The Daily Telegraph is making strides in implementing its online strategy after the latest ABCe figures revealed that the Mail Online had overtaken it to become the UK’s most popular national newspaper site in May, with 18.7 million unique users.

Crucially, the Telegraph isn’t just thinking that having a Facebook and Twitter presence is the key to a great digital strategy, like so many of its rivals. What the Telegraph has realised is that just as social media allows individuals to consume media in a more fragmented and personalised way, so they can actually benefit from that, by allowing individuals to follow personalised sections of Telegraph content. The dream for content owners trying to fight against falling traditional media circulations, is being able to segment and offer their content online to their audience in a completely personalised way. It’s quite an involved process to achieve that when you consider how broad a national newspaper’s coverage is, and how many segments that could be, but the Telegraph has taken a big first step on that road, and with these widgets is making an important stride into the mobile space too.

What is worth noting about the Telegraph’s approach is that six of its eight new widgets are all designed to drive traffic and engagement with Telegraph TV - the online video that’s become so important to all the major newspapers. Beyond that, there’s a breaking news widget and a toe in the water with a slightly more ‘niche’ European Championships Football widget. Apparently there are plans to launch further specific sports and business widgets shortly.

Above all this shows the Telegraph’s open approach to digital and clear understanding that it’s not just about pushing people through the Telegraph.co.uk front page, or amassing a number of fans on a Facebook page or twitter feed, but giving people direct access to the content they are really interested in, in the way they want it. We’ll just have to see in the next two or three months how big an impact that will have on the ABCe figures…

So I was asked by PR Week on Monday for my views on Gordon Brown’s Ask the PM initiative on YouTube. This was the latest foray into the online world by Downing Street, following its recent embrace of Twitter. My assessment that Ask the PM “smacks of gimmickry and desperation” led the article and there was a clear consensus from other industry commentators, that this project was a typical case of ‘too little, too late’.

I had a couple of interesting conversations on Friday in response to the piece. These boiled down to the argument that as a Social Media evangelist I should have welcomed the initiative, however imperfect, as a step in the right direction. Sorry to disappoint.

I have come to a view, which has hardened in recent months, that high profile examples of digital tokenism such as Ask the PM, are actually devaluing the real potential of Social Media. They are feeding a scepticism which makes the pioneering work we are doing unnecessarily difficult.

A couple of years ago, the medium was the message when it came to organisations adopting Social Media. This was typified by those endless stories in the national press, with leading youth brands like IBM and PA Consulting opening virtual offices in Second Life. Today, the filter I always use when assessing Social Media initiatives, my own and others, is whether the communication objectives and creative approach are actually more interesting than the digital platform(s) being utilised.

Using this filter, Ask the PM just doesn’t cut it. It’s not a genuine attempt by Gordon Brown to reconnect and really start listening to a disillusioned electorate. His comment at the end of his welcome video, where he states, “I’ll be back to talk to you at some point…” betrays a total lack of understanding of the two-way conversation that Social Media enables. You may as well write a letter and stick it in the post - you’d probably get a quicker reply!

In my mind the YouTube channel, the Twitter feed and whatever online gimmick is announced next, is primarily about metaphor, the hope that some shiny digital zeitgeist will rub off on an increasingly lacklustre Prime Minister. Equally, it’s a clumsy attempt by the new Downing St communications team to ‘get with it’ and reduce the gaping void between their digital approach and that of the Opposition.

As I have been saying a lot this week in new business pitches, Social Media is not a magic wand. Ultimately whatever Stephen Carter and his team try to do, Gordon Brown at heart, will always remain an analogue politician in a digital age.

Rupert Murdoch’s $580million acquisition of MySpace may have seemed a steal compared to the $240m Microsoft paid for a 1.6 per cent stake in Facebook, but all is not well with Murdoch’s plans for his social network, and it is being felt in its stock price after Fox Interactive Media (where MySpace sits in the News Corp empire) reported it would miss its 2008 revenue goal of $1billion. News Corp’s stock price has slipped 9.9 per cent this year alone.

Sure, Murdoch is throwing money at MySpace to expand into India and South Korea and add a music downloads service, but the social network is struggling to attract and retain advertisers in the volumes it needs because of the risk of their brands being shown next to inappropriate user-generated content. It is precisely the freedom and flexibility MySpace user love so much, which is causing the company problems with advertisers.

Bloomberg reports that Fox Interactive’s costs will rise a massive 46 per cent this year as they bid to open new channels for MySpace - almost as much as revenue is expected to grow. The bottom line with investors is that while MySpace continues to try to grow its audience in different markets - it is still failing to fully monetise the vast audience it already has.

However, today MySpace launched a new ad platform to give advertisers more control over where their ads are being run. It is a small step - arguably long overdue - but whether it will solve the site’s short-term adveritsing issues remains to be seen, when rival networks have already stolen a lead. While Facebook wrestles privacy issues, today enabling an ad system opt-out, it is at least driving strong advertising revenue.

