It’s that time of the year again when Social Media Week rolls into town. Now in its third year, Social Media Week offers ‘a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends in social and mobile media across all major industries.’

Of course, we at Neoco will be flexing our social muscle and sharing the knowledge with our very own event where we’ll be providing one-on-one sessions to alevialte your social media woes in our ‘Social Surgery’.

Book a session with one of the team and we’ll examine your social media symptoms, getting to the root of your social pain. We’ll endeavor to not only diagnose but also treat your ailments in the time it takes to have a muffin and a coffee

Plus as well as answering all your questions on all things web 2.0, such as what is the best social media platform for promoting my brand? What are the upcoming trends within the industry? We’ll also give patients a takeaway gift to make sure your social media strategy is on the road to recovery.

Ok enough of the sick puns, but you get the point.  In a nutshell a session will provide you with:

• 100% private one-to-one session to discuss your social media concerns
• expert advice relating to your social media problem
• Insight into how relevant, successful brands are using social media to meet their business goals

Neoco’s clinic: MADD – 53 Rupert Street, W1D 7PQ

Surgery times: Tues 14th and Thurs 16th February from 9:00am – 11:00am

Make an appointment email: surgeon@neoco.com

This event is ideal for anyone managing social channels (or in charge of someone who’s managing social channels!) but don’t feel they’re performing at their best. No issue is too big or small for us to handle so schedule an appointment with us now and get social media advice tailored to your brand; remember, it’s not psycho therapy, it’s social therapy!

Email us at surgeon@neoco.com – alternatively you can drop in during one of the sessions and we’ll try and book you in for an emergency consultation.

The sixth edition of Children & Young People Now awards has acknowledged the dedication of Bubbalicious in helping out young parents. Bubbalicious have been announced as winners of the Parenting Award and the Early Years Award! The website, which we designed and developed, is a hub and support network for young parents providing them with an opportunity share advice and to speak out about difficulties during parenthood.

The awards celebrate the commitment and innovation of organisations that support young and vulnerable families despite the difficulties public services are facing this year.

Ravi Chandiramani, the Editor of Children & Young People Now, highlighted the fact that the winners of the 2011 awards should be very proud of their achievements. “The reductions in public spending have put services and projects for children and young people under severe pressure, in many cases threatening their very existence,” he said. “What’s more, we are seeing from this coalition government a move towards localism, less control from the centre and, we are told, more freedom to shape services.”

“So this makes the recognition and the spreading of best practice right across the country as important as ever and that is, of course, what these awards are all about. The winners have shown great creativity and great innovation, and, crucially, demonstrated that what they do makes a real and important difference.” Bubbalicious has been highly recognised by a panel of experts and young judges from over 420 competitors.

Well done guys!

Responsible for finding the next generation of digital pioneers, the likes of Foursquare, Tumblr, Quora and all started out here. As a hotbed of up and coming talent SxSW’s Accelerator series will be held for the fourth year running in the Startup Village, with a call for entries from product or services launched no later than 13th March 2011.

As part of PanelPicker initiative, SxSW are giving their active online community a voice. Grouping together over 600 accepted discussion proposals into manageable chunks to help inspire and discover trends for what SxSW describe as ‘an industry zeitgeist’.

These accepted proposals will take the form of panel talks, Q&A sessions and discussions covering hefty topics from social media gender profiling to human psychologies of digital media, no doubt sparking some revealing discussions. With each talk handily labelled beginner, intermediate or advanced and even a beginners guide to SxSW, organisers are really gearing their offer to the wider community this year.

Here’s a few of our favourite proposals to look out for:

• Sex On The Web: The Sabotage of Relationships?
• It’s “Ms Bitch”-How Gals Grab Digital By the Balls
• Modern Weaponry: Using Digital Media to End a War
• Mobile App Design for Young Minds and Small Hands
• Creative Social: Where do old creatives go to die?
• LiberationTech – How Geeks Overthrow Governments

Keep your eyes peeled for more SxSW info here.

Capturing the zeitgeist of our generation – all footage was filmed on the 24^th of July 2010 – Life In a Day is a digital time capsule for the kids of the future to unearth via the internet, showing just what it was like to be around in the 21^st century.

Encouraging you to pick up a camera, the BBC2 project aims to portray life a little closer to home, inviting the people of Britain to film their lives over 24 hours. Record your thoughts, daily life, events and aspirations and upload to the Britain In a Day channel on YouTube. As a snapshot of time it shows as humans, just how weird, wonderful and ultimately different we are to each other.

