Socialmedialand

Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

If you don’t follow @DanZarella you should. He does some really interesting research on Twitter. The latest thing he’s come out with is a tool that will give you a psychological profile based on the content of your tweets. It says it works better if you have over 1,000 updates and are conversational (not always promoting something) but I tried it anyways with my meager 600+ updates and these are the results I got:

Cognitive Content

1. Present tense
2. Tentative
3. Similes – I do love a good metaphor, simile or analogy…
4. Self reference - ouch…but I guess that’s partly the nature of Twitter…right?
5. Positive emotions - I like to stay on the sunny side..
6. Cognitive processes - I think, therefore I am
7. Sexual references - didn’t expect that one, don’t even know what it’s referring to!
8. Occupation & work
9. Senses
10. Insight – Nice!
11. Sad – ??
12. Media, entertainment & celebrities - #pop_tart
13. Future tense

Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content

1. Social behavior – Definitely me!
2. Abstract thought - I think this is a compliment?
3. Constructive behaviors - Yay for being constructive!
4. Affection –
5. Cold sensations
6. Moral imperative - Definitely see that…
7. Glory – !!
8. Positive affect - More positiveness, I like it.
9. Anxiety - ?? Hmmm…
10. Taste Sensations
11. Audio sensations – I’m apparently into all kinds of sensations
12. Order – I’m bossy…haha just kidding. I think this comes from things like “Check it out..” or “Read this..”

So there’s a glimpse into my Twitter psychology. Some of them I totally get and completely agree with, others are a little more questionable. I’m going to try it again when I get to 1,000 and see how it changes. Go to TweetPsych yourself and see what yours is (there I go being bossy again…) then leave me a comment with results so we can compare!

 Twitter, meet paid advertising. Paid advertising, Twitter.

Twoogel launched today – it’s a Google powered search engine for Twitter, complete with, you guessed it, PPC ads provided by Google.

( @Twoogle is a third party site that’s not directly affiliated with either Google or Twitter – simply using the technology provided by both to create an integrated search experience.)

The mix of paid advertising with Twitter search results is interesting. Seach.twitter.com doesn’t include paid ads to Web sites or other landing pages – just search results full of tweets. It’s possible that if a page full of positive tweets about your company comes up in search results, and next to it there’s a paid advertisement directing people to your landing page for a free trail or coupon or whatever, they might be more inclined to click on that ad secure in the knowledge that other Twitterites seem to like you. At the same time, a page full of negative tweets might be just as equally detrimental.

Users may have a different reaction to it – why use Twoogle when other twitter search engines provide social elements (trending topics, tag clouds, sentiment, etc) and all Twoogle has are ads? Ads aren’t a big attraction for users. I think Twoogle will have to step up in those areas in order to get a significant amount of search traffic in order to support their paid ad model.

Time will tell whether a service like this takes off with users or not, but in a way it’s a logical extension of the same old “how will Twitter make money” argument. One of the ideas put forward has been including paid advertising space on the network, on search results, on profiles, anywhere. It seems that instead of waiting for Twitter to make a move like this on their own, someone else has harnessed the power of Twitter with the money making ability of Google ads and made their own search engine.

I’d predict that if it does take off, either Google or Twitter (or both) will take notice and integrate a similar idea into their own search sites.

Thoughts? Like it, don’t like it, don’t care? Leave a comment and let me know!

I saw this billboard at the Diamondbacks game Saturday night and it caught my eye. Notice there is no phone number, no web address – just their twitter name. Simple. Easy to remember. And just a little bit mysterious…(Side note- check out DD&F’s Twitter profile – looks like they get it.)

As the game went on, I thought about the implications of that sign (what can I say, the game wasn’t very pretty, we lost 8-1, I needed a distraction) and came up with a few things:

1. A social media profile CAN be your only web presence. Jason Baer talked about this a while back and I think it’s an intriguing idea. There are definitely some business models where this would make a lot of sense. If your website would mainly just be a digital business card – trade it in for a social media profile that’s more interactive. At the recent Tempe Chamber meeting (where I spoke about the importance of blogging and social media) this topic came up with a few of the business owners. I’m going to dig into this a little more and research whether there have been any successful examples of this model yet but I think it would be especially relevant to small and/or local businesses.