MySpace’s hope has to be in the medium term, beating Facebook into new markets where advertiser sensitivity to site content is far less pronounced, doesn’t it?

Beleaguered British broadcaster ITV is peddling fast to catch up with the rest of the digital world by announcing a deal this morning with Bebo to show its ITV2 programming on the social network. The move comes as ITV struggles with a decline in global content revenues and Michael Grade is increasingly waking up to online as the new distribution channel, but anything ITV has produced in terms of its online video player thus far lags so far behind rival BBC’s iPlayer.

The Bebo deal is interesting on a number of fronts - it’s cheap and arguably quick to deploy as a bandage measure to help stem ITV’s hemorrhaging younger viewers - an increasing number of which are getting all the broadcast content they want online and on-demand. Secondly, given that ITV owns Friends Reunited, you have to ask why it chose someone else’s social network as a digital route to market…

Despite insisting he is ahead of where he expected to be, ITV’s shares have fallen more than 20 per cent since the start of the year as Michael Grade struggles to turn the corporation’s fortunes around, and to clearly articulate the corporation’s digital strategy. Let’s hope when it is finally revealed it is not ‘digital on ice’… and in the meantime Holly Willoughby can continue to keep ITV’s weekend end up, but for how much longer?

The rise of Social Media, whether it be blogging, social networks or YouTube has created a new generation of consumer content creators. Individuals now have tools to publish and broadcast their views on your organisation, brand or industry and potentially reach an audience of millions with the simple click of a mouse.

As the content creation generation matures, what are the implications for traditional media? Will today’s news organisations whether in print, TV or online survive and more importantly retain their authority and influence? How are media outlets adapting to the rise in ‘citizen journalism’ and reaching out to the public to help create the news?

Above all, what are the implications of Social Media for the symbiotic relationship between the media and PR industry that has endured for so long? On Wednesday March 26th the Greater London Group is bringing together an expert panel to debate these fundamental issues and attempt to find some answers including:

- Pete Clifton, the BBC’s Head of Editorial Development and Multi-Media Journalism

- Shane Richmond, Communities Editor of Telegraph.co.uk.

- Stephen Davies, Webitpr, Social Media and PR blogger

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Cost: Tickets for this event are £20 for CIPR members and £25 for non CIPR members.

Booking: To reserve your place please email Marta Sadowska on marta@dapr.com. Payment in advance by cheque is required. Cheques made payable to CIPR Greater London Group should be sent to Marta Sadowska, Davies Associates, 95 York Street, London W1H 4QG quoting your membership number, email address and contact phone number. An electronic invoice or receipt can be supplied on request. The closing date for bookings is Wed 19 March 2008.

The leading lights of the digital industry gathered in Soho last night for a Chinwag Live event tackling the contentious issue of Measuring Social Media. The expert panel included Alex Burmaster from Nielsen Online, Robin Grant of 1000heads, Ankur Shah Co-founder of Techlightenment, Will McInnes of Nixon McInnes with Jim Sterne from the Web Analytics Association in the chair. While the debate generated a little heat there was a disappointing if not unsurprising, lack of light. The discussion covered four key strands:

1. Can Social Media be measured?
2. If it can, what’s the best way to do it?
3. Do we need an industry standard set of metrics?
4. Would such metrics actually be of interest/any use to the CEO?

The debate resisted the urge to begin by defining Social Media, but many of the difficulties around measurement are rooted in its disparate nature. Counting hits on YouTube, the number of friends on MySpace or downloads of a Facebook application are at the ‘relatively straightforward’ end of the measurement spectrum with blog conversations, product reviews on forums, negative search results etc, at the other. We are all used to measuring clicks but conversations are another matter.

Will made the point early on that there is something counter-intuitive about measuring “conversations” and questioned whether automated monitoring services from the Nielsen’s of this world can attempt to do that effectively. When it comes to analysis of human interactions people are slow and computers are dumb he added. I have to agree, from personal experience in producing social media audits for FTSE 100 companies, the value of those reports are not contained in the statistics but in the commentary and analysis of the data and trends.

Numbers need to be put into context by professionals who understand the company, its products and customers and the industry it is operating in. Apparently we are going to have to wait until 2029 for machines to become as intelligent as man, so until then slow humans and dumb computers are going to need to work better together to generate meaningful insight into Social Media impact. There are no short-cuts or quick fixes, which for those wishing to sell their Social Media expertise is surely a good thing?

Whether the evaluation process would be helped by developing an industry agreed set of metrics was the next question. Some on the panel strongly advocated the sector working together to develop open standards for measurement and effectiveness. Some in the audience shared their own proprietary and largely fluffy approaches, while others argued that it would be an impossible task.

This part of the discussion for me showed the digital industry at its parochial and navel gazing worst. Given the pace at which the landscape is developing, by the point a set of metrics had been agreed (conservatively c.2011) they would have limited relevance to the current reality. My frustration was shared by others in the audience and highlighted by a questioner who hit the nail on the head in arguing that it’s the outcomes rather than the outputs of Social Media which really matter the most to organisations.