Led by Ridley Scott as executive producer, the user-generated project comes as part of a digital curation drive by the BBC with a focus on archiving life as we know it. With a list of personalities including Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor and Noel Clarke involved, the footage will be edited into a documentary premiered in cinemas and broadcast on BBC2 ahead of the London Olympics next year.

‘Four nations. 24 hours. 61 million perspectives’ is the tagline as the BBC pushes to celebrate, whether by ethnic background, religion or class, the diversity of Britain. This social project will make film history as part of a wider picture about what it means to be British, a topic under much discussion at the moment.

The BBC suggest considering the following questions when filming to make your entry truly personal:

What do you see when you look out of your window and how does this make you feel?

What do you like or dislike about the UK?

What makes  you happy and where are you happiest?

What are your vices and guilty pleasures?

What is the most important thing in your life at the moment?

Check the tutorials for dos and don’ts to get your creative juices flowing. Get involved on November 12^th by filming your day, no matter how amateur, and simply uploading to http://www.youtube.com/britaininaday.

What do you think of the project? What would you film to represent a day in your life? Is this type of curation the way forward in ensuring we preserve the memory of today for future generations? As usual , let us know by leaving a comment.

The group behind Monday’s protest that closed Westminster bridge, Occupy London Stock Exchange has been trending on Twitter via #OccupyLSX and the Facebook page ‘Occupy London’s Stock Exchange‘ has over 15,000 combined likes and followers, growing by the minute, with 5,000 confirmed as attending the protests on Saturday. Second to that is Occupy England’sFacebook page and Twitter.

Occupy London Stock Exchange is part of a day of over 800 peaceful protests planned to take place globally this Saturday. To show the full spread of the campaign this crowdmap entitled ‘United for #GlobalChange‘ highlights activity linked to the hashtag #event15oct.

In London protesters will walk from St Pauls to the London Stock Exchange in Paternoster Square, passing the UK headquarters of investment bank Goldman Sachs on the way. The aim of the campaign? To unite Londoners against anti-corporate institutions as result of increasing anger over the bail-out of the financial sector.

As the second event in the UK, after 30 people pitched tents to occupy Manchester’s Peace Garden square at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month, protests are planned for Saturday in every major UK city including Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol, Leeds, Glasgow, Nottingham and Norwich.

With occupations of Dublin’s Dame Street and planned rallies is Spain and Germany #OccupyTogether and #globaldemocracy tags have spread to draw together the reaction to democratic control over banks worldwide.

The movement is stretching across all social networks. On Tumblr members of the public have been detailing their reasons for supporting the cause via We Are the 99 Percent. On Instagram the #occupy tag pulls together images from the global occupations in Wall Street, The Hague, Sydney and Venice.

Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker wrote on 4th October, “Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice”. But with such enthusiasm and dedication to a cause held in such high regard by so many left in dire straights by the restrictions of financial austerity, the spread of social activism by Facebook and Twitter signals a new generation of people actually taking to the streets and making their virtual voices heard in the real world.

With live blogging and tweeting of events as they happen from the occupation, follow #OccupyLSX for updates from the front line of the protest.

Alcohol sits hand in hand with experiential marketing, emulating the settings in which it is usually consumed. Considering the social nature of alcohol itself, it makes sense to maintain ongoing consumer engagement via social networks.  As various brands from ciders to spirits are creating experiential offline events via social media, we take a look at four alcohol makers  going that extra mile to socially involve their target markets:

Bombay Sapphire House of Hackney Gin Den at Bistrotheque

1. Including a string of events leading up to their ‘Literati-infused’ nightclubs, Bombay Sapphire have collaborated Book Slam for their Imagination Series. Using the heritage factor to hark back to the opulence of 19^th century gin palaces of the Raj, the event blends literary and musical talents with interactive technology. Living up to the Bombay Sapphire tagline ‘Infused with Imagination’ the word is spread and exclusive tickets applied for via Facebook.
2. Next up fruit cider brand Jacques, made by Bulmers, put on A Stylish Soiree to tap into the female cider drinking market. Offering girls the chance to dress up and sample the fruity cider drink in cutesy pastel and gold settings, tickets for the plush Jacques Townhouse are available exclusively via the Jacques Facebook page. A vintage dress up box on hand, a bag and head-band customising station, beauty salon and enchanted garden all add to the magic. With a photographer to document the night’s events, the gallery is posted on Facebook.
3. Differentiating themselves in the cider market, Kopparberg are tapping into the gig and music scene with a recent  television campaign complimented by Facebook efforts. Sponsoring a range of London festivals, offering exclusive gig tickers and teaming up with XFM to win behind the scenes tours, Kopparberg’s recent ‘FIND’ campaign aims to synonymise the cider drink with music and socialising.
4. Sociable and interactive by nature according to the Chinese zodiac, Tiger Beer have teamed up with Vice for their ‘Know The Not Known’ campaign, bringing the excitement back to going out. Adding a touch of mystery the events are made up gigs, film screenings and exclusive happenings with the line-ups and locations kept secret, then a series of clues are released to ensure only the curious get to enjoy. With the tagline ‘curiosity is rewarded’ the campaign is managed across YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook with its own mobile app to boot which ties the whole campaign together.

Although experiential events are effective in bringing the ethos of the drink to life, due to the tight restrictions placed on marketing of alcoholic substances, it is key for brands to communicate messages targeted at customers over the legal purchase age. Bombay Sapphire does this well with its high-browliterary theme but Jacques a little less so, requiring an extra element to boost the ‘girls just wanna have fun and try on clothes from a dressing up box’ type vibes which could appeal to younger girls.

Outdoor space at Jacques Townouse: Girly but does it target the wrong age group?

To avoid legalities drinks manufacturers will often refrain from advertising on mediums where the demographic makeup is less than 70% over legal purchase age – the makers of Jim Bean declined advertising spots on Myspace for this very reason. Stella Artois and tequila company Patron have taken advantage of age verification systems to create ‘La Societe Stella Artois’ and ‘Patron Social Club’ respectively. As a private-member networking communities they offer exclusive promotions and perks in exchange for age verifications, proving that age restrictions can be reworked to target an older demographic.

Twitter, initially hesitant to promote alcohol in its Promoted Tweets now gives the green light for alcohol to be featured after its demographics broke the 70% 21 plus threshold as of May 2011. Jack Daniels were one of the first brands to use Twitter, however problems arose when the promoted tweet was visible across the global network, causing confusion in countries where the spirit was not stocked. While Bombay Sapphire dealt with global implications of the social media space well, offering different pages for events in the UK and US and localising content, this problem would be easily resolved by offering geo-targeted solutions.

One thing it does highlight however is just how easy it is to forget the international and cultural boundaries imposing restrictions on advertising, which the internet and social media all too easily strips away. While advertising via social media should in fact make the process of age verification easier, to determine if a user is old enough to view an advert or use an app, it’s not until marketers properly utilise these details that campaigns will become as effective as they potentially can be.

Brought together by the power of social media, Thursday 30th June saw a flash mob of Londoners congregating in Soho Square with just one thing on their mind: planking. Attempting to set an unofficial world record and to celebrate Social Media Day 2011, the flash mob hit the deck at 13:13, much to the bemusement of local passers-by and office-workers eating their lunch.

On the command “Plank!” participants launched themselves face-down in the usually tranquil square. Grass-stained shirts and being squished by a stack of builders were just a few of the occupational hazards encountered, but our dedicated plankers soldiered on for the greater good. When asked why he’d devoted his lunchtime to the cause one planker replied: “I saw it on Mashable – I’m a classic planker so I thought I’d come down!”

Rewarded with ice-creams and cheeky “I’m a Soho planker” stickers, our flash mobbers returned to they daily routine well and truly satisfied with their lunchtime jaunt.

Although time constraints hampered the official Guinness adjudication of “I Plank Soho” as the largest planking flash mob, and despite rumours of a 200-strong attempt in Birmingham last week, we’re quietly confident our effort to celebrate Social Media Day was up there in the group planking stakes.

Setting off a chain reaction with other agencies sharing images of themselves planking in unusual positions around the office, the idea spread like wildfire on Twitter so we’re thinking big for future planks. Next time we’ll be sure to get the World Record professionals in to prove we are, in fact, plankers of the record-breaking variety!

Tag yourself on www.facebook.com/neoco and check out the highlights video for an insight into public planking of the highest calibre.

