Posts tagged Twitter
Everything marketers need to know about the social media landscape
Mar 12th
Are you tired of wondering what this ‘social media’ thing is all about?
Do you want to know how it can help you?
Well wonder no more! Created for CMO.com by client 97th Floor, a new chart promises to guide you through the choppy and unsure waters of social networks and how to create social media strategy!
Yes that is reading like an infomercial on purpose – because frankly, there’s no excuse any more to avoid using social media.
The Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, won Cannes’ Media Person of the Year this week, Twitter launched an ad platform and MySpace announced a major site overhaul. So there’s never been a better time to understand social media and how it can work for you (and your client).
The CMO’s guide to the social landscape, takes all the major social media sites in the US and analyzes their capabilities in four sectors: customer communication, brand exposure, driving traffic to your site, and SEOs.
For the full social media ‘cheat sheet’ click here
Prepare for more Twitter attacks, only 21% of users are ‘true’ users
Mar 11th
Only 21% of Twitter users are ‘true Twitter users’ according to a new report from Barracuda Networks, does that mean that everyone else a) got bored or b) are hackers?
A true Twitter User as someone who has three main attributes:
· Has at least 10 followers
· Follows at least 10 people
· Has tweeted at least 10 times
The Twitter growth rate spiked at 21.17% in April 2009 due to what is known as the ‘Twitter Red Carpet Era’.
This falls between November 2008 and April 2009 and is the period of time during which a handful of ‘celebrities’ – including 27 of the top 50 and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users – joined.
In the beginning of 2008, Twitter was growing approximately 0.31% per month. By November 2008, that growth increased to 1.95% per month.
After December 2008, Twitter’s growth exploded from nearly two percent per month, and rising to approximately three-to-four percent per month, before finally peaking at nearly 20% per month in April 2009.
At the end of the ‘Twitter Red Carpet Era,’ growth appears to have normalized, dropping back to 0.34% by December 2009.
Barracuda’s 2009 Annual Report, Twitter’s Red Carpet Era – Celebrities and Criminals’, reveals data from three areas: Twitter trends and tracking, Web threats and trends, and email spam and viruses.
The report drills down into 2009’s fastest growing social networking application Twitter, and reviews growth drivers, usage trends and the overall Twitter crime rate.
Barracuda Labs analyzed more than 19 million Twitter accounts, both legitimate and malicious, for frequency and content of tweets, user-to-user interactions, and each account’s overall activity level.
The report also revealed that 49% of Twitter users, and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users, joined during the Twitter Red Carpet Era[2], indicating the significant impact celebrities have on the social networking landscape as they bring their real-world fans over to Twitter.
During the Twitter Red Carpet Era, the Twitter Crime Rate increased 66% and continued to escalate reaching 12% in October 2009, indicating one in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and subsequently suspended.
Social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook provide a perfect opportunity for attackers to find their victims, leveraging what users assume to be a ‘safe’ environment. Attackers employ various techniques to build up their follower list, poison trending topic threads, or initiate other campaigns which can increase the visibility of their tweets, and therefore draw users in to suspicious sites, malicious downloads or other malevolent activity.
As social networks continue to gain momentum – and millions of users – there is no doubt that criminals will look to create more sophisticated and serious social engineering attacks against unsuspecting users.
Did Yahoo shape the internet?
Mar 3rd
Yahoo! is celebrating its 15th birthday this week and it seems to be prompting a lot of talk about the internet, how it all got started and where it’s going. Did Yahoo start the internet?
Technology has fundamentally changed the way that marketers approach advertising. With the internet creating a new medium – digital – the marketing industry has changed forever, to which Yahoo was at the forefront.
Fifteen years ago, when Jerry Yang and David Filo had a lot of spare time on their hands, they decided that this internet thing was going to be a big deal and wanted to make it easier for people to navigate around.
When I think back to 15 years ago, I remember wondering what I’d ever need to know about the internet for. It was complicated and all scientific back then. Plus, the ‘www’ in my eyes stood for the ‘world wide wait’, I was impatient and would rather look up an encyclopedia than sit in front of an old IBM monitor listening to that terrible dial-up sound. My how things have changed.