In my mind Social Media techniques need to be employed to address specific marketing and business challenges and to reach out to specific audiences. The objectives and desired outcomes of a campaign whether it’s to directly drive sales, mitigate a crisis, reshape a reputation or whatever are going to be so particular to the client concerned that developing a one-size-fits-all set of metrics really misses the point.

Ultimately, with Social Media as with so much else, it’s not measuring it that counts but what you do with it!

Further reviews of the night from Wendy McAuliffe, Stuart Bruce and Seb Mysko.

Check-out this link next week to hear the podcast of the event.

Does the PR industry have a sufficient set of guidelines on the use of Social Media? That’s the argument which has been triggered by Edelman’s Simon Collister and Colin Farrington, DG of the CIPR. Last week Simon called on the CIPR to provide clear guidance on the ethical use of Social Media in a letter to PR Week, which elicited a response from Colin pointing out that the CIPR published its Social Media Guidelines in January 2007 and that Simon had in fact been involved in their development.

Simon has responded on his blog, remembering the guidelines do exist but pointing out that his recommendations were apparently largely ignored. Having read Simon’s detailed submission I’m a little confused. One of the main thrusts of his argument is that social media practice is little different from traditional media relations, and that the guidelines make too much of a distinction. While I would agree that there are many shared principles, I don’t see how that fits with his original plea for the CIPR to produce a clear (and presuambly discrete) set of guidelines on the use of Social Media.

There is also criticism that the Guidelines lack detail. Putting to one side that it would be an impossible task, I don’t think it’s the role of the CIPR to develop a bible on how to use Social Media with tactic-by-tactic step-by-step instructions. That ongoing and constantly evolving process is one which individual agencies and consultants need to tackle in their own way.

I think that there are two key points which need to be considered. Firstly the guidelines should be just that – guidelines which communicate the core principles which should govern the implementation of Social Media PR. Secondly, the guidelines need to be designed to be used by the entire PR industry not the relatively tiny clique of PR practitioners who have been living and breathing Social Media for years.

I regularly help to organise and attend CIPR events and I’m no longer surprised to meet PR directors for some of the UK’s largest brands who are still in the dark about the ‘rules’ of engaging with Social Media. I remember there was a rather parochial debate back in 2006 about whether a separate set of guidelines was in fact necessary for Social Media. In my experience for 90% of ordinary practitioners in 2008 it is still seen as new and discrete and they want specific guidance.

Keeping these points in mind I think the CIPR’s Social Media Guidelines are a good starting point. They don’t preach to the converted and they emphasise the importance of transparency and integrity and the unacceptability of unethical tactics such as astro-turfing and spamming.

One year on since their first publication there have been a number of significant developments which need to be considered for inclusion in the next update of the Guidelines, not least SEO. I agree completely with Simon that they really need to be formally reviewed on a six monthly basis in order to remain relevant. You can call me a radical but perhaps that development and consultation process could even be conducted via a dedicated blog where everyone with a genuine interest can easily contribute, debate and shape the outcome?

I would be the first to admit that the CIPR has been historically slow to embrace social media and there have been some serious missteps along the way, but we are by no means starting from scratch. Going back to Simon’s original point we do need a set of Social Media Guidelines which remain robust and relevant and it would benefit the PR industry for as many practitioners as possible to be involved in their ongoing development.

I’ve already predicted that all things video will be big this year, so very interesting to see a new application called Zannel which is billing itself as the first ‘Instant Media Messaging’ service. The programme allows you to send photos and videos taken with your mobile via sms to appear on your Facebook page as near real-time updates on what you’re up to. There are companies offering elements of this already and a number of start-ups trying to create a platform agnostic Video Twitter. All Facebook has some more detail and highlights the applications ease of use, always the holy grail with any mobile software. Definitely one to watch…

Online display advertising and online sponsorship will hold up advertising market and take the lion’s share of ever-increasing online spends. That bold assertion is the key finding of a report from Convera, a US-based vertical search firm. It cuts clearly against the rest of the industry consensus that paid search and social media will take a greater share of the online budget.

So what’s the real beef? Well as CPM and PPC costs continue to swell, they occupy very specific niches. CPM for brand awareness and paid search for leads. But social networks lilke Facebook, MySpace and Bebo are all carving out ever larger slices of the online spend as marketers begin to understand how they can make them work to generate quality leads that are more likely to become paying customers.

Will publishers earn more from display ads and sponsorships in 2008? The larger players, namely portals such as MSN, AOL and Tiscali will continue to cream revenue off channel sponsorships. But as social networks account for an increasing volume of overall Internet traffic (and in November accounted for over 5 per cent of UK internet traffic, overtaking webmail sites) the money will shift in line with where the lion’s share of the available advertising inventory is, meaning publishers will need to become more creative and go beyond simple display and sponsorship opportunities that were the bread and butter of the glory days of 2000.