Posts tagged Twitter
Is Twitter too big for its own good?
Aug 2nd
Twitter has received its 20 billionth tweet over the weekend raising questions about the information overload that is the micro-blogging service.
The message didn’t make much sense – it came at 12:44 am Sunday from user GGGGGGo_Lets_Go in Japan and was part of a longer conversation between two users.
It didn’t take long before GGGGGGo_Lets_Go was inundated with congratulatory messages from around the world for hitting the social networking milestone. The user bio changed shortly thereafter.
While it took Twitter four years to reach tweet number 10 billion earlier this year in March, it took less than five months to double the figure thanks to its increasing popularity worldwide.
My question is, with all these tweets, doesn’t the intended message often become lost?
When I log in to Twitter I am inundated with updates and the information I could actually use are often lost or trumped by something else. How do you achieve stand out on Twitter?
The bigger Twitter becomes, the less valuable it becomes to advertisers because there is no way to target somebody and reach them among the other 1,000 people they are following. Furthermore, there is actually no way to do it in an honest way.
The launch of Promotional Tweets was risky for several reasons.
Firstly, the monetization of social media platforms, while inevitable, goes against the very attributes that made social platforms so compelling in the first place. People could connect free from advertising and its ulterior motives.
Now, all these tweeters are simply filling up the new feed with spam. Advertising on the site is so vast it is being seen as disingenuous.
But what do you think? Is Promoted Tweets working?
Meanwhile, here are some other Twitter figures to celebrate the 20 billionth tweet:
* Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users.
* New users are signing up at the rate of 300,000 per day.
* 180 million unique visitors come to the site every month.
* 75% of Twitter traffic comes from outside Twitter.com (via third party applications.)
* Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API.
* Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day.
* Twitter’s search engine receives around 600 million search queries per day.
* Of Twitter’s active users, 37% use their phone to tweet.
* Over half of all tweets (60%) come from third party applications.
* Twitter itself has grown: in the past year alone, it has grown from 25 to 175 employees.
Twitter still evolving and experimenting with digital media ad space
Jul 27th
Twitter has unveiled a whole host of new features over the past six months, but could this new surprise be the icing on the cake?
Remember about a year ago when Twitter co-founder and CEO Biz Stone said that 2010 would be the micro-blogging site’s revenue year?
Finally the site has delivered something compelling enough that could see that wish, I mean, assertion, come to fruition.
The social site has just added a new feature that will allow Twitter users to upload videos and other media to their tweets. That also could mean video advertising…
‘Tweet Media’, is: “By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter,” describes Twitter.
The feature will enable the embedding of multimedia into the stream. It comes after a string of other innovations this year such as Promoted Tweets – which is already earning the site much need advertising revenues.
The ‘media’ approach is though contrary to the ethos of the site. Adding embeddable media to the stream has the potential to complicate the traditionally simple, 140-characters-of-text aesthetic of the network. This may have something to do with why Twitter has now removed the feature.
Mashable unearthered ‘Tweet Media’ earlier today. But when we went poking around we discovered the feature no longer existed.
Here’s the line from Twitter (from Mashable) “We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media.”
Twitter also notes that this feature is already a part of both the official apps for iPhone and Android, as well as for certain third-party Twitter apps.
But it’s worth remembering that many users already share photos and videos – either via TwitPic or their other more ‘social’ networks such as Facebook. However, it could be a golden opportunity for advertisers looking for cut-through on the site.
Does the Twitter feed need media? Or, an even better question is, who is still using Twitter anyway?
With so many users, Twitter needs to do something more compelling not just to attract revenues, but to attract creative ads that get people to stop and watch.
Twitter’s going Places. Finally
Jun 15th
Twitter Places, announced back in April and in partnership with TomTom and Localeze, launches globally today as location based social media hits a new high.
Location based social networking has taken off in the US with sites such as FourSquare and Dodgeball – now, Twitter wants ‘in’ with its Twitter Places.
The sector is expected to be worth some $3.3 billion by 2013 and has advertisers excited.
The idea of location based advertising has been touted for some time. Pretty much since the advent of the mobile phone advertisers have pondered how to deliver ads based on a users location without being too intrusive.
But location based social networking seems to be opening up the doors for advertisers who wonder that if these social networkers don’t mind sharing their location with their mates, surely they don’t mind being advertised there too?
Location based advertising doesn’t have to be intrusive. It can be as simple as icons on a map. For those who opt in, it can also be awfully convenient and helpful.
To launch Twitter Places, Twitter is using the World Cup to lure in tweeters and advertisers to draw attention to the new location app.