2. If it’s not you’re ONLY web presence – it can be your calling card. After I went home and visited their Twitter I found out that DD&F does have a website. But they didn’t put that on the sign. They also have a phone number, address, the works – none of that is included in the advertising. They’ve identified a social network as the easiest way for their customers to get in contact with them and get a taste of their business. From there the customer can click through to their web page for more information.

3. It may not be truly mainstream yet – but it’s on its way. Looking around the stadium at the diverse crowd reminded me of some of the things Bret mentioned in his recent Gangplank presentation on connections. He said that the adoption rate of some social networks is still less than that of the snuggie blanket. For those of us who are in it, it’s sometimes hard to remember how many people are still not participating. However, even if they’re not participating, at this point they have heard of it because it’s being referenced in mainstream places, like on the news, and at baseball stadiums. So I think the mainstream adoption is coming and we, as early adopters and advocates of social media, need to be ready to help the public learn to use it. Whether that means technically (how to use it), or socially (developing norms on how we act in this space), we need to be cognizant of it.

I got a reality check on this at the Tempe Chamber meeting, when I was talking to some of the members, a lot of the questions were about the real basic how to mechanics of using sites like Twitter. This is the reason I created a very elementary guide on how-to use Twitter in my resource section. I realized a lot of the how-to resources out there assume you already know the mechanics, when many of the newer people joining still don’t. After that, most of the questions I got were on what types of things you can say and what is expected of you on specific networks or in certain spaces – so look for follow up guides on those things.

A lot of stuff for one little sign huh? But let’s talk about all this - I want to explore these ideas more fully in the future so leave a comment with your opinions and thoughts and let’s see where this all leads. 

P.S: Later that night I took the lightrail back to Tempe and went to one of my favorite bars on Mill Avenue – this sign was up in the restroom, almost as a little confirmation of everything I’d been thinking about earlier:

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I wrote a post cautioning you against ignoring the giants - like email, Facebook, Twitter, etc when choosing tactics for your social strategy. But now I have to caution the major giants from ignoring the David’s of the world.

@Copyblogger sent a tweet out linking to this post about Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt’s, position on Twitter:

“Speaking as a computer scientist, I view all of these as sort of poor man’s email systems,”

“In other words, they have aspects of an email system, but they don’t have a full offering. To me, the question about companies like Twitter is: Do they fundamentally evolve as sort of a note phenomenon, or do they fundamentally evolve to have storage, revocation, identity, and all the other aspects that traditional email systems have? Or do email systems themselves broaden what they do to take on some of that characteristic?

I think the innovation is great. In Google’s case, we have a very successful instant messaging product, and that’s what most people end up using.

Twitter’s success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to reach and communicate, especially if you are willing to do so publicly.”

It has the ring of “famous last words” if you ask me. To think that Google’s instant message is equal to Twitter is a little over the top in my opinion. They serve very different purposes and really aren’t comparable. Email, also, serves a different purpose than Twitter. Twitter allows you to communicate to a broad network of people, start dialogues with them, join into conversations already in progress and share the wealth of the results of these interactions with the world. When I “reply all” on my email I doubt that has the same type of reach.

I’m not saying email is dead. I’m not saying IM is useless. I’m saying that all three things are separate, individual things that serve different purposes and for Eric Schmidt to categorically dismiss Twitter as something that will either evolve into email/IM or fade away as a novelty is extremely short sighted in my opinion.

Enough about my opinion, what about yours? Leave a comment!

Sometimes there is a tendency for people, especially when dealing with cutting edge topics like social media, to be so obsessed with “the next big thing,” that they completely overlook the current big thing.

Jason Baer talked about the danger of putting the cart before the horse - he cautions us to focus on the basics before jumping into the “sexy and new(ish)” rage of social media ideas, campaigns and strategy. I completely agree that you have to start with a good strategy around traditional online media, such as email, before getting ahead of yourself in social media. But I think the same concept carries through once you are ready to engage with social media.

