Media: Social media | theguardian.com

Big W joins Aldi by taking 'Australia Est. 1788' T-shirts off the shelves

Daniel Hurst, Bridie Jabour — Thu, 09 Jan 2014 03:03:10 GMT

Shopping chains bow to social media pressure after complaints that the shirts were offensive to Indigenous Australians

Forget funeral selfies. What are the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness? | Emma G Keller

Emma G Keller — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 18:40:03 GMT

Lisa Adams is dying of breast cancer. She has tweeted over 100,000 times about her journey. Is this educational or too much?

Lisa Bonchek Adams is dying. She has Stage IV breast cancer and now it's metastasized to her bones, joints, hips, spine, liver and lungs. She's in terrible pain. She knows there is no cure, and she wants you to know all about what she is going through. Adams is dying out loud. On her blog and, especially, on Twitter.

She has tweeted over 100,000 times about her health. Lately, she tweets dozens of times an hour. Her Twitter followers are a mixed bag. Some are also battling cancer or work in the medical field, others seem to follow Adams' life story like a Reality TV show. Here's a taste of what it's like:

Pain today is worst in days. Cannot get on top of it. I have 1)constant drip plus ability to do 2)on-demand drip, 3)emergency. All in use.
— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 8, 2014

But it radiates out to side of back ("radicular pain") and has nerve component of pain. Mixes with the lung pain/same side
— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 8, 2014

All morning docs and nurses go in and out so you may see answers to questions in spurts. I also sometimes nod off mid tweet...
— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 8, 2014

She has been scrupulous about keeping track of her seven year decline. Her journey began with six month routine postpartum checkup after the birth of her third child. You can read all about the details of her disease and treatment on her blog right up until about this morning, which is when she posted her latest entry, only a few hours after the previous one.

She begins each day with the same tweet:

Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it. If you can't find it, create it. Some days this may be hard to do. Persevere.
— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) December 27, 2013

Over the past few years she has tweeted more than 165,000 times (well over 200 tweets in the past 24 hours alone.) Her clear-eyed strategy of living with cancer for as long as she can has caught the attention of many women with breast cancer, several writers and thousands of fans from everyday lives all over the world. I heard about her in the process of organizing a Guardian US Living Hour chat on DNA and cancer tumors in early November. Before you knew it, she was in the chat having her tumor genome and her cancer trial discussed in detail. I never met her, but I swapped tweets and emails with her, and kept track of her health.

Which is why a few weeks ago I noticed she was tweeting a lot more and from a situation she described as agonizing. The clinical drug trial she was on wasn't working. Her disease seemed to be rampaging through her body. She could hardly breathe, her lungs were filled with copious amounts of fluid causing her to be bedridden over Christmas. As her condition declined, her tweets amped up both in frequency and intensity. I couldn't stop reading – I even set up a dedicated @adamslisa column in Tweetdeck – but I felt embarrassed at my voyeurism. Should there be boundaries in this kind of experience? Is there such a thing as TMI? Are her tweets a grim equivalent of deathbed selfies, one step further than funeral selfies? Why am I so obsessed?

Social media has definitely become a part of Adams' treatment (I wonder what her hospital, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, thinks about that.) Tweeting makes her less lonely, it gives her a purpose, it distracts her from her pain, and the contact it brings clearly comforts her. Adams has managed to keep her dignity and her deft sense of humor intact as she has charted her decline.

As she tweeted a few hours ago:

"Why is she tweeting if it hurts so much?" I am sure people ask. It helps to distract me especially when I am alone (it's 6 AM here)
— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 8, 2014

Adams is not alone in doing this. Journalist Xeni Jardin live tweeted her cancer diagnosis two years ago and the long treatment journey. Jardin told the Guardian last year that she wasn't sure if she would be quite as "sharey" if she could go back in time.

It's clear that tweeting as compulsively as Lisa Adams does is an attempt to exercise some kind of control over her experience. She doesn't deny that. She sees herself as an educator, giving voice to what so many people go through. And she is trying to create her own boundaries, flimsy as they might be. She'll tell you all about her pain, for example, but precious little about her children or husband and what they are going through. She describes a fantastic set up at Sloan-Kettering, where she can order what she wants to eat at any time of day or night and get as much pain medication as she needs from a dedicated and compassionate "team", but there is no mention of the cost. She was enraged a few days ago when a couple of people turned up to visit her unannounced. She's living out loud online, but she wants her privacy in real life.

In some ways she has invited us all in. She could argue that she is presenting a specific picture – the one she wants us to remember. "I do feel there will be lasting memories about me. That matters," she wrote to me in a direct message on Twitter.

The ethical questions abound. Make your own judgement.

Are those of us who've been drawn into her story going to remember a dying woman's courage, or are we hooked on a narrative where the stakes are the highest?

Will our memories be the ones she wants? What is the appeal of watching someone trying to stay alive? Is this the new way of death? You can put a "no visitors sign" on the door of your hospital room, but you welcome the world into your orbit and describe every last Fentanyl patch. Would we, the readers, be more dignified if we turned away? Or is this part of the human experience?

We've put together a condensed timeline of Lisa Adams' tweets. You can also read her entire feed.

Emma G Keller

Yes, I sometimes Google my patients. Is this surprising? | Kate Adams

Kate Adams — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 11:20:54 GMT

As a GP, curiosity about my patients often gets the better of me, but it helps build a rapport. However, there are some potential pitfalls

Like Dr Haider Warraich, I have to admit to occasionally Googling patients I have seen. When I ask colleagues and GP friends whether they do the same, there's a resounding "yes".

Someone is famous or has claimed notoriety of some sort during a consultation – who wouldn't be curious and seek to find out more? Over the years I've Googled the odd rock star, film-maker, writer, actor and others. GPs are sociable beings and interested in people.

