‘Not on Facebook? It still has a fix on you’ is the headline that’s grabbed my attention this week. It was a piece about how the world’s biggest social network is building-up data about people who haven’t even signed-up yet.

There were also some ‘shocking’ facts about existing users – apparently, Facebook keeps every message and tagged picture even after we’ve deleted it from our account! So, that’s what it’s just filled its humongous data farms with in Sweden!

Your contact details can be culled from friends, you’ll be linked to anyone who has ever searched for your name and there may already be tagged holiday snaps of you, despite the fact you’ve never given permission for this.

When you look at this from a civil liberties perspective, it does seem extreme that non-users have already unwittingly created a Facebook profile of sorts. But I, for one, wasn’t massively surprised.

When you think about it – why would Facebook delete any of this precious data? Remember that Facebook doesn’t charge you to log-on and tag those pictures of your friends. Every scrap of its value, and the success it’s achieved, is down to the mountains of data and size of the communities it’s managed to build. This is what allows it to go on to sell very cleverly targeted advertising that makes the company its billions and zillions.

The reason we like Facebook is because all of our friends are on there, so there has to be some element of give and take. There’s no doubt that people do tend to be a bit laissez-faire in what they post online as they feel it’s not permanent. For me, rather than scaremongering about a surveillance state, we need to ensure that we’re educating ourselves to post information that we’re happy to hand over to Facebook and the like. 

You only have to go back a couple of generations to find examples of people who were worried about handing over information to machines and organisations that we now accept as a daily fixture. My Grandma won’t even use a cash machine or bank card, because she’s worried the robots will nick off with her pension! So, if the social networks are watching our every move, let’s just make sure we keep an eye on what they’re up to too.

Every day brings another great example of a social media campaign that makes you sit back in your chair and think: ‘Damn, I wish I’d thought of that’. The latest offering that’s grabbed my attention comes from the team at The Muppets Studio.

Originally created by Jim Henson in 1955, The Muppets have become so famous they’re considered celebrities in their own right. Over the years, ‘Kermy’, Miss Piggy and the gang have endorsed major brands, featured in famous music videos, hosted the Academy Awards and are now embarking on their eighth cinematic adventure.

I was a huge fan of The Muppet Show throughout my childhood and a lunchtime rarely went by without a cheese butty and the latest episode. As I’ve grown up, the world of children’s entertainment has changed beyond all recognition. Most of the shows, cartoon characters and household names I used to hold dear have fallen by the wayside – but not The Muppets.

In the run-up to their new movie release, The Muppets have done it again. Their latest stunt is an on-the-ball, tongue-in-cheek social media campaign that sees Miss Piggy aiming for ‘a bazillion’ likes on Facebook, in return for secret screenings of the new film. They’ve complemented this with a clever viral and a brilliantly run Twitter account that has me chuckling to myself on a daily basis.

It’s a real testament to the comms team over at The Muppets Studio, showing that they’ve moved with the times to keep these (technically OAP) puppets in showbiz and their audiences watching.

These days, heritage and history only count for so much. Brands, companies and indeed puppets must stay one step ahead to keep their audiences and customers engaged. Let’s just hope Statler and Waldorf aren’t heckling from the balcony at the premiere!

Like a cucumber sandwich, an Aston Martin or a Corgi, Burberry is quintessentially British. Founded in 1856 by Thomas Burberry, the luxe fashion label is celebrated for its sought-after rain macs and tartan print.

Of late, British beauties – including Agyness Deyn, Rosie Huntington-Whitetely and Emma Watson – have become ‘faces’ of the brand, donning iconic trench coats and sultry poses for huge advertising campaigns. Many a fashionista has also waited with bated breath to get their first peep at the label’s latest designs.

Yet, despite being steeped in tradition, Burberry has decided to buck the trend when it comes to marketing. The FT has reported that Burberry now spends over 60 per cent of its marketing budget on digital media, having ditched glossy print ads in favour of a global Facebook campaign.

Expertly timed for the launch of its latest fragrance, Burberry Body, the fashion house is now spending triple the market average on social networking activity.

The bold move is already paying off. Today, Burberry has over 8 million Facebook ‘likes’ – an increase of 500,000 fans in just a week – and more than 250,000 people have now signed up online to receive a free sample of the new scent.

The label’s certainly come a long way since 2005, when Burberry nail art and Daniella Westbrook’s head-to-toe Burberry attire turned the brand from chic to chav!

