BP has got to the stage in its reputational decline where it is not just a falling stock but a laughing stock, with 7 million views of this spoof video so far and climbing, making a mockery of BP’s own videos of the containment effort.

Google has released the latest in it’s video narratives which tell a story, align with cool events and cleverly sell its products. In this one, our Glastonbury festival goer loses a tent but finds romance, using maps and translate on his phone.

At the Barcelona Declaration of Measurement Principles, it was agreed, according to Gorkana that Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) – the  main PR measuring stick in use for decades has now been rejected by delegates from 33 countries.

Well we always knew it was a bit iffy, not least because the well known phrase ‘you can’t buy coverage like this’  is literally true – you can’t buy advertising in many of the editorial situations the PR industry gets clients onto, plus AVE massively undervalues the longtail benefits of positive coverage.

While Barcelona has put it’s foot down on AVE, the great and good of PR haven’t yet proposed an alternative. Offline they may continue to struggle but happily online we’re got plenty of options, here’s a few off the bat:

1) The number of new links to your site/blog – good for reputation, SEO and reach

2) The increase in the number of mentions on Google your brand gets.

3) Website grade – use one of the online tools to measure how well your website scores before and after a campaign. more »

Facebook revenue may have neared $800m in 2009, almost double previously estimates, according to a report from Reuters.

Last July, Facebook board member Marc Andreessen told Reuters the company was on track to surpass $500 million in annual revenue for 2009. In September, Facebook said that it had become free cash flow positive, meaning that the company was generating enough cash to cover its operating expenses as well as its capital spending needs.

Estimates in various media reports had previously pegged the company’s 2009 revenue at $550 million to $700 million.

The two sources said revenue in 2009 was in fact $700 million to $800 million.

“They are downplaying their performance,” one source told Reuters, adding that 2009 revenue was more than double the previous year’s total. “There’s no upside in getting people’s expectations high, it’s always better to go low.”

If Facebook eventually seeks to go public, unveiling financial figures above expectations could help bolster investor interest. more »

The NetBase Brand Passion Index, which measures the intensity of consumer passion for brands among users of online communities reveals that consumers of a golfing bent are most passionate about Callaway a golf club brand.

TaylorMade is the next most loved brand, followed closely by Wilson and Nike.

While Nike Golf and Callaway are the subject of an equal amount of chatter, Nike is merely liked while Callaway inspires real passion.

Despite the negative publicity, Tiger Woods does not appear to impact the passion level for the Nike Golf brand. In fact, golfers express little negativity towards any of the major brands.

Titleist gets the least amount of love, but is still generally liked. Personally I hate them, keep losing the pesky things! more »

The value to brand marketers of attracting consumers to sign up to their Facebook pages has been calculated in a new survey from Syncapse.

They found Facebook fans spend $71.84 more per year on brands they ‘Like’ and they are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using that brand.

In addition, fans are 41% more likely to recommend a fanned product to their friends. Amongst the 20 top brands* measured, the average value of an individual fan rises to $136.38.

Among the 20, McDonald’s registered the largest variability in annualised spending between fans and non-fans, with fans spending $159.79 more per year.

In contrast, Oreo registered the lowest variability in spending between fans and non-fans, with fans spending $28.52 more per year.

The five measured variables that contributed to the study were product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity, and earned media value. more »

PRESS RELEASE

The slow adoption of social media channels by FTSE 100 companies is limiting their potential  influence on investors and ultimately share price, according to a new survey by online pr and social media agency Furlong PR.

Furlong PR analysed corporate websites for the FTSE 100 constituents in May 2010 and found that the majority – 78% are lacking in basic social media functions such as a blog or an RSS feed.

Only 12% have a blog linked to their site, an omission that Furlong contends at least halves (1) their potential website traffic and therefore restricts the information flow that can have a positive effect on share price.

Furlong cites the example of a Canadian copper mining company, TVI Pacific Inc (2), who began a social media investor relations programme in November 2009.  By January 2010, the company had increased website visits from 100 to 4000 a week, trading volume rose 55% and the share price doubled from $0.06 to $0.12.

FTSE 100 companies are more active when it comes to Twitter accounts – 23% having one, the lack of integration with an overall strategy suggests many may not know what to do with it.  Furlong says that in any case Twitter is not the most important social media channel for influencing share price. more »

While official Fifa sponsor Coca Cola has been fighting it out with unaffiliated arch rival Pepsi in the World Cup viral video stakes for the last 3 months, with 853K and 670K views respectively, Nike’s ‘Write the future’ has stormed through to 15m views in just 3 weeks. Carlsberg with 561K and Puma 390K rank fourth and fifth. Here they are:

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Social media sites now account for nearly 15% of referral traffic to B2B websites that have a social media presence, according to the LeadForce1 analysis of 4.4 million leads analysed over a three-month period.

LinkedIn is the top referrer, accounting for 27.1% of traffic to B2B sites, followed by Wikipedia (16.8%).

Bookmarking site Reddit (18.4%) and developer site Dzone (13.0) also feature prominently, though this is probably due to the relatively high number of tech companies included in the study.

Meanwhile, Twitter accounts for just 9.5% of referred traffic to B2B sites and Facebook 6.9%.

Visitors referred to B2B websites from LinkedIn are more interested in finding out about the people within a company rather than what the company does: The most frequently visited Web pages are “management team” pages (13.76%) and “contact us” pages (13.49%). more »

Top ten countries on Facebook, with growth figures, to March 31st 2010, from Nick Burcher’s blog and UK Facebook demographics from Inside Facebook

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