Speaking in Manchester tonight, Al Mackin, Managing Director of SEO Consultancy – The E Word – launched their Manchester Twitter report. This is one of the first white papers which aims to highlight some of the key influencers on Twitter in the region using slightly more complicated methodology than number of followers. The aim of the report was to begin to identify best practice across key sectors, it makes for an interesting read.
Amongst some of the other content tonight, there was also an attempt to identify the social media capital of Europe. Surprisingly, this was highlighted as Madrid, in Spain, with London, Paris and Manchester following closely. Head of Social Media at Juice Digital, Steve Downes, looked at an index analysis which showed that Manchester has a higher penetration of its population using Twitter when compared to London, which was interesting, so the region is really taking off, which was good to hear.
The landscape is really beginning to change out there, not just in Europe, but further afield too. China has over 90 million people that have written a blog, a simply staggering thought when you combine it with the fact that they have more English speakers than we do population in the UK and a signal that global reach is stretching. 52% of Indian based businesses use social media activley, when compared to only 33% of UK businesses. With 65M Tweets being sent every day and a further 300,000 new users signing up daily too, it’s no surprise that business wants to join the conversation.
Legal beagles Pannone took the stage to ground the social mediaphoria by reminding attendees that social media is not excluded from the law, including libel. Their advice was to have a crisis management policy, a social media policy and make sure that if anyone really takes offence to something you posted, to remove it, unless you are absolutely sure it is true. All standard stuff, but something to beware and plan for. Three interesting facts that I took away were: -
1) Twitter (the entity) can potentially be jointly liable for any libellous Tweets if it is reported to them and they do not remove it.
2) Digital libel (unlike normal libel which normally has a one year window) re-sets every time someone view the post, which means that the window for action may remain open in perpetuity. I’m no lawyer, however, I’m sure that would be a nightmare if it happened. A good reason to have a robust policy.
3) Your staff contracts should be reviewed to include things such as digital bullying and defamatory statements made outside of work about you the employer.
Overall, it was a good event. Not the usual “jump on the bus” type of event, a little more educational and something for everyone.