It says on its official blog: “When turning to Twitter to keep up with the current game, it helps to know where a Tweet is coming from—is that person watching the game on TV or is he actually in the stadium?”
From today, Twitter users can tag Tweets with specific places, including all World Cup stadiums in South Africa, and create new Twitter Places.
Users can also click a Twitter Place within a Tweet to see recent Tweets from a particular location.
Several other features of the launch include:
Foursquare and Gowalla integration
Many Foursquare and Gowalla users publish check-ins to Twitter. Location is a key component of these Tweets, so Twitter has worked closely with both companies to associate a Twitter Place with Tweets generated by these services. This means that if a user clicks on a Twitter Place, such as “Ritual Roasters,” users will see standard Tweets and check-ins from Foursquare and Gowalla.
API
Twitter is releasing API functionality that lets developers integrate Twitter Places into their applications.
Support for more browsers
Now users can add location to their Tweets from any browser—Safari and Internet Explorer, in addition to Chrome or Firefox.
Over the next week, Twitter will roll out Twitter Places to users in 65 countries around the world. Keep an eye out for the “Add your location” link below the ‘Tweet’ box.
Let’s Flock together
May 12th
By Bruce Townsend, Actinic
Keeping track of social networking activity is a growing challenge for today’s online marketer. There are some great tools for managing particular sites – like Tweetdeck for managing your Twitter accounts. But for day-to-day use across the most important sites, I’ve found nothing better than Flock.
Described as ‘The Social Web Browser’, Flock uses the Firefox engine, but adds some great features that help you monitor and manage your main social media accounts.
The sidebar displays posts from friends on Digg, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. You can post to Twitter and Facebook accounts simultaneously, send private messages, or Digg the current page. You can track your own Twitter Mentions, and create filters that monitor for specific key words and phrases. Flock also links to other social and media sites including MySpace, Picasa and del.icio.us, and a variety of blogging platforms.
Flock’s blog editor can post directly to blog accounts on Blogger, Wordpress and Typepad, to name a few; or to your own self-hosted blogs. Its web clipboard allows you to drag and drop text, images and links from any web pages to the sidebar. From there you can drag them to the blog editor or any other application. This makes it a powerful research tool.
Flock’s built-in RSS reader is one of the most flexible, allowing you to group, merge and sort feeds from many sources. If you visit a page with a feed available, it will notify you, and you can subscribe in one click.
Flock can preview your Google and Yahoo! emails directly in the browser. Unfortunately Hotmail is not supported. Finally, the Photo Uploader enables you to upload images to social media accounts that accept them.
It needs to cover more sites, Reddit being an obvious omission. But it’s still my favourite social media tool.
What’s yours?
MARKETING NEWS BITES: Android and iPhone go head to head, Twitter’s phenomenal growth and Hulu’s UK ambitions canned
Apr 28th
A round up of news from around the web:
Challenges are mounting to Apple’s iPhone with rival handsets from Google and BlackBerry ready to hit the shops. The Nexus One, dubbed the “Google phone” before its launch, will be available through Vodafone from Friday and will be free on a £35-a-month two-year contract. The Times
Twitter usage exploded in 2009 with traffic growing from a few million unique monthly visitors early last year to over 20 million by June. However, traffic has since reached a plateau, but other usage metrics continue to show high levels of engagement in early 2010. Adweek
Google has threatened an Aussie web entrepreneur because it says the name of his project is too close to its own. The name of the website in question is Groggle - grog being slang for alcohol. Founder Cameron Collie says the site is designed to help users find the cheapest price of alcohol — or “grog” — in their suburb. ZDNet
Four US senators want Facebook to make it easier for its users to protect their privacy as the website develops new outlets to share personal information. The call for simpler privacy controls came in a letter that the senators planned to send to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg - they include Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo; Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska; and Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn. Stuff
Hulu’s plans to expand to the United Kingdom appear to have been abandoned, meaning the service will likely remain exclusive to the United States for the immediately foreseeable future. The Telegraph
Is Twitter broken?
Apr 21st
Alert! Alert! Twitter has reached over capacity!
This morning I needed to quickly check who was tweeting what on Twitter (my loyal subjects).
I first tried to use Twitter on Internet Explorer only the page was taking a very long time to load. I put it down to IE and cursed its unreliability.
But when I tried to logon using Firefox I was met with a message that said Twitter was ‘Over Capacity’.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Just last week it launched an advertising platform that aims to finally bring it into profitability after bragging about its 105,779,710 registered users worldwide.
The site attracts 300,000 new users a day, which works out to be around 10 million new users a month. If this growth trajectory continues, Twitter could double in size this year – or perhaps it could just break? A minor glitch?
