The YouGov survey we commissioned this year as part of the Tamar Search Attitudes series shows how UK consumers across all age groups are evolving online. They use third-party reviews because they trust them, mobile search continues to grow explosively, especially among the young and privacy fears are evident but people can see the benefits of ‘opening up’.

People also overwhelmingly trust and follow natural search links, rather than ‘paid-for’ returns. These embedded attitudes towards finding brand information online means that marketers have been given a clearer signal about ways to manage their brands’ online reputations.

As consumers develop their understanding of how search engines work and access product/service information through different devices, brands do have to be more accessible, useful and relevant. How many company websites do we currently access via mobile that damage the brand because they have not addressed the platform to deliver the best experience?

Whether it’s a mobile app or a web development strategy that delivers content based on the viewing device, the driver is the same – connecting, convincing and converting the people who have searched for your products and services.

It’s the direct route to brand management but we know that companies also need to take a wider view and talk with consumers on the ‘indirect playing field’, leading with brave ideas, challenging the impractical and forming newer ways to understand what makes a successful brand.

Though the way individuals and brands manage their reputation is very different, the TED conference was full of brave, exciting risk-takers in their fields and the challenge is how to take that spirit of innovation and ‘just try it’ back into the to corporate world.

We’ve seen two examples in the past month that show how ‘being brave’ is a brand winner- the Old Spice Twitter takeover and the Home Retail Group stop-motion annual report.  Both of these demonstrate that ideas, concepts and inspiration come from unconventional sources – a constant theme at TED.

If you want to build out a new brand campaign, there’s less to lose and more to gain by feeding TED’s ideas into your online conversations, including examinations of ‘happiness’, the human condition, sustainability and the theme of ‘generosity’.

Internal brand communities have to share and pool brave ideas, so why not encourage them to engage through social media? As they do, they will draw inputs from their customers on product/services that will beat any data from expensive boffins in R&D departments.

I talk with many people in the UK who profess to think this way, but is anyone really doing it? It’s time to walk the talk and stride or be denied.

Tanya is the founder and managing director of Tamar.

Earlier in the week however, we saw a far more interesting piece of news emerge as a Facebook user was awarded £10k in libel damages after his friend falsely accused him of being a pedophile on his profile.

The incident between two former friends occurred following a dispute over owed money. After the fallout, one friend posted an image of child porn on an others wall with the words; “Ray, you like kids and you are gay so I bet you love this picture, Ha ha.”

It was removed within 24 hours, but the courts ruled that damages should be given because hundreds of his friends and contacts would have seen the image. Justice Tugendhat said; “This was not only defamatory, but a defamation which goes to a central aspect of Mr Bryce’s private life as well as his public reputation… I can infer that the number of people who saw this Facebook page would have been in the hundreds.”

This is yet another case that shows how seriously the courts take conversations between people online, and that they have a serious effect on reputation. The relationships formed on social networks are no different to those offline. For brands, the value of peer-to-peer recommendation and word of mouth is widely recognised. Most companies have now acknowledged how this plays out through social media, and as this kind of ruling becomes the norm for individuals, it will eventually affect brands at an increasing rate as well.

Though there are no examples of UK businesses taking people to the courts over libellous posts on social networks (yet), it is useful for brands to understand that the laws that protect their reputation can be acted upon. Though a word of caution; taking customers to court over petty claims would most likely do more to hard a brands image than strengthen it. Choose your battles wisely.

In the first of our regular monthly columns from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR)

The CIPR is currently engaged in a series of conversations with social media thinkers and authors to get under the skin of the issues and discuss their impact on public relations.   Recently, we spoke to Brian Solis, one of the most prominent authors on all matters social (you can listen to the interview on the CIPR website here).

There is a view, held by many, that public relations has an opportunity to be the discipline of choice as organisations engage online, create and participate in conversations with their audiences, feeding back into organisational strategy. The public relations skill set is more suited to working with the increasingly important earned (unpaid) media than perhaps marketers who have predominantly focused on paid media. By media, we are not talking just about traditional media but facilitating communications more broadly.

This also plays to something Brian has discussed in detail in his book “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations” about how public relations has latterly been defined by media relations and publicity rather than its heritage of public engagement.  Whilst media still has an important part to play and there are many fine examples of broader public engagement strategies, social media presents an opportunity for PR to reclaim its heartland. To do so, however, requires influencing skills that are underpinned by sophisticated research and analysis and a cross-function collaborative approach (customer service, community, brand, product development etc) that challenges current communications structures and ‘linear’ skill sets. Not to mention how we measure such engagement (more on this from the CIPR soon).