The social side of people, who they are and what they do, can be important and relevant to the problem they bring to the consultation. It is unusual for me not to know what someone does as they leave my consulting room. Curiosity often gets the better of me but I feel it helps me build a rapport and a better understanding of the person.

I'm not presented with fame very often. Hackney, in east London, with its high rates of deprivation, isn't quite Hollywood. I also work for the NHS. I think the real celebs mostly see doctors privately. Seeing someone famous, however, does create a bit of excitement in an otherwise routine day.

Having said that I don't believe doctors in the UK Google their patients routinely. If I am puzzled about someone I've seen – it may be their behaviour or a life history that doesn't seem to add up – it is not Google I turn to, but their medical records. In the NHS we have access to records for the majority of the population from when they were born, and sometimes these can be quite revealing. Doctors working in a hospital or in some other context may not have this wealth of information to hand, so may turn to Google instead.

Googling and gaining further information about patients has its pitfalls. If it is used for medical purposes, can the information be relied upon? Most celebrity gossip probably couldn't. But if people have uploaded photos and personal information to a public space, then this is what they have chosen to say about themselves. Would they want their doctor to see it, though? In a world increasingly dominated by social media, I'm surprised how freely people share personal information that could backfire if others go searching.

What do doctors do if they find out on the web that one of their patients has a drug habit? If there were child protection concerns we would have a professional duty to act upon this information. But what about an adult on a drug binge, with no responsibility for others? If this is clinically relevant, how might a doctor introduce information gleamed from the public domain into a conversation that hasn't been initiated by the patient?

Maintaining trust in the doctor–patient relationship is very important. Can a patient trust a doctor who presents information that has not been offered within the confines of the consultation? Likewise, GP colleagues have been unnerved by patients who have Googled them. It seems to encroach on the personal when the doctor wishes to be in professional mode, and again may affect mutual trust.

The importance of maintaining professional boundaries is engrained in us from day one of medical school. No patient has ever told me that I have been Googled. I don't think I would mind but I might wonder why and feel it was irrelevant to the relationship that I have with them as their doctor.

Maybe there are power issues at play here. One party to the consultation knows more than the other. For some people, Googling and trying to find out about your doctor could be an attempt to redress this imbalance. However, patients are unlikely to find anything salacious. Our regulatory and professional bodies, the General Medical Council and British Medical Association, are very clear on this, which is good general advice for everyone. Simply, don't put anything out there that could come back to haunt you.

Kate Adams

Government gets low marks for Facebook gaffe | Media Monkey

Monkey — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 09:56:11 GMT

Complaints after beauty website co-founded by Michael Gove's wife is promoted on Department for Work and Pensions page

The Daily Mirror exclusively reveals on Wednesday that a beauty website co-founded by the education secretary's wife has received promotion on the Department for Work and Pensions' Facebook page. Michael Gove's wife, journalist Sarah Vine, is involved with Get the Gloss, which sells £230 face cream among other products. Under a post telling jobseekers how to "dress for success", expert Judy Johnson from the "award winning beauty & health website" is quoted as saying: "Before I get stuck in on attire – my first tip would be make sure your eyes look perky so you don't look all sleepy - people will hire you more if you look awake! (a good night's sleep usually helps or a good under eye concealer). Don't worry – you don't have to spend a lot of money or search through fashion magazines to figure out what to wear to your interview – and the good news is – once you have that one interview outfit, you can re-cycle it for every other interview!" Facebook commenters criticised the apparent conflict of interest in Gove's wife's company being promoted on a government website, with one saying: "This company is owned by Michael Goves wife. How come MP's are permitted to advertise there spouses business via govt channels?" Gove's spokesman told the Mirror that the education secretary and his wife knew nothing about the link until contacted by the paper. Johnson later tweeted that the name of the site had been removed: "Credit to GTG has been removed. Was meant to be my name only. Mistake, yes, conspiracy, no." A great coup for the Mirror, but something appeared to get lost in translation in the online version: "Michael Gove's wife" in the headline somehow became "Jeremy Vine's wife" (this has since been corrected). The Radio 2 presenter tweeted a link to the Mirror story, adding: "About to have *that* conversation with my actual wife, who knows nothing of this." Perhaps the pair could do a job swap – many might srgue that Vine would do a better job as education secretary than Gove.

Monkey

Nigerians turn on comic over rape 'joke'

Wed, 08 Jan 2014 08:35:30 GMT

Basketmouth's comments spark debate about sexual violence in country with high prevalence of abuse against women

The Nigerian comedian Basketmouth has come under fire on social media after posting a joke about the difference between dating "white girls" and "African girls". In a nutshell, white women put out after a couple of dates, but African women keep holding out, so on the ninth date a bit of rape is required.

Funny? No. Instead, most Nigerian and other African commentators found it offensive. Basketmouth was trivialising rape in a country suffering from an epidemic of sexual violence.

"Show me a man who is insensitive to rape and I'll show you a man who is capable of rape&hellip," tweeted the Nigerian novelist Chika Unigwe.

Basketmouth had his defenders, who went the usual route of calling those who criticised him over-sensitive, or humourless, or saying they perhaps missed some grand satirical intention.

The comedian himself eventually claimed that he was trying to flag up an important social issue: "I would never in a thousand lifetimes encourage rape, I broadcasted a joke that many clearly misunderstood and have found offensive and I sincerely apologise, the intention however was to highlight an unfortunate trend and the ridiculously flawed comparison between money & the worth of a woman."<

But his full apology only came after a half-hearted first attempt, and he has form – a year ago he entertained a British crowd with a charming granny-rape joke.

Basketmouth is just one in a pantheon of international stand-up comedians to use the rape of women as a subject for a cheap laugh (British 'comic' and tax avoider Jimmy Carr has been mining this seam for years). But in Africa he is a lightning conductor – he's the one with the big profile, who chose to shout out his rape joke to his one million Facebook fans. He's the big goofy team mascot for those Nigerian men who think women are teases and there for the taking. #basketmouthgate, as nobody called it, opened up a whole debate about the subject of rape in Nigeria and beyond.

