Posts tagged Twitter
When too much is way too much – BP’s Twitter assault
Jul 15th
I must admit, it’s been a while since I logged on to Twitter. The ‘people’ I’ve chosen to follow tweet way too much boring stuff – they tweet anything and everything they’ve posted online! This however, means I’ve missed BP’s incredible claw back from disaster…and it seems the disaster has indeed continued.
When BP’s deep sea oil rig Horizon blew it guts from its bowls in February last year, it spelt month of misery for the British oil giant – namely misery in dealing with a PR crisis.
Weeks went by and it eventually took to its Twitter and Facebook pages to offer somewhat of an explanation disguised as updates.
It coped a lot of criticism for its slowness in doing so. But now, it seems it can’t get enough of the social media medium. And it’s to the point where it is blatantly covering up the disaster with PR fluff.
A tweet today reads: “Photographer & proud #Gulf Coast resident Steve Jones captures the spectacular beauty of Gulf Shores, AL: http://pub.vitrue.com/FPH”
Putting a few photos online of a good day at the beach won’t make people forget.
Other tweets boast about the company investing $500M to address climate change and record numbers of sea turtle nests.
None of which fit in with the BP brand in the real world.
In the digital world, BP is going through a bit of an identity crisis it seems. The company is coming across as a big green hug too soon after it was a big black killing machine.
BP still has a way to go to build trust in the offline world. And in the online world, it needs to stop suffocating people before they completely switch off.
$500M is a great step toward climate change, but if BP really cared about the environment, they wouldn’t have to tweet about it. Its PR activity has unfortunately come across as a cover up for something.
How Apple is taking over social media
Jun 10th
Apple publicly aligned itself with Twitter this week, but the developer release of iOS 5 shows that other social web services will also be included proving Apple really will be everywhere soon.
The contact information page in the iOS 5 address book has a field not just for Twitter, but also offers space to add friends’ handles on Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and Myspace, as found by AllThingsD.
This will mean that a user can access anyone and everyone they have ever been in contact with on their computer with the click of a button!
Alongside a person’s email address and phone number, an iOS user can also add links to their accounts around the web.
Apple will then auto-populate the URL for each of the services.
A developer pointed out to AllThingsD that the social integrations are still full of bugs so this is something that is really only beginning to get off that ground.
The inclusion of the feature shows Apple’s acknowledgement of the importance of web presences and contact information – something that has got the giant into hot water when it has ventured out on its own.
It could be that Twitter is the guinea big in this scenario but either way, it’s a significant step towards Apple’s tech world domination.
Has Twitter really killed the blog?
Jun 6th
The blog won’t ‘die’ any time soon, but we must be prepared for its evolution says Onlinefire’s Melanie Seasons.
For the last three years, particularly around New Year’s, I see a whole load of posts about the ‘death of the blog’. There’s no doubt that Twitter has had a major impact on ‘the blog’, but overall I’m going to challenge that notion – with one (ok, two) caveats.
First though, we have to look at the types of blogs that were around 3+ years ago. In a major generalisation, I’ll broadly categorise them as 1) hobby/special interest 2) ‘It’s my job’ and 3) career expertise.
In specialist areas, the blog is still thriving. Food blogs, music, Cheezburger – the content is pretty much never ending. As long as the blogger continues to have ‘the passion’, there will always be content; always new restaurants and recipes; always new albums to review; and always funny pictures of cats.
Same goes for the ‘it’s my job’ crowd. As most people recognise that being a writer for Mashable is as much of a career as being a tech journalist for the Guardian, as long as people are reading and as long as the bloggers are paid, these sites are going nowhere.
But where there has been a decline (and yours truly is a perfect example), is the people who are blogging to essentially promote their clever expertise in whatever it is they do.
Three to five years ago, we were staking our claim, trying to boost careers, win new business and create a reputation in the industry. Once reputations were ‘’established’ – coincidentally when Twitter really took off in the industry – apathy set in.
Suddenly Twitter followers became the standard by which clients judged influence. Plus, how much easier was it for us to update in 140 characters our expertise than long lengthy blog posts?
Sure there are a few exceptions, but for the most part all those PR superstars have gone quiet on the blogging front.
How Twitter got the exclusive on Osama Bin Laden’s death
May 3rd
Twitter is being held as the bearing of good news after it was first to tell the world that the Americans killed the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.
As the President of the United States of America Barack Obama approached the lectern at the White House, he was not only addressing his nation but the world through live TV, internet streaming and social media.
From the beginning of President Obama’s speech to the end, Twitter said it recorded more than 4000 tweets per second.
Why the flurry? One hour before President Obama broke the news officially, Keith Urbahn, chief of staff to former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, sent out the teaser headline on Twitter: “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.”
When media outlets began tweeting the news 10 to 15 minutes later, bin Laden’s death and related subjects became the top trending topics in the US before spreading across the world.
Social media played an integral part in bringing the UK closer to the news, with photos taken from mobile phones of the crowds in Washington and New York City shared and distributed across Twitter and Facebook.