In PR terms, Burberry is now flying the flag not only for ‘Britishness’, but also for how a brand can genuinely engage with consumers on social networking platforms. Of course there’s kudos attached to appearing in the pages of Vogue, but who can argue with a digital shift that appeals directly to people in their hundreds of thousands?

Facebook has a bit of a track record when it comes to privacy. With prospective employers now able to dig around in our online histories, the ability to control privacy when using social media has become an increasingly hot topic.

Today, Facebook announced a raft of new features set to give us greater control over who sees the pictures and posts that we add to the site. Perhaps the most significant new one allows us to reject a tagged photo before it goes live for all your friends, family – and potential business contacts – to see. Hurrah! No more embarrassing photos!

Also new to Facebook is the ability to tweak status updates (useful if you’ve just slagged off a friend, only to decide you were being a bit harsh) and a ‘Geotagging’ service, which allows users to tag themselves, their photos and their status updates anywhere in the world – cue potential security worries.

I’m inclined to think that although Facebook is making strides to simplify its privacy settings, it’s still important for users to consider who might see their information. If your gut’s telling you not to post it, don’t post it – no matter how tight you think your privacy settings are.

Last night, a few of the Peppermints headed into town to celebrate Social Media Day. Yes, that’s right: yesterday was a day to celebrate “the revolution of media becoming social” and discuss how it’s transforming our personal and professional lives.

This year’s #SMDay is the second annual celebration to be organised by Mashable. In its inaugural year, Social Media Day prompted nearly 12,000 people to meet in more than 600 locations across 93 countries to talk about the latest topics, trends and technologies that social media offers – massive kudos to Pete Cashmore.

Held in Castlefield, Manchester’s meet-up brought together food bloggers, digital delivery managers from Premiership football clubs, social media leads from the BBC, specialists in digital production and even Greater Manchester Police!

At a time when activity on social media platforms accounts for 25 per cent of all time spent online, Social Media Day provides a fantastic focal point from which to survey the digital landscape and look to the future – and also hear stories about embarrassing SM gaffes!

No one needs to be told that, as a business tool, social media is becoming increasingly important on a day-to-day basis, especially within the creative industries. However, in the last year, I’ve noticed a significant shift in the way that journalists like to be engaged. The number of times I now contact a journalist with a tweet rather than an email has increased significantly, as has the number of times I get an immediate response.

The power that social media has over the way we do business, especially in PR, continues to grow and evolve, and I for one am looking forward to what the future may bring – here’s to an even busier Social Media Day in 2012!

Having been criticised in the past for its attitude towards privacy, Facebook is now facing a new row. It’s been revealed that the social network has enabled a feature that automatically identifies people in photos that have been uploaded.

So, should we all be concerned that our privacy – and the privacy of our friends – is being eroded? Personally, I don’t think so. If we don’t want to have the feature on our account, we can disable it in our privacy settings. Some users have complained that there should have been an ‘opt in’ system, rather than an ‘opt out’ one, but at least Facebook is giving us a choice, rather than saying “here’s the new feature: like it or lump it”.

What seems to have caused annoyance isn’t so much the tagging itself, but the way that it was introduced, with the feature being launched without much warning. Facebook has now admitted it “should have been more clear with people during the roll-out process”, so perhaps it knows it made a bit of a communications gaffe.

It seems that Facebook needs to start doing things to win back its friends and supporters. Some commentators are saying that the site’s star is beginning to wane, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

What it could do, though, is be a bit more open with its users. It’s supposed to be a social network that enables us to interact and keep in contact with people all across the world – perhaps Facebook could take a leaf out of its own book and communicate with us a little more clearly?

I don’t know about you, but, just occasionally when I tell people what I do for a living, I get a reaction that can be summed up by the following: Pah! Load of cobblers; lies, lunches, and so on.  Some will be sufficiently unchivalrous as to articulate this view.  A few others will content themselves with looking faintly disparaging.

This is a bit upsetting really, given how hard my team grafts and with what high degree of professionalism they work. 

It doesn’t help when our industry is thrust into the headlines as being a key player in a botched smear campaign, as it has been with the recent revelation that Facebook employed the services of Burson-Marsteller to covertly discredit Google. B-M was paid to try to plant anti-Google stories, which its consultants set about doing, without disclosing who they were acting for.  

This distinctly unedifying fiasco is sure to harden the opinion of those who believe we dabble in dark arts and evil whisperings.  And that’s a real shame. Because we – like the vast majority of PR practitioners – work to raise awareness of our clients’ products or services in a totally and uncompromisingly transparent way.  Smearing just isn’t a word I have ever used in a PR strategy proposal, nor would I ever wish to.