There is no doubt that rape is a problem in Nigeria. When writer Elnathan John spoke about marital rape, he was attacked by angry men for daring to suggest that a woman could withhold sex once the ink on the marriage contract was dry.

On Twitter this week he said: "There is a reason Basketmouth makes so many people laugh with female rape jokes. We condone it. It is not yet a big deal here… All rape is abominable, but I tell you if men got raped as often as women, there would be no celebration of rape jokes."

Victim-blaming is widespread in Africa and much of the world – an Indian judge recently said that a Dalit woman who was brutally raped had indicated her sexual availability by going out of her house after dark. Across many countries in Africa, so called mini-skirt laws are being debated – the implication being that men are animals and women pieces of meat who should know better than to flash the flesh at their predators.

What happens in Nigeria is that women are often raped. They are raped in their homes by their husbands, on dates with men who think that a meal or a few drinks have purchased her consent; they are raped in police custody; they are raped by their teacher, professor or fellow students when they're trying to get their education.

The state colludes with this by failing to collate coherent statistics about rape and sexual violence, rendering these crimes invisible – or at least until some buffoon raises his head above the parapet to joke about them.

It seems that perpetrators can often get away with rape, but that critics jumping on a rape joke by a comedian is beyond the pale for some. Get a sense of humour and stop messing with our fun, was the general message from Basketmouth's apologists, mostly men. Nigerian-British blogger Mia Farraday (a pseudonym) was one of Basketmouth's biggest detractors on Twitter. "I made a fuss about this quite deliberately. Not because I've never heard a rape joke before or because I'm a secret Basketmouth hater… It's because Nigeria has a real and present rape epidemic and because our sense of humour about everything is often detrimental."

Writer and former Basketmouth fan from Zimbabwe Barbara Mhangami addressed a strong blog post to him after the joke was made public. In it, she says:

"From an early age girls are taught to view themselves from the negatives that are heaped on them because men rape. It is girls' fault that men are depraved. We teach them not to walk alone after dark, not to be alone with boys, to wear 'decent clothes. Yet after all this, many are still raped. Why is that, Mr Basketmouth? BECAUSE BOYS AND MEN ARE NOT BEING TAUGHT THAT RAPE IS NOT A JOKE!"

Of course, rape culture diminishes men as well as women. A woman is passive, a thing, without agency – but a man is, says the rape culture model, a flesh-covered skeleton with a penis and a bunch of uncontrollable impulses. Yes, most of humanity are capable of gross abuses of power if they are conditioned to them and feel they have the backing of the crowd – what is wrong can seem like the norm, or even funny or enjoyable.

Challenging rape culture is about calling out the men, one by one, who joke about or belittle women, and violence against them. It's about looking one man in the eye – your colleague, your family member, your friend – looking directly at them and explaining why one flippant comment can add to the weight of ALL the comments, which in turn diminish women as humans, which in turn makes it easier for a man to do what he can to them without their conscience reacting.

And this time, on Twitter at least, Nigeria fought back. Its women, and many of its men, called bullshit on Basketmouth, they hit him where it really hurts – in the wallet – by threatening to boycott his shows and by alerting his sponsors to his joke.

As Nigerian TedxEuston organiser Patrick Anigbo put it: "Well done to my people for rejecting this scourge totally. And those few thousands that did not get it, I hope you have learnt today."

Several Twitter users even suggested that Basketmouth should use his platform to educate his fans about rape culture – or even become an anti-rape activist. So, Basketmouth, the ball's in your court. But the ball is also in the court of every citizen of Nigeria and any other country where rape culture reigns.

More from the Africa network: What if it was your daughter?

Aldi takes 'Australia Est 1788' T-shirts off shelves after racism complaints

Bridie Jabour — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 03:31:09 GMT

Supermarket chain says decision to remove the design followed comments on Twitter 'by a limited number of concerned customers'

Bridie Jabour

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone's Jelly app wobbles onto iPhone and Android

Stuart Dredge — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 19:33:44 GMT

Social Q&A app aims to 'search the group mind of your social networks'. But who will use it? By Stuart Dredge

Stuart Dredge

Marijuana-loving Twitter users resolve to start 2014 on a high note

Katie Rogers — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 18:32:17 GMT

Everybody might get stoned: an analysis of tweets before and after New Year's Day shows that more Twitter users are publicly voicing their desire to light up

Katie Rogers

Sweden's justice chief left high and dry over spoof marijuana deaths story

Tue, 07 Jan 2014 17:06:29 GMT

Ruling Conservative's Beatrice Ask posts spoof article on Colorado marijuana overdoses to support anti-drug claims

Sweden's justice minister is facing ridicule for posting a spoof article about marijuana-linked deaths on her Facebook page along with comments about her zero-tolerance against drugs.

Beatrice Ask of Sweden's ruling Conservative party posted a link to the Daily Currant's satire article, which jokingly – and erroneously – claimed that marijuana overdoses killed 37 people in Colorado on the first day of legalisation.

Above the link she wrote: "Stupid and sad. My first bill in the youth wing was called Outfight the Drugs! In this matter I haven't changed opinion at all."

The comment quickly spread in social media, triggering widespread criticism.

Ask's press officer Per Clareus said the minister was aware the article was fake and was trying to criticise the website for joking about such a serious matter, but was misunderstood.

How to set up and run a successful feminist campaign

Kira Cochrane — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 19:00:00 GMT

Want to change the world this year? We ask feminist activists for the key steps to running a powerful, headline-grabbing campaign

Build a network

Sixth-form student Yas Necati has been busy over the last 12 months. She has started a petition for more effective sex education that has reached more than 52,000 signatures, protested outside the Conservative party conference dressed as a monkey to highlight this petition, been involved with the Twitter Youth Feminist Army – an online force, hundreds-strong – and sent regular letters to the editor of the Sun, David Dinsmore, urging him to replace the topless model on page three of his newspaper with a more powerful, inspiring image of a woman.