Whether it’s tweeting whilst liberating a country, checking-in to that liquor store you’re currently holding up at gun point (only in America!) or posting baby’s first blink post labour, it’s all possible now thanks to the gargantuan power of social media.

In fact, Mashable – a website dedicated to all things digital media and technology related – like social media so much that last year on June 30th they helped launch the first ever Social Media Day to encourage people to connect with other local social media enthusiasts.

This year’s event (Thursday 30th June) is set to be even bigger, with events taking place all over the world. Many of us at Neoco will be going along to various London events, plus organising a little gathering of our own. To test social media’s ability to bring people together, we’re attempting to break the world record for mass planking in Soho, London! For those who’ve not come across this craze, planking is lying face down in an unusual location and sharing your efforts online. It is literally spreading like wildfire and even Gordon Ramsey and tennis pro Laura Robson have been joining in by tweeting pics on Ramsay’s yacht, and Robson overlooking the courts at Wimbledon this week!

Embracing the spirit of planking and all that’s great about social media, you are invited you down to Soho Square W1 at 1:13pm (lunchtime) Thursday 30th June for a social plank of epic flash-mob proportions.

Here’s some inspiration for you… So come and lie down, join us and be a record holder in your lunch break!

Follow Mashable and SM Day on Twitter @mashSMday using #SMday and follow our planking exploits by following us on Twitter @neoco or RSVP’ing to our Facebook event.

I attended talks from Facebook, Attensity Europe, the Press Association and the Real Story Group all of which considered the future of social media. A lot of focus was devoted to looking at how businesses should incorporate social elements into their web offerings and how they can engage with their customers to get the greatest response.

One of the most memorable messages came from the Facebook seminar, during which the world of business was encouraged to be more “social by design” (by finding ways to motivate consumers to engage with brands through interactive methods). Developments such as the increasing presence of the ‘like’ button (which encourages people to share things with their friends) and sponsored links on Facebook are both already having a massive effect on the way people interact with brands. This is driving businesses to increasingly incorporate social elements into their online properties. This is no surprise though – as the talk revealed, for every 50,000 fans a brand has, it has the potential reach of 6 million further friends and fans.

With 60% of shoppers now searching online beyond traditional brand websites before buying products, it’s clear that consumers today are becoming increasingly savvy shoppers, careful to do their research before they commit to making the final purchase.

The fact that 75% of web users now use social media tools and 80% of company revenues are from loyal customers, confirms that social media strategies need to be incorporated in business – otherwise you risk missing out on a massive potential reach. A study by Nielson revealed that people are four-times more likely to purchase a brand that their friends have “liked” on Facebook.

Overall, my day at Internet World confirmed what I (and everyone else!) already suspects… social media is growing, becoming increasingly influential, and the world of business needs to embrace it and reap the benefits!

As part of my Neoco baptism, last week I attended a gamification event at the inaugural Digital Shoreditch Festival. Gamification is most definitely a buzzword for 2011, and some are boldly claiming that by 2015 half of all companies will have somehow adopted gaming elements in their work and embraced gamification, so it was great to attend a day discussing the concept in detail.

The main message I took away from the day is that gamification is not the Holy Grail, but if you have a strong proposition and leverage gaming elements well it can help with its success.

Rick Gibson and Raf Keustermans started the day off with some staggering statistics: 65-75% of people in the developed world play games of some sort, and half of Facebook’s users will participate in social games at some point, leading to approximately 150 billion minutes spent every month on social games worldwide. That’s a phenomenal statistic when you take into account Yarden Yaroshevski’s point that users give companies their undivided attention when they play games (as opposed to other kinds of media such as television advertising).

Raf did put forward some sobering thoughts however: after the first month of playing a particular social game, only 15-20% of users are still active (and only 1-2% will pay for further gaming privileges). Couple that with the fact that of approximately 80,000 Facebook games currently active, fewer than 100 achieve a monthly engagement rate of 20%, and fewer than 60 of those that do are over six months old. This means that only a tiny 0.07% of all Facebook games have managed to achieve lasting engagement.

Remember gamification and the use of gaming elements can help you engage with your users, and allow you to gain valuable insight about them in the process, but you still need to come up with a compelling idea that will excite them; gaming elements will not turn a bad proposition into a success.

Still, it was a fascinating talk and I’m very much looking forward to next year’s Digital Shoreditch Festival – it looks set to become a regular on the London events calendar!