My Edelman Digital colleagues have a paid internship available for somebody to work in the London office across several accounts; assisting with content, reporting, community management, idea generation and a lot more.

The team is looking for someone with a qualification in Media, PR, Marketing or a related discipline, but are more than happy to talk to bright people with other qualifications too. The ideal candidate will have a solid grasp of digital, social media and Web 2.0 tools, as well as superior research (qualitative and quantitative), writing and editing skills.

They need somebody who can work effectively with team members and clients, and who is highly organised, detail-oriented and a self-starter with the ability to efficiently manage multiple deadlines. The candidate will also have experience in using tools such as MS Word, Powerpoint and Excel, as well as an understanding of other digital tools.

Also, in an era where unpaid internships are unfortunately all too common, I’m proud to say that my employer has publicly committed to pay the minimum wage to interns and subsequently, this internship pays £15k per year.

 The main responsibilities are:

• Assist with in basic community management and updating to Facebook pages and Twitter channels
• Involvement in every aspect of creating and implementing innovative content plans and campaigns
• Prepare and/or review all client reports, including but not limited to activity reports, monthly reports and status reports, incorporating audience and sentiment analysis
• Assist with content plan
• Develop understanding of client’s internal organisation, business and sector
• Work with client on day-to-day basis
• Manage work process, supporting senior account team members as appropriate
• Keep account team abreast of timelines and deadlines
• Analyse key word research
• Exhibit effective project management working closely with account teams
• Analyse market research including using online services

I know and have worked with the team during my time at Edelman and can vouch that it’s a fun, exciting, challenging and fast-paced environment; a great way to cut your teeth in the world of digital and work with some fantastic clients.

If you’re interested in the internship, drop Eamonn Carey an email at Eamonn.Carey@edelman.com

I received an email last week from industry colleague Roger Warner, Founder of Content & Motion telling me of their latest vacancy which may interest SWT readers.

C&M is looking for a Social SEO Executive to work with Hackett, IBM, Continental, Rightmove, TomTom amongst others. They are an online PR agency specialising in social media PR and social SEO, based in Lewes, East Sussex.

It sounds like a fantastic role and for me, encapsulates the two key PR battlegrounds for the future – search and content. I’ve followed the fortunes of C&M since I interviewed Roger back in 2009 when they were a fledgling agency and having caught up with him at the recent Social Media Week panel event, it’s good see the agency doing so well.

Likely candidates will be those who:

• Have been working as an SEO for the past few years

• Understand that their world is changing and want a new role where Social wizardry is the name of the game

• Read SEOMoz and the like on a daily basis

• Enjoy a good Whiteboard Friday

Desired skills and experience:

• Research, create and deliver game-changing Search and Social programs

• Deliver on all the traditional SEO basics – programs for linkbuilding, content syndication and so forth

• Understand how Content and Social Media strategies are fundamentally changing the nature of SEO– and can implement programs to exploit new opportunities

• Deliver research, insight, analysis and action plans that opens up new traffic acquisition (and engagement) possibilities via Social Media

• Establish strong links between Search and Social Media Marketing – and back this up with data and analysis

• Pick out a Search and Social trend at 30 paces

• Specify, plan and deliver projects on time and on quality

• Flip a brilliant piece of insight into a working program with more élan than Eric Cantona lobbed goalkeepers

• Deliver a winning client service experience

• Work collaboratively across internal work groups to deliver out of the park programs and solutions

For more information about the role, please click here.

On Monday 1 March 2011 the extended Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) remit will come into effect. A lot has been made of this ruling and the impact it will have on social media and digital marketing.

The ASA previously stated the remit will cover “advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space online under their control, that are directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts, or which consist of direct solicitations of donations as part of their own fund-raising activities.”

One of the key takeaways for me is user generated content. As soon as a company is seen to respond to UGC, for instance a post on its Facebook page or Twitter account this is viewed as ‘official’ marketing communication and comes under the CAP code.  Any claims made (even by users) within that content will have to be accurate and agencies need to be aware of their new responsibilities.

In addition, the ASA has added a number of possible sanctions for those falling foul of the new ruling:

• Enhanced name and shame policy - providing details of an advertiser and the non-compliant marketing communication on a special part of the ASA website
• Removal of paid-for search advertising – ads that link to the page hosting the non-compliant marketing communication may be removed with the agreement of the search engines
• ASA paid-for search advertisements – the ASA could place advertisements online highlighting an advertiser’s continued non-compliance.

