Social media and brand impact

Never underestimate the impact of social media on brands - particularly among Generation Y - our most voracious social media-jockeys.

I was recently sent this from a social media ezine - it's worth checking out:

More than 80 million YouTube videos are watched every day. In fact you could argue that YouTube is the single most influential form of media available today. Which makes the corporate world's mostly blinkered attitude to its value and sometimes its potential threat to a company's reputation all the more surprising.. .http://www.socialme diainfluence. com/2008/ 04/the-youtube- top.html

Fall at their feet

Crowded House know how to give a good concert. It's a dozen years of more since I last saw Neil Finn, Nick Seymour and the gang perform at the Apollo in Oxford and give one of the best performances I've ever witnessed. They took a 10 year hiatus between 96 and 06, during which drummer, Paul Hester, died and the sum of the remaining parts never quite lived up to the whole.

I saw Neil perform with his band, and Neil and brother Tim graced the Oxford stage too, but I never really thought I'd see Crowded House together again...until last night.

Jac and I were back on my home territory: back to Wembley and the recently-revamped Wembley Arena . It's still a barn of a place, cold until the audience warms it up and we were a good 50 yards back from the stage, despite having floor seating. But at least the acoustics are about a million times better than before the revamp. At about 8.30pm, four middle aged men took the stage and lit up my year.

The band aren't all about greatest hits, though they've had enough of the and they were liberally sprinkled in among strong new material. But the big difference between Crowded House and many other bands I've seen is the way they connect with their crowd and make a concert for 10,000 people appear intimate and personal - they have a great way of turning a building the size of an aircraft hangar into a small room. The concert is all about banter and involvement - and, in celebration of Nick Seymour's birthday they were even taking requests as they played up to Wembley's infamous curfew last night.

They left the stage last night just before 11pm. YouTube and dodgy phone recordings can only give a flavour of a band on top form live - and there's nothing up yet from last night's Wembley experience.

The only downsides? Overpriced merchandising and over zealous stewarding. But that's just being picky. We had a great night out.

I'm sipping coffee from my Crowded House 'char' mug this morning and enjoying the band's extremely rewarding back collection once again.

Don't panic.....they're not so different after all

Last night I had the pleasure of facilitating part of a BBC 'Yoof' event in Southampton. A group of 16-21 year olds came together and, as well as touring the Corporation's HQ in the South and having a play on a BBC Technology Bus, fed back their views on TV, radio and the internet, sharing their feelings about everything from sport and drama to whether Radio 1 is getting better or worse.

We were all geared up for a generation stating they never watch TV; that they get their news via the internet and spend all their time on Facebook and YouTube. While a couple had uploaded content to YouTube, and most had profiles on the Facebook or Bebo (or both!), the way they accessed their media was reassuringly familiar to those of us aged 40+ in the room.

Most loved the BBC's dramas and used BBC for their news. Very many still watched TV with their parents and nearly all woke up to the dulcet(?!) tones of Chris Moyles. They still watched TV according to the published schedules. Almost none had downloaded podcasts and not a single one had downloaded content to a mobile phone.

No doubt they'll all be adopting new ways of accessing and interacting with the media in the future, but for now, Generation Y is nothing like as geeky as the magicians of social media would have us believe.