What changed her life, says Necati, was meeting other feminists in person. "It's so easy to feel isolated as a campaigner," she says, "to just feel you're talking to your computer screen." She now tries to attend every feminist protest she can, and says protesting physically as well as online can be crucial even for the most internet-based campaign. Her Tory party conference demo added 17,000 signatures to her petition in the space of two days. She first met other feminists at the Women of the World festival, which takes place in London in March each year – and she has also attended UK Feminista's summer school, held annually too. There are details about the countless feminist events and meetings now taking place on the F Word blog, and the UK Feminista website.

The importance of a good support network is echoed by other campaigners. Lucy-Anne Holmes says she started No More Page 3 by making a long list of everyone who might be able to help her, while Nimko Ali, who campaigns against female genital mutilation with her group Daughters of Eve, says building strong support is necessary for when a campaign becomes bruising as when she received death threats in response to her activism. When it comes to the backlash that so often accompanies feminist campaigning, having a group of fellow feminists to support you is obviously an enormous advantage, if possible.

Keep it simple

Some of the most impressive campaigns of the last few years are those that have found creative ways to bring a problem out of the shadows, by simply, sharply, tallying its impact. After the killing of seven women in the first three days of 2012, for instance, Karen Ingala Smith began her Counting Dead Women project, making a record of every misogynist murder of a woman in the UK, and publishing them online. This record puts names and faces to the statistics, and underpins Ingala Smith's call for proper government analysis and action on lethal male violence.

There are many examples of modern consciousness-raising and community building online, including writer Janet Mock's Twitter hashtag, #girlslikeus, where trans women share experiences and information, positive and negative, personal and campaigning. There's also the Everyday Sexism Project, started by Laura Bates in April 2012, where more than 50,000 women have shared examples of daily sexist discrimination, and Who Needs Feminism, a project started by Duke University students in the US, to illustrate the many reasons the women's movement is still necessary. The question for 2014 is this: what issue do you most want to highlight, and how can you do this simply and effectively, so your case becomes inarguable?

Make it easy for people to support your campaign

When Laura Bates, Soraya Chemaly and Jaclyn Friedman set up a campaign against misogynist pages on Facebook, they created mechanisms that made it incredibly easy for people to support them. They had decided to target advertisers whose products appeared alongside misogynist content, so on their campaign website, says Bates, "we had a page where we said: this is the company, here's the horrible image their advert appears beside, just click here to Tweet them, here to email them, here to put a post on their Facebook page. It was all automated, and ready-written." In the course of a week, more than 60,000 tweets were sent, companies began withdrawing their advertising from Facebook, and the site agreed to change its moderation policies.

Another aspect of that campaign, says Chemaly, was that it identified the proper incentives for change. Petitions against misogynist content on Facebook had attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures in the past, but hadn't convinced the site to take action. "We just said, enough … we're going to figure out exactly where the pain threshold is." In this case, it was with the loss of advertising revenues.

Personal stories are powerful

Of all the campaigns set up on online petition site Change.org, those that address women's rights are now the most likely to be successful. Part of the reason, says Brie Rogers Lowery, UK campaigns director for the site, is that the feminists who start petitions tend to be especially adept at using personal stories to power their campaign.

Still, it's best to proceed with caution when deciding whether to publicise your personal story. Ali says she doesn't regret talking about her experience of FGM in her campaigning – it's allowed her to draw huge attention to the issue, and show other women who have experienced it that they can survive as well – but she wishes she had been more emotionally prepared before going public. Becoming the personal face of an issue is brave, and powerful, but it can also be draining, and the feminist movement doesn't require full disclosure.

Don't be humourless

One of the most impressive aspects of Ali's campaign is her use of humour; she calls herself "the Bridget Jones of FGM," keeps a "fanny forward" list of supporters, and has used everything from vagina cupcakes to a vulva quilt to help deliver her message. The language and props she uses are a way of broaching an issue many people otherwise shy away from. "If you depress people by constantly telling them about how horrific all these things are, then everybody feels disempowered," she says. There's one proviso – tread carefully. This is not an excuse to make crass jokes at someone else's expense.

Start a feminist group yourself

The influential group Black Feminists started with a coffee organised by Chitra Nagarajan and a few other activists. Until then, says Nagarajan, "my whole activist career had been about compartmentalisation, and so with the anti-racist people it was all about the fight against racism, with the women's rights movement it was all about the fight for women's rights ... they were interlinked, of course, but I felt there wasn't any space to bring everything together." At the initial meeting, four times the number of people she expected turned up, the discussion was immediately powerful, and what had been intended as a one-off turned into a thriving, supportive group. If there's a feminist outlook or issue you feel strongly about, there's a good chance others will too.

Jinan Younis, who has just started university, found UK Feminista's guidelines on setting up a feminist group useful when she co-founded one at school. They began with some simple exercises – each member introduced themselves, and named a woman they admired, for instance. This made them appreciate the female role models who are in the public eye, but also helped them recognise what a rarity they are, says Younis, thus illustrating one of the reasons why feminism is still necessary.

Be ready for the backlash

The obvious benefit of the tools now available online is that you can start addressing an issue quickly, with just a Facebook, Twitter and YouTube account – and Rogers Lowery says a swift response is essential. Petitions tend to gain much more momentum, she says, if they're set up "within 12 to 24 hours of a news story breaking".

Once a campaign is under way, you have to look after yourself. In the first months of Holmes's campaign against Page 3, when she was largely working alone, she often felt she was unable to switch off social media, even at family gatherings. As a result, five months in, she experienced burnout. This felt "like quite a dark depression, to be honest", she says, and it prompted her to contact some of the most vocal supporters of the campaign to ask if they'd form a team to help her. They all said yes, and as a result, the setback became an important factor in the campaign's continued visibility.