The remit covers all marketing activity from organisations operating in the UK regardless of top level domain (co.uk, .com, .net). However, it does not cover classified private advertisements, press releases and other public relations material, editorial content, political advertisements, corporate reports or investor relations activity.

You can find out more information from the ASA’s website.

The Edelman Trust Barometer 2011 findings were published last week on the eve of the opening of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Whilst everyone agrees that being trustworthy is undoubtedly a good thing, it is fascinating to hear the impact being trustworthy has on consumer behaviour and corporate reputation.

2010 will be remembered for some huge corporate crisis situations, such as the BP oil spill, Toyota product recall, as well as bank bail outs and other misdemeanours in the financial sector. Given such a roller-coaster 12 months it was interesting to hear that if you go into a crisis as a distrusted company, it takes only 1-2 negative stories for a person to believe negative news. However, if you go in as a trusted company, it takes only 1-2 positive stories for you to achieve belief.

Whilst there is a lot of data to digest, the following points are what I think will have the biggest impact on my work in 2011.

1. The importance of search
Most PRs are beginning to appreciate the importance of search and the barometer confirmed this, with search engines ranked as the first place people look for information. This is really important as an understanding of SEO is not within the traditional skills set of many PRs – something that will have to change. The key point to stress is how important it is to ensure content about your client can be easily found online. Some simple solutions include having information that people want on an optimized website, blog and digital embassies, such as a Facebook Group, Twitter stream and YouTube channel. I expect search and content to be key battlegrounds in 2011.

2. Get your CEO or expert to talk
Given the economic uncertainty over the last 12 months, it is perhaps unsurprising that credible spokespeople such as CEOs or experts are the most trusted people to speak during a crisis. People are looking for expertise, knowledge and reassurance as we emerge from the financial crisis into an age of information obesity. The key insight for me is which expert should do the talking during a crisis. The barometer found that if a crisis is related to a product recall issue a company expert or the CEO should do the talking. However, if the issue is to do with the environment or a community issue, it has to be the CEO. Generally speaking, trust in the CEO is actually rising and I believe there is an expectation that bad CEOs have left their posts, whilst good leaders have successfully guided their organisations through tough economic times and remained.

3. Engage NGOs
One of the standout findings from the barometer is that for the first time, trust in NGOs in key developing markets is equivalent to that of business, a fantastic increase over the past five years, which has been attributed to the evolution of local civil society brands and rising prosperity. Importantly NGOs continue to be the most trusted institution in Western economies. Subsequently, serious consideration has to be given to NGOs and the role they could play in any communications programme. NGOs have far more credibility, trust and influence than many give them credit for.

4. The media are less trusted
Trust in the UK media is falling, which no doubt can be attributed to the march towards infotainment from hard news and the phone hacking saga which shows no signs of relenting. As PR professionals this is hugely significant. Although, a double page spread in a red top is often deemed a huge success in terms of ‘coverage’ and ‘AVE’, if the publication is not viewed as credible or trustworthy you are going to struggle to transfer this ‘success’ into action. Action is the important word here. Communications activity needs to transfer into actions that have business outcomes. This finding should also get us thinking beyond the traditional PR model that targets journalists and towards the stakeholder universe model. PR is about engaging communities that matter to companies rather than gaining column inches.

5. Decrease in trust in ‘people like me’
The barometer found that people over the last year have been turning to experts rather then ‘people like me’. This is interesting for anybody working in social media and could impact how we approach communications, but it may also be something to do with the maturing of the definition of ‘people like me’ which Mark Hanson, Deputy Managing Director of Wolfstar also picked up on. Personally, my Facebook friends and Linked In connections are people I know or have down business with, but a much smaller number I consider to be ‘people like me’ or those I would trust for a recommendation. The report notes:

“This may be a result of changing attitudes about what constitutes “a person like me” rather than an indication of a significant decrease in the actual credibility of peer-to-peer communication. With some estimates indicating that the average Facebook user does not know one-fifth of the 500 people typically listed as friends on his or her page, it is reasonable to ask whether the meaning of the word “friend” and by association “a person like me” has become devalued.”

You can check out the #Trust2011 hashtag to see other people’s thoughts on this years findings. It’s always insightful to see what the Edelman Trust Barometer discovers and I would be interested to hear what your key takeaways from this years findings are.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been doing some research and speaking to industry colleagues to create a list of 2011 PR Grad Schemes.

