It was indeed in 1999 that plans to launch 1000heads were first laid. To put this into perspective, there was no Facebook (can a $100billion business really grow that quickly?), no Twitter, no YouTube, no MySpace, and social media meant no more than sharing a newspaper in the park.

We may not have partied like it was 1999 ever since but it’s been an action-packed, white-knuckle ride from our early days in a (thankfully converted) cowshed in rural Oxfordshire. We now have around 75 talented and inspiring people working out of our offices in Soho, we have a dozen more in New York under the leadership of North American CEO Mike Davison, plus growing teams in Australia and Germany.

As the grizzled veterans of social media, we have seen a global industry grow up with us, and around us, and we are proud to be a part of it.

In addition to clients such as Nokia, whom we have had the pleasure of working with for the last seven years, we are delighted that Mars Petcare, Skype, Toyota, Rebel Sports and Gala Bingo, to name but a few, have recently joined the 1000heads family.

Social media is in our DNA but today brands want so much more. We talk a lot about social communications, helping brands’ stories to travel further and faster. People talk and share information wherever they are, whatever they are doing, and whoever they are with.

Meeting that challenge is sometimes scary but always exhilarating and I’m delighted that we are able to welcome some fantastic new ‘Heads’ to the fold, as well as promotions for existing Heads, who together will be part of the leadership team taking 1000heads forward.

Joanne Jacobs takes up a position as Chief Operating Officer in our Sydney office from March 1st. Joanne describes herself as a ‘geekgirl’ and has a passion for all things social. A former lecturer in the MBA program at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business at Queensland University of Technology, Joanne is returning to Australia after a four year stint in London during which time she was Client Director for Xenial and more recently Chief Operating Officer for Hibrow, an online arts offering from British-based film-maker Don Boyd.

It’s a real coup to have Joanne join us and I know she will build on the great success we are already starting to see in the Australian market.

Here in London, Phil Borge has been appointed to the newly created role of Strategic Planning Director.  He joins us from PR agency Eulogy! after 10 years of service, where he was most recently Senior Account Director and strategic lead within its marketing services division.

In short Phil is a guy who gets things done and he will be responsible for developing the agency’s approach to client strategy, working with the insights, project management and creative teams across multiple projects and campaigns.  He will also spearhead the addition of PR activation within client campaigns.

He will be working alongside Frank Grindrod, previously Group Account Director, who has been promoted to Client Services Director. Frank has been with 1000heads for six years and while ‘social media guru’ is a term he would shrink from, we call him it anyway.

Simon Adamson, another long-serving ‘Head’, has been promoted to Group Account Director and will continue to keep calm while all around him ‘chaordic’ enthusiasm reigns.

We also shortly hope to be announcing the appointment of our first Community Director, another key hire for the business. The Community Director will be responsible for our 20-strong Community team, running social presences, advocacy programmes, and community events.

Our journey may have started in the last century, and it may feel like we have been travelling 100 years at times, but the reality is that we have only just left the station and the tracks are infinite. We are delighted to welcome our new travelling companions on board.

Recently, bieMEDIA, an online marketing and media company, predicted the end of the QR code based on the fact that very few consumers actually use them.

We’ve blogged before about the good, the bad and the pointless ways brands are using QR.

But as they move into maturity what are the main arguments for and against these matrix barcodes, and just how valuable are they in driving word of mouth?

For

QR codes are so popular on posters, flyers and other marketing material because companies can use them to convey specific information about their brands to a target audience. Because the majority of people who use and recognise QR codes fall into the 18-34 age bracket, it means campaigns can be specifically developed for this demographic.

Their versatility also means they can be tailored to all sorts of needs as long as the creativity is there. Just look at this case study from India:

It looks pretty impressive from a community engagement and WOM perspective. But despite the initial positive response, how lasting do those conversations prove to be?

Against

As a QR-virgin myself (someone who has never actually scanned a QR code despite being surrounded by them every day), I am sceptical as to how these codes can be incorporated into a meaningful and lasting campaign. And the data is on my side.

According to an October 2011 survey from strategic marketing firm Russell Herder, although 72% of consumers say they have seen a QR code, nearly 30% of them don’t really know what they are.

More worryingly, 57% of consumers who have scanned a QR code say they did nothing with the information. This means that brands and marketing companies are spending time, effort and money on campaigns that don’t really seem to have an effect on consumers.

Couple this with the fact that other technologies such as NFC and mobile visual search are now on the rise, the trend seems to be towards QR codes becoming nothing more than distant relics of a past era: the marketing equivalent of the MiniDisc.