We asked Brian how accomplished and experienced PR practitioners with a sophisticated understanding of traditional techniques can develop new social engagement skills (not just social consumer but social business). He believes there will be challenges (aren’t there always) but that those who succeed will understand and integrate with all organisational functions, creating new feedback loops, and ultimately, in Brian’s words, “socialising” the entire organisation.

Jay O’Connor is a Fellow of the CIPR and a Chartered Practitioner.

Who do you think has contributed heavily to shaping the online comms space in the UK over the past year? We’ve whittled down the nominations and have opened the public vote for the list below – now it’s up to you to decide the winner.

To cast your vote, text ‘RO’ followed by a space and the number of your chosen person to 82100. You will receive a confirmation message in return (from us via Sponge, the mobile marketing specialists working with us to make this possible) and you can only vote once per mobile number.

You’ve got until midnight on Wednesday 18th August 2010 to make a decision, and the winner will be announced at the awards ceremony on Thursday 23 September 2010.

Speaking of which, we’re also announcing some special ticket packages for the awards night. Tickets are £95 + UK VAT each, but you can get a pair (when booked together) for £160 + UK VAT at a saving of £15 a ticket. Or,  five tickets (also when booked together) for £380 + UK VAT, which means a saving of almost £20 per ticket.

Congratulations to our finalists, and let the voting commence!

RO 1: Stephen Waddington, managing director, Speed (@wadds)

If you know PR, you know Stephen. He has 15 years of experience as a managing director, non executive director and governor, with his current role as managing director of Speed Communications the latest in a line of heading up top agencies. He is also non-executive chairman of Admiral PR & Marketing. A trained journalist, he knows how the media landscape works and champions good practice as an avid blogger in his own right.

RO 2: Ben Ayers, head of social media and community, ITV.com (@benayers)

Ben has been integral in driving ITV.com’s social media efforts, having been with the company for over five years. An open approach as well as an acute understanding of web strategy, makes him a rising star with so much already under his belt from previous roles at Comic Relief, the BBC & Science Museum. Over the past year his work on the X Factor has seen online engagement rocket to a level never before seen by the channel.

RO 3: James Poulter, digital director, Euro RSCG Biss Lancaster (@jamespoulter)

James looks after strategy and planning in the UK for top brands from RBS to Kimberley Clarke. He previously worked within the digital team at Ogilvy Public Relations in London, championing online comms for the likes of Coca-Cola, Virgin Media, Nike and IBM. His mixture of experience in terms of understanding and using the technologies that support good social media activity is what sets him apart, and he’s a poet to boot.

RO 4: Tracy Frauzel, head of digital communications, Greenpeace UK (@greenpeaceuk)

Tracy has been working with Greenpeace for the past eight years, developing online communications both in the office, on ships and in the jungle. Her involvement in arguably one of the most high-profile charity campaigns of the past year in relation to Nestle shows a willingness to make brave decisions in the face of strong ethical beliefs and act calmly when others panic.

RO 5: Francis Ingham, chief executive, PRCA (@prcaingham)

Francis has transformed the PRCA (the trade association that represents PR consultancies and in-house communications teams in the UK) over the past three years. Previously assistant director general at the CIPR (chartered institute of public relations), senior policy advisor at CBI and political advisor for the conservative party.

Brands have been creating market-specific campaigns for years, but the popularity of personalisation is also affecting the way larger companies think about the promotion of their goods.

McDonald’s has been integrating its efforts of late, and following two successful attempts at localised online activity (with 280 variations and Smoothies Spin), has launched two new micro-campaigns in the French and American markets. The first aims to raise awareness, the second to highlight the fast food chain’s ‘natural’ qualities.

McDonald’s France is currently running an online competition in which participants have to find 12 hidden words around the web that symbolise the company’s various McFlurry recipes. They can be found on sponsored banners, as well as on Youtube and Facebook (where the brand is giving out clues as to where to find them, much like Cadbury’s Nibbles campaign). Entries are also gathered via a Facebook app, and the fastest participants with the correct answers will receive one year’s supply of ice cream

The second promotion, which has been launched for Washington State, is focused on the product’s origin. The micro-website on McDonald’s US corporate platform provides visitors with information on where the ingredients of their food were sourced from. According to the site, 95 percent of fries and ‘Filet-O-Fish’ burgers, as well as 85 percent of the apples served from McDonald’s restaurants within Washington State come from farms in Washington area. Pepsi recently announced a partnership with Stickybits to eventually make the same type of information available for its own products.

This is local activity on a huge scale (you can’t really get any bigger in terms of FMCG brands than McDonald’s), but marks a significant trend in terms of using market-specific social media presences and tailored campaigns to reach fans that are made easily accessible online.