Most of the activists I spoke to say the misogynist comments they receive are fuel for the fire. They're evidence to bring out when someone denies there's any need for feminism – a backlash that can inadvertently help in building a campaign. Feminists: 1. Misogynists: 0.

Kira Cochrane

Choose your weapon: SEO or social media?

Mon, 06 Jan 2014 17:21:31 GMT

Digital marketing is critical to the success of most businesses, but what is the best way to spend limited resources? And why is Google+ worth exploring?

For today's connected consumer or business, a Google search or an Amazon user review is just a tap or a click away, and digital channels like these play an ever-increasing role in purchasing decisions. What is the best way for brands to drive web traffic and, ultimately, sales in this new digital landscape?

The traditional answer was SEO (search engine optimisation), which is the art and science of getting your website ranking high enough to be noticed in web searches. In the past couple of years, though, social media marketing, which means engaging with customers on sites like Facebook and Twitter, has grown in importance. Social media interaction done right has the power not only to drive traffic to a website, but also to change the public perception of a brand and to win fans who will recommend a product to their friends.

SEO is changing though, as the algorithms used by Google to determine which sites are shown in response to a search evolve. What is SEO like today? How does the rapid ascendance of smartphones and tablets affect marketers? Where does Google+, the search giant's answer to Facebook, fit in? How do you go about winning trust on social media? These were among the questions debated at a recent seminar, hosted by the Guardian and held in association with Salesforce. The seminar began with a discussion from an expert panel, followed by questions from the audience.

Those present were keen to emphasise that both SEO and social media have key roles in digital marketing strategy. "SEO, social, content development, PPC [Pay Per Click advertising], they all need to work together," said panelliest Craig Lister, head of marketing agency Reprise Media.

That said, the benefits of social media are more often missed, according to Paul Smith, EMEA vice-president of salesforce.com's ExactTarget Marketing Cloud. "Most organisations have a pretty good handle on their SEO strategy, but are comparatively under-resourced on their social strategies." Although an average of just 1% of marketing spend goes towards social, analysts say that one third of new content discovery involves some form of social engagement. "There is a discrepancy there that people need to start addressing," he said.

Enagagement is vital

For those companies who do embrace social media, it is vital to interact, by replying to users rather than just posting marketing messages. "If you are a brand and you are just listening, you are not dealing with any issues or any problems that may arise. You don't really have a voice – you are not engaging with the customer," said Ian Duncan, from digital marketing agency MediaCo.

When Google was founded, a site's rank in search results was greatly influenced by the number and quality of other sites that linked to it. The result was an SEO industry focused on link building, with less reputable agencies getting those links by any means possible, including fake sites and purchased links.

"Google's technology has got smarter," said Duncan. "Previously, SEO was about building links and about putting pages up with keywords so you can rank. Now it is about content that is engaging, great site design, pages that load fast. The old-fashioned and dishonest methods are starting to die away. It is becoming much more difficult for people to get any sort of results doing that, which is good for the industry."

It remains critical for businesses to think about what potential customers are searching for. "One of our clients is ExxonMobil," said Lister. ExxonMobil's site used to talk a lot about 'commercial vehicle lubricants' whereas people were searching for 'best oil for a BMW'. "It was really as simple as saying, you have to stop talking in this corporate-speak," said Lister. "We did some very simple keyword matching and said that you need to develop content around those search terms. They went from position 100 for BMW car oil to the top five."

How is SEO changing in a mobile world? The starting point is to have a true mobile site, said Neil Walker, marketing consultant at Quaero. "If you don't have a mobile site it converts at half the rate of your standard desktop site. That's a problem for any business."

The more profound change, though, is the impact of mobile devices that know your location. "We are now able to map the client journey from beginning to end," said Hugo Pinto, a communications manager working on big data at Telefónica. "If you are walking in front of a John Lewis and you go in and buy, do you search before you go into John Lewis? Maybe you search while you're inside to compare prices with other retailers? This capacity of measuring reality through digital measures is bringing us more insight and more data." By analysing that data, he added, "you can understand if it is better to spend on search or create an app or go on Facebook because that's where people are".

The importance of apps on mobile devices means that people may use web searches less frequently. "There is actually more time spent inside the Facebook mobile app than on Google or the browser," said Smith. "If you want to reach people in a mobile environment you should be thinking first: 'How do I reach people in Facebook?'"

Google's social network, Google+, is something of an enigma. Few think that it will catch up with Facebook. "Google can't really do social in the same way as Facebook," said Lister. "That market is almost closed to it now because the chances of people moving their friendship circles to Google is pretty impossible."

Trading on reputation

Despite that, marketers must pay attention to Google+, the seminar heard. One reason for this is that Google is piloting authorship, which takes into account the reputation of the author of web content as part of its search ranking. The way authorship is determined is through links to Google+ profiles, so you need to build a strong presence and following there to take advantage.

Is Google putting undue pressure on the industry to sign up to Google+? "Possibly. I'm astounded at the awe that clients have for Google. Politicians are also in awe of Google and that may continue for many years," said Lister. The only hope of a change in the balance of power is Microsoft's Bing, he said. In the US, Bing has put Twitter and Facebook data into its search results, he said, which is one reason why it has grown its market share. "As that comes over to the UK I'm happy that will create a good search struggle."

Getting the right blend of SEO and social can be challenging. One company that's getting it right is luxury fashion brand Burberry, according to Lister. "Type Burberry into Google and you'll see a fantastic example of how SEO and social media work together in harmony," he said. "You will find authorised retailers in their paid search profile, their UK website, and then Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, every one of their social channels."

"How does the company achieve that?" asked an audience member.

