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Twitter

Rupert Murdoch on Twitter, but why?

by nick on January 4, 2012

Rupert Murdoch on TwitterThe biggest news in tech this week is that Yahoo! finally appointed a replacement for their known-to-swear-a-lot and former top-dog, Carol Bartz. They’ve appointed little-known Scott Thompson from PayPal.

But the much more fun/entertaining/frightening tech news is Rupert Murdoch joined Twitter. Really joined. No spoof account (that was his wife’s). No digital sidekick thumbing his tweets. No pseudonyms, social media gurus or ghost writers, just 100% unfettered, real-time access to our Rupes.

Love him or loath him (okay, I can probably guess which), this had to make the news wires. He started up on New Year’s eve and quickly courted controversy with (now deleted) quips like, “Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!”

John Prescott must’ve found a dose of irony in a belated Christmas cracker and tweeted, “Welcome to Twitter…@rupertmurdoch. I’ve left you a Happy New Year message on my voicemail!”

It’s oh so easy to mock from the sidelines. Social media invented the term snark – and then used it in abundance. But this has got the hallmarks of a Charlie Sheenesque car crash all over it.

He’s obviously got every right to join the Twitterati but what’s his motivation here? I’ll show them all I’m not an evil bugger? I’ll prove to the world I’ve still got all my marbles? He’s not exactly in need of headlines, or a wider network.

Some are indicating he’s promoting his own products by saying “Great oped inWSJ today,” and “Very proud of fox team who made this great film,” and “Got to watch Foxnews at 5 EST.” Sure they’re all in his portfolio but his marketing teams would have to be pretty desperate to script that!

No, I think his top execs will all be frantically dreaming up ‘seriously pressing business emergencies’ that need his urgent and full attention. And his PR and comms teams will be praying Twitter falls over every 20 minutes like it used to in the early days.

In their shoes, I’d be tempted to sneak one of those Hollywood-style, CIA speced wi-fi blockers into his briefcase… or break his thumbs.

Given his opening salvo, it’s more than difficult to see this going well. I think it’ll end in either:
a) a fizzle, as Mr M gets bored of trying to be fab in 140 characters and lets the account doze off, or
b) in the furore of a NoTW closure but without the job losses.

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Twitter (non-injunction) thoughts

by nick on May 22, 2011

Twitter is front page news this week but a friend emailed me asking my thoughts on something other than super injunctions. He wrote, “If twitter’s all about engaging with people, conversations not campaigns etc, why is @delloutlet doing so well? Both in followers, and in direct revenue according to them. It goes against everything I’ve read you should do. What do you think of it?”

Well, I think it’s because of a number of factors:

  • There are no real rules to Twitter (even if there are nuanced subtleties);
  • Even if there were rules that dictate against such obvious selling tactics, there would be exceptions too;
  • Tweets are a broadcast of whatever you choose – some tweet their blog, others tweet their photos, thoughts, videos or jokes. Why shouldn’t Dell’s mention deals;
  • Best practice isn’t common practice (physical exercise and a good diet are surely the best example here);
  • People will always want bargains and IT buyers know what lives at the end of this rainbow (check Brand Alley for another strong clearance example);
  • Engagement is a plethora of choice – I want the Sunday Times in physical paper but I like most of my other news digitally. If I want to engage Dell’s bargains this way, then that’s what I’ll do.

We live in a hit and run culture, flitting from place to place with ever decreasing attention spans. With 1.5+million followers and peerless sales conversion, Dell is clearly providing something of value of kudos to plenty.

What about you? How are you using Twitter in business?

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Bing’s birthday spoiled by Twitter

by nick on July 16, 2010

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, is now a year old and it’s been a good one.

They’ve clawed 12.7% of the enormous search market, which is no small feat. And they’ve got what political campaigners crave: momentum. Bing will be powering Yahoo search from this autumn and Yahoo’s got 18.9% of the market. Granted, it’s early days and Google is still undoubtedly the goliath, but there’s plenty of reason to break out the cake.

