It is a platform that has publicised protests in the Arab world, spread riots across English cities, and even helped to coordinate a mass cleanup effort in the wake of London’s unrest. The UK riots have reminded the public of the power of social networking as a tool of instant mass communication. The British media have been vociferous about the role of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry in sparking unrest among youths intent on destruction.

It is not just crowd mentality, social problems or police actions that are being coined as the catalyst for London’s unrest: it is technology.

While the Daily Mail reports protesters were rallied through text messages, Twitter and Facebook, one constable speaking to the Evening Standard pointed the finger at video games in inciting violence: ‘When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they’re playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves.’ The Sun writes rioters used Twitter to rally looting in Tottenham by encouraging their followers to join in the robbery of local businesses.

Meanwhile, The Guardian has led the debate for the role of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in coordinating the riots. This is on the back of a recent Ofcom report which found almost half of British teenagers own a smartphone. The argument for BBM’s role in inciting the riots was so strong that, according to a Daily Telegraph report, BlackBerry manufacturer RIM is helping police investigations into disturbances coordinated over BBM.

Is it right to blame social networks for what we are witnessing on the newsreels? While Twitter has been slammed for its media-prescribed role in provoking the violence, today the platform has demonstrated its capacity as a force for good.

#riotcleanup is trending worldwide as Londoners use Twitter to coordinate a voluntary cleanup effort. Created this morning, @riotcleanup already has over 50,000 followers at the time of writing. Facebook groups including ‘Supporting the Met Police against the London riots’ and ‘Post Riot Clean-Up: Let’s Help London’ have gathered hundreds of thousands of followers within a matter of hours.

There’s undeniably a technology-fuelled method to the madness that has erupted in London. Yet it’s the force of the social network that has brought together its victims – ordinary people living in the cities – to repair the damage to their communities.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

This isn’t unlike the use of social media in Egypt, Lybia and Syria to combat their dictatorial governments. Or the uproar resulting from the shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California and the Vancouver riots in June around the Stanley Cup finals. Similarly, London citizens began voicing their fury via the BBM private messaging application, Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms over Duggan’s death, expressing views that he was unfairly targeted, which spiraled out of control to physical violence.

As Matthew Ingram acknowledged in his GigaOm post yesterday, riots like these have been happening for centuries – long before social platforms and smartphones were even a glimmer of our imagination. We can’t blame social platforms or BBM. That said, while real-time social media and mobile platforms like BBM have their benefits, they certainly can be used to pour oil on the flames, and in the case of London, to coordinate gatherings and lootings for the riots, and fuel anger upon seeing the gut-wrenching brutality taking place in the city on YouTube and other video platforms that nauseates me just thinking about it. Not to mention people wanting to be around the hysteria to capture content and promote it on social media platforms and with friends.

Yes, real-time social media lacks the control mainstream media outlets have over the messages being communicated to the public, and immensely increases the ability for people to communicate quickly and easily.  But we can’t lose sight of the positive – during the Haiti crisis, the Red Cross text message campaign raised tens of millions of dollars, and the revolutionary change in Egypt brought upon by people leveraging Twitter and Facebook. Surrounding the situation in London, #RiotCleanUp is picking up steam in the Twittersphere, in effort to bring London citizens together and establish a community to reclaim the city. @RiotCleanup has built nearly 80,000 followers in about 10 hours, and the London Cleanup Facebook page currently has 14,942 “likes.” People are leveraging the highly spreadable, heavily trafficked platforms to mobilize cleanups and instill hope and a sense of community among Londoners.

Social media and technology is what we make of it, and can level the playing field and enable people to peacefully have a voice when used right. London isn’t the first and won’t be the last uprising we see of this sort. It’s on you and me, and everyone around us, to educate and facilitate positivity out of these innovative tools and platforms that didn’t exist centuries before.

We wish our colleagues across the pond, friends and families well and that they stay safe in the midst of the riot clean up…

Tweets Generated Using #RiotCleanUp

Talk of #LondonRiots Unfolds on Twitter (generated via Topsy)

Talk of #LondonRiots unfolds on Twitter (generated via Topsy)

Be sure to check out the rest of our series with experts from Malaysia, China, Australia, and Singapore.

And that is especially true in this era of social media – community managers (and all related social media jobs involving maintaining an online presence with real people) often are considered as anonymous and ethereal characters that represent brands (ie: “evil”). There is of course challenges here from a brand image point of view. Social media platforms are obviously a great way to build connections with others, but also to remind us that behind those “evil” brands, computers and technology, is also a human.

The whole point of social media is to re-introduce some humanization in our interactions and conversations.

I watched recently this tiny video found on YouTube. Of course, this is probably a bit of an extreme circumstance – yet it is a powerful testimony and great reminder that at the end of the day, it’s all about human interactions. Something to keep in mind the next time you’re feeling fumed about something you see online.

Credit : Kerolic, Talk to me

Thanks to Amber Rinehard for her help in editing the article.

Sina Weibo (literally “Sina microblogging”), a Chinese microblogging site, is the most popular social media site in China. It is comparable to Twitter, with 90% of the market share. It was launched by SINA Corporation in August 2009 and has grown rapidly to more than 140 million users. Sina Weibo expects to have more than 200 million users by the end of 2011 and there is ongoing speculation about the site’s intentions to launch in English, enabling it to go head to head against Twitter. Sina Weibo has gradually become the default social media platform for corporations and institutions to show their openness of communicating to the public.

