Well in the case of a Facebook fan page this can literally be true!

Read my latest Birmingham Post column to find out why.

The Brindleyplace-based consultancy has been commissioned to conduct research and devise a social media strategy for the University Hospitals Birmingham. The aim is to engage with users of the newly opened Queen Elizabeth super hospital in Selly Oak, and to keep Birmingham citizens informed as services, such as A&E, are migrated to the new building.

Alcester-based Helping Hands Home Care, which provides live-in carers for the elderly and disabled around the UK, has also turned to Friend to help it promote its services. Those responsible for making the decisions on care for their relatives are increasingly looking to social networks for help and advice on looking after their loved ones.

Chris Tomlinson, director and co-founder of Friend, said: “Over the last year Friend has gained a great deal of experience in finding relevant online communities and helping organisations engage with their key influencers to turn them into advocates on social networks.

“The continued growth of our client list is proof that social media is now an established marketing channel and, increasingly, a first choice marketing tool.”

It’s a well-known fact that during austere times, the sillier or more self-deluding your job title is, the more likely you are to be made redundant.

Post-recession, the new boy on the marketing job title block is: ’social media manager’

But is this is a silly job title or not ?

Read Chris Tomlinson’s article about flamboyant job titles in last Thursday’s Birmingham Post

The past year has literally flown by, full of the thrills and spills you’d expect from starting a small consultancy specialising in a relatively ‘niche’ area like social media and in the middle of a recession!

But life, and business, are about taking risks – and the risk paid off!

The fact is that social media marketing should not be sidelined as “niche”.

It has the potential for ROI like any other marketing discipline – and this has been our most consistent finding over the last 12 months.

For our clients, it’s been about understanding what social media can do by exploring its specific potential for their businesses.

Importantly, understanding where social media fits into a marketing strategy, its role alongside other marketing disciplines and how best to execute and measure it is crucial to its success.

And putting it simply, this is what Friend does.

Our experience over the past 20 years in both traditional and digital marketing means that we have been able to help many clients truly understand social media and its potential for their organisation, in both B2C and B2B arenas.

In the past twelve months, we have helped a range of clients and agencies navigate the social media landscape.

Our clients include:

• NHS
• Nynas Oil / European Road Initiative
• Property Match
• Argent / Brindleyplace
• Masshouse Developments
• Rider Levett Bucknall
• Huntingdonshire County Council
• Gas Street Works
• University College Birmingham

We have also helped lots of marketing and PR agencies with digital marketing and social media research, strategy and training.

So we’re chuffed and, in true social media style, thought we’d share!

Find out more about our social media and online PR services.

Read Chris Tomlinson’s latest musing on the subject in Thursday’s Birmingham Post

With election campaigns getting under way I still believe this. If only the political parties did.

It’s not that they’re ignoring social media but at the moment it’s all a bit style over substance.

They appear to be falling into the trap currently occupied by a lot of businesses and organisations who have also “done” social media in recent times but not really got anywhere with it.

The problem is that like others who complain that social media isn’t working, they are focusing more on the channel rather than REALLY thinking about the content.

A common problem with a lot of social media marketing at the moment is that there is too much focus on the channel – the technology and the means of distribution like Facebook, Twitter, iPhone app and so on.

This is probably because the very genre is defined by the channel – the media.

Which is why a lot of organisations think they’ve “done” social media just because they have a Twitter account or an iPhone app.

But the channel is only a conduit. It’s what is sent and distributed via that channel that holds the key to success. Content, purpose, targeting and resource must be well planned to maximise engagement.

For example, last week the Tory party launched its very own Conservative Party iPhone app.

So cool.

Well actually not quite so much. It’s really a mini-brochure with a few little questionable tools built in, like its swing-o-meter showing election results as they come in. Which will be useful for about 12 hours tops on the night.

The detail on its policies is informative but it’s basically their manifesto in condensed, digital format. For more comment, read Mobsessed’s opinion about the Tory app, it’s good stuff.

And this week we saw the launch of the Labour Party’s social media campaign.

This is much more interesting, using opinions expressed through social media and on the doorstep to “inform” their social media activity. I have no idea what “inform” actually means here though. There’s no clue as to what they will do with all this content.

They’ve also given social media training to key campaign staff. The problem again is that it all feels very token-like. Time will tell.

It’s not all negative. There are some great examples of local and national party activists, party members, MP’s and councillors who really do understand it.

But so far no party has an obvious centralised social media strategy bringing together and mobilising all campaigners to truly listen to and engage with the public and key influencers.

What I’m really talking about here is online PR, and as far as I can see it’s here they are missing an opportunity.

Where is their online PR strategy? How are they creating and resourcing active social media engagement on a daily basis with online citizens: individuals, communities, influencers, bloggers, tweeters, publications and so on?

I can’t see any of that happening on a scale akin to Obama in the US for example.

Maybe it’s coming, or already happening. But I can’t see it, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Online PR is a great way of approaching the task in hand because it diverts attention from the channel, Twitter, the iPhone app or whatever to the meat of the matter – the content, community engagement and the direct conversation.

When the main parties get their head around the fact that this is what social media is about then they may see some success from it in terms of influencing opinion and voting intention.

As things stand, the general public are likely to see through token gestures and do what they normally do when it comes to politics – switch off.

Just as it should in other areas of politics, with social media it’s substance, not style, which holds the key to success.

Now, I’ve finally got my LinkedIn status hooked up to my Twitter feed, my blog posting to my Facebook page and can just about monitor everything from my phone.

The last thing I’m inclined to do right now is join another time consuming social network!