"There are three things Google is looking for when it looks at the website and evaluates it. The first one is: can it navigate your site? The second one is content and is it relevant? The third is social. What Burberry recognises is the need for really good content across all the significant digital and social channels – content that people want to share and distribute," said Lister.

Another attendee asked how to get non-marketers within a company, such as those in sales and finance, to embrace social media. "It is a cultural paradigm shift," said Pinto. "People that are in their 20s have used social media all their lives. People that are 40 or 50 and have been doing business in a very non-digital way have a clear separation of personal and professional profiles." For the latter group, the only way forward is to demonstrate the business value of engagement. "They have to get value they can't get elsewhere," he said.

Search can drive traffic to social media, and social media can enhance search; they are not alternatives. The challenge and opportunity for today's marketers is to reach people where they are, which is as likely to mean working on your Facebook presence as topping the Google rankings.

Key discussion points

• The best digital marketing strategy includes both SEO and social media. They are not alternatives

• SEO has changed. It is no longer just about links and keywords, but strong content and web design

• Social media has a key role in winning customer trust and recommendations, which plays a strong part in purchase decisions

• Effective marketing to mobile users is critical, and means a mobile site as well as exploring the potential of apps and location-based marketing

• Although the Google+ social media site cannot compete with Facebook, it is important because of its influence in search ranking

At the table

Jemima Kiss (chair) Head of technology editorial, the Guardian

Ian Duncan Director of strategy, MediaCo

Craig Lister Head of Reprise Media

Hugo Pinto Sector communications manager, Telefonica

Paul Smith Vice-president for EMEA, Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud

Neil Walker Managing director, Quaero

Credits

Seminar report commissioned and controlled by the Guardian. Discussion hosted to a brief agreed with Salesforce. Funded by Salesforce. Contact Ashley Evans (ashley.evans@theguardian.com) on 020 3353 2758. For information on roundtables visit: theguardian.com/supp-guidelines

The whimsical world of Gerry Adams's Twitter account

Stephen Moss — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 17:04:50 GMT

It all started off so earnestly, but the Sinn Fein leader's microblogging timeline has rapidly filled with cake-baking teddy bears and rubber ducks

Forget Chinese wall posters and Kremlinology. These days reading the political runes relies on decoding politicians' Twitter feeds, and the one currently preoccupying analysts is that of Gerry Adams. "Is the strain of being Sinn Fein president telling on Gerry Adams?" asked Ruth Dudley Edwards in her column in this week's Sunday Independent. "More and more, he seems to be taking refuge in a Twitter persona that would be more suitable for a fellow living in his mother's basement, playing in the bath with his rubber ducks."

The putdown came after a Christmas in which Adams, who started twittering (as he likes to call it) a year ago, exposed a supplier for failing to deliver his Clonakilty black and white pudding, said his teddy bear had baked a cake for Northern Ireland first minister Peter Robinson and tweeted a photograph of four luminous rubber ducks he'd received as a present. He ended the year by sending New Year greetings to "family, friends, comrades, detractors, begrudgers, bigots, the media".

Dudley Edwards is not the first to wonder what the idiosyncratic Adams Twitter account means. He started to tweet on 6 February 2013, and his early efforts – "Emergency legislation shortly on Promissory Note. But no information from government. This is no way to do Dail business of significance" – suggested grinding earnestness. But he quickly found his true voice. "Barr an lá leat. Another soft day," he tweeted a week later. "Me @ Ted have work 2 do. Have a nice Lent." He appended a photograph of Ted, his teddy bear, a frequent theme in his 2,000-plus tweets since, along with rubber ducks, cupcakes, his dog Snowie (who has his own account, @SnowieAdams, unverified but followed by his owner), food – he likes to tweet photographs of what he's about to eat – and popular music, especially Leonard Cohen.

Some have suggested the Flann (or perhaps Flan) O'Brienish tone is a little calculating. "Gerry Adams tries too hard to be cute and whimsical on Twitter," said the Irish writer Damien Owens (on Twitter of course) last week. "It's like Charles Manson showing you his collection of tea cosies." Adams is alert to the criticism. "I listen to some of those things that are said about my twittering by journalists who have never talked to me in their lives," he told an interviewer last year. "It becomes a sinister Sinn Fein plan. It's just me. If people think it's stupid, they can." "But what about the teddy bears?" demanded the fearless interviewer. "You have to think of the sensitivities of teddy bears," insisted Adams. "Teddy bears aren't given their place in the scheme of things in this world." Quite.

Stephen Moss

From white shirts on men to wedge-heel trainers: what's hot and what's not on planet fashion this week

Sat, 04 Jan 2014 07:00:07 GMT

Oh yes: rose-gold hair, opaque tights, ear cuffs and Studio Nicholson. Oh no: healthy selfies, missed cinema moments, overflow bags and celebs' model children

Going up

White shirts on men Ed Burstell on Liberty Of London has made them a key component of his very stylish uniform. We approve.

Rose-gold hair Totally a thing, thanks to Sienna Miller. Reboot your highlights sharpish.

Opaque tights Silver lining of the boring post-Christmas bit of winter: you can ditch the alpha bare legs and dress for warmth.

Ear cuffs Officially now a fashion thing.

Studio Nicholson We are hook, line and sinker for this label.

Gordon Buchanan The cameraman on Expedition Borneo is your outdoorsy crush to replace Bear Grylls. It's the soft Scottish brogue that clinches it.

Going down

'Healthies' The January plague of selfies involving green juice/pair of trainers/view from your hike. Shudduppppp.

Cinemaphobe's remorse That moment when you realise skipping the cinema in favour of box sets all last year leaves you playing cultural catch-up once the Oscar nominations are released next week. Or bluffing.

Overflow bags No one is carrying spare flats any more. We're all about scaled-down bonsai bags and walkable shoes.

Wedge-heel trainers We've mentioned this before. Sometimes we wonder if you even listen.