In addition to microblogging, video sharing is immensely popular in China with Youku the biggest video sharing website in the country. Established in December 2006 and listed on NYSE in December 2010 as YOKU, the site attracts approximately 203 million monthly unique visitors from homes and offices and 56 million monthly unique visitors from Internet cafes (as of September 2010). According to iResearch, Youku had a 40% share of total user time spent viewing online videos among Chinese internet users during the second quarter of 2010. Youku initially emphasized user-generated content but has since shifted its focus to professionally-produced videos licensed from more than 1,500 content partners.

To better help our clients navigate and capture the social media opportunities in China, especially in the area of video, we recently signed a partnership with Verawom, a local social media marketing agency. Verawom, a pioneer in specialist social media marketing in China, specializes in social media marketing strategy, viral video marketing, event marketing, micro-blog management, search engine optimization, and basic word-of-mouth communication and is currently helping brands, such as FIAT, Kinston, Casio and Uni-President, to continue optimize their presence in the digital world.

This partnership gives our clients access to a broader range of skills and equips us to provide comprehensive solutions, from communication strategy all the way to creative production, community cultivation and real time monitoring. As an example of how this partnership will help to strengthen integrated campaigns, a recent video Verawom created for HomeAegis generated more than 100 media articles and clips in on-line, TV and print media.

We are looking forward to working closely with Verawom to help all of our clients achieve their communications goals for the Chinese market!

The attacks launched by LulzSec against Fox.com, Sony, AZ Department of Public Safety, etc., are being described by some security pros as technically impressive and by others as “neither original nor technically adept.”  Of more interest to me than the technical merits of the attacks was LulzSec’s remarkable ability to quickly develop a brand and effectively publicize their criminal activity. They started by basing their name on the Internet meme “in it for the lulz (laughs)” and then tapped into the full power of Twitter through their “The Lulz Boat” handle (@lulzsec), which led to clever and frequent tweets that contained equal parts humor, defiance and legitimate breaking news about the group’s exploits. 

When all was said and done, The Lulz Boat was followed by more than 280,000, including many reputable journalists, had a Klout score of 85 and achieved “Celebrity” status.  And if you skim through reader comments on any number of the articles about LulzSec, you’ll even see some people defending these criminals and applauding their “openness.”  How’s that for a twisted sort of message penetration and advocacy building? 

Reputable companies can learn a thing or two from LulzSec: the power of social branding, the effectiveness of Twitter to proactively shape public opinion, and the importance of staying vigilant against those who might try to sabotage your brand. 

On that last point: the subjective nature of hacktivists such as LulzSec has shown us that no organization is immune to attack.  We’d all be wise to ensure that we are doing what we can to mitigate the impact of a data breach, which includes making sure you’re prepared to intelligently manage communications around a breach (and perfecting your Blue Steel stare). 

For more on LulzSec, check out the following:

Damon Poeter of PC Magazine’s “50 Days of Mayhem: How LulzSec Changed Hacktivism Forever.”  Damon recaps the timeline of LulzSec’s antics and examines the group’s branding efforts.

Dan Kaplan of SC Magazine’s “The Legacy of LulzSec.”  Dan looks at the impact of hacktivism on information security, offering two potential scenarios.

Arik Hesseldahl of All Things D’s “Despite All the Attention, LulzSec’s Hackers Failed.”   Arik assesses LulzSec as “a bunch of misguided young people with too much time on their hands and precious few constructive outlets for their considerable energy.”

Special thanks goes to Marc Jaugey from PayPal for setting up this interview.

More details about Andrew :
His Wikipedia page
His media training activities

Article initially published on Text 100′s Paris blog

Credit picture: Kerolic

 The panel shared plenty of insightful content and best practices. I’ve captured the highlights and key takeaways below:

• “90% of brands using social media see business benefits” - Michael Chui
• In order to have success with internal collaboration tools, such as Yammer and Chatter, organizations need to look at the bigger picture and the workflow and beyond the tool itself. The tool should provide employees with access to information that they can’t get elsewhere.  
• Brands are increasingly using crowd sourcing tools within the enterprise, as well as externally, to discover the best ideas. A good example is GE’s Ecomagination Challenge.
• It’s critical for companies to nurture their advocates. 
• The industry is challenged with how to integrate social with traditional advertising, and the brands that crack this code will be successful. For example, with a paid TV spot, how do you engage and go beyond encouraging viewers to go to your Facebook page?
• The key to measurement is tying it to business objectives, as well as mapping it to core influencers and engagement. This goes far beyond quantity (ie Twitter followers, Facebook fans), and is centered on driving purchase decisions. 
• Businesses that allow employees to use social tools at work have higher retention because employees will fee lthat the organization trusts them.

 While some of the topics discussed remain ongoing conversations, rather than answers, it’s helpful for professionals to learn how other brands and organizations are plowing through similar hurdles and successes. This becomes especially important as the industry evolves and social media continues to be a staple in every day practice,

 To hear more from the panel, you can tune in to the full podcast on ZDNet here. 

Tweetcloud capture of what was said across the Twittersphere around Tuesday’s panel