Twitter

Make Or Break For Social Media

Posted on by in Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Here’s a link to dailyfinance.com and a piece about Twitter’s new ad plan, which you can only be ignorant of if you have spent the last day with your head in a bucket of ostrich poo. The journalist calculates that Twitter needs to make between $146 and $241 million in order to justify the current (and apparently sane) valuation of its service of $1.4bn.

(I cannot help but remember Mark Ritson in Marketing magazine saying – and I’m paraphrasing – ‘Twitter worth $1bn? Bollocks to Twitter!’)

Tha means a revenue of $1.95 to $3.21 per user per year. Which apparently is nothing compared to Facebook’s per user revenue of between $3 and $5. Which brings in more than $1bn a year, for the hard of thinking. (I cannot help but suspecting, mind, that