Now there are 234 million websites, 200 billion spam emails per day, 126 million blogs and 27.3 million tweets per day. Yahoo alone has 600 million users, so I think a Happy Birthday is in order as just 15 years ago, there were only 18,000 web sites and fewer than 10 million people globally on the internet.
There are estimated to be 1.6 billion people on the internet today—about 25% of the world’s population.
In a blog posting, Yang and Filo wrote: “We’ve had the unique opportunity to help create an industry and shape the online world…always trying to invent the future. Of course, we didn’t set out to start one of the world’s largest internet companies or be leading a movement that has changed the world.”
It is worth remembering that Yahoo was the first major search engine to enjoy success in the early days of the internet – it was around before Google, yet we never said ‘I Yahooed it’. It was also one of the only internet companies to survive the dot.com bust, which consequently sent its shares soaring.
But by the very nature of the internet, the online world evolved which meant competition and when you come in at the top, there is only one place to go.
The huge lesson Yahoo has learnt in 15 years? Yang and Filo say: “Change and growth on the internet happen at warp speed—especially if you’re filling a need. With the proliferation of websites and with hundreds of thousands of people accessing our guide, it was simply impossible for us to continue doing this on our own.”
Yes, the lesson was to accept competition, and a few years later, defeat. But never fear, Yahoo will be around for a while yet. It has teamed up with Microsoft to make sure of that and had made headlines this week after signing a deal with Twitter.
Yang and Filo conclude: “The internet still has enormous and untapped potential. There are billions of more people we need to drive online, and then provide them with relevant content and opportunities that they’ve never dreamed about before.”
Digital Britain minister Stephen Timms agrees and has set the government a target of getting 7.5 million more people online by 2014 with up to £12m allocated to spend on digital social inclusion.
More info on how the internet has changed our lives from an interview with Yahoo.
More businesses are finally turning to social media
Mar 2nd
Improving the digital effort for ‘business’ brands means turning to social media to hear directly from customers.
Businesses are increasingly using social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter in their online marketing strategies to market and advertise their products and services.
The 2009 Social Media Survey Report from Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia showed that 64% of companies surveyed had experimented with social media and 26% are heavily involved.
Just 10% of respondents were not using any type of social media at all, despite finding that social media can improve customer engagement – according to 73% of respondents.
Businesses are finally seeing the benefits arising from what is being dubbed as a ‘new-age’ approach.
Use of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs are also being incorporated into more and more public relations strategies used by many small businesses to attract new customers.
Israr Sarwar, operations director at internet marketing agency Adrac, said: “The Adrac team realised the potential of social media in the early stages of the concept. Engaging with social target groups during business and product development can allow companies to robustly test and operate new technologies with a constant stream of ideas and feedback.
“Direct response and brand building campaigns have been successfully executed through the use of this subtle approach to advertising that doesn’t intimidate the user, but acts more as an introduction service.”
The popularity of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook means businesses have an easy way in to get there brands and products out there while engaging with customers and hopefully attracting new ones.
However, it’s not always an easy step for everyone to take so here are some tips from social media experts Mashable:
Step 1: Build a reputation of expertise
If a potential customer comes to your company’s website and sees an active blog with insightful posts on how your company’s product helps customers, reads detailed posts demonstrating your company’s knowledge, and comes across a few case studies, they’re going to be far more inclined to come to you for their needs. Social media provides an outlet for displaying who you and your company are. Talking about your industry in an intelligent way via Twitter and a regularly-updated blog can raise your company’s profile and brand it as a thought leader and expert in its specific business area.
Step 2: Research your customers
Everyone thinks of social media as a communication tool, but not enough people think of it as a research tool. With the ridiculous amount of data produced every day on social networks, blogs, and in conversations, it should be apparent that you can learn tidbits or spot major trends by tracking the social universe. Know what your customers are saying and track industry trends.
Step 3: Ramp up your networking
If you are competing with another company to land a big deal, it always helps to have connections and friendships within the company you’re trying to woo. You should always be networking, because you never know when a contact can become your advocate or even the decision-maker. And that’s where social media can help. There are a lot of things you can do to get started on the networking front. They key, though, is that you have to reach out.