As with all tools, QR codes are only as good as the strategy or creative execution behind how they are used – and not very many brands are doing that well.

There are shinier alternatives creeping up too. NFC provides the potential for commercial services as well as marketing opportunities. Aurasma, an augmented reality app, acts as a much more tangible ‘bridge’ between the real and virtual worlds we inhabit, providing users with an interactive way of enhancing everyday life, such as this example of a polar bear on the River Thames:

So what do you think? What are your best and worst case studies of QR codes being used by brands? And how often do you use them yourself?

Scarcity, secrecy, exclusivity. Three words that don’t exactly reflect the transparency and freedom of information that brands are supposedly striving for in a social age. But that’s also the reason that they can be so powerful in triggering emotional impact and peer-to-peer conversation when they are used well.

Last week, a friend of mine invited me to volunteer for something called YMBBT. Armed with no more information than an address in the West End and a time for that evening, I was slightly nervous that I had signed myself up for some dubious Soho debauchery. When a quick Google search revealed nothing except for the fact that YMBBT stood for ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’, my anticipation – and anxiety – understandably increased.

For those of you who haven’t heard about YMBBT, well – the first rule of YMBBT is that you don’t talk about YMBBT. All I need to tell you is that it’s a highly sought-after interactive theatre experience run almost entirely by volunteers who, like me, don’t really know what they are volunteering for. And when I say highly sought-after, I mean sought-after.  80,000 applied for just 1,000 tickets during its last run, all without a clue what they were signing up for.

The absolute secrecy of the whole enterprise is key to its success. Counter-intuitively, explicitly asking people to restrict the nature of their word of mouth drives word of mouth like wildfire.

YMBBT is just one of several examples of brands that know the value of cloak and dagger.  We’ve talked before about how pop-up shops harness people’s desire to uncover unconventional retail gems before anyone else.

Secret Cinema is another fantastic example. Paying over the odds to see a film you may or may not like in a location that may or may not be anywhere near you sounds bizarre in a world of hyper-personalisation, convenience and tribal passion groups. But it sells out every time precisely because it subverts those trends. Sometimes, not being pandered to makes you respect a brand or experience very much indeed.

Of course, exclusivity taps into very basic human drives.  We’re herd animals – we enjoy inclusion and being privy to something special, and those emotions can quickly be converted into loyalty and advocacy.  We want people around us to know we’re part of this magical experience, both to bond with our fellow participants and to badge our selves with a sort of ‘in the know’ cool.

Of course, not every brand lends itself to this kind of ‘popularity through secrecy’ approach, especially those that can’t rely on the impact of the live experience.  Practical, non-experiential and non-luxury items such as say, household cleaner, rely on candidness, transparency and cold hard facts to make their product stand out in a sea of competitors.

But Apple is proof that you don’t need lots of stunts to make consumers feel special.  Its carefully – some might say anally – controlled flow of information is absolutely key to the cult.  The ultimate Generation Y brand, Apple doesn’t have a blog, Twitter account or Facebook page.

Yet by revealing so little Apple all but guarantees that every announcement it makes is met with fevered global excitement and advocacy.

So how might you be able to drive demand with a bit of social scarcity? What assets, information or experiences might you be able to withhold, tease or stagger to generate that sense of privileged camaraderie? Don’t forget: silence can be one of your most powerful tools in harnessing word of mouth.

That means good and bad.

Our ethics policy explains that we encourage people to discuss what they *really think* about brands, products and services. They won’t get rewarded for one-note glowing reviews. They won’t be given scripts to regurgitate. As long as their conversation is authentic and constructive (i.e. not an abusive rant), we love it, and generally our clients do too.

Because of course the ‘negative’ conversation is usually the most useful stuff. Maybe not if your only objective in social is to engineer a whitewash of promotional-style blah. But definitely if you want to use this space as an opportunity to learn and grow with your customers, and let them in on the process. It’s an amazing chance to get unbiased feedback about how you’re doing, rather than spending thousands on market research that might produce a skewed result – and if you don’t want to hear it, or do something about it, then you have much bigger problems than a grumbly Facebook page.