But what about Twitter? According to its co-founder Biz Stone, Twitter isn’t a social network, “We’re much more like an information network or a source of news.” He’s not kidding as they’re clocking 24 billion search queries a month! Test it yourself here. Look for your company name, your brands, your services, your competitors, your customers – it’s illuminating.

Fast Company have the search big hitters lining up like this:

Google 88 billion searches per mth
Twitter 24 billion searches per mth
Yahoo 9.4 billion searches per mth
Bing 4.1 billion searches per mth

Photo credit: Search Engine Land

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Twitter is digital cricket

by nick on March 26, 2010

Twitter is on a meteoric rise. In 2007 folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day; 300,000 times a day in 2008; 2.5 million per day in 2009 and now it’s 50 million tweets per day. This month the whole shebang crossed the 10 billion tweet milestone.

Which of your eyes would sell for a growth chart like this?

But dissenters say that folks don’t stay involved. That 60% of people who sign up, get bored within weeks and don’t return. That the noise from the few is deafening and that the many just listen and regurgitate. They’d say (ironically, probably via a blog) that it’s all a narcissistic fad.

Businesses are looking at Dell as the poster child of Twitter use and think they can all show offers in 140 characters that convert highly. But the fact is transactional sites get less than 10% of Twitter’s exit links, the majority goes to other content driven sites (social media). Others take a more puritan stance and think it’s the conversation – engagement – that wins in the end.

Personally, I’m likening the whole thing to cricket. Is there a more polarising game in existence?

Chances are if you like cricket, you’ll love cricket. You’ll want to skive off work and sit for hours watching what many would call ‘nothing much.’ You might even want to drop your fabulous music career for cricket commentary (Lily Allen does). The non-believers would laugh at you and say the whole thing is a waste of good grass.

Understanding and liking Twitter is every bit as binary. You either do, or you don’t.

But the one marketing area that unquestionably lends itself well to Twitter is sport. Take Lance Armstrong. Lance is the Stephen Fry of tweeting sports personalities and his build-up and insight to the Tour de France will be fascinating.

F1 newbie, Lotus are also on the guerrilla marketing bandwagon, allowing chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne and others to give us real time access to their thoughts. During the Bahrain GP he actually told us that Jarno Trulli was pitting on the next lap. In the ultra-competitive and secretive world of F1 racing that level of engagement with outsiders (fans and rivals, obviously) is astounding. I’d argue that it’s to the benefit of the Lotus brand – to its share of mindset, to its growth, to its media coverage (as others write about it) and to its value as we get closer to the heart of Lotus as an organisation and build a relationship.

What about you and your organisation? Will you be donning your digital cricket whites this summer or would that be a time-wasting bore?

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Tweeting frustration

by nick on August 16, 2009

tomasackerJust read Tom Asacker’s post on frustration and I needed to rebroadcast:

Marketers, we need you now, more than ever, to be the voice of value creation for the benefit of your organizations and other brand constituents (customers, suppliers, communities, et al). So please don’t let the frustration, and persistence, of the Social Web ecosystem cause you to aimlessly invest those scarce resources in “following,” “friending” or “tweeting.”

Some are proving there is a benefit to social media but don’t forget Twitter, Facebook, etc are all tools. Merely tools, not the whole ball game itself. If your business is using them successfully then kudos to you. If you’re employing them but not gaining value, then you must realise they’re no longer tools, they’ve become toys.

Does anyone rave on about email, fax or telephone use in business anymore? When did you last hear someone brag about their team’s wonderful clearing of their inboxes? All very useful, but tools nonetheless.

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Google buys Twitter

by nick on March 5, 2009

twitter_logoWell, that’s my prediction. They’ll stop burning dollars acquiring paper mills and fork out $750+ million for Twitter.

Twitter is the most popular and certainly the most talked about social media tool of the moment, yet there’s no clear indication on how they’ll monetise the whole shebang. They raised another $35 million in venture capital last month but to what end?

