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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 20 July 2012 – Stay.com

For those who are already on holiday or who are planning the next adventure, take note! Stay.com, the site that allows you to create travel guides to share with friends and family, has updated its mobile features to include downloadable maps and offline guides. This means that even you can use them without an internet connection, you don’t have a big load up time, and you also avoid mobile charges. Fantastic.

The guides are easy and super quick to download and are simply stored on your phone for whenever you need it. You can find travel advice from experts and fellow travellers, as well as hidden gem tips from friends and family. It’s a fully interactive map with 116 cities to chose from, and takes up minimal space on your mobile.

Another cool feature is that the app can also be linked to Facebook – this enables you to personalise your guides with recommendations from friends so you can discover that awesome restaurant or shop that they have been raving about in Paris.

Stay.com’s new features are a Tin It. Bon voyage!

Look no further!

TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 14 July 2012 – Pathbrite

This week we are looking at Pathbrite, a free digital platform that allows you to present your achievements online by constructing visual portfolios.

As the web becomes more visual, so too are online CVs and portfolios.

The idea behind Pathbrite is that traditional CVs and portfolios don’t give prospective employers or clients enough information about the individual and provide a true representation of their character.

It is aimed at 18-to-25 year old students and young job seekers, however the portfolio function is also ideal for designers, PRs and anyone in the creative industries looking for an easy and attractive way to showcase work. You can include articles, pieces of code, design projects and media coverage sourced from YouTube and Dropbox.

For the jobseekers out there, you can present evidence of learning, skills, and accomplishments in an eye-catching customised way. Once you had added your info you can also link your Pathbrite page to various social network accounts.

We have signed up to the service and played about with it. It was extremely user friendly and quick to upload examples of media coverage in a visually appealing way.

This is a great startup and although it is aimed more at students and jobseekers, we think it will be a great way to display our coverage to clients. Check out the results of our experiment here.

Tin It.

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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 6 July 2012 – London – A City Through Time

With the start of the Olympic Games fast approaching, the spotlight is shining firmly on London. But there’s far more to our glorious capital than the events of 2012.

Here to enlighten us is Heuristic Media’s new iPad app, London – A City Through Time, which was released this week, and brings to life nearly 2,000 years in the life of the city.

Whether you’re interested in people, buildings or events, this app has got it all and in every media. There are over 6000 articles on everything from museums to rivers, and more than 2000 rare prints and photographs. And with audio tours and 35 Pathé video clips of iconic London moments, this app is an informative and visual extravaganza at your fingertips.

Brighten up a commute with the History on the Tube section, which provides entries for each station you pass through. Or, to compliment a visit to the tourist hot spots, you could check out the 360º views of the best sites. The Browse on Map feature allows you to zoom in and out of a Google Map, tapping on article icons.

And, while all this content could seem overwhelming, it’s linked together with a synchronised timeline. We can swipe through by century, period, monarch or even individual year, with thumbnails popping up for particular articles or historical events helping us navigate the depths of London’s history.

Although it’s a rather pricey £9.99 and is currently only available for iPad, there is a wealth of content to keep locals and tourists alike informed and entertained. So, London – A City Through Time is a Tin It!

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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It or Bin It – 28 June 2012 – Way of Life

Are you fed up of those old habits that you just can’t seem to break? The ‘Way of Life’ app offers the means to change any aspect of your life through its simple and flexible monitoring system.

It allows users to track any habit or activity – good or bad – over time, requiring a simple ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ’skip’ choice for the habits users have chosen every day. These choices are displayed on a graph and over edtime it builds up a clear picture of how you have fared and even allows you to share your achievements through social media (if you want to share your flossing record for the last year that is).

It only takes a minute a day to input the information on your habits and it even sets a daily reminder… so you really have no excuse!

‘Way of Life’ is a simple but smart idea and the app has an intuitive interface to make it as easy as possible for the user. There is, however, a sense of novelty which is likely to wear off after a while. Even the best apps cannot keep a user interested forever and ‘Way of Life’ will almost certainly lose some of its appeal after extended use, despite the daily reminders. It is a question of whether you have the willpower to use the app long enough for it to make a difference.

We are optimists so lets give ‘Way of Life’ the benefit of the doubt as it certainly will be useful for creating good habits or breaking old bad ones – to those of us who can stick at something for a little while at least. Perhaps there should be another app to encourage us to use our old apps…

For the time being, we say Tin It!

Hot Tin Roof’s director Sarah Lee will today give a presentation on social media for startups at Scotland’s first Drupal for Business event. The talk, held jointly with Gareth Alexander of GA Web Applications Development, aims to equip companies with the tools needed to maximise the benefits of social media.