Don’t Forget the Big Guy

I feel like there’s been something of a backlash against services like Facebook - like it’s soo 2007  and the really hip social marketers wouldn’t be caught dead there. (I’m exaggerating for effect, but you know what I mean.) I definitely see the allure of being on the cutting edge, being on the little social network first – before it gets big. I’m not trying to deter you from your quest. If you find the holy grail of social networks, let me know! But in the meantime I think when you’re planning what tactics to use in your social media plan (because you’ve already covered the social media strategy and mindset right?) you can’t pass over the big guys.

They’re big for a reason – your customers use them*. Your customers, the average social network user, isn’t constantly searching to find the next network – they want value, and they get value from being on the same network as all their friends, who get value from being on the same network as all their friends, and so on. I received an email from ShareThis, a social bookmarking service, with the following graph showing percentage of shares by network, as well as growth from August 08. This is only one metric (from one source,) but I think it shows a compelling picture. This gives us an idea of where people are the most active and what their go to method of communicating with their contacts is.

Notice first, that email still controls a healthy majority (though it’s decreased since August) which reinforces Jason’s point that we can’t skip traditional online media in favor of social. After that you see that Facebook is the second most popular, followed by good old Myspace.  You can also see that Facebook and Twitter are the only two that have grown (besides AIM) since August. This growth is further supported by monthly visitors as reported by Compete.com

So the next time you, or your client, are thinking how tired you are of hearing about making a Facebook page or opening a Twitter account, think about this graph and grin and bear it. Step 2 can be creating a presence on that new little network you’ve heard so much about.

What do you think? Do you have more stats? Different stats? Opposite view of the same stats? Leave a comment!

*Use this nifty technographics tool from Forrester to really see where your customer demographic is. I was generalizing earlier and of course, when creating a plan, you need to do a little more specific research.

I have to post an update. In my previous post about the Johnjay and Rich Twitter account I talked a lot about the opportunities they’re missing by using their tweets like messages on a billboard rather than starting a two way dialogue and starting some interaction. I also mentioned hoping that they would read it and contact me. I’m excited to say that only a few hours later I had a message in my Facebook inbox about it, and although they weren’t offering me free concert tickets, they were asking for some more advice. Pretty cool, huh? Love it when brands listen and start convos (active listening at its finest.)

Here’s where I owe them an apology. In my rush to talk about everything they could be doing (and I stand by my suggestions btw – I think they’re pretty good ones), I didnt realize that the account had only been active for about a week. It’s a little too early to have judged the activity on it, for all I know they had planned to implement a few of those same ideas.

Although I may sometimes stick my foot in my mouth, never say that I don’t own up to my mistakes.

Video may have killed the radio star, but will Twitter kill the radio host?

Confession time. I listen to 104.7 Kiss FM when I drive to work in the mornings. I say it’s because the <15 minute drive (be jealous) is too short to worry about messing with an IPod or picking out a CD. But really it’s because the Johnjay and Rich morning show is like Jerry Springer on the radio. Confession Wednesday, War of the Roses, Second Date Update – it’s a big helping of “I feel better about my life because I’m not sleeping with my fiance’s father AND mother” (true story.)

So this morning when they brought up their Twitter account I got pretty excited (nerdy I know.) Because I thought I could follow the drama online, see what other people are saying about what’s happening and join in with my own witty commentary on the disastrous lives of my fellow Phoenicians.

Alas, by Twitter account they meant they have a billboard where they post inane messages about who they are talking to now. Then, who they are talking to now. Then, who they just stopped talking to that you can hear on the podcast that they posted on the website. I can hear the static in my mind as I tune out.

Have I mentioned they only have 92 followers when they have a vibrant and large audience of listeners?

Radio is heard here, radio is heard everywhere

I took that line from Clear Channel’s ad campaign. But they are not being heard “here” in social media land. This is a definite let down. The opportunity here is so large! And they’re totally missing it. Twitter is not a billboard; it’s a whole group of active, talking people. I don’t even know where to begin breaking down the improvements they could make.