Celebrities' children becoming models Why is this a default setting? A famous last name doesn't cut it.

12 New Year's resolutions that should be abandoned

Stuart Heritage — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:53:00 GMT

Vowing to be a better person in 2014 is a waste of time. Just embrace the lazy underachiever you really are

1 I must meet up with my online friends

This is always a popular resolution. It is also, without question, the stupidest. An online contact is the perfect friend. Their profile photo is charming and flattering, they talk exclusively in witty little soundbites and, if they ever start to annoy you, you can click a button and never hear from them again. That's enough.

I guarantee that meeting these people in real life will be a profound disappointment. That zany guy who constantly spouts hilarious zingers on Twitter? He's a monosyllabic data entry officer with dribble in the corner of his mouth, who twitches and stares at people for slightly too long. That gin-obsessed burlesque and cupcake fanatic you've secretly had your eye on? She looks nothing like her profile picture, smells of rotten vegetables and cries for 18 hours a day. But the alternative is even worse. The alternative is that they'll be exactly like their online personas – overbearing and needy and desperate to react to everything with a tedious one-liner. Go out with a group of people you only know online and one of them will definitely try to kiss you. Which would be good, except they're internet people, so it isn't.

2 I'm going to read more books

This is self-delusion. Look at your life right now. Look how busy it is. Look how you've started to eat standing up and urinate in the shower, just to claw back a few scraps of time from your corporate overlords. Who has the time to sit down and read a story about pretend people flapping about in a made-up world any more? Aristocrats. That's about it.

Also, reading a book means buying a book, and when was the last time you went into a book shop? They've changed. They know that you're just going to buy everything from Amazon now, so they've all cut their losses and stacked every shelf with a trillion different 50 Shades Of Grey knock-offs called things like Disciplined With Buttplugs and 20 Carat Strumpet. If you're going to read more books this year, it means outing yourself as a pervert. Is that what you want?

3 I must use my smartphone less

What an exercise in futility this is. Why would you ever want to use your smartphone less? It's your entire life. You can't get to places without Google Maps. You can't win arguments without Wikipedia, or get through a single film without IMDb. You can't remember what any of your friends look like without Facebook. You keep all your notes on your phone. You keep all your music on your phone. Your photos. You're probably reading this on your phone. It's become an external hard drive for your brain. You may as well resolve to jam a screwdriver into your ear and jiggle it about a bit.

You'll miss your smartphone when it's gone. You'll have nothing to look at when you're left alone at a pub table. You'll be forced just to stare at the ceiling for hours when you wake up before your other half and they're asleep on your arm. What are you expected to do when you're on a train, or sitting on the toilet, or slightly bored, or just have two seconds when you're not being jammed in the face with lights and colours and noise? Think about stuff? Make plans to better yourself? Gain a sliver of self-awareness, even momentarily? Yuck. If anything, you need to use that smartphone more.

4 I must travel more

Two things are intrinsically wrong with travelling. First, there's the bit where you have to get to your destination. This involves booking a flight on an impenetrable website, lugging a load of unwieldy baggage around an airport terminal jammed with morons, getting annoyed at the smug Fauntleroys who've bought Speedy Boarding, getting annoyed at the barging elbows who don't understand the concept of allocated seating and then, finally, spending eight hours with your kneecaps wedged deep into your nostrils while you watch a badly edited romcom next to a relentlessly screaming baby and desperately try not to calculate how long it'd take you to hit the ground if this pressurised tin can that's shrieking through the sky in a godless act of heresy were ever to fall apart in mid-air.

And what's at the end of this ordeal? Other people. Because, wherever you go, that's what you'll find. Sure, they speak a different language and use an unfamiliar currency, but they're still people. They'll still stand in your way, and talk too loudly, and deliberately pretend not to understand your requests for aftersun cream or a sterilised lance to pop all your infected insect bites, no matter how furiously you mime at them. Their activities might look charming, but ask yourself this: would it still be charming if it was happening in this country? If they were breakdancing in the street or dangerously overloading a moped with livestock over here? Of course it wouldn't. It'd be infuriating. All you're really missing out on by staying at home is the chance to Instagram a picture of the sky, and God knows enough people do that already.

5 I will get a promotion

This is the year, big guy. This is the year that you show those bastards in head office what you're made of. You aced the McKenzie account, you double-digited Q4 growth and you personally ran more low-hanging fruit up a greater number of flagpoles than the Wilmslow and Harrowgate divisions combined. I'm sorry. I work from home. I literally have no idea what any of this means.

However, before you go charging up to your boss demanding a promotion, just take a minute. Sure, you might end up with a fancy new job title and more money than you can ever spend. And, yes, your partner is bound to love you much more than they currently do, because you've become the dynamic go-getter they've always wanted. But are you the right person for the job? You, with your clothes that limply hang off your ruined excuse for a body? You, who can't even ask for a cup of tea without first couching the request in 10 minutes of directionless context-setting? You, whom nobody trusts because you'd rather communicate in emails of cat gifs than actual spoken words? Probably not. This promotion isn't for you. Sorry.

6 I'm going to do more exercise

It makes perfect sense for you to want to get in shape. I mean, look at you. You've just spent the last three weeks packing your digestive system to capacity with Celebrations and cold meat. You perpetually suffer from acid reflux. Your eyes are glazed and milky. You haven't bent over for days, for fear that your jeans will explode and blind everyone in a 30ft radius with deadly slivers of rivet shrapnel. You're pretty sure that you've started to seep gravy at night.

But is exercise the answer? Is it really? Think about it. First of all, it hurts. Attempting any sort of physical activity, if you haven't done it for a while, will basically render you immobile for a month. You'll stagger around, unable to bend your knees, deluding yourself that it's doing you good. And what if you start to enjoy it? You'll buy tight little tops and expensive shoes that are wildly overqualified to help you plod around a park twice a week. You'll start drinking grotty protein shakes. You'll fill up everyone's Facebook with maps and distances and stats, when all they want is to be racist and perv over people they went to school with. You cannot win. Just join a gym and never go, like everyone else.