At present, the list is about the same size as it was last November and I fully expect it to expand beyond fourteen fifteen opportunities. It also consists, mainly of the larger London based agencies, which is to be expected as smaller, regional agencies do not tend to run a formal graduate scheme.

The list demonstrates that whilst many final year students will be acclimatising to their final year and thinking about dissertations, the race for a graduate PR job has also begun.

I anticipate this list will grow in the new year, so I will be making amendments as new opportunities arise.

On a personal note, the feedback I received after last years list was tremendous and people seemed genuinely grateful. I hope this years proves just as useful for the class of 2011. Sarah Stimson deserves a lot of credit for very kindly sharing her list of 2011 PR Grad Schemes. Thank you, Sarah.

Note to companies: if you have a scheme please email me and I’ll add you to the list.

Updated 27 March 2011

Blue Rubicon
Closed

Burson-Marseller
Open for internships all year round

Chime Comms
Closed

Content & Motion
Open – C&M are looking for a final year student or recent graduate to join their team.

Diffusion
Closed

Edelman
Closed

Fast Track
Closed

Fishburn Hedges
Closed

Fleishman-Hillard
Open
Operates a six month training scheme all year round. On completion of the graduate training scheme performance will be reviewed and, if satisfactory, graduates will be considered for a permanent position.

Four Comms
Closed

Hill & Knowlton
Closed

Hotwire Group (encompassing Hotwire and Skywrite)
Closed

Ketchum Pleon
Open
Closes 29 April 2011

Lexis PR
Closed

Speed Comms
Closed

In my day to day role I often need to create a graph, chart or table to simplify what can sometimes be a lot of data into a salient point or to tell a story. Here are 10 free data visualizations tools; some provide the metrics, whilst the others highlight relationships between data, as well as displaying the information in a visual, understandable and digestible way. Although, a couple are in beta, you may find them useful for that pitch, presentation or assignment.

1. Forrester’s Consumer Profile Tool
Forrester’s Social Technographic classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of social media participation. Based on Forrester survey data you can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers. The great thing about this tool is that it allows you to enter the basic details of your target audience — age, gender, country — and within seconds it enables you to find out whether those people tend to be social media creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, or inactives.

2. Google Insights
Google Insights remains a mainstay tool that allows you to discover the volume of Google search terms around an issue, then plots the data into a graph and provides links to relevant news stories which may explain search spikes. The tool allows you to enter up to five keywords, locations or time ranges and provides a visual representation of regional interest on a country’s map. It also displays top searches and rising searches that may help with keyword research.

3. Global Web Index
In similar vein to Forrester’s Social Technographic Tool, the Global Web Index brought to us by Trend Stream is one of the new generation data visualization tools that allows user to have personalised data put into a graphic and embedded elsewhere. This tool enables users to look at the social media profiles of various online users by country, gender, age and attitude – allowing you to discover their motivations online. Essentially, it’s an interactive infographic and well worth checking out.

4. Gary Hayes’ Social Media counter
This is a fantastic real time counter which documents the exponential growth of social media. It is regularly updated by Gary Hayes and is great for initiating conversation about why brands should use social media.

5. Google Public Data Explorer
The Google Public Data Explorer makes large datasets easy to explore, visualise and communicate. As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand. Google Public Data Explorer is still very much in beta testing and in the future I expect to see more data sets included. Nonetheless, it remains a good tool with vast potential.

6. Wordle
Wordle is a pet project of Jonathan Feinberg, a computer whizz at IBM. This tool is a tag cloud generator, which is basically a visual representation of the frequency of words appearing in a passage of text, URL, RSS or Delicious feed. It perhaps sounds more complicated than it actually is. Either way, it is well worth playing around with Wordle – it is ideal for showing a lot not of non-numerical data to a client in an easily digestible format.

7. Social Collider
I’ve had mixed experiences with Social Collider. When it works, it is simply brilliant, but there have been some computer-crashingly bad moments. Nonetheless, when it’s functioning the software reveals cross-connections between conversations on Twitter – which is ideal for monitoring potential viral activity, issues and launches. The beauty of Social Collider is that you are able to identify connections between networks of people – a valuable component of the social media planning stage.

8. Open Heat Map
This is a fantastic open-source tool by former Apple employee, Pete Warden. Open Heat Map combines the inputs of numerical data, location and changes over time into a brilliant graphical visualization. The Guardian frequently use this tool and maps are a wonderfully simple way to tell a complex and evolving story. In addition, Open Heat Map enables you to drill down into quite granular detail by looking at countries, states, counties, post codes and IP addresses. Check out Pete’s ‘How to’ vid for more information.

