Just like popular culture, the World Wide Web is full of new crazes that people tend to adopt, love and then abandon once the ‘next big thing’ comes along.  I’m one of those people.

Since I first discovered the internet about 12 years ago, I’ve been a loud and proud bandwagon rider.  I was obsessed with ICQ, the buddy list chat program that played an “Uh Oh!” sound when you received a message.

A few years later I moved onto LiveJournal, an online diary community, before embracing the now-iconic MySpace.

For my happy snaps, there was Flickr, and for my decent photos there was creative community DeviantArt.  As the teens invaded MySpace, I moved to Facebook.  I’m still there, but I’m also a Twitter fanatic these days.

As you can tell, I’m pretty passionate about it.  You can imagine my delight that a growing number of our clients are keen to jump on board too.

They each have different motivations for entering the social media realm, but their fears are similar.  What do I say?  How often do I say it?  Why do people care?  Who should I be following?  What does that even mean?

It can be confusing and even a little daunting, which is why Red Public Relations offers a number of social media solutions to our clients.

While we’ve dipped our toe in the water, there is a long way to go.  The internet is rapidly changing on an almost-daily basis, and social media is no exception.  Convincing clients that this medium is worth their time is a hard task.

How do you measure the success of a social media campaign?  Apart from boasting about the number of Facebook fans you’ve amassed or the people who ReTweet your Tweets, there really is no way to demonstrate results – especially with a dollar figure.

Talking about it is the first step and converting the sceptics – while difficult – is the key.  We can present all of the case studies and Twitter for Dummies guides we like, but if the client doesn’t believe it there is no point.

15 Years of Fame