Step 4: Learn from others
In the end, you want to come out sharper, more knowledgeable, and better prepared than your competitors. It doesn’t matter if you have 60 or 600,000 customers, and it does not matter whether or not you sell to general consumers or Fortune 500 companies. Almost everyone is using or tracking social media and it provides you a prime opportunity to make you and your business a leader rather than a follower.
- Seek out blogs and publications in your industry and subscribe via RSS
- Network with relevant experts, including those who may only be partially related
- Follow the insights of business leaders on Twitter
- Connect with those who comment on your own blog
- Make yourself very easy to find on the web – if people search for your name or your business, you should be at the top of Google’s results. Building a blog, using a Twitter, and creating a decent corporate website always helps
- Keep an open mind.
Twitter clocks up 50m tweets. What does that mean for marketers?
Feb 24th
Twitter, which has only been around since 2007, now racks up more than 50 million tweets a day. That means 50 million visits a day to a site that has yet to figure out how to monetize. But on the plus side, those numbers mean an opportunity for advertisers to get in front of 50 million people. How? Simple.
For the past few years, advertisers’ exposure on social networking sites has been seen as essential. But perhaps it’s not about advertising, per se. Perhaps it’s not about talking either. If there are 50 million tweets, someone is listening, and wouldn’t you want someone to be listening to nice things about you?
One marketer has suggested to me that Twitter should be about getting consumers to talk to each other – not a place for brands to preach to them.
It’s an interesting thought. So I decided to listen into the conversation and see if customers really were talking to each other.
To do this, go to www.search.twitter.com and you come across a ‘Google’ search-like box. Type in a brand or company. I typed in ‘Coca-Cola’, for example.
Then I was presented with a page full of tweeters who had tweeted about ‘Coca’Cola’. Funnily enough, almost none of the tweets were from Coca-Cola itself or stories about Coca-Cola. People are genuinely talking about it.
Another example. I typed in ‘Google’. Given the news that the EU is going to invest the search king following the catastrophic launch of Buzz. I found a few links to news stories, but again, consumers were actually talking about Google, or at least mentioning the brand, in actual conversations.
However, the problem with Twitter is that it is time consuming. I am on Twitter (here!) but I rarely go on to check on tweets because before I can get to the bottom of the list they are updating. These 50 million tweets are a lot to keep track of.
But perhaps it’s worth keeping in mind though, that the best way to use to site isn’t to preach, but instead listen and just be happy that consumers are talking about you. That, is free.
Moreover, Twitter attracts a number of influential users, including Google’s Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Today we hear that the Dalai Lama even has an account on the microblogging site.
Just imagine if you could get those guys to talk about you.
The influential Web Celebs marketers need to be targeting
Feb 5th
Back in 1968 Andy Warhol predicted, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
Today the technology to achieve global fame exists with the internet revolutionising business, media, marketing and communications practices
But who from the influential ‘Who’s Who of Web Celebs’ should marketers and PRs be aiming to influence themselves?
Forbes’ ‘Web Celeb 25’ aims to provide the answer. The annual poll champions “the people who have turned their passions into new media empires,” people whose fame grew out of, and is dependent on, the internet, from stay-at home-mums to geek entrepreneurs.
Each candidate in a list of over 200 Internet personalities was ranked in four areas: Web references as calculated by Google, traffic ranking of their home page as calculated by Alexa, TV/radio mentions and press clips compiled from Factiva, and number of followers on microblogging site Twitter. These four categories were totaled and weighted to produce a final score, then sorted to produce our rankings.
For the third year in a row, controversial gossip blogger Perez Hilton has been crowned king. His site attracts more than 7.2 million people a month, putting it among the 500 most-visited sites on the Internet, and Hilton has more than 1.77 million followers on Twitter.
The No. 2 Web Celeb, Michael Arrington, is one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley, as editor of TechCrunch.
“A mere mention of a company on its pages can make or break a startup,” say Forbes.
But perhaps the most interesting entry is Pete Cashmore, in at No. 3. Cashmore came up with the idea for what has become one of the world’s most influential websites, not in Silicon Valley, but at his parent’s house in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Oh, and it was when he was a teenager too.
Today Mashable has more than 10 million unique monthly users reading its ‘outsider prespective’ on the web, while 24-year-old Cashmore has almost 2 million Twitter fans.