9. Micrsoft Pivot Viewer
Microsoft Pivot Viewer has the potential to be an amazing tool. It displays massive amounts of visual data into ‘Collections’ that users can easily interact with. The rationale is that by visualizing thousands of related items at once, people will be able to identify trends, patterns and relationships that would otherwise be hidden. Pivot Viewer is still very much in development, but it could make a huge impact on how data is visually represented in the future.

Update: Sadly Microsoft Pivot Viewer has been retired from service. Nonetheless, I’m sure Microsoft will be able to use this astounding technology in future projects.

10. Twitscoop
Twitscoop is best employed as a real-time trend tracker to monitor what themes are emerging on Twitter. Its algorithm identifies tags and keywords and then ranks the words by how frequently they appear in comparison to regular usage. Not only is Twitscoop great for monitoring, but it provides useful data, such as graphs depicting Tweet volume over time.

Below is a presentation deck of this post, as always I’d be interested to hear what data visualization tools you use and recommend.

I thought I’d put this post together as it’s something I’ve been thinking about and discussing for a while – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has to be Social. Well, more Social than it currently is.

‘Why?’ I hear you ask. Well, to put it simply; good quality links are the currency of the Web as search engines equate them to authority. Google takes these links as an endorsement or vote which in turns enhances search position. Therefore, a key part of any SEO strategy has to be the generation of good inbound links to your website or Digital Embassies.

However, last weeks announcement between Facebook and Bing that will see the search engine return results based on Facebook ‘Likes’ from users friends is significant as it signals a greater focus on Social in SEO. This coupled with Google’s inclusion of Tweets in its search shows that the increase in focus is already under way.

Somewhat inevitably, this announcement will affect SEO placement strategies and Social Media professionals are going to have a greater say in the planning and execution of SEO campaigns. Some agencies understand this already and create SEO strategies in conjunction with a Social Media team. Most don’t.

One of the reasons for the shift towards Social SEO is not only the huge growth in Social Media usage, but the techniques SEO professionals employ, such as, researching keywords, altering pages names, meta tags, headings and anchor text, internal links to keywords and keyword rich content. These techniques are employed with Google spiders, rather than human beings in mind.

Above is a great case study from Content & Motion who undertook a successful Social SEO campaign for Morgan Stanley Real Estate company.

Social Media is different. It thinks about people from the outset and enables them to have conversations around brands and products which provides genuine opportunities for recommendations and links. Whilst, keywords, titles, descriptions, tags and links give Google valuable context, it is Social Media which provides the most natural platform for humans to link, vote, and endorse content.

Although, KPIs such as sales or ROI will always be the main business objectives, Social SEO and Social Media compliment each other by enhancing a brands earned and owned media – leading to higher Google rank – and hopefully sales.

This is why a Social approach to SEO coupled with a robust Social Media strategy should be the cornerstone of any online activity. Tools like widgets, badges, sharing, social sign in and social commenting are great ways for brands to generate positive organic backlinks and social recommendations – all of which enhance brand visibility, amplification and Google rank.

However, the Social aspect of SEO planning still seems an afterthought for many and there is often a gap that needs to be bridged between the often fragmented SEO and Social Media functions. SEO activity should not be owned by one department. Nor should Social Media.

However, the reality is that the Social Media team normally manages Digital Embassies adequately, but SEO is nothing more than an afterthought. Whilst, the SEO team often overlook the value of using Social Media, such as blogs, videos, audio, images, social networks, forums and messageboards to increase SEO. It’s rarely joined up or integrated and too many people miss the link and benefit between Social Media and Google rank.

Image from David Saunders under Creative Commons

I’m adamant that Social Media teams are well placed to produce the engaging, rich content that people want to share, comment and link to. I should also make it clear that I’m not suggesting Social Meda teams are best placed to undertake traditional SEO (far from it). However, the evolution and growing importance of Social Media means that they should become part of SEO planning. Right from the start.

Technies know the traditional and latest SEO techniques, but the way Google’s search aglogrithm has evolved has given more weighting to Social Media, which is where the Social Media strategists come in.

As always I would be interested to hear thoughts from both sides of the Social Media and SEO divide and anybody in between about the increasing importance of Social Media in SEO activity.