Disqus - Latest Comments for CarringtonMalin

Re: Corporate Twitter Accounts Are Stupid

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:58:01 -0000

LOL Send a press release out to the media and the media can always choose not to run it, but you can get your agency to post whatever you like online as many times as you like! More is better, right? ;o)

Re: Corporate Twitter Accounts Are Stupid

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 06:31:04 -0000

Nice post Roba! Twitter accounts that churn out corporate junk are a waste of time. And unfortunately, there are plenty of them (many followed mainly by their own employees and agency staff!). However, the good news is that companies in the region do seem to be learning and we've seen a growing number of them doing quite a good job on Twitter. Now the challenge for brands is to not only do a reasonable job at the basics, but also to excite and engage in more effective and more meaningful ways. Let's hope that the brands that get there first goad the others into doing better!

Re: http://drbaher.com/post/16698082810

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:19:10 -0000

Tell it like it is Baher! It's certainly not the easy road.
When you have your own business you can work as hard as you like: and then some more whether you like it or not!

Many people who have a passion for what they do, think that starting their own business will give them more freedom to do what they really enjoy. And that's indeed partly true. I, for one, get to do some great work and a lot of times get to refuse work I don't want. However, there's a whole slew of stuff that everyone tends to underestimate when starting out that consumes your time and that you really don't have much choice over. Often what moves your business along is simply working as hard as you possibly can.

Re: Arab World: Current State Of The Internet & Future Growth

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:04:40 -0000

A very useful summary! Thanks!

Re: Maktoob Yahoo Deal Brings Jordan To The Forefront: What Inspiration Looks Like

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:43:57 -0000

Nice post. Only time will tell how the story will be told a few years from now, but for sure the region certainly needs more Samih Toukans. Maktoob's success now gives just a little more credibility to everyone in the region that calls themself an entrepreneur and is struggling to innovate.

Re: Mashable’s Weekly Internet and Social Media Events Guide

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:11:09 -0000

The link to the UAE event in December is not working. This is the URL that the organisers were using, but it seems to be either down or closed.

Re: Twitter for Enterprise Debate: Would You Use It For Your Own Business?

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:30:30 -0000

This can be an unwinnable argument, since you're both absolutely right! At the end of the day, it comes down to the corporate will and commitment to engage in social media. If social media has the buy-in of the CEO, then problems can suddenly become solveable, risks manageable and issues workable. Without it, its very easy to end up with the organisation's social media fans and naysayers at an impasse.

Small to medium sized businesses have often got it easy, because they can solve issues and arrive at a consensus that defies normal business practices more easily than larger businesses. The big thorny issues usually crop up with large organisations. Social media campaigns can cut across every formal process in the company, disrupting every approval process, crossing every brand guideline, blurring reporting procedures and distributing the 'social media power' to those who are usually without authority. Entering the world of social media can be intimidating for large organisations, to say the least!

So, why bother? The critics have more than enough amunition to argue against taking the social media plunge. Why not let them win? The answer is that the risks of not participating in the social web can be equally as scary as the obstacles. Not listening, not engaging key audiences and not being online to take part in the conversation is today a business risk. In the era of user-generated content, leaving all comment and content on new media platforms to the public, your competitors and other audiences outside of your control has very real risks of its own. And, as those working in media will know, news expands to fill a vacuum. So, if your organisation is thrust into the spotlight against its will, know that if you don't talk others will. If that means teaching your organisation how to communicate all over again, then that's the price you'll (sooner or later) have to pay. And it's better to begin investing that time now than when you are forced to respond to a crisis or to play catch-up to your competitors later on.

Re: Promotion in Dubai

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:01:20 -0000

Ryan did go down very well.

In case you're interested he was also interviewed on Dubai Eye talk radio:
http://www.zawya.com/radio/...

And I also did a video interview with him in UAE national dress for our social media:
http://spotonpr.blip.tv/fil...

Enjoy!

Carrington

Re: Cyberspace is all a-twitter with tweets

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:43:05 -0000

Hi David,

As you know, I disagree with the Twitter user statistic from Comscore and believe that 376,000 Twitter users in the Middle East region is way too high as an estimate.

By our reckoning the UAE currently leads the region in terms of both user growth and overall numbers, and these figures suggest that the UAE should have tens of thousands of Twitter users, which is simply not true (Twitter was only 'unblocked' by the UAE last August). However, I think that this is perhaps confusing terminology versus simply an erroneous statistic. Comscore tracks, measures and analyses a wide range of Internet sites and most of their data is based on site visits. Twitter is a community for registered users and you can't participate unless you sign-up, so if Comscore did base its stats on measuring unique site visits for Twitter, then this could explain a lot.

Spot On estimates that the number of Twitter users in the Arab world (not the same as Comscore's Middle East category) during March with location data in their user-profiles was about 3,000 (new figures coming soon) including hundreds of inactive user accounts. We'd add to that another 10-15% taking into consideration users that don't have Arab world location data entered into their profiles, but are nonetheless living in the Arab world. So, no more than 3,500 registered users all-told, 4,000 if you want to be really generous.

So, why the huge difference? I think that the Comscore statistic probably comes from unique visitors to Twitter.com pages to include referrals from other websites and search engines. Twitter posts and profiles turn up frequently in Google searches these days and this likely accounts for an increase in clicks. However, to participate in the Twitter community, you need to be registered as a Twitter user and so a figure for unique browser visits isn't really useful as an assessment of registered Twitter users. Although you can't argue with the fact that Twitter is getting attention!

Sincerely,

Carrington Malin
Spot On Public Relations

Re: Journalist jailed for three years for George Bush assault - Press Gazette

Carrington Malin | Spot On PR — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:41:19 -0000

Has sentenced already been passed? The AP story didn't mention that, just that he pleaded not guilty. We haven't seen anyone else file that he's already sentenced. Thanks!