It’s therefore great to see the latest research from our friends over at Reevoo, the social commerce crew. Digging into the data around the website review plugins they provide for clients such as Tesco, Sharp and Sony, they’ve discovered that allowing bad reviews to coexist with the good ensures that:

• 68% trust good reviews more when they also see the bad ones
• 95% suspect censorship or fake scores when they don’t see any negative reviews
• people stay longer on your site, giving you more time to persuade them to buy
• people view more pages – only 1% leave your site after seeing one badly-reviewed product

Surely the important word here is trust. It’s the lifeblood of effective social brands – that is, ones that don’t just forge great relationships, word of mouth and loyalty, but ones that make money from their social interactions.

Download the full Reevoo report here.

Of course I am not alone in this – every parent the world over would sympathise – but whilst my son has always accepted most boundaries with resigned equanimity, it is my new ‘Technology Rules’ that are causing the strop (which of course, merely serves to mitigate my actions).

The problem is that while I am a big fan of technology, fiercely defending it against those who declare that it destroys family life, social skills and kids’ brains (not if it’s employed sensibly and productively), I can’t keep ignoring the studies which point to the dreaded possibility of addiction and, I hate to say it, what look like the early warning signs in my son (ref. the excessive strop).

via softpedia-static

When he started secondary school recently, I finally allowed him to join Facebook. This really did help the transition (he was more worried about losing touch with his old friends than he was about making new ones), but he began feverishly logging on every morning after a rushed breakfast.  Playing his pals on the PSP every night was also becoming more important than his homework. That is, until the ‘Technology Rules’…

What I would really appreciate is some help in all this – and I’m not talking just PHSE classes in school or government guidelines which are frustratingly and peculiarly absent in spite of expert pressure to introduce them.

No, I’m referring to brand involvement. My research shows that not one of the gaming or social media brands is taking the opportunity to engage with kids or parents about this. No social networking sites or games producers are addressing this issue in their CSR plans. Nor are they producing content to help kids and parents make sensible choices.

via Leonid Mamchenkov

This is more than an obligation – it’s a clear opportunity which has already been harnessed by snack and fast food companies to great applaud for years.  It’s called transparency and shows a level of empathy and humility parents respond to.

Crucially, it helps educate kids not yet tainted with commercial cynicism to make healthy choices independent of their parents’ nagging.

Is it really such a huge risk for technology companies to admit and take some responsibility for what appears to be adversely affecting almost every family I know?

How risky is it to ignore?

But what happens when these conversations are curtailed, constricted and controlled?

There has been a fierce debate raging over the past few days – both online and offline – about the relative pros and cons of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in America, and it could have big implications for the future of the WOM industry – not to mention our everyday online lives.

The bill, originally presented to the United States House of Representatives in October 2011, is intended to pre-empt the problem of Internet piracy in the US by targeting sites that promote and enable the sharing of copyrighted material.

So far, so simple.

(Flickr: spaceninja)

But what SOPA and its sister bill PIPA (the Protect IP Act) have done is effectively turned a debate on piracy into a pitched battle between two cornerstones of Liberal ideology: free speech and free markets.

The disagreement pits Internet giants such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia against businesses such as television networks, record labels, book publishers and the film industry. The latter want to be able to protect their copyrighted material from illegal distribution over the Internet, while the former wish to enshrine the right of their users to upload and consume content according to their will (within certain legal parameters, of course).

Wikipedia has today shut down its English language services as part of a 24-hour protest to the bills, which it says could “fatally damage the free and open Internet”. Many other websites have followed suit.

So why does this matter to us?

Although the vast majority of law-abiding citizens agree that Internet piracy is A Bad Thing, many equally believe that it is not the place of government – any government – to control and restrict what  they can access on the Internet.

On the other hand, companies, brands and individuals who produce copyrighted material do not want to see their goods trafficked and bandied about (either on the internet or in the so-called ‘real world’) by others who are not them.

Which puts us somewhere in the middle.

As a word of mouth company, we are committed to the spread of information and ideas around the world. Equally, we are committed to our clients and their very real need to keep their goods and services protected from those who wish to abuse them. The question here, then, is whether the proposals put forward by SOPA and PIPA will help protect both agendas. This is a question that does not as yet have a clear answer.

What is clear is that by limiting the number and type of interactions a web user can experience, the checks and controls proposed by these bills may inadvertently stifle the sort of innovation and creativity that is such an integral part of the online world.

But then again, SOPA and PIPA have got people talking – and this itself may help drive change where it is most needed.