#Hashtags: they could create tags for their popular programs, bring up the search window during the broadcast and mention the funnier/better comments they see. Plus, hearing a bunch of 140 character responses from all different people would be a lot more fun than hearing that one annoying caller who tells their entire life story and repeats “I love you guys” a billion times before finally getting back to the point of the drama.

@Replies: why don’t they use conversation on Twitter to add to their contests and game shows? Why don’t they take questions from Twitter when they’re talking to celebrities? Again, it’s way quicker and more to the point than taking all those callers – also easier to filter.

DM: this could easily incorporate into contests. While they do the trivia live on the air, if someone DMs the answer before the person on air does (and is the first to do so) they get a prize as well (significantly smaller maybe but it could get participation by way more people.)

Promotion: where’s the follow us button on the homepage? I searched for that thing, if I wasn’t planning on writing this I would have given up. Put it somewhere I can find it. If people start twittering to you, and about you, the people who follow them will see that. They’ll wonder what they’re missing out on and tune in online or in their car as well.

I could go on. I won’t because if Kiss FM sees this I would love for them to contact me - either to offer me free tickets to a concert of my choice, or to ask for my help consulting on new and exciting ways to join the community we’ve got going here in Phoenix as well as Tucson and those in Colorado, Oregon and wherever else they broadcast.

But until that happens I’ll just sit here in the midst of my disappointment while yet another brand misses the wealth of social media by trying to use it like just another traditional ad space.

Ok I know it sounds like a stretch at first, but stay with me on this one.

As social media continues to grow as our industry’s biggest buzz word I’ve seen an increasing number of client requests for blogs, twitter accounts, or facebook pages. Without fail the request goes something like this:

          “Please put together a strategy for client XYZ to have a Twitter account.”

          ”….?”

What will a Twitter account accomplish in a scenerio like that? What about all the unaswered questions? Like, “Why do you want a Twitter account in the first place?” ”What is your plan for handling customer concerns, suggestions and ideas internally once they’re brought up?”  And it’s not just Twitter. These questions need to be answered before a starting a blog, creating a network or joining a forum. No social media technology should be adopted lightly.

Just like you can’t adopt a puppy without thinking about it first. Sure it’s cute, sure everyone loves puppies. But you can’t just buy it and then forget about it. You have to feed it, you have to pet it, you have to walk it, you have to give it water, you have to have it groomed and taken to the vet for checkups, and you have to listen and respond to its complaints about your products. Ok maybe the last part is really only applicable to social media, but you get the idea.

The hardest thing to explain about social media is that it’s not a “thing” that you can just “have.” It’s a complete change in your business the same way a puppy is a complete change of lifestyle. You have to be prepared for the fundamental shift in the way you relate to your customers. Twitter isn’t just another platform for your advertising bursts, it should be the gateway to a deeper communication with the people who purchase your products. And a blog isn’t an island – it should be a traffic center where you put out information, bring in information and respond to it.

So do you still want a puppy? Think hard before you decide, because once you buy one it’s nearly impossible to go back. Think back to the last commercial you saw featuring the sad puppy dog eyes of the dogs at the humane society – can you handle how bad you would feel if you had to give your new puppy up to that fate? Same thing with social media – it might sound like all fun and games to start now but if it doesn’t go the way you expect you can’t just ditch the effort. Your customers will be twice as angry that you asked for their opinion and then ignored it when you didn’t like it. They’ll feel abandoned, just like that puppy. Social media is a commitment to your customers that you will take care of them for life, from here on out.

If you’re not ready for that relationship with your customer, then you’re not ready for social media in any form, no matter how trendy it is. Because trends come and go, today it’s Twitter, tomorrow it might be something new. If you understand the fundamentals of social media you can simply adapt to any new platform your customers adopt, you grow with them the same way pet owners switch dog food for different stages of their puppy’s life, if you don’t then you just have an irrelevant account on yesterday’s cool new site. And a sad puppy.

And so, social media is like a puppy. Agree? Disagree? Have another metaphor? Share in the comments section!

There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter circulating throughout the industry over the last few months so I’m going to try not to repeat too much of what’s already been said but I would like offer up my view of Twitter’s impact on all of us.