LA, NYC, London… Aberdeenshire. As Thomas L. Friedman claimed, “the world is flat.” We’re all now playing on a democratised playing field thanks to the net.
In the latest ‘Web Celeb 25’ edition eight faces appear for the first time. The highest-ranking new members are Evan Williams and Isaac ‘Biz’ Stone, cofounders of Twitter. The pair have more than 2.8 million Twitter followers between them, closely watched by legions of fans.
The youngest Web Celeb coming in at No. 25, is Shane Dawson, 21, who posts short comedy videos to his YouTube channel which has over 1.2 million subscribers. His videos have been watched more than 204 million times.
The Forbes ‘Web Celeb 25′
1. Perez Hilton – perezhilton.com
2. Michael Arrington – EditorTechCrunch.com
3. Pete Cashmore – Founder Mashable.com
4. Evan Williams & Biz Stone – Twitter
5. Kevin Rose – Founder Digg.com
6. Guy Kawasaki – GuyKawasaki.com
7. Heather “Dooce” Armstrong – blogging Mum at Dooce.com
8. Tila “Tequila” Nguyen – model/singer blogger at Tilashotsspot.buzznet.com
9. Gary Vaynerchuk – win expert blogger at GaryVaynerchuk.com
10. Cory Doctorow – author CrapHopund.com
11. Om Malik
12. Leo Laporte
13. Frank Warren
14. Robert Scoble
15. Chris Brogan
16. Wil Wheaton
17. Matt Drudge
18. Danny Sullivan
19. Jeff Jarvis
20. John C. Dvorak
21. Ana Marie Cox
22. Ree Drummond
23. Jason Calacanis
24. Seth Godin
25. Shane Dawson
Augmented Reality is no longer science fiction, it’s your new digital strategy
Feb 2nd
Augmented Reality holds potential for a wide range of industrial and consumer uses, but marketing projects are one of the few areas where augmented reality tech companies are doing steady business today.
The market for Augmented Reality (AR) services is expected to reach $732 million by 2014, with revenues derived from a combination of paid-for app downloads, subscription based services and advertising, according to research from Juniper.
Marketers are increasingly trying out the new technology in an effort to make deeper connections with consumers, but is augmented reality really the next big thing?
AR may still not be at the forefront of the digital strategy, however, with the upcoming launch of the iPad this new medium could become more commonplace sooner rather than later.
Although initial service adoption will be driven by AR location-based search, Juniper Research expects the first substantial revenues to be derived from AR-enabled games, bolstered by revenues from mobile solutions from 2012-3 onwards.
AR is expected to be increasingly attractive to advertisers and brands as AR ad networks will be able to charge higher CPC and CPM rates because of location relevance.
But what will make AR so attractive to consumers?
According to Niall Cook of Hill and Knowlton getting people to think about a physical object (reality) and data about it (or data about that data) that could exist online are the two core components of AR.
He says that the technology will do a number of things:
– Provide the user with a way of capturing the object
– Recognise the object
– Search for the relevant data about the object
– Display the data in a way that augments the physical representation
Visuals are an important part of advertising, so it’s not surprising that so many companies have jumped on the AR bandwagon, offering tools that visualise their products in a magical and memorable way.
AR is already a reality in the US with consumer brands such as Kia Motors, Nestlé, and Frito-Lay all experimenting with campaigns.
The hope for marketers now is that it will engage an audience more deeply than other forms of social media, such as viral videos, fan pages on Facebook, or Twitter followings.
Is AR part of your digital strategy? We can’t wait to see what brands come up with.
Digital media industry leads relief effort
Jan 18th
Social media and tech giants are leading the way in collecting money for relief efforts in earthquake hit Haiti, proving that social networks really do bring people together.
Apple has set up a donation page within the iTunes store where customers can easily donate to the Red Cross.
Google has pledged $1 million and set up a special page for donations and added updated satellite imagery of the region to Google Maps.
Microsoft has said it will give up to $1.25 million in cash and in-kind donations, as well as match employee contributions as part of its standard program that matches up to $12,000 per worker in donations each year.
A campaign by the Red Cross and the cellular industry to raise money via text message donations has pulled in more than $4 million, according to a Verizon Wireless spokesman.