To have a new Wiki is an admission that we have failed. ‘We’ being the proponents of the correct usage of the English language. The excuse tripped out by the chain is that the change will ‘simplify internet searches and email’. Balls. It’s just. Plain. Lazy. It’s kowtowing to the kids who can’t be bovvered to learn the rules. What happened to the three R’s? They only ever appear now when I scream ‘Arrrgh!’ at seeing another erosion of the language like this one. What happened to educating children? Where did this ‘attitude’ come from? I hate it.

To be fair, the High Street is already sending mixed signals – see Boots (founded by J.Boot) vs. McDonald’s (founded, as we all know by one Ronald McDonald – son of an old guy who had a farm). *And* as my hippy tutor at Uni used to say: ‘Language is a free-running river’, so as a grumpy old man I should adapt and move on.  But I can’t. Presumably every Waterstone’s (I refuse to drop it!)  has books on the shelves whose sole purpose is to inform the reader about correct grammar and the use of the apostrophe….is this going to cause a paradox and make the Universe collapse in on itself? Well no, but it begs an interesting question. Is someone going to go through all those books with a black marker and erase the apostrophe chapters?

So to all those children (and several adults) who refuse to use the apostrophe correctly I say ‘Meh’. I use and always will use the English language in the correct form. The rest of you are Dummies.

• This is cool in a life-saving way
• This is cool in a really quite strange (but frankly, hilarious) way and finally
• This is cool but actually probably really isn’t

Shall we dive in?

First up, this video from Heineken that Rob posted on the 1000heads Socialcast just over a week ago -

The comments were as follows

“Why QR codes?”
“How is this on brand?”
“Couldn’t any brand do this?”

It sparked a whole other post about engagement currency too.

What do you think?
Cool, or not?
Technology for technology’s sake perhaps?

Next, this one from Miss Jaqui Hill, is BELIEVE IT OR NOT, nail varnish – for men.

We’re filing this under WHAT NOW?

Seriously.

And if that’s not enough, here’s a handy ‘how to’ video, for those of you who are still slightly unsure about this entire concept -

Finally, and this is by far and away our favourite entry from last week, the British Heart Foundation have recruited Vinnie Jones for this tongue in cheek but potentially life saving PSA video -

To the beat of Stayin’ Alive? Perfect. Hat tip to Ryan for finding that one…

Good job British Heart Foundation, we salute you.

Ok, Fly Twitter it is.

Confused?

Watch this -

The upgrade brings along all sorts of lovely things, such as a cleaner UI (nice), the ability to embed tweets (hurrah!) and BRAND PAGES (but we’ll come back to this one another time).

OK, so we know that isn’t exactly news per se [the upgrade has been rolling out to Twitter's users for around a month now] but now that penetration is hitting critical mass it’s time to revisit that favoured Twitter topic of ours – the Twitter background!

On our last two visits we first asked how you used yours then, once you answered, we showed you how to optimise further still around Twitter’s last UI overhaul.

Today, our old background looks like this -

But with Fly Twitter, that super swishness is lost and instead, things are hidden and it looks a little bit like this -

So how do we fix?

There’s still a bit of white space to play with on Fly Twitter (not much mind) so let’s utilise that and give visitors a nudge in the right direction. Like so -

Tug at the window at the right of the screen, and slowly but surely the image reveals itself.

And there’s the info we want to share.

Obviously this isn’t the best workaround available (and is still very much a work in progress), but it’s a start.

Got any ideas on how you might use your [brand's] Twitter background?

Drop us a comment and we can compare notes…

It is worthwhile, but like anything worthwhile, you have to work really hard to achieve it. And with social business, you have to keep working and evolving, every day. It’s a living, breathing way of being – not a manifesto or a solution.

This means that the biggest challenge aspiring social businesses face is not budget, structure, aptitude or knowledge.

It’s culture.

This has been borne out again and again in our experience working with companies of all sizes and from all industries. The only common thread between those that  manage to integrate a social is that they are willing to spend time and effort on helping their people really understand what a social approach means and allowing them to collaborate in its design and adoption.

In David Carr’s recent 10 Enterprise Social Networking Obstacles, ‘a command-and-control culture’ sits at number one. Although elements of c-and-c can be useful and even essential in enabling some big companies to disseminate social practices, the sentiment is spot on. If you don’t tackle the roots, the flowers won’t bloom.

In her video on a 2011 study of 2000 global companies, IBM’S Vice President of Social Business Sandy Carter outlines the top four barriers preventing social business success. They are security; adoption; culture; and compliance, but it’s culture that really holds companies back.

This should be exciting rather than disheartening. It’s the difference between having a facelift and adopting a healthy lifestyle.

And we all know facelifts look rubbish.