Only two hours after the news broke, a Facebook page titled ‘Osama Bin Laden is DEAD’ emerged. It quickly had more than 250,000 users ‘liking’ the page and recording their approval.
And before the rumours and President Obama’s speech, Pakistani IT consultant Sohaib Athar was tweeting bin Laden’s downfall live without even knowing it!
This isn’t the first time Twitter has broken world news either and it just goes to show how huge the voice of the ‘social’ community is, brought together in a digital world.
What social media can learn from the Dutch
Apr 27th
The Dutch social networking market continues to grow strongly as sites like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin extend their respective footprints in the market – but the global players are still battling for number one.
Having over 600 million active users across the globe won’t sway Dutch loyalty in the digital space it seems.
According to comScore, the social networking market in the Netherlands is really quite unique and full of interesting storylines…
Mike Read, senior vice president and managing director of comScore Europe, said, “It is one of the few markets remaining where a local social networking player (Hyves) continues to lead over Facebook.”
Although, that lead is becoming increasingly tenuous. Another interesting facet to the Dutch market is that the Netherlands has the highest internet penetration worldwide for two of the other key global social networking sites, Twitter and Linkedin.
“The Netherlands is in many ways a nexus of global social networking behaviour,” said Read.
But despite the overall maturity of the internet market in the Netherlands, the social networking category continues to advance, growing 18% to 11.5 million visitors in March 2011 (representing 96% of the online population).
Hyves continues to hold the top position among social networking sites in the market with more than 7.6 million visitors in March, but Facebook is quickly gaining ground, surging 76% in the past year to nearly 6.6 million visitors.
Twitter.com and Linkedin.com rank third and fourth, respectively, with more than 3 million visitors and each growing approximately 70% in the past year.
Lastly, more than one in four Dutch internet users visits social media sites during the course of the month. While the top ten countries in Linkedin penetration are either English-speaking or in Western Europe, the top countries for Twitter touch virtually every corner of the globe.
It’s the social (media) event of the year – MSN’s HTML5 Royal Wedding
Apr 21st
It’s another Royal Wedding headline! MSN has launched a HTML5-based feature to support its official Royal Wedding portal.
The timeline will allow users to explore what was happening in the world on key dates during William and Kate’s lives, including the news headlines and musical hits of that time.
It seems everyone wants a slice of Will’s and Kate’s lucrative big day. And they’re coming up with every gimmick imaginable to cash in on some web traffic during the epic bank holiday season that is now April.
Metia, a digital PR agency, has also developed MSN’s Royal Wedding Video Player, which will deliver the BBC’s live streaming video of the Royal Wedding and enables real time conversations about the event through integration with social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger.
There’s no doubt that this event will be the most talked about event on the social networks, ever. It will also probably go down in digital history as the most integrated event in history.
As part of MSN’s timeline, music previews will be streamed by HMV, linking users to the HMV homepage and allowing them to purchase their favourite tracks.
It’s a smart idea, and could definitely translate into other events, even the launch of major marketing campaigns.
Marketers are always looking for a digital angle, but sometimes it really is a simple as broadcasting the real life element online.
Using MSN’s Royal Wedding Video Player to watch the event enables users to share their thoughts with their connections without having to leave the MSN page. The advertising this site will be selling for the day is where the money is. This one stop solution to get users/viewers to stay on the one page while interacting it with it is surely an opportunity that won’t come by again anytime soon.
The best part is that this is also a global event.
Using Microsoft Fuse Labs’ Bing Twitter Map, users can view geo-located tweets across the world. They can even zoom in to see tweets from the crowd lining the route of the procession.
The Royal Wedding really is a once in a life time opportunity and marketers are doing what they do best – exploiting it.
The website is at http://timeline.royal.uk.msn.com/. The MSN Royal Wedding Video Player is available at http://uk.msn.com/on the big day.
Is community engagement really about Facebook and Twitter?
Apr 18th
It’s innovative and scathing marketing campaign that saw it break up with a host of other Aussie banks caused shockwave in both the advertising and banking communities around the world. But what happened when NAB (National Australia Bank) stuffed up?
Last Friday, just two months after its Valentine’s Day marketing push titled ‘Break Up’, NAB suffered a major glitch via its back end which saw millions of Aussies go without their pay – on pay day (15th of the month).
But don’t worry. NAB has a dedicated social media team and it just simply posted a message on its Facebook page explaining the debacle. “Sorry for the inconvenience”. Aussie were furious. Not least because they thought – and were told – NAB was different.
One clever customer wrote on NAB’s page, “I’m breaking up with you”.
The glitch raises the issue of community engagement for all brands. A marketing campaign can only ever go so far, as can a Facebook page and dedicated social media specialists. Do we, as marketers, need to redefine what real community engagement is?
Community engagement is a conversation with your brand community – not a statement on social media.
Marketers these days that have Facebook pages need to have them as a platform in which they can openly talk back, an open forum.
That customer that told NAB it was “breaking up” with the bank told me he received a Facebook message from NAB asking him to email them at a dedicated address and tell them why they were dissatisfied. A conversation via email. Doesn’t seem very engaging to me, although cudos to them for eventually replying.