The text message-based donations mark a major shift in the means of charitable giving. According to Verizon Wireless, the $4 million in SMS donations has now eclipsed text message donations among all carriers for all of 2009.
A chorus of tweets requesting aid and donations for those worst hit by the earthquake in Haiti have been spreading across the web.
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook have quickly grown to become an integral part of aid organizations’ fund-raising campaigns over the last two days. A host of 140-character messages have spread over the internet to reach thousands of eyes in the space of seconds.
Facebook statuses also changed, urging followers to help those stranded in grief-stricken areas through monetary donations to reputable organizations.
Haiti-born musician (formally of The Fugees fame) Wyclef Jean’s foundation “Yele” has also reportedly helped raise over $400,000 in text-message donations.
Websites have sprung up overnight in light of the disaster, including http://koneksyon.com/, a website dedicated to helping people find their missing loved ones in Haiti.
Making money by updating your status and tweeting
Jan 15th
A new Twitter and Facebook based social marketing platform for retailers will reward users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase
Remember how we said that 2010 was going to be the year that people start making money out of social networks? Well one company, Snatter.com, is intending to make the task a little easier for consumers.
Snatter.com promises to revolutionise social media marketing campaigns for retailers by rewarding users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase.
The free site will allow retailers to build social media buzz around their website and specific products or services.
The concept is simple. In exchange for a posting a Facebook or Twitter status update about a specific product or service, the user receives a discount on the purchase they are about to complete. Each update contains a link allowing their Facebook friends and Twitter followers to do the same.
Retailers can integrate Snatter to the final stage of an online shopping process.
“Just saved 20% on PRODUCT at @RETAILER http://link via @snatteroffers - Can’t wait to play with my new toy” (sample Snatter Tweet/status update).
Grahame Cohen, Founder of Snatter said, “In the past marketers have sought to draw on the power of Twitter by paying prolific Twitter users to post favourable comments about a particular product or service and often link to it. But users often see through these updates and consider them to be spam because the update has only been posted by someone in exchange for a monetary award.
“Snatter is different because users are only offered discounts on the products they’re about to purchase and receive no payment for doing so. It’s a completely transparent service.”
Snatter updates will also act as conversation starters on Facebook and Twitter. Many Twitter and Facebook users already actively update their followers and friends on purchases they’re making. With Snatter, they can continue to do so but also be rewarded for the buzz they are generating around a product or service.
Google and Bing now include Facebook and Twitter updates in their main search results so Snatter messages actively increase retailers’ reach.
A Snatter campaign not only offer retailers buzz, but it can also be used as a means of generating new sales. Many retailers currently offer discount codes but they are often promoted via websites that are affiliates of the retailer, so every sale using a discount code loses the retailer both the discount and the commission payable to the affiliate. Snatter takes no commission but therefore expects retailers to offer greater discount values than currently offered via discount websites.
“Snatter also provides retailers a perfect mix of social buzz together with the ability to increase sales volume through marginal discounting,” added Cohen.
The Snatter website is currently offering retailers the ability to request beta accounts to manage live campaigns during the controlled launch period. An API offering greater flexibility and integration of existing shopping catalogues and cart systems is to go live shortly.
When technology reaches its limit
Jan 15th
From Bruce Townsend, Actinic
I’m suffering from Facebook Fatigue and Twitter Block. I don’t know what to say any more. I need inspiration, and guess what? Technology isn’t providing it – quite the reverse. There seems to be something horribly soporific about my laptop screen, and the longer I sit in front of it, the duller my mind becomes.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever getting a great deal of creative inspiration when sitting at my computer. Doodling on bits of paper, yes. Or bouncing ideas around with friends and colleagues. Even catnapping and daydreaming. But not sitting at a PC. Maybe I just haven’t got the right software, or my brain doesn’t work the right way. But that’s how it is, for me at any rate.
Perhaps it’s no great surprise, though. When did you last see Google make an intuitive leap, or Excel have a hunch? The truth is that even the best data-mining applications and the most advanced artificial intelligence programming cannot approach the subconscious creative power of the human brain – especially multiple human brains interacting together.
So I say ‘vive la technologie!’ and long may it advance. But if we try to rely on it too much, our ideas may dry up and our marketing stagnate, while more inventive, free-thinking competitors forge ahead.
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