OK, so I may be jumping the gun here by assuming that it’ll be paid, but you’d have thought that this would be the logical route given he direction being taken with other online titles – News of the World is the latest to be linked with the Paywall approach.  While I don’t think that paid for text content won’t work from a news perspective, you have to admire the pioneering spirit of News Corp.

What do I mean? Well, last night I wanted to watch live football (soccer) being shown on Sky (Fox) but my other half was watching another show. So, I installed the Sky (Fox) mobile TV app and watched it on my iPad. Clever stuff for now as it’s free until December if you already subscribe to Sky. But, if they make this an additional cost, will I take it up? Nope – and that’s football! So, there’s really no way I’m going to pay for news-based content even if it is nicely formatted for my iPad.

The problem is this – if it’s news, I can get it anywhere and in this country we are lucky to have the BBC, which provides us with a 24 hour-a-day stream of high quality news, so why would I pay for something I can get for free from another source. Not everyone has the broadcast rights for the Barclays Premier League, but last time I checked, anyone can report the news.

I’m a FourSquare user and I like to check-in fairly regularly, but I have to say that after the initial buzz It’s become more of a reference point. What I mean by this is that it’s an addition to my update, for example I’ll use it to update Twitter and Facebook with what I’m doing and where I am. The core idea behind FourSquare is the gaming and rewards aspect which seems to be sadly lacking in the UK on the whole. Maybe this is because fewer brands have got involved here, but it does lead to the service being somewhat half-baked.

Nevertheless, I think that location-based networking has a big future and what better enabler that Facebook. It already has a huge user base, a number of brands are involved globally and the branding/adverting model is proven. From what I’ve heard, Places is being soft-launched in the US at this point, but I suspect it won’t be long before it makes it across the pond to us

First off, if you look at the Facebook page on it’s own, the first thing that strikes you is how developed the page is. It offers fans a complete experience that goes beyond that of a standard website to do what only social networks can do – engage.  There’s a complete tour listing, track listing and even an e-commerce section. In addition, this is layered with regular engagement by Lady Gaga. For example, when she reached the 10 million mark on Facebook, she posted “Thank u so much little monsters for following me on Facebook! 10 million friends of mine who are now connected to each other.” In addition, there are a number of videos aimed directly at her fans in the social space.

But it’s not just Facebook that makes her such a force in the social world, it’s the fact that she cleverly weaves together the different platforms available to her to tell her story.  On Twitter she has over 4,790,900 follows, on YouTube she has 313823 subscribers and around 126,922,521 video views. Underpinning all of this is the fact that she’s probably one of the hardest working celebrities from a global perspective, she’s not just US-centric, she has a far wider appeal.

She has cleverly used social media to tell her “brand” story as she wants it told, while underpinning this with countless PR and promotional efforts in individual markets. What this means is that while she might not physically be in your country, she’s never far away. While she might not be looking back at you from the cover of a magazine, she’s at the top of your Facebook news feed. What she’s developed is a continuous brand story that she (and not the mainstream media) owns in order to constantly stay relevant to her fans and always be top of mind. If I may say so, genius…..

There have been a number of rumours doing the rounds that Google is preparing a fully-blown assault on the social networking space with a product called Google Me. Now, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I think this will be a success for them, IF, they actually put the resources behind it. Why the emphasis on resources? Simply this, in my opinion when Google actually put the resources behind a product it usually pretty successful – think Google Earth, Maps, Chrome etc. However, when we get some of their “projects” it tends to fizzle out quite quickly – think Wave, Buzz. According to the rumours out there, Google Me is actually being supported with some serious resources.

Why is this important for Google? It’s about capturing the eyeballs, getting that share of your online day. You may have read recently that traffic to social networks outstripped traffic to search sites for the first time recently, so there’s clearly a need for Google to put some serious effort into developing a seriously compelling social networking offering. Key to success here is going to be how Google uses its position of strength in strength and video content to build a network that offers full functionality, but doesn’t make it complicated. Will that be Google Me? I think so….

