high quality and regular. As well as syndicating news and media rich content from other sites, it’s important to draw content and contributions from the audience itself. The power of social networks is the capacity to engage in a genuine dialogue with audiences and Facebook is no different. However – make sure the people writing the content are in touch with those reading it – a lot of brand fan pages read like they are updated by my dad… “hey gang…”

How do I measure success?

Analytics is a constantly evolving component of Facebook. Called ‘insights’, each fan page has a collection of data that can be exported and analysed in a myriad of ways. Post-by-post analytics is a new feature that allows you to see what content got the most reaction, which should be used to inform the content you create moving forward. Weekly update emails can also be activated to inform you of progress on a regular basis.

So – there you have it – Facebook 101. There’s obviously much, much more to developing a successful brand presence on Facebook than a blog post can tell you, but this post should hopefully give some insight into the answers for the most common questions. If not, feel free to ask questions as comments and we’ll respond with more specific advice.

The delicious icon is made up of the four key colours of HTML.

Delicious, or del.icio.us as it used to be known before it was revamped when it was bought by Yahoo! in 2005, is a social bookmarking site. Now, there will probably be 10% of you nodding your head saying, “yes, I know that already thanks,” But the vast majority are still getting to grips with social bookmarking (certainly compared with the numbers embracing social networks). The fact is that not only are social bookmarking and folksonomy tools the most useful things you’ll ever use during a day’s browsing, they also have a wealth of opportunities for brands looking to tap into the communications potential of the web.

What is Delicious anyway?

So, first of all, let’s run through what Delicious actually is. The amazing guys at Common Craft have created an entertaining and jargon-free video guide here, but in basic terms, social bookmarking tools like Delicious do exactly what they say on the tin. Just like you bookmark pages on your browser, social bookmarks allow you to save links to pages, which are stored to your account once you’ve registered. The obvious benefit of this is that you can access them anywhere – from work, from home, from an internet café in Mumbai etc etc, rather than them being stored on your browser on one machine. However, it was also Delicious and its ilk that actually drove the adoption of tagging bookmarks, meaning organising and navigating through your bookmarks is easy, regardless of how many you have. Every time you save a bookmark you add keywords or ‘tags’ that define why that page is interesting to you. This means if you’re looking for a website about needles in a haystack, simply click on the tag ‘needle’ and the tag ‘haystack’ and you’ll find what you’re looking for (even if it was hidden amongst thousands of other bookmarks).

Why are Social Bookmarks so special?

The key to the benefits of Delicious, however, lies in the word ’social’. Just as I can rifle through my own bookmarks using tags to find information relevant to what I’m looking for, I can also search through the bookmarks of those people in my network. For instance, if I’m a teacher compiling a lesson plan about WWII, I’m not just restricted to looking back at the pages I tagged as relevant to WWII, I can search those of my colleagues and contemporaries. It’s a knowledge sharing tool.

How can a brand use Delicious?

All of the above explains how Delicious is useful for any user on a day-to-day basis. However, there are a number of obvious (and not so obvious) ways to use Delicious from a brand perspective. These are: organisation, optimisation, community and insight (not necessarily in that order).

Organisation: If you’re a brand with a lot of content online that just doesn’t get used, then Delicious could be a huge asset for you. Adobe, for instance, has an amazing spectrum of tutorials for its software – and it uses Delicious very effectively to both organise that content and make it easily accessible for its users. Check out delicious.com/adobe to see what I mean.

Adobe uses Delicious to organise its thousands of online tutorials

Optimisation: If you want people to share your content, you should provide the Delicious icon on all of your news and dynamic content. As a dedicated Delicious user, I won’t pretend it makes the process much easier (I have the Delicious FireFox extension) but it does give me a quick reminder to bookmark something. There are also loads of SEO benefits to having content that is bookmarked on Delicious and other sites.

Community: It’s essential for brands to develop a relationship with its loyal customers, and social networks offer a fantastic opportunity to forge and maintain these relationships. Delicious is no different. If you’re looking to share links – perhaps you’re promoting a fashion brand and want to share sites of designers or fashion tips – then Delicious is a perfect place to keep them. Twitter integration also means you can automatically tweet whenever you save a bookmark.

Insight: Now here’s the really clever bit. If you navigate to http://www.delicious.com/url you can enter any URL and see who has bookmarked it, and what tags they used. This provides an amazing source of information not only on user experience (users often add notes to specific searches) but also on how users define your brand. Tiffany’s famously changed their SEO policy around the fact that people had tagged their home page on Delicious under ’shopping’ rather than ‘luxury’ and ‘diamonds’ which were the keywords they framed their SEO strategy around. Delicious tags don’t tell you how you want your brand to be defined, they tell you how your brand (and its website) is actually defined by its users. Used wisely, this is priceless information.

So there you have it – Delicious in a nutshell. There’s obviously much more to say that can’t fit in a single blog post so feel free to leave questions in the comments and we’ll do what we can to answer them.