Sarah’s PR career began in the press office of East of Scotland Water. After moving to the private sector she worked on both business and consumer media campaigns for Scotland On Line, Compaq, Indigo Vision and Newell & Budge, before launching Hot Tin Roof in 2002.

Under Sarah’s directorship, Hot Tin Roof has built up a dynamic reputation as one of Scotland’s leading PR agencies for digital and technology companies, working with many pioneering startups including NCTech and miiCard, as well as established organisations like ScotlandIS and The University of Edinburgh.

Leveraging social media to boost online reputations is a core component of each Hot Tin Roof campaign. From interacting with customers to increasing sales, social networking on Twitter and Facebook and professional networking on sites such as LinkedIn is more important than ever.

The presentation will explore advantages and pitfalls of social media for startups. The session will also outline how to integrate Drupal to benefit social media, and examine what content works best for which social network.

Sarah Lee comments: “I’m passionate about the power of social media and, in the rapidly changing media landscape, it has become a vital tool for promoting startups. I’m delighted to be giving this presentation and look forward to helping those attending harness the exciting opportunities social media presents.”

Drupal for Business is part of DrupalCamp Scotland 2012, and runs on Friday 25 May. Held at the Informatics Forum in Edinburgh, DrupalCamp Scotland comprises of three free events held over the 25 and 26 May. In addition to Drupal for Business there will be a short introduction to Drupal and full-day training sessions on the Saturday.

For more information contact Sarah Lee.

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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 25 May 2012 – Klik

Face.com’s new facial recognition mobile app, Klik, has just launched out of Beta. ­Using Face.com technology, the app aims to automatically identify the faces of your friends before or after you take their photos.

And just how does it know who your nearest and dearest are? Well, to use the app you have to configure it with your Facebook account, and the facial recognition software analyses the faces in your photos and remembers the name associated with each tag.

This could take up to one full day, and Klik will only recognise the people you are friends with on Facebook.

If Klik can’t identify the person in the picture you can put it in “Learn Mode” to manually ID the face – if you continue to identify unknown faces and save them then the app’s ability to recognise those faces in future photos improves.

There are some great additions, like the Instagram-esque photo filters to give your snaps that creative edge. And, of course, you can share – on Facebook, Twitter, email and Klik itself. You can also check out friend’s photos and see the locations where those pics were taken.

But it’s the app’s ability to read your location and make use of that info which, coupled with the facial recognition technology, gives it a decidedly creepy feel, and raises privacy concerns.

And because of this Klik is a Bin It.

Full-time PR Account Manager Circa £24k

Edinburgh

Hot Tin Roof is a dynamic, independent PR agency, creating iconic reputations for pioneering UK companies.  We help business communicate in a digital world, blending the skills and rigour of traditional PR with the constantly changing, cutting edge digital techniques of social media and online PR.

Now in our tenth year we are primarily focused on B2B PR, specialising in internet and digital technologies, although we do work across a range of sectors and the odd B2C campaign.

Fast and furious, we deliver creative campaigns, designed along clear and simple lines.  From short, sharp projects to heavy weight strategy sustained long term; we have a powerful reputation for getting results and making the news.

We are now looking for an enthusiastic and experienced PR professional to join the team and help across a range of B2B accounts.

Key responsibilities:

With a minimum of three years’ experience in Public Relations, you will be responsible for managing media relations and client accounts. You will have excellent client service skills and proven media relations skills.

The preferred candidate will have experience in B2B campaigns, ideally technology related, and experience of social media campaigns and online PR.

You will be keen to learn to write PR plans, new business proposals and pitch documents, and will have a naturally positive outlook to building new business connections on behalf of the client.

Skills & Experience:

• Experience working with B2B clients

• Excellent media relations skills and proven strength in securing quality coverage

• Excellent understanding of news agenda and impact on clients

• Confident and professional demeanor when dealing with clients and journalists

• Strong copy writing skills

• Strong social media and online PR skills

• Good organisation and time management

• Good knowledge and understanding of digital channels

Personal Qualities:

• Pro-active and takes initiative

• Loves a challenge

• Excellent communication skills

• Team player

CVs with covering letter to sarah@hottinroof.co.uk by 8 June 2012.

Part Time / Full-time PR Account Director Circa £35k pro-rata

Edinburgh

Hot Tin Roof is a dynamic, independent PR agency, creating iconic reputations for pioneering UK companies.  We help business communicate in a digital world, blending the skills and rigour of traditional PR with the constantly changing, cutting edge digital techniques of social media and online PR.

