Twitter isn’t new and the impact of a mis-judged, foul-mouthed or ill-timed tweet has been demonstrated time and time and time again.

But yesterday England cricketer Kevin Pietersen added his name to the long list of tweeters that have come unstuck, writing after his omisison from the England oneday squad that it was a ‘f*** up’. Will people ever learn!? Aside from swearing about a decision his bosses made, the main beef with KP’s tweet was that the squad hadn’t officially been announced at that stage, so the offending tweet was hastily removed.

I do feel sorry for KP though. Surely anyone would be annoyed at getting dropped and are we really so sensitive to the odd four letter word in this day and age? But a sportsperson is just like a brand when it comes to Twitter, you are ‘always on’ and everything is public.

Opinion is to be encouraged, with much of Twitter pretty anodyne for much of the time, but if you are in the public eye then counting to ten before hitting send is probably to be advised.

As a committed user of Twitter and with Rise PR having worked extensively with the retail sector, an article in Real Business on how the top 50 UK retailers are using the social network caught my eye yesterday.

Written by Illiya Vjestica of Leeds-based online marketing consultancy Smartdog Digital, it reveals that only 80% of that top 50 have official Twitter accounts and just 35% of retailers promote their Twitter presence as a link or call to action on their website homepage. With an estimated 4.3million UK users of Twitter this seems an extraordinary oversight on the part of some massive brands - Morrisons and John Lewis are just two that should hang their heads and look a little shifty.

But is Twitter only of use to the big retail brands? Can independents and smaller businesses make it work for them too? A recent escapee from London, I live near Albert Road in Southsea, an amazing street packed with independent shops, bars and restaurants. Not many of the individual businesses appear to be on Twitter, but there is Facebook group Love Albert Road that has more than 5,000 people like it. It does a great job of collectively promoting Albert Road and shops and services on it but could do even better with the addition of a Twitter account.

Another example is Gunwharf Quays, a harbourside shopping centre in Portsmouth with shops, bars, restaurants, a cinema and more. There is a Gunwharf Twitter account with more than 500 followers and it tweets sales and promotions from the shops, highlights events that take place and generally does a good job of engaging with its followers. It also has a Facebook page that 2,400 people like.

Of course, Gunwharf Quays is a official entity in itself, which makes it easier, but there is absolutely nothing to stop shops joining together with their neighbours and tweeting as a street or area. If that’s where your customers are then you need to find a way to get there yourself, whatever your location or size.

Twitter provides a chance to promote your services, publicise special offers and get closer to, and engage with, your customers and prospects. The time investment might be daunting for one shop alone (although its surprising how straight forward it can be once you are up and running) but teaming up with like-minded shops to tweetand position yourselves as a shopping destination of choice could be really productive for smaller retailers.

Getting your head around what to do with your PR can be daunting if you aren’t in the industry. Which is why we would always advise coming to someone in the know, like Rise PR for instance!

We would say that of course, but if you are really set on doing it yourself then help is at hand. Rise PR Director Karen Allen has recorded a podcast with RunMarketing, the free, online do-it-yourself marketing, public relations and digital media tips site for small businesses and start-ups.

PR is arguably the most cost-effective marketing tool - certainly the only one in which a minimal outlay could see you plastered across the national media. That won’t always be the case of course, but Karen talks about ways in which small businesses can promote their products and services at a local, trade and yes, sometimes even a national level.

Listen to Karen’s words of wisdom here.

Last night I attended the Post Mission Event at the London Stock Exchange. Attendees from WebMission 09, WebMission 09 and Clean and Cool Mission 10 gathered to share experiences and listen to Mark Prisk, the new Minister of State for Business and Enterprise talk about innovation and enterprise.

The missions, run by Polecat in collaboration with the Technology Strategy Board, UK Trade & Investment and others have been a huge success in helping UK start-ups sign deals, raise awareness and secure funding. The WebMissions have achieved $36m in funds (with more on the way) and the Clean and Cool Mission 10 has three investment runs close to completion and it only took place in February this year.

But what of Mark Prisk? Well, he’s not long in the job and a long-standing supporter of the missions so I’ll cut him some slack. But he does have the politician’s knack of talking a great deal but saying very little - is there a finishing school that MPs from all parties are required to attend!?

He spoke about the need to embed enterprise within education more effectively than it has been previously, and more training for self-employed businesses. There was also a very PR-sounding initiative involving civil servants working in SMEs for a week to better understand their concerns and some generic thoughts on reducing red tape to make it easier for businesses to trade.

So despite not saying much of real substance, Mark did speak engagingly, took questions from the audience and certainly showed commitment to the missions. With three further missions planned - WebMission 11, Future Health Mission and Clean and Cool Mission 12 - government backing is important as I have seen firsthand the positive impact they can have on a business.

So the jury is still out on the long-term ability of the coalition to support SMEs, but Mark Prisk’s support for the missions is a good start for now.

When my daughter joined Facebook last year it was a bit of a game changer for me. Although I am *mostly* well behaved these days I had to be aware of the perils of posting photos of drunken nights and minding my language (a little) when posting status updates.

But it also got me thinking about the way in which children use Facebook and other social networks and as a parent one can’t help but worry about the volume of time spent on them, the nature of what they get up to and how vulnerable that can make them. Bullying, banter, teasing all happened way before Facebook of course, but social networks can make it seem never ending. And there is also the fear that Facebook could be used for something far more sinister and unpleasant.

Which is why it is great news that Facebook is finally going to launch a panic button that will report abuse to the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) and Facebook itself. 

People may criticise this anouncement - users have to actually download the panic button app and it has certainly been a long time coming (Bebo and MySpace added the button a while ago and Facebook had previously resisted calls for it to folow suit). There will also be those who question whether teens will bother downloading it in sufficient numbers, and whether it will be open to abuse, legitimate concerns certainly.

But whilst the panic button isn’t perfect and won’t/can’t protect everyone, its absolutely a step in the right direction. More can be done to keep children safe online (and hopefully will) but for now this will reassure millions of parents who have to decipher posts such as ‘r-patz is da best, yh! lolz’

When me and my wife decided that after 18 years or so (eight of those together), we’d had our fill of London, heading for the seaside seemed the right thing to do. I’d grown up in Hampshire and knew Southsea a little bit, so we decided to up sticks and move ourselves and our new PR agency, Rise PR to the south coast.

Its been a month or so now and so far so good. The sun has been out, our daughter has settled and there are some great business opportunities emerging. In short, life is sweet.

And life got much sweeter last week when we discovered Coco Chocolatiers, an independent luxury chocolate shop on Marmion Road in Southsea and the first subject of my occasional ‘things to do in Southsea’ series of blog posts.

Coco is a shop that is made for smelling and the chocolatey goodness that hits you as you walk through the door is almost other-worldly. I’m not a big chocoholic but I could have stood there sniffing for hours, although had to restrict myself to a few minutes in the name of not looking too weird. We bought a small bar of toffee chocolate, tried a little bit on the walk home and within minutes we had done the lot. Velvety texture, strong but not overbearing flavour and creamy aftertaste made for literally the best chocolate I’ve ever tasted.

We went back of course and got a selection of individual chocs which were equally as gorgeous. Good value too, 50p a pop for one chocolate, much better than other luxury chocolatiers I’ve seen in the past.

So if you find yourself in Southsea with a hankering for chocolate, the only place to go is Coco Chocolatier, you won’t regret it.