Before I got my current collection under control, I barely had time to check my email and when I did it was full of mail from my social networks, alerting me to new activity forcing me to return.

Even with its 146 million captive Gmail users, Google has its work cut out if it is to get enough people using Buzz to make it worth my while.

Google tried before with a social network called Orkut, but failed to make it a global success – so why are they having another go?

Well Google is under attack from the social networks on two fronts.

Firstly, Google sells adverting space and as consumers spend increasing amounts of time on social networking sites advertising budgets are migrating there too.

Secondly, people are increasingly using their social networks to communicate instead of email. Mostly because they want to talk about content and social networks are designed to associate content with conversation.

Facebook is rumored to be upgrading its messaging system to be more email like. The project is code named Titan. Some are calling Titan the “Gmail killer”, which is why Google might be worried.

This also explains why Google has integrated Buzz with other popular networks, like Twitter, Flickr and its own blog site eblogger, but not the more popular Facebook!

Increasingly people are keeping a traditional email address for their professional lives, for colleges and customers, but conducting their personal communication via social networks.

Whether future generations of net citizens want their main email integrated with their social networks or, as Google hopes, the other way round is yet to be seen.

Last week saw the blogosphere speculate that Twitter’s meteoric growth might finally be ending.

According to web monitoring company, Compete, traffic to the micro-blogging website has flat-lined, suggesting its world dominance may not be so assured.

Quantcast’s numbers told the same story. Since its peak at 29.2 million users in July09, Twitter traffic has dropped down to 23.6 million U.S. unique visitors, a loss of nearly 24%!

But before the social media sceptics start celebrating by regurgitating theories on the faddish nature of social networks and the vacuous nature of their inhabitants, it is important to know a couple of things.

Firstly, unlike other social networks, Twitter is not popular with teenagers. It is this age group that is notorious for migrating from one network to another.

Teens don’t tweet.

Possibly because it requires brevity, but more likely because it requires an understanding of what might actually be interesting to other people!

Younger users may have simply got bored with Twitter and its many shortcomings as a chat room or perhaps realised it is full of grumpy old people like me.

But those of us who don’t use it as a chat room have found increasing ways to share content, galvanise public opinion and exact social media revenge on bad customer service.

(Oh – and it’s great for slagging off the X Factor too).

Secondly, we need to remember that there are “lies, damn lies and website statistics”. A fall in traffic to Twitter’s own websites could simply mean that more tweeters have migrated to using phone and desktop applications; a sign that the Twittersphere is evolving, not retracting.

Frankly, it is the basic functionality of Twitter’s own site that leads many a debutant tweeter to give up before accumulating enough followers to make it rewarding.

We may well see the site transformed in 2010 as it is widely rumoured that this is the year that Twitter intends to monetise its success – perhaps sick of the jokes about it knowing how to spend money but not make it.

In fact, Twitter is reported to be hiring new developers to help transform the site into a commercial entity.

But stories about its negative growth won’t help this course.

However, if there are truly less people using Twitter than before, it must be because it is transforming from a place where narcissists and their voyeurs can meet, to a more credible news and opinion sharing platform.

Perhaps the Tweeters are separating from the Chavs?

For example, my cousin is a doctor and it’s impossible to have a conversation with her lasting more than five minutes without it turning into a medical analogy of some sort.

I’m like that with social media, though I admit to sometimes feeling slightly ashamed to be making a comparison between marketing and saving lives! I apologise in advance!

Take the current weather crisis blighting lives and ruining our economy.

Many are blaming it on the poor supplies of salt grit. This is why I love Britain – we spectacularly fail to deal with the recent snowfall and all we can do is rant about the lack of salt as being the cause of everything going down the pan.

Richard Madeley himself has used Twitter to launch a “foul-mouthed” attack on his local council for running out of salt grit, which he says has stopped him getting to important meetings.

“Grrr:still no sign of any gritters here.Looks like our council’s f***** up again” he ranted.

This is just one, celebrity example of the effect the snow has had this week.

Many others, including myself, understand his frustration.

However, it makes me feel annoyed for a different reason. Is it really the lack of salt grit that’s to blame?

Is it not the lack of a more widespread ‘entrepreneurial’ infrastructure in the UK that would mean we could get on with business (as usual) whatever the weather?

Social media technology and communication enable us to work in a much more proactive and reactive way. So even when the roads are closed we can still keep on working. I may have been snowed in but it hasn’t stopped me getting the job done.

I’m not saying that it solves every problem (roads are vital!) but it helps to keep people working and for businesses to be successful. Too few businesses and organisations are set up to take advantage of digital and social media quickly in times of crisis – whether it’s a snowstorm or a Twitter storm.

Collaborative working can happen virtually whether it’s realtime text conversations or video sharing/conferencing. The solutions exist and don’t need to be expensive or complex.

Digital is a key solution to problems like the snowfall we’ve had this week. It reminds us of the importance of initiatives like Digital Britain. It also highlights how really we can’t wait much longer.

If business and society as a whole were set up better, and integrated digital to a greater extent, people like Mr. Madeley wouldn’t have to miss important meetings any more – whilst also alleviating some of the stress on the suppliers of salt grit!

1. The rise of the social media strategy
2. The year of the social media policy
3. Mobile social media goes mainstream
4. Social media sharing up, email down
5. Integration, integration, integration
6. Social media data drives creative and offline strategies too

Read our report “Social Media Gets Serious – Key Trends in 2010”, where I take an in-depth look at each one of these predictions and outline what businesses and organisations can do to stay ahead and get the most from social media in 2010.

Let us know your thoughts too.

Read the full report: “Social Media Gets Serious – Key Trends in 2010”.