Now in our tenth year we are primarily focused on B2B PR, specialising in internet and digital technologies, although we do work across a range of sectors and the odd B2C campaign.

Fast and furious, we deliver creative campaigns, designed along clear and simple lines.  From short, sharp projects to heavy weight strategy sustained long term; we have a powerful reputation for getting results and making the news.

We are now looking for an experienced PR professional to join the team and help grow the business.  Although we are ideally looking for a part time role we will consider full-time for the right person.

Key responsibilities:

With a minimum of five years’ experience in Public Relations, you will be responsible for leading media relations as well as helping to grow Hot Tin Roof.  You will work closely with the founder MD to manage a small team, lead client accounts, secure new business and grow Hotwire our social media service.

You will be able to run accounts autonomously, will have excellent client service skills and proven media relations skills.  The preferred candidate will have strong experience in B2B campaigns, specifically technology related, and demonstrable experience of social media campaigns and online PR.

You will have a powerful track record of achieving outstanding results for clients, and will understand the need to deliver tangible commercial benefits in PR campaigns. You will have managed integrated PR campaigns and will be comfortable managing client budgets.

You will be able to demonstrate a keen ability to write PR plans, new business proposals and pitch documents, and will have a naturally positive outlook to building new business connections on behalf of the client.

Skills & Experience:

• Experience working with clients in technology, new media, public sector

• Outstanding media relations skills and proven strength in securing quality coverage
• Excellent understanding of news agenda and impact on clients
• Confident participator in meetings with senior executives

• Strong copy writing skills

• Strong social media and online PR skills
• Good organisation and time management
• Good knowledge and understanding of digital channels
• Experience of working with and giving advice to senior executives
• Experience in campaign management and media relations
• Flawless project management skills
• Experience of crisis and issues management

Personal Qualities:

• Self-Starter, pro-active, takes initiative, driven, entrepreneurial
• Loves a challenge
• Excellent communication skills
• Mature, self-confident and will get on with the job in hand
• Team player with the ability to motivate account teams

CVs with covering letter to sarah@hottinroof.co.uk

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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 30 March 2012 – ColourDNA

ColourDNA has just launched a shiny new app for the iPhone. It’s described as “a proprietary algorithm for social discovery”. It basically discovers a bit about your likes and interests and recommends things they think you will like – from music and books, right through to art and gadgets.

First things first you have to select your favourite colour. The whole concept of the app revolves around colour (just in case the clue in the name didn’t tip you off!).

ColourDNA believe that your preference for certain colours reflects certain personality traits. Now this is where we start to become doubtful. Even though the algorithm highlights the importance of colour preferences, we can’t help thinking that other personal interests like music, films, food, books etc reveal a wealth of information about a person, more so perhaps than a simple colour can. Also, just like our moods, our favourite colour can vary.

ColourDNA incorporates a lot of features from Facebook, Foursquare and Pinterest and has existed online for some time now, so it does seem a natural step for the introduction of the app. It is an intriguing concept but we remain unconvinced for now. Only time will tell if people will take a liking to it and want to continually use it.

We wish them every success but unfortunately this is a Bin It.

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TIN IT OR BIN IT is your weekly social media need-to-know.

Hot off the press we deliver the week’s most ground breaking social media news,
oh-no-you-didn’t stories, tips you can’t afford to miss or simply our opinion on trends in the digital landscape.

Lastly, we’ll tell you whether it’s tin material or bin material!

View them all here on our Facebook page.

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Tin It Or Bin It – 23 March 2012 – Pingram

This week we are looking at Pingram, an exciting startup that unites two of the hottest networks in one – Pinterest and Instagram. The new site, created by Gennaro Varriale, allows you to view Instagram photos in the same way you would browse through pins on Pinterest. There is also talk of upcoming Facebook Timeline integration and a cleaner interface.

The site is in Beta just now, but if it takes off, Instagram users who sign up could see their work showcased to a much wider audience; which is great news for Instagram photographers looking to share their creations.

Photo-sharing sites are now the most popular social media outlets in terms of referral traffic and popularity. Pinterest has even overtaken Twitter in traffic (with more people sharing and clicking links to other sites on Pinterest), and it has outpaced Google Plus, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. With stats like that, it’s no wonder Varriale has tapped into this market.

To protect against privacy, the site has chosen to disable the ability to pin non-Pingram users’ photos, so unfortunately if you are not a Pingram user, your Instagram photo will just show up as a thumbnail. While it may be inconvenient for some, this seems to be a wise move by Varriale following on from the recent privacy troubles Pinterest have faced.

The site is not an original idea by any means, but platforms like these provide people with new ways to create and share online, and help develop communities and connections with others.

Pingram is a Tin It.