If you concede that Google want to know far more about you and your digital habits along with the world at large, this source would make an obvious acquisition. The speed at which trends and news appear on Twitter is unmatched elsewhere on the web. Google could leverage this into their algorithm and gain much more real-time searching (certainly opposed to Google News).

Of course, we’re not privy to the magic that’s being created right now in Mountain View where Google’s rocket scientists wave their wands over the web with reckless talent. Have they got a Twitter-killer waiting in the wings? Personally I doubt it. And if they have, will it be another Google Video which was always the poor cousin to YouTube – remember Google later bought YouTube purely to get that online video foothold?

They’re into harvesting strategies and don’t need to monetise everything immediately. Again, YouTube teaches us that. So the lack of income at Twitter won’t be such a problem; the data is the treasure worth the capital outlay. Although, Twitter wont keep its monopoly forever – when you show the market what’s it’s capable of, it rarely stands and applauds for long. Immitation is immenant.

Then again, others might get to the buy-out first. Facebook is reported to have offered $500 million and Carol Bartz could do with creating some buzz about Yahoo other than dismal reports of staff exoduses. Either of these firms would be salivating at the thought of gaining those 6 million Twitterers and all that live data.

What do you reckon? Do you think Google will crush Twitter, buy Twitter or just look at it like a play-thing in the corner?

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Is Twitter like snow to UK business?

by nick on February 5, 2009

snowfightTwitter, much revered as THE social media application by those heavily engrossed within, also finds itself slammed as a catastrophic misspend of one’s precious time by those on the sidelines (if they’ve heard of it at all). It’s all very Yin and Yang.

I got to thinking there’s a simile to be drawn with the recent snow across the UK that has loads of people excited (especially my daughter) while causing massive inconvenience – and obvious cost – for business.

Substitute Twitter or snow fights for the following viewpoint:

Sideline humbug of snow fight/Twitter – fruitless waste of energy spent on juvenile entertainment in existence purely for its own sake. Where workers are engrossed in something pleasing to themselves with no business outcome but for the few (e.g. grit suppliers in the case of snow, contacts in the case of Chris Brogan).

or

Engaged participant of snow fight/Twitter – liberating and inspiring in the sense of something different from the monotony. It’s not a task ridden process and outcome – it’s original, genuine and creative. It improves your outlook and certainly broadens it. No, ten more widgets weren’t sold but maybe, just maybe, my heightened spirits and/or that new connection I made might just turn out for the better.

What say you? Is Twitter the best social business tool since the telephone, or is it a toy for time wasters?

[BTW Stephen Fry is the most popular person on Twitter. President Obama is followed by the world's terrorists and every political party under the sun, so we'll claim his numbers void. Ergo Fry wins.]

Photo credit: Justin Beckley

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Listen loudly and learn lots

by nick on October 22, 2008

Web 2.0 and the new media aren’t about spamming the system to promote your goods and services. Okay, it’s exactly that for too many shysters out there. But I’d argue that if your clients are online, surely it’s logical for you to consider engaging them there. This is where authentic use of Web 2.0 tools comes into play.

If that use is inappropriate (read Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae), or too much of a step-change then at the very least you should be looking and listening. What’s being said about that widget you produce, or that resort you sell by the week, or that club you promote as exclusive, or that new restaurant you’ve opened? And, just as important, what are they saying about your competitors and the wider industry?

For not too much money and a little time you can use a pretty fine looking glass and get the low-down, the inside line and the gossip straight from the horse’s mouth. Chris Brogan points to several tools to help us in our quest for the truth: Technorati, Google Blogsearch, Twitter Search and Radian6.

I’m sure there are dozens of others worthy of inclusion but I’d add BrandsEye, BlogPulse and BuzzLogic to that stable. Finally, a very simple freebie not worth ignoring is Google Alerts (there are some technical limitations but I’ll save that for a longer post). Just plug in your keywords e.g. BMW, Audi, Mercedes and watch the emails arrive (weekly, daily or live) as the Google spiders pick up sites mentioning those keywords online.

Of course, the looking and listening are the easy parts. What you do with that new info is a whole other ball game.

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