7 I will lose weight

Oh, what's the point? This isn't the first time you've decided to do this, and it won't be the last. But you got a Miranda Hart workout DVD and an instructional book about kale for Christmas, so people are obviously trying to tell you something. This may as well be the year that you finally lose weight for good.

Except it won't be. This is what'll actually happen. Next week, purely because it's January and you have been existing solely on a diet of chocolate oranges and beer, you'll notice that you've lost half a pound. At this point you'll decide that you deserve a treat and fall face-down in a pile of mashed potato. At Easter, you'll try out a new fad diet where you're only allowed to lick cauliflowers, and you'll lose weight again. But then you'll go on holiday and start eating puddings for breakfast. You'll have shifted that weight by October, but by Christmas you'll be in exactly the same place as you are now. All that effort, all that chronic yo-yoing, and you'll have nothing whatsoever to show for it. You're wasting your time. Instead, you should resolve to either gorge indiscriminately because it's your body, or exercise. I've already explained why that would be a disaster.

8 I want to try an extreme sport

OK, you're having a midlife crisis. I get it. Can't you just get your ear pierced or try to seduce an office junior who's physically repulsed by you instead? Because at least those will only destroy your self-esteem. If your resolution is to take up an extreme sport, I promise that you will end up as a broken, sobbing pile of limbs waiting for a mountain rescue team that will never arrive.

Didn't you see 127 Hours? Didn't you watch that YouTube video of the mid-air parachuting collision? Or the first few minutes of Ghost Rider? Disasters and warnings, all of them. Take up an extreme sport and, at best, you'll have to cut off your own hand with a penknife. At worst, you'll become a supernatural crimefighter who can't stop setting his own head alight. Also, you're not the sort of person to take up an extreme sport. The Felix Baumgartner video where he did a supersonic freefall from space just made your genitals hurt. It takes you upwards of five minutes to lower yourself into a bath if the water is either slightly too hot or slightly too cold. You're going to look like a wally on a snowboard. Please just admit this to yourself.

9 I need to drink less alcohol

How many times have you said this? You've contemplated cutting back on alcohol after every big night out since you were 16, and it's never worked. It didn't work after you wet yourself on a tram. It didn't work after you were arrested for dry-humping a bus stop. It didn't work after you were sick in someone else's coat pocket. What makes you think that, just because it's the first week of the year, it'll work now?

Only about 8% of people succeed at their new year's resolutions, and most of those made frilly cop-out resolutions such as "Appreciate the sunrise" or "See the magic in a child's eye". A tangible, quantifiable resolution – especially one that's going to make you feel as socially awkward as "Drink less alcohol" – is bound to end in miserable defeat. Perhaps set smaller goals to begin with, for instance "Don't drink the dregs of strangers' drinks" or "No drinking on your own in the morning in a toilet cubicle at work", and see where you go from there.

10 I need to spend more time with friends

Oh, your lucky friends. Imagine how enriched they'll all feel now that you're back in their lives. However did they cope last year, when they had evenings and weekends to themselves that weren't utterly dominated by your berserk insistence on turning up without warning, or asking to borrow money, or ringing them when they're eating, or just generally trying to pretend that you're all still students, even though you graduated 15 years ago and they've got important jobs and marriages and children that you do your best to ignore? Think how grateful they'll be when you tell them that you decided to see them only because you wanted to make a new year's resolution and it was either this or buying a cat.

What are you even doing with friends, anyway? You're an adult. You should spend your days in a miserable cycle of work and sleep until you drop dead from a mixture of exhaustion and lack of gratitude. Everyone knows that.

11 I should get a new hairdo

A prediction: you will regret your decision to adopt a new haircut approximately a millisecond after the hairdresser takes his first snip. You'll have spent months looking at pictures of celebrities and wondering if you could get away with anything quite that bold. Then, on the day of your haircut, you'll realise that you actually look quite good as you are. But it'll be too late.

You're not even getting a haircut at this point; you're watching yourself star in a stop-motion film about regret. When it's over, you'll nod approvingly at the hairdresser. Then you'll muss it up with your fingers as soon as you're out of his eyeline and pray that it'll look better once it's washed. It will not. You'll spend the next week wearing a hat and toying with the idea of having a go at it yourself with a pair of nail scissors. People will stare, unable to work out what's wrong with you. Remember when Jonathan Ross got a haircut like a musketeer? Remember how you couldn't concentrate on anything he said, because you were so overcome with pity? That's your life now.

12 I'm going to call my mum more

Obviously you should call your mum more. And maybe this year you actually will. Maybe this year your decision won't dissolve in a cloud of self-interested childishness, as it always has in the past. And maybe, when you do actually call your mum, you won't sit there, robotically uh-huhing to her anecdotes about the neighbours while you play internet poker on your laptop. And maybe you'll ask how she is, rather than simply responding to her questions with churlish, one-word answers.

But you won't, will you? You'll ring her twice, and that'll be it. Maybe you'll try to rationalise your lack of communication by blaming her inability to text or understand Facebook, but really it's because you're selfish and lazy. Didn't you watch Home Alone? Didn't you see the sad old man in church? You're the one who made him sad. It was you, you monster. Admittedly, his sadness is what made him a recluse, and his reclusiveness is what stopped that child from being murdered, so perhaps you're right. You shouldn't call your mum any more. Nor should I. My selfishness is saving children! Hooray for me!

Stuart Heritage

The rise of collaborative consumption and the experience economy

Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:42:18 GMT

An economy that values access and experience could mark the end of the age of ownership and hyper-consumption, argues entrepreneur Xavier de Lecaros Aquise