Changes to the ASA CAP code and our survey results

Posted by luke on Mar 3, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments

Working with the team at Liz Lean PR we conducted a snapshot survey of 100 people (around Bournemouth, in February) to see what the general population were saying about their employers online and if they’d received any guidance from their employer on what they should say.

This was partly inspired by the upcoming (now live) changes to the ASA Cap Code:

“From 1 March, marketing communications on companies’ own websites and in other third party space under their control, such as Facebook and Twitter, will have to adhere to the non-broadcast advertising rules as set out in the CAP Code.” (Source: ASA)

A (massively) simplified version of the code would be: ensure that all your communications are legal, decent, honest and true.

We asked 4 questions:

1. Do you use Facebook or twitter? (yes/no)
2. Have you ever written about the company you work for on Facebook or Twitter? (yes/no)
3. Has your company given you any guidance on what you can/can’t write on Facebook or Twitter? (yes/no/don’t know)
4. Have you ever heard of the new ASA standards / CAP code? (yes/no)

Full details and responses to the survey in our press release on Pressitt.

The two key findings that stood out for me were:

1. Half of all employees have admitted to writing about the company they work for on a social media website, such as Facebook and Twitter (49%)
2. A staggering three quarters of those who have written about their company online either did not know of, or had no guidance from their employers regarding what they could or couldn’t write (75%)

Think about that for a minute, the implications that 1/2 of your staff are writing about your business online on social networks… and it’s not just the expanded ASA remit that needs to be considered, regulation such as the FSA could also apply to your business.

Liz Willingham, from Liz Lean PR summarises it better than me:

“The results of our survey highlight the importance of good communication from the top down. As ambassadors of your brand, employees need to be made aware and given comprehensive guidance on how to conduct themselves in all situations to protect the overall reputation of the company.”

We’re looking to put on an event for our clients after Easter, in the mean time if you’d like any guidance please do drop either of us a line.

If you want some interesting views from leading experts on the new ASA Cap code changes I strongly recommend this eConsultancy post.

It’s ok to get drunk

Posted by luke on Nov 9, 2010 in Blog | 1 comment

The last Meetdraw was good. If you’re Bournemouth based and work in the tech / web / design sector, you should come along to the next one on Dec 16th.

In this post I am reluctantly reaching the realisation that I’ve moved from “recent graduate” to the “workplace adult” generation… damn.

Anyway… back to the topic at hand: It’s ok to get drunk & why I think that “we”, the workplace generation, need to be more accepting of people having a life before and outside work.

So… at Meetdraw I had a very interesting chat with some students. The thing that most stuck in my head was a conversation about Facebook, privacy and employment.

One of the students said that he was concerned about potential employers seeing content that friends had posted onto Facebook and how this would affect his employment chances.

Taking a photo out of context can imply a different meaning. If we are going to look online to find out more about the people we hire, we have to remember that pictures don’t necessarily reflect the person in question.

But it’s more than that, should we even be looking?

Aside from the ethics of how far it is acceptable to investigate someone generally… I’ve also been considering for a while the implication of looking at someone’s more personal (Facebook for example) information online prior to hiring them…

What if you looked and chose not to hire them, could they claim you had discriminated against them for something you found out by yourself?

Our student acted on the principle that anything online should be considered public, no matter how well you set your privacy settings. I’d always advise thinking on these lines too.

My response was simply, don’t worry too much:

1) There is a need for guidance (maybe even legislation one day?) and restraint on what employers can/should look at prior to hiring.

2) We need to be more accepting of what we find.

Prevent event invites on Facebook

Posted by luke on Oct 27, 2010 in Blog | 4 comments

A simple “how-to” for you today, on a more personal Facebook kind of tip.

How to: block that annoying old friend who keeps inviting you to events.

We’ve all got one, a well intentioned… but borderline spammer, old friend. Perhaps it’s their new designer bling clothes peg business or they’re in a band, you’ve tried to say “please stop spamming me” but they don’t listen.

Removing them isn’t an option because you do still want to keep in touch with them.

1. Log in to Facebook.
2. On the “account” drop down (top right) choose “privacy settings”
3. You’ll then see a grid of privacy settings, underneath this are 3 sections, underneath the “Block Lists” heading click on “edit your lists”
4. This page has some really handy little bits on it for (un)blocking applications, people and the third section from the top: Block event invitations
5. Type in here the names of any people you want to prevent sending you Facebook event invites.

If you found this useful, please do share it on.

Facebook linkbaiting or black hat?

Posted by luke on Feb 26, 2010 in Blog | 2 comments

The trend for pointless Facebook pages continues, with lots of “million people who love custard” or statements as pages “Sitting in the bath” – they grow very well virally and rapidly, but what’s the point?

Well…. I’ve noticed a new trend on Facebook recently – a lot of groups, aiming to build a million+ users, follow a formula generally as follows:

1. Create a largely pointless page as above, the more controversial/amusing/”so true” the better.
2. Seed the group to your circle and watch it grow virally (hopefully).
3. Once large enough, add favourite pages for the actual business/person that they were hoping to promote and update to all the fans – sometimes related, usually not.

If 1% of 1,000,000 fans checked out the real target, you’ve just created a huge amount of traffic to try and convert.

It’s clever, but not necessarily very ethical – I guess it’s the Facebook “bait n switch”. Maybe I should of called it “grey hat” (a term stolen from SEO) as it’s not really specifically against the Facebook TOS?

Is there a Facebook spybot?

Posted by luke on Jan 27, 2010 in Blog | 8 comments

UPDATE: DO NOT remove this item, see GeekDrop Facebook Spybot entry for more info.

hat tip to @tomharvey888 who sent me this:

RT @bengie Has your facebook been running slow? Go to “Settings” > “application settings” > “added to profile”. delete “unnamed application” -> spybot

Do i have the so called Facebook Application spybot? Apparently so.

Clicking settings will cause an unknown error and the application profile does not exist (it will redirect you to home).

I’m not convinced this is malicious and with no evidence to suggest it is a spybot (would love to hear from you, if you do with a source), I remind you of the SULFNBK.EXE (Symantec) fake alert inviting you to delete a file that was actual an integral part of windows.

I think the most likely explanation for this unnamed app is a leftover from a now removed function – perhaps one from before the profile view was changed.

To remove or not to remove the Facebook spybot? …that is the question.

I’d like to hear from anyone who does not find this when they follow the instructions above, so far everyone I know who has tried this did… which would suggest to me it’s more likely a remnant as above.

Thoughts, screenshots… all welcome below.