Still reeling from B-M/Facebook-gate, I was met with the stinging words of Celia Walden. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, where she reserved most of her vitriol for the party planning industry, she suggested that PRs are posh, useless and largely illiterate.  She writes: “All those years at Rodean and they still begin emails: “I hope your well.””

Celia, I sympathise and am sorry that your experience of our kind has been so singularly underwhelming.  Actually, there is nothing more guaranteed to send me into orbit than someone writing your instead of you’re.  I’ve gone so far as to sack a repeat offender of this particular horror and would readily do it again. 

If you’re ever up in Manchester, do pop in and witness for yourself that the PR industry does in fact sustain many hard-working and serious-minded individuals who know how to spell.

Oh, and there’s not a single double-barrelled name between us.

You may be forgiven for thinking that social media is a relatively new invention, spawned by college geeks and digital entrepreneurs. However, a certain maker of plastic containers is now arguing that the true origin of social networking can be found in the quaint image of 1950s domesticity.

Let’s hear it for the Tupperware party – considered to be an early form of a very modern phenomenon. According to Tupperware inc: “The word-of-mouth model of direct sales and marketing relied upon trusted relationships between women.” Now, with a global campaign to ‘coolify’ the company’s image, the 65-year-old brand has embraced the modern day equivalent of ‘home selling’ with an ambitious social media strategy.

The campaign, which goes live this week, will see the brand go back to its roots (in a digital sense) and talk directly to would-be shoppers. With a new face for the campaign in Kelly Clarkson and a message of empowerment, the company is looking to recreate the Tupperware party for 2011.

Now we’re not sure that Ms Clarkson ever dreamed of being the face of a ‘re-sealable plastic container’ (poor love), but we adore Tupperware’s vision to bring the ‘party’ to social media. Let’s hope their 50s mantra of ‘know your audience’ rings true in the digital age.

It comes as little surprise that news out today shows the average social media user has more friends online than in real life. This latest research shows that the average Joe has 55 physical friends but 121 online buddies.

Apparently, us Brits now spend at least two hours every single day trying to keep up with our online mates – phew! The way relationships are formed is, it seems, changing – and social media has a big part to play. According to the study, only five per cent of people would ask for someone’s phone number, whereas 23 per cent would ask for an email address or a full name to add them on a social network.

It’s certainly true that social media makes introductions easier. Two thirds of the survey respondents hailed the ‘ease’ of conducting online friendships from the comfort of their own home as the reason for their popularity. Given the instant connection of a tweet, it can sometimes seem like comparatively hard work to arrange to go out in the real world with your mates.

Participants also cited the confident attitude they could adopt with their online pals. True, we’re able to portray ourselves in the way we want online (ah, the good old ‘de-tag’ button) and so avoid any embarrassment or awkwardness.

But are we sacrificing the relationships that really count to entertain those 121 online buddies? Call me old fashioned, but, when push comes to shove, aren’t real life friends – the type you can go out for a meal with or share a 3am phone call with – the sort of friends we really need?

It’s not the first time I’ve blogged about using social media for charity, but something interesting caught my eye this week.

It’s a very cute fundraiser called ‘7 Wonders in 7 Days’. The premise is that seven people will travel around the seven wonders of Britain for seven charities in seven days. Oh, and it will start on 7 July and aim to raise £777,000 – you get the picture!

But, where does social media come into it? The seven wonders were voted for through social networking sites and I was particularly chuffed to see my hometown represented as York Minster made the final cut. The whole thing is being powered by the goodwill and donations of people who’ve come across it on sites like Facebook and Twitter and I have to say that I love it.

There’s something particularly warm about seeing people pull together to make a difference and, fingers crossed, this celebration of the best of British will really rally the troops. People are forever trying to come up with new and inventive ways to raise a few bob for charity and I think this hits the mark.

Some charities are already using social media incredibly well to bring their causes to life. It’s the perfect tool; at a low cost and with a potentially huge impact, you could raise awareness of your charity across the world. The technology may put some people off, but with Facebook and Twitter, the clever bits are done behind the screens and using them is a doddle. The idea for a fundraiser doesn’t have to be weird or wonderful. Just think about what you’d do offline and make it online – it’s not an either/or.

We spend so much of our time connected to the internet and sites like Just Giving have taken over the traditional sponsor forms that circulated the office once upon a time. With donations only a click away, I’m interested to see how mixing social media with fundraising will evolve.