In turn, there’s a lesson for PRs. Just because something works in the UK for instance, that doesn’t mean it’ll work in the US – and vice versa. This is common sense to most good PRs, but in order to keep abreast of the development of hyperlocal channels, success and failure as a result of local/online crossovers like these can provide useful lessons.

Well, set to test this status quo is ebuzzing, a ‘social media advertising’ service from the Wikio stable that has just launched in the UK, aiming to connect bloggers with advertisers for cash.

The concept of ‘blog-vertising’ isn’t anything new, with a raft of companies in the US trying to carve out market share while ebuzzing itself launched its French HQ back in 2006.

As an advertising channel,  the blogosphere makes total sense. Certain blogs not only boast a valuable and rich list of subscribers, but have also developed a highly evolved authority, making bloggers a sought after commodity for advertisers.

In Europe, ebuzzing has already run campaigns for the likes of ebay, Diesel, Mastercard, Microsoft and Toyota, and with such high profile brands on board, should bloggers here have anything to fear from the company landing in the UK?

To test the appetite, we set up a poll daddy questionnaire asking; ‘what do you think of services that bring video ads and bloggers together?’

The response (although unscientific) was unanimous, with 100% of paticipants endorsing it as an interesting new channel for advertisers, which I have to agree with, but how does it work?

According to ebuzzing’s press release; “Once registered, bloggers are able to select which campaign they would like to participate in, based upon their interests and likes. Brands are then able to engage with these social media communities through video broadcasting, ethical and disclosed sponsored conversation, widget seeding and forum conversation. By paying bloggers for their work, based upon pre agreed campaign parameters and a blog’s Wikio ranking, ebuzzing ensures accountability and scale.”

What is great about blog-vertising, or social media advertising in the case of ebuzzing, is that it’s up to the blogger whether they deem the campaigns on offer both relevant and interesting to their community. Should they decide that they are, then it is a win-win, as the author earns and the brand benefits.

Compared with banner advertising and even search, blog-vertising offers an advertising channel though which sponsored content can be broadcast to an incredibly targeted audience as bloggers live or die based on the relevance of the content that they post.

With the rules and perceived etiquette around social media and advertising constantly evolving, the ebuzzing service should be congratulated for creating a service which not only recognises and respects the unique requirements of blogger, advertiser and audience, but actually monetises the whole process.

Steve is a director/consultant at mobile and wireless specialist PR agency, infomob.

There won’t be any presentations and there are no sponsors, this is just about interesting people doing interesting work getting together to talk about online comms.

It seems that try as we might to make our Reputation Online social just what it sounds, PR bods do love a sign-up page (and there’s nothing wrong with that). We’re not going to ask you to click through to another site and fill out an unnecessary form however, so just leave a comment below with your name to give us a rough idea of numbers.

See you then!

The official ‘Show & Tell’  channel is a YouTube-run stream that promises to be the ‘home of the best creative marketing examples’ on the site. This includes interactive videos,  brand channels, homepages and viral hits. The ‘Story Of YouTube Car: Introduction’ clip provides a nice explanation of the channel, positioning the car as a product/brand and showing how things have changed within the landscape and why the clips the channel highlights are important within the marketing mix.

Watch the video below to see Philip Stockton, creative director at The Barbarian Group, provide his input on Ogilvy One’s Raisinets campaign.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Finding examples of good practice via the channel is easy, as you can filter by industry (though the scope is limited at the moment) and also by specific activities such as branching storylines, webisodes and community-created campaigns – depending on which type of case study you’re looking for.

It’s not groundbreaking, but this idea has the potential to foster healthy debate within the industry – and share what works and what doesn’t in an open environment.

As Digital Buzz points out, there’s some great content on there already, but it could grow into a much richer resource. It’s a young channel (launched December 2009 but has only really been active since April 2010). Hopefully it will expand as more people discover it and there are more examples of great work to highlight in the first place.

This week we’ve asked five guest bloggers to contribute to the Our Views section of Reputation Online. Today’s post comes from Bryce Keane, account manager at Mulberry Marketing Communications

In the interests of disclosure, I should declare that 14 months ago, when I was living in Australia, GAP Adventures was a client, although it hasn’t been since I relocated to London and it didn’t assist in any way with the writing of this post.

Even so, that’s not the reason this latest tale of deplorable practice by a major brand being exposed publicly via social media crossed my radar. It came to me as a national news story from home and is one of the first times (in Australia, at least) that I’ve seen a story unfolding in real time via Twitter from the US be picked up by a number of bloggers (notably Jaunted and then The Consumerist) and finally end up as nationally syndicated news in Australia thanks to a social media-savvy News Corporation journalist.

