How storming that an increasing number of our long-standing and new clients are harnessing the social media toolkit to define the best tools to drive their business goals and vision.

Before dipping your big toe into the more popular sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, or blogging, begin with the end in mind and establish their relevance in enabling you to engage with those who will boost your bottom line.

Remember, in this brave new business world it’s all about return on engagement as opposed to return on investment – and the more niche, customer-focused, and ethical you are , the more successful you are likely to be in weathering the economic storm.   

The ability to monitor your online reputation and find out who is saying what about your brand, can be accelerated by a number of listening tools as highlighted below. The trick is to listen and follow conversations about issues, news, people and organisations in your sector before making your social media debut. Enjoy he journey and the Quest team looks forward to blogging and tweeting with you!   

• whostalkin.com – A tool allowing you to search for conversations in social media on any topic or brand.
• socialmention.com – Searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news and video etc.
• google.com/alerts – Allows you to get email updates of the latest relevant google results on a name or topic.
• blogsearch.google.com – Follow what is being said about a specific person or topic in blogs.
• howsociable.com – Monitor mentions of your brand online.
• moreover.com – Keep up to date with all your industry news.
• digg.com – Track news about your business and the most popular news relating to your business.
• reddit.com – Like dig, allows you to track news about your business and the most popular news.
• technorati.com – Track what is being said about you on social media sites.
• blogpulse.com/conversation – Allows you to track who’s linking to a blog post about your company.   
• blogpulse.com/trends – Allows you to track the buzz on particular keywords. Useful for example, to monitor a competitor’s new product launch.
• delicious.com – Makes it easy to track whenever someone bookmarks a web page that includes mention of your company.
• video.google.com – Keep track of videos about you or your company.
• keotag.com – Track if someone tags a page using your company or product name.
• boardtracker.com – Keeps track if you are mentioned on popular forums and message boards.
• google.com/trends – Gives you an idea of which keywords are most searched.
• searchanalytics.compete.com – Allows you to enter a keyword and see which web sites are getting traffic for that keyword. Alternatively enter any domain name and see which keywords are driving traffic to that site.
• backtype.com – Monitor blog comments.
• 123people.com – Search for information on people.
• addictomatic.com – Provides a search interface that runs keyword queries against a load of important social, search and blog services.

So the two latest casualties of the trial by media culture we have are Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. Depending on your take on the issue it’s likely you care little or not at all for the welfare of these highly-paid media stars but that misses the point.

Many commentators (nods to Borkowski and Will Sturgeon) have already shared their thoughts on the issue and my own rather flippant opinion has been given short shrift both on Facebook and Twitter (nod here to Anne Wollenberg).

To me there are several things at play here: a media hungry for alternative stories to the credit crunch endlessly being played out before our eyes, a rather antipathetic feeling towards Brand and Ross and the hyping up of the chattering classes who view anything mildly tasteless as hugely offensive. Essentially, a recipe for a media storm in a teacup.

What I find concerning though is the reaction by Ofcom in deciding to hold an enquiry (further adding fuel to the media fire) then every Tom, Dick and Harry ploughing their own agenda by jumping on the bandwagon (see Gordon Brown, David Cameron, the granddaughter et al) and finally the BBC caving in to pressure to suspend them both.

In an age where advertising revenues are falling – and no doubt set to fall faster still as the recession bites – media organisations are constantly hunting for the ‘big story’ that draws in readers and viewers. The consequence is that minor incidents are overblown to create fodder for 24-hour news and to fill pages.

Will Sturgeon has highlighted the obsession of credit-crunch washing while Sally Whittle has called upon journalists to approach particular stories with more measure and sang-froid. It therefore behoves upon the PR industry to follow the same approach. Rather than simply jumping on bandwagons that serve our clients, let’s contemplate first what the likely impact is.

Wednesday’s This Morning appearance by former Atomic Kitten-cum ubiquitous reality star Kerry Katona left many people concerned for her health and state of mind. Watching the clip on Youtube raises serious doubts about whether she should even have appeared – indeed my posting of it on Facebook lead to a slew of comments, many sympathetic to Katona’s cause (nod to Sally Whittle here).What struck me as a PR is the reaction of her publicist Max Clifford. Speaking on the BBC he denied any knowledge of the interview prior to it airing and said that if any of ‘his girls in the office’ had known about it, he wouldn’t have let her go on.

While I accept there are times when clients make direct approaches or are contacted by journalists (this week one of our clients appeared on national TV in a pre-recorded interview which we only found out about when chasing the production team) I struggle to accept Clifford’s argument in this instance. Cursory Google searches of Kerry Katona and This Morning highlight how her appearance was trailed as an exclusive at least 24 hours before. Even the most rudimentary alerts among ‘his girls’ could have given them some warning. His disclosure could therefore be one of two things: a ruse to distance himself from the interview and build up sympathy for Katona’s health, or the first sign that things are turning sour.

Not knowing Max Clifford (the closest I have got is reading his autobiography) I can’t attest to his character but I should imagine he fiercely protects his clients like any publicist or PR would. So, I hope that Kerry’s ‘unplanned’ appearance on This Morning and his denial of any involvement aren’t the first sign of a breakdown in their relationship.

However stable Katona is I believe the protection of a good publicist can only be positive – and that without it we might all be shown a different side to her changeable personality.

For any PR when your clients start to do things off their own back it can be the first sign of trouble in the all-important relationship. In this case I hope Clifford is able to rescue the situation or who knows what Katona will do next.