We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #9

Tweetdeck infiltrates the Sky News Room
You might recall that last March Sky News turned a few heads by appointing Ruth Barnett (@ruthbarnett) as their social media / Twitter correspondent. Since that time, more than 90 Sky staff have opened Twitter accounts, ranging from field producers to weather presenters, and the use of Twitter in the newsrooms has boomed.

Then came the news last week from Journalism.co.uk that Sky News would be installing Tweetdeck software across its journalists’ computers, “as part of plans to encourage more use of social media for newsgathering and reporting.”

Over on Mashable they tried to put this move into context:

For those of you who work in more traditional work environments, you can appreciate the significance of software installs on company machines, typically regulated to lock down or limit employee downloads. The vetting of Tweetdeck as an application worthy of a serious news organization is one that should not be overlooked.

Though Tweetdeck might not be for everyone, it’s an interesting development nonetheless in standardising the use of social media in the newsroom.

Common-sense wisdom in Coke’s new social media policy
Last week, Coca-Cola released a 3-page social media policy containing 20 straightforward, common sense principles that should be adhered to by the company’s employees as they interact on the social web.

Adam Brown, Head Of Social Media at Coca-Cola provides a quick 3 minute video about the objectives, rational and challenges of their approach to Andy Sernovitz, who’s written about it further on his blog.

Read and study the full policy here.

Drink your Facebook
Last September Glaceau vitaminwater launched a contest for US customers which let Facebook users create a new flavour of the product. Last week they announced the winning entry (Sarah… from Illinois) and it tastes like Facebook:

The new flavor, announced [8 January], is called ‘Connect’ (as in Facebook Connect?) and even carries the Facebook logo on the bottle label.

In case you were wondering, Facebook tastes like black cherry-lime.

For a more in depth look beyond the campaign, check out John Bell’s blog post on ‘Crowdsourcing & Co-Creation with Glaceau’ for key takeways.

(Disclosure: vitaminwater is a We Are Social client)

NHS Salford uses Twitter to inform patients of hospital services available during snow
For the past few weeks the things in the UK have been a bit chilly, causing widespread disruption to transport, schools and government services. And where there’s #uksnow there are bound to be stories using Twitter as an angle. So here’s one of our favourites:

NHS Salford has been using Twitter as an additional way of communicating with the local population as snow continues to disrupt services across large parts of the country.

We admire their innovation at least.