For those who haven’t seen it, the story involved everyone’s favourite guitar-breaking US airline, United Airlines, allegedly overbooking a flight from Burlington, Vermont to Washington DC on 13 July. The flight was reported to be overweight so, rather than any cargo or luggage removal, the airline’s staff publicly announced to all passengers that they would remove the 20 passengers who had paid the least for their tickets, naming them in front of the rest of the passengers.

Aboard this flight was Bruce Poon Tip, owner and founder of the world’s largest adventure travel company GAP Adventures and, with 11,355 Twitter followers, an influencer in online travel and business circles. What followed was a series of tweets by Bruce directed at United Airlines, chronicling the entire saga. Those forced to leave the flight were reported to be predominantly families and the elderly. Eventually someone at United responded to the deluge of targeted tweets with: “What airport and what gate? We’ll look into this,” and “This shouldn’t have happened. We are locating the correct station and gate no. and will address the issue today.”

Although it’s nice that whoever manages United’s digital presence finally attempted to address the issue, this is essentially the extent of their response. As of Wednesday, a week after the initial incident (with no follow-up, apology or explanation from United since), Business Week published an article on the incident claiming that six passengers volunteered to leave and only one was bumped, yet all were compensated with “a $600 travel voucher and flew out the following day”.

As United became famous around the world for refusing to claim responsibility for breaking a little-known band’s guitars, which was promptly answered by the band putting the whole experience in song and uploading it to YouTube where it went viral, I find myself less inclined to believe this side of the story. Combine what appears to be a too little, too late response to the incident with increasing brand damage as more media outlets continue to contact Bruce via Twitter – along with the exposure of an apparent internal view that passengers who book in advance or seek out deals are considered less valuable to the carrier – and the odds don’t look good for United.

I also can’t shake the lingering feeling that travel companies must surely be a constant source of business for airlines like United. This alone should be enough to instigate a much quicker response from the airline to limit damage to its brand. In later tweets, in response to public and media attention, Bruce went to great length to declare that he wasn’t attacking the airline, merely the way the incident was handled. Yet there’s still no response from the airline aside from the tweets listed above.

This isn’t the first time an airline has found itself under fire after passengers have used social media to uncover questionable practices, and I doubt it’ll be the last. So I wonder if this may go down as yet another case where a big organisation could stand to learn a valuable lesson or two from a smaller one? Or perhaps United simply needs to realise that, thanks to social media, every passenger now has a powerful voice and, most importantly, take a step back and remember that its customers are people, not walking dollar signs.

This week we’ve asked five guest bloggers to contribute to the Our Views section of Reputation Online. Today’s post comes from Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media

Ask any social media practitioner in the UK to give an example of a brand that has generated tangible revenue from social media and you’ll hear the same four-letter word over and over again. As an industry we’re still desperately clinging on to the (admittedly brilliant) Dell and Twitter case study as the ultimate ace up our sleeves when someone questions the validity of social media marketing. Two things worry me about this. First, given the pace of social media, why are we clinging on to case studies that are nearly three years old? Second, why do we still have to justify social media to our clients? This is the same problem and has the same solution: we need to practise what we preach more.

If more brands shared in such an open way, then perhaps the world of social media would be a place that was slightly easier to understand, less full of confusion and therefore more trusted and more invested in by brands. Hey, we’d all make more money and that’s something we can all agree we want more of, right? The responsibility has to lie with agencies, though. We need to encourage our clients to share and celebrate their successes and failures publicly, and to provide a meaningful and open contribution to the dialogue.

So let’s practise what we preach. Let’s be a bit more open, a bit more honest. Let’s make sure we benchmark our campaigns so we have worthwhile data to share in the first place. Let’s encourage our clients to share their successes and failures so that we, as an industry, can learn, evolve and move forward in the world of social media

We advise our clients on how to be open, honest and transparent and yet, as agencies working in the social space, we very rarely share case studies, ROI metrics or measurement tactics among ourselves. Why is this? Surely the more success stories we share that are backed up with tangible delivery objectives will only make our lives easier?

Last week, Domino’s, one of my clients at Arena Quantum, publically stated the amount of revenue attributed to its social media marketing initiatives. The mix of its social communities, affiliate marketing and superfans programmes has been responsible for driving sales growth through its ecommerce unit by 61.4%.

The IAB has done some brilliant work to open up the conversation on social media measurement while damning the agency culture of #FAIL – an industry gloating on the failures of our peers. We’re all still learning how social media works and I urge us to move towards a culture of unity rather then one of rivalry, bitching and closed thinking. You have my word that Havas Media will approach social in this spirit. Who’s with me?