How Swiss airlines is harnessing the power of social media to inform stranded passengers
Apr 20th
Following our story yesterday, How good are airlines at marketing communications in a crisis?,we came across this story on Swiss newspaper site Bazonline about how Swiss Air is dealing with the crisis.
They seem to doing quite well actually, employing the power of social media in order to communicate with disgruntled passengers that are fed up with having to wait for up to two hours on the phone to speak to a representative.
Reports out early this morning suggest that a new ash cloud could further delay the opening of airspace over the EU. But others say that airports will open this morning – the influx of information from all European countries and various news outlets means that passengers are relying on their chosen airlines to update them with correct and up-to-the-minute information.
Swiss Air is delivering updates via its Facebook page – and at the same time winning praise from passengers.
The Facebook page of the airline has transformed itself in the last couple of days from a marketing and advertising platform to a “Helping Hand Service”. Read the rest of this entry »
The Leaders’ Debate as seen on Twitter
Apr 20th
Andrew Boyers, from onlinefire explains the power of Twitter when it comes to live debates.
Unless you were under a cloud of volcanic ash (oh, wait…), you’ll have known that last night saw the UK’s first ever leaders’ debate on ITV. The event, despite an Icelandic volcano’s best efforts, has dominated the news agenda across all media platforms for the last week.
Online opinion tracker Tweetminster provided consistently interesting facts throughout proceedings and in the aftermath with regards to interest in the debate on Twitter. Throughout the debate, a staggering 35,483 people tweeted 184,396 times, with an average frequency of 29.06 tweets per second.
To put that into some form of context, that’s fifteen times more tweets than were seen for #askthechancellors and almost triple the volume of tweets posted during BNP leader Nick Griffin’s infamous appearance on Question Time – both of which saw significant surges in interest themselves.
Admittedly, in the context of the entire UK population those figures seem less impressive. However, they still do add to the belief that - in social media circles - the appetite for political consumption is there. Read the rest of this entry »
Marketers tell us about the benefits of Promoted Tweets
Apr 14th
Following our blog yesterday on whether or not advertisers will pay to use Twitter, Nick Jones, managing director, I Spy Marketing, has written in to tell us how marketers can benefit from the new advertising platform.
“It will certainly be far easier to track results from Twitter activity making it a far more accountable channel for marketers. The move will also mean that Twitter also has a revenue stream which can only be positive. No brand wants to spend valuable time creating social media channels only for that site to close down. Twitter needs to pay their bills.
Twitter has grown to become an extremely popular social networking site.
If the ads are targeted well, it could be an extremely attractive proposition for brands looking to engage in conversations with users.
They need to follow Facebook and Digg’s lead in having inoffensive advertising that doesn’t turn users off. Signs from within Twitter are very encouraging in that they recognise this and aren’t looking to make quick buck but to develop a long term solution that works for them, their users and their advertisers based on extensive testing.
It won’t [alter Twitter’s user’s opinions) if the ads are clearly identified. It is definitely possible for the site to stick to its principles and have advertising. Consumers need to decide whether they want advertising or wish to pay for membership. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
While there has been a surge in tweets relating to the new, generally, there hasn’t been a surge on Twitter that talk of the ads negatively. Some people are commenting on how they’d never click on an ad but generally the feedback is mixed. Twitter needs to ensure the Ads are of good quality and not overly intrusive, much like Apple are doing with their iAd offering. Our clients are very keen to find out more and to understand the opportunity.”
Will advertisers really pay for Twitter?
Apr 14th
Twitter co-founder has this week unveiled the details of how the micro-blogging site will make money from advertising on Twitter – Promoted Tweets.
It’s no secret that Twitter ranks as one of the most popular sites on the internet. Over the years since its launch, the site claims it has actually resisted introducing a traditional web advertising model because it first wanted to “optimize for value before profit”.
The truth, more like, is probably something to do with the fact the site couldn’t figure out the ‘how’ and still maintain its integrity.
But, the open exchange of information creates opportunities for individuals, organizations, and businesses alike.
Twitter, on its blog, said that it has now recognized value in this exchange and planned to amplify it in a meaningful and relevant manner.
“Stubborn insistence on a slow and thoughtful approach to monetization—one which puts users first, amplifies existing value, and generates profit has frustrated some Twitter watchers. “
Hence the new advertising model – Promoted Tweets.
The social networking site describes the model as “non-traditional, easy, and it makes a ton of sense for Twitter”. But does it make sense for advertisers? Read the rest of this entry »
Recent Comments