Does the use of these digital channels mean brands are losing touch with true communities?
Or have communities been reinvented?
Remember Direct2Dell? Back in 2008, Dell was suffering from a reputation crisis. One customer had even created a website dedicated to the hatred of Dell, called Hell (playing around with the ‘Dell’ logo).
When Dell recognised its problem, it chose to engage its community and simply talk about it. It created a blog call Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm, which it had its entire staff across the globe participate in. Now that’s community engagement – engaging both the Dell community and its customers.
Suddenly Dell became a community, and it was done in a way that no Facebook Wall post or amount of ‘Likes’ could ever do.
Moreover, a blog offers a unique voice that captures your personal and business brand and your readers will relate better with you. It enables a brand to write fresh, short, dynamic content – not just simply ’respond’.
The new Twitter: What does it mean for PRs?
Oct 19th
Onlinefire’s Charley Hayes questions the rationale behind Twitter’s latest facelift.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you can’t fail to have heard about Twitter’s new site refresh – the first since its launch in 2006. The rationale behind the facelift is clearly an attempt by Twitter to keep members firmly on site, which – in-turn – is set to encourage new revenue opportunities from advertisers.
I think it’s about time Twitter updated the platform and made it more user friendly. I was never very keen on the old design, which was a pain to navigate, and as a daily(ish) Tweeter I can’t tell you the last time I actually went to the main homepage to send or read a tweet.
However, since the refresh I have now spent at least half an hour on Twitter.com checking out the new functionality.
So what does it actually offer Twitter members?
The new design consists of a Twitter split screen, which as New Media Age reports, allows you to see more ‘context to a user’s tweets, including replies, other tweets by that user and location-based information’. What I find most interesting is the ability to view external links, embedded within the homepage.
The UK roll out of the site revamp has now begun however, if you are still waiting for your profile to be updated and would like to see what the refresh will look like first-hand, why not check out the Twitter video below:
The question on many people’s lips is whether the refresh will see the end of third-party Twitter applications; will users find themselves firmly locked on the site homepage from now on?
Umm, well, I very much doubt that.
The new functions and features are all good and well but they are still not as advanced or useful as those offered by the likes of HootSuite and Tweetdeck.
From a PR perspective, the multiple user account capability, integrated social network functionality and ability to view all streams on one page will keep me firmly where I am for now.
The big question for me is what will the impact be from a brand perspective? Will Twitter no longer be the traffic driver it once was? What do you think?
Don’t bug your social media customers – how to listen and respond directly
Sep 15th
Kristin Hersant, Vice President of Corporate Marketing, StrongMail, introduces the company’s new Social Direct tools and tells us why it’s all about respect for your customers.
Let’s face it, on the whole, people don’t like advertising. They try and avoid it at all costs. They change channels during commercials and use pop-up blockers in their web browsers. The reason ads on social networks such as Facebook aren’t living up to their potential is because people haven’t opted-in to receive those messages. They don’t want to see them.
Conversely, by approaching social media as an opt-in channel, you are respecting the individuals that you’re trying to target and are only communicating with those who are interested in hearing from you. This conforms to the spirit of social media and aligns with email marketing best practices.
As any email marketer will tell you, opt-in marketing is significantly more effective than blasting a mass message to a rented list of names that someone claims has similar interests to what you’re trying to market.
It is opt-in marketing that StrongMail is leveraging with our new Social Direct product. Introduced in beta in early 2010 and formally launched last month, Social Direct is a social media campaign solution that enables marketers to monitor, target, and measure their investment in social channels using proven principles from direct marketing.
Marketers can now use Social Direct to monitor all the social conversations that affect their brand and respond as they occur from within the campaign management tool. Those who engage with your social media promotions can be easily identified and distinguished from those who don’t, meaning future offerings can be precisely targeted to customers who opt in to receive correspondence from your brand.
Using StrongMail’s unique search and conversation technology, users can also create individual workspaces to take control of the broad stream of data and conversations regarding customers, products, competitors and projects. By leveraging threading within conversation columns, they can easily see the flow of engagement with consumers on the social web.
Automatically adding re-tweets and replies to a campaign also allows businesses to track the total impact of engagement within a conversation.
Using the social media campaign management tools in Social Direct, marketers can manage campaigns simultaneously via a collaborative platform that integrates multiple Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Key features were designed to improve campaign workflow, including the ability to schedule messages and posts, organise profiles into groups, shorten and track URLs separately, and view a comprehensive calendar that drills down to summary metrics.
Social Direct addresses the lack of effective measurement tools in the social media marketing space by incorporating advanced reporting and analytics. Using real-time reporting, marketers can track all campaign activity and break it down into key performance metrics to help them identify trends, track conversions and conduct comparative analysis. Not only does this help streamline your own campaigns, it gives your customers the satisfaction of knowing they are being listened to, and only approached according to their own wishes.
This effort will be fuelled by personal referrals and genuine recommendations that ring true because the people recommending your product or service genuinely care about it. The future of social media marketing has more to learn from email than advertising.
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.
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