I’ve previously written about why companies should be using Twitter to engage with customers and I’ve recently had a chance to experience two company’s twitter feeds in action, with both positive and negative results.

Since hearing that the Italian restaurant chain Carluccio’s was coming to Cardiff, I’ve been following its Twitter feed. It’s unclear who is actually tweeting from the account, but the person is pretty active on the social networking service. The account publicises events and services without being pushy and also interacts with customers, whether they’re tweeting about positive or negative experiences.

This week was my husband’s birthday so we decided to head to Carluccio’s for dinner. During the day I tweeted that we were looking forward to eating there that night and was fully planning to tweet about my experience the next day – whether positive or negative.

I wasn’t particularly surprised, but still quite pleased when Carluccio’s replied with an offer to book us a table. I replied that we’d already booked but thanks and thought that would be the end of it.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were waited on by the manager, who immediately asked if it was my husband’s birthday. I hadn’t mentioned this when we booked, so wondered if whoever was operating the tweets had mentioned it to the restaurant. The waiter was extremely attentive all night, sent us a complimentary chocolate fondant (delicious) and told us our teas and coffees were also on him. Later that night we were both tweeting in abundance about what a wonderful night we’d had.

Whether our experience was down to my tweet, it is difficult to say but the two services combined were impeccable. A relative, who lives in Canada, even saw the exchange on Twitter and is determined to visit on her next trip here.

In contrast, I recently went for a family weekend away at Bluestone Park in Pembrokeshire, another company whose twitter feed I am following. Their twitter service does react to customer comments – but it seems to acknowledge the positive ones in the main. We had a lovely weekend overall, but possibly the worst meal we’ve ever eaten in one of their on-site restaurants. Myself, my husband and sister all tweeted about how awful the food and service was, yet Bluestone didn’t even acknowledge our tweets, let alone apologise. It didn’t put us off going back (everything else there was lovely), but did leave somewhat of a bad taste in our mouths.

Over half of Fortune Magazine’s 100 largest companies in the US now use the micro-blogging site Twitter to engage with customers and stakeholders, according to a study from Burston-Marsteller PR and Proof Digital. And UK companies are also coming around to the idea of using Twitter to engage with customers. But the lesson here is that purely having a Twitter feed is not enough. You need to use the service to interact with your followers, whether their experiences are good or bad. Customer service is now a big part of web 2.0 and if your company isn’t doing it, you need to be. And you need to be doing it well.

- Katie Chappelle, digital media manager

You may have seen the advert with the kids singing ‘I’d do anything’ from the musical ‘Oliver’. That advertisement is part of a long running campaign aimed at convincing parents to curb the amount of cigarettes they consume. As we all know, it has long been proven that passive smoking can be just as harmful as sticking the actual thing in your mouth. But the advert’s tagline ‘Your kids would do anything for you. Why not give up smoking for them?’ has been criticised by parents who smoke - claiming the media are piling guilt onto them and blackmailing them into quitting.

Recently, more research has been carried out into the relationship between second-hand smoke and the numerous ear-related infections and asthma cases diagnosed amongst children. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) argue that parents are being ignorant about the connection between their habit and their children’s health problems, hiding behind the excuse that if they smoke outdoors or when children are not in the room, then the risks are eliminated. This is not the case however as the damaging smoke lingers for a long time after the cigarette has been put out.

Individuals in the medical arena are now calling for a complete ban on smoking in vehicles transporting children. This week, the RCP are taking things a step further, by proposing drivers must never smoke in cars, regardless of children’s presence, which (surprise, surprise) has riled up the parent smokers again. Certain parents argue cars are an extension of the home, and thus interfering in this part of their daily routine, in their eyes, is viewed as an unnecessary intrusion into their private sphere.

Personally I cannot see why parents want to see this public information service advert removed, or want to argue against a ban on smoking in cars with children; why remove something which is trying to prevent their children from inhaling chest-damaging smoke? Besides, all advertising is a form of persuasion anyway, so I am glad that so far the advert has been allowed to remain on our screens. Hopefully it will be enough to convince one or two parents that their lifestyles can and do affect their children’s well-being.

- Abigail Ray, work experience student

The charity at the centre of the Downing Street bullying scandal reopens today after raising serious questions over the Prime Minister’s suitability to lead the country.

Bullying in any capacity is vile but it has to be asked that in the work place, especially one as high pressure as Downing Street, is there a fine line between bullying and being an irate boss?

Gordon Brown is accused of shouting at his staff and shoving them aside, and while nobody can condone this, what exactly did these so called victims of Mr Brown expect when accepting jobs in Downing Street? Is it conceivable that they went into the role without having considered the high pressure environment that would naturally exist in such a place?

Now, I don’t want to seem callous, I have been the victim of the aforementioned shouting and shoving and I know that it can be thoroughly upsetting (I should point out now this was while waitressing in a restaurant a VERY long time ago and not in the lovely WEPR offices). However, if restaurant bosses and head chefs can get so worked up about an overdone steak what would they be like facing economic meltdown and bomb threats?

Surely if you work in an environment such as Downing Street you must expect that the atmosphere will occasionally lead to angry outbursts. Why is Gordon Brown facing this media scrutiny when another famous Gordon, Chef Ramsey, can say what he likes to his staff without a national bullying charity singling him out for criticism?

The problem is that Gordon Brown is an easy target. Despite shedding the occasional tear to Piers Morgan and having a very popular, media-savvy wife, he can seem cold and aloof and claims like this just stick too easily.