A majority of my time during the day is spent “monitoring” social media for various clients. Monitoring is just a fancy word for listening, watching and reading as much content as I can about my brands. I use Radian6 (my favorite) and a few other tools and integrate everything I learn into a concise report that summarizes what’s being said in the blogosphere. I realize this isn’t revolutionary and even at times I’m frustrated by how far behind we are because none of this includes responding to any of it. But more on that later.

The main reason why this is important is that across all my brands over the last few months I’ve seen a marked increase in the amount of Twitters showing up in my reports over time.

I thought this was interesting, mainly because it was across the board in at least 4 different industries. The timing was also a little funny to me because it coincided with about the same time that I, and a few of my coworkers, became active on Twitter. So in my personal view it felt like all of a sudden Twitter went from the “next big thing” to “the big thing.” This prompted a little research to see if it was all in my head or if there really had been a huge spike – check it out from two different sources:

Courtesy of Quantcast

Courtesy of Compete.com

Ok so now comes the disconnect in my life – I think Twitter is really fun and I have Twhirl up on my desktop at work all day, but as for my personal life, I never use it. A quick background, I’m 22 years old and graduated from ASU in May, so most of my friends are still in college or are recent grads like me, all in their early to mid 20s. This is completely unscientific but if I had to guess how many of them knew what Twitter was – I’d go with 10%. I can’t even begin to illustrate the trouble I have explaining what I do, and what Twitter is, to a guy my age at a bar. Or to my best friends. It just doesn’t click with them. The best I’ve come up with is “You know Facebook status? It’s an entire site of just you and your friends’ statuses.” But if there was a huge spike in activity, why do so few “young” people know what it is? I did a little more research on the average age group of Twitter users:

Courtesy of Google Ad Planner

Courtesy of Quantcast

And here you go, the main age group for Twitter isn’t the 18-25 college kids, it’s the 25-45 educated, working adults. As soon as I saw that, it all clicked into place.

Disclaimer: the rest of this post is based on pure theory…

My reasoning goes that when you’re in college sites like Facebook are the best way to keep in touch. You have the extra time in boring classes, or procrastinating on homework, to do all the extra legwork. You upload videos, painstakingly upload and tag pictures; you stalk people’s walls to see what they’re up to and write them messages. But what about when you grow up a little and get a job? All of a sudden all of that takes way too much time. In a completely unscientific poll of the people I work with who sit near me – all of them told me they gave up on maintaining their Facebook profile the way they used to and now they check it weekly or even bi-weekly.

Enter Twitter. Twitter is quick and fun – no extra work here. Simply write a message and voila all your friends know what’s going on. Want to Twitter at work? No problem, install a small desktop app that’s easily minimized and looks almost like email updates. You can’t have your Facebook page up at work – way to conspicuous, and takes way too much time, your boss would totally figure out what you’re up to. Twitter is the perfect way to continue to socialize all day long while you’re working. And since it’s caught on so well, it’s even started to integrate into how we work, collaborate and network. Some sites are even basing innovating new work place message systems on the Twitter format.

And all of that is what I think becomes the basic support for why brands can’t ignore Twitter anymore. Social media has become a part of our daily life. It’s not like Trix and “just for kids.” It’s become an integral part of daily communication for a lot of people, including working professionals. Do I think every company should just jump onto Twitter? No, of course not. No one technology will solve a brand’s need to participate in the social sphere. But do I think it’s become a crucial part of the social media marketing mix? Yes.

But this is just my opinion and experience with Twitter, what do you think? Leave me a comment below!

I recently set up an account for Sitewire on Twitter (@SitewireAgency) so we can put out links to cool things we find, let people know when our blog’s been updated, etc. For right now only D (my teammate) and I are responsible for updating it. Since I have Twhirl running on my desktop for my personal account (@ktvan) I just added another account so I would have both. Sounds like a great idea huh? I thought so too. Until I was leaving for lunch to go home and walk my friend’s dog (who’s staying with me over the weekend) and decided to Twitter a joke about it right before I left…at the last second I realized I’d updated the company account instead of my own! It was easy enough to delete the update and move it into my account…but I still wonder if anyone else with a desktop app saw it before I fixed it?