Take Germany 2006, social media and social networking was still yet to envelop the masses. Sure, we had YouTube, but Facebook was not the huge entity it is today and I think Twitter had just launched. So, naturally, campaigns were more skewed towards traditional media. Fast forward to 2010 and social media and networks has played a very large part in many brand marketing campaigns, but I will say not as much as I thought it would. For example, I thought more would be made of Twitter and geo-location networks like FourSquare and Gowalla. Which brings me to the point of the post – will Brazil 2014 be all about the mobile?

It would seem the be next big opportunity. We’re spending more and more time on our mobile devices and they increase in sophistication almost on a monthly basis. Networks such as Twitter were born with mobile in mind, but it has to an extent migrated onto desktop-bound machines. However, the true power of Twitter lives in the mobile phone as it allows instant sharing. And from that, we move to geo-loaction networks like FourSquare and Gowalla which are increasing in popularity at a rapid rate. Not only is there a huge opportunity via social networks, but also through app development and other forms of mobile marketing, such as live streaming – imagine having goal-replays sent to your phone while you’re at the stadium.

My opinion is that Brazil 2014 will be the biggest social media World Cup ever and we’ll see major brands invest heavily in mobile campaigns as a way of getting to the consumer.  Those that want to come out on top will figure out two things: 1) How do I get into the match experience with the consumer, 2) How do I get them closer to what they want, so that I become an integral part of that experience

While this may look a little gimmicky on the surface, there’s actually much more to this than just who’s the most popular on Facebook and Twitter. From a brand perspective, rankings like this could enable you to make smarter decisions when looking to sign-up brand ambassadors for social media campaigns. After all, what’s the point of signing-up the top ranking celebrity from a TV/radio perspective when you’re looking to deploy a social media campaign heavily focused on Twitter.

In addition, we could also start and see social media take on much more significant role within the negotiations between brands and celebrities. For example, the number and frequency of tweets, how branded they are, what type of content is to be shared, will it be purely 1-way, or are there expectations around engagement. Of course, with all these elements there comes a price……if you’re a top 10 social media ranking celebrity, that price suddenly becomes easier for you to negotiate.

Since its launch in April, there have been only two companies run Promoted Tweets advertising packages, with Pixar being the first with a campaign for Toy Story 3.  Early reports on performance are very good with engagement rates up at around 6 per cent, which is fairly impressive stuff in the world of online advertising.

I think a lot of people were a little unsure about this when it was first launched, but the early signs are looking very positive. Brands with a passion for cutting-edge techniques and those that are brave enough to be in that early adopter pool should seriously consider getting involved. However, in just the same way that brands saw so much success in the early days of Facebook’s branded platform, they’ll need to think about the whole package and produce a brand story that can move fluidly between owned, bought and earned.

Does advertising own TV? Media buyers outdoor display? Do the spin doctors and publicists get the red tops? Again, no….PR doesn’t own social media, we just get it more than the other disciplines. Ask any PR person what the key to their success is and they’ll tell you – developing and maintaining relationships with a diverse range of media, making sure that the conversations they’re having with each one is both meaningful and rewarding. It’s this that put’s PR in the driving seat when it comes to social media, but it doesn’t give us ownership of it.

This space is going to require a truly integrated approach to make it work, having a conversation is fine, but what are you going to talk about, what do you want to share? Ultimately, the question is this – what’s your brand story? This isn’t a PR-only job, it’s a wider job that requires brains from our buddies in advertising, branding, media buying, research. Don’t agree? Put it this way, if PR owned TV, there wouldn’t be any TV.

So, I go back to my initial point – you can’t own an entire communications channel. But there is something that you can own in social media – you brand story. But like any good story, it’s got a lot of different characters involved, many twists and turns and ultimately, that story means something different to everyone that reads it….you get me?