You can’t imagine someone making similar allegations about the silky smooth Blair, but I would hazard a guess that around 9/11 or 7/7 he wasn’t above the odd outburst. Personally, I wouldn’t have relished the thought of having worked in Downing Street in the Thatcher era either. The nickname the ‘Iron Lady’ hardly conjures up images of a boss to confide in, does it?

On a serious note, it must be awful to feel like a victim in your own workplace and if people do feel that they are they are being treated unfairly they should contact organisations like the National Bullying Helpline. However, it might be worth changing your boss’s name, just in case...

Katherine Williams-Davies, account manager

We are currently in the throes of London Fashion Week (19th – 23rd February 2010). What has struck me so far about this year’s event is not the continuation of the big shoulder trend (its here to stay ladies), nor the emergence of leather socks (thanks very much, Paul Costello) – but it seems that this year, social media is the big trend that’s emerging.

‘LFW’ was once viewed as the fashion event of the elite – attended by glossy magazine editors, industry insiders and skinny models only. Now the runway information is instantly available to everyone who wants it, thanks to bloggers, Twitter posts (follow #LFW for all updates) and even London Fashion Week’s own website.

This year, the official site is offering online streaming videos of the runway shows and a newly launched blog portal listing the bloggers who are following LFW. These include Times Fashion and Liberty London Girl – bloggers who are sure to be tweeting and posting updates, photos, videos and gossip - directly from the front row.

The fashion world’s grasp of social media is not new. Last year, Burberry linked up with Facebook to launch artofthetrench.com – a social networking site enabling fashionistas to upload pictures of their favourite trench coat, creating a community of wearers of the Burberry classic. Fashion-related iphone apps such as Shop Style and Chanel Haute Couture are also growing in popularity.

The female social media market is simply one that cannot be ignored. Facebook says its approx. 350 million users are split evenly between females and males and websites such as Cardiff Geek Girl are springing up across the UK as a way of bringing together female bloggers and social media enthusiasts.

Social media and online networking is the big trend from London Fashion Week 2010 and, unlike leather socks, it’s a trend that a lot of women are going to follow.

- Katie Chappelle, digital media manager

Do you want to donate some money to the people affected by the Haiti earthquake? There’s an app for that. Want to have a baby? There’s an app for that too. Want to stop your partner checking your text messages and emails? You guessed it. There’s an app for that as well.

For only 59 pence, the itrust application takes a screen shot of your iphone and when the phone is locked, mimics that homescreen. It means that the phone looks like it always does, but no one except you is able to access it. When you return to unlock the device, the application uses fingerprint recognition to tell you if someone tried to access your phone while you were gone – and will even playback a video of the buttons they tried to press.

There’s no getting away from the fact that online safety and social networking privacy is a huge issue. The importance of keeping certain details out of the public domain is clear. But keeping them secret from your loved ones is perhaps another matter.

According to the app’s blurb – 67% of women check their boyfriend’s phones regularly. But surely, the very action of downloading this app marks you out as having something to hide and negates the point?

If you do want to keep your texts and messages private, you might be better off using the phones passcode option. This is, after all, completely free. And less glaringly obvious.

- Katie Chappelle, digital media manager

Ever heard of Twixtmas? Apparently, 'Twixtmas' is the five days between Christmas and the New Year holiday and PR consultant Andy Green wants to use it as a period where everyone would ideally do five small things to make our world a better place.

The Twixtmas campaign has been developed by the Flexible Thinking Forum, a not-for-profit organisation promoting flexible and creative thinking skills in business and the community, encouraging people to challenge set ways of thinking.

Andy, who is a member of the Forum, says it's not money making in any way, it's being done because it seems a good thing to do.

Although we live in a 'time-poor' age, during Twixtmas many people will be bored, fed up with sitting in front of the telly or shopping so five small things shouldn't be too strenuous should it?

But what sort of thing is being suggested? Each of the five days of Twixtmas is themed to offer a way of making the most of each day where people are invited to celebrate themselves, do something unselfish by celebrating others, and do something for a friend, for the planet, or for their future.

Check out www.twixtmas.com for ideas or partner organisation www.helpfromhome.org which shows you how to carry out home based micro volunteer activities and "change the world in just your pyjamas"!

Is it too late to do anything? It's never too late and as anthropologist Margaret Mead said: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Happy Twixtmas to you.

Jackie Sinclair
Account Manager

It was announced this week that lessons in internet safety will be taught in schools from 2011.

Facebook has an age limit of 13 – but with much younger users flouting the rules and cases of teenagers posting their mobile phone numbers online, there have long been calls to make the site’s security measures more robust.

And Facebook itself seems to have woken up to the fact that to reduce bad press for its security measures, it must review those often complicated settings. Which is probably what prompted the recent open letter to members from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In it, he acknowledges that when Facebook was first developed, it was used primarily by students who wanted to share content with other students in their online university network.

Facebook then grew and began to include networks for companies, regions and even full countries, with users perhaps not realising that anyone in the same network (eg Wales) could see your profile, even if you were not ‘friends’. With almost 50% of Facebook users belonging to a network, the social networking site now acknowledges that “this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy.”

Zuckerberg goes on: “The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.”
Even more exciting is the fact that you’ll now be able to control who will be able to see each piece of content you upload to the site, making it simple to control what goes into the public domain.

So, not everyone has to know about what you got up to at the office Christmas party, and your dignity - and perhaps your safety - could remain intact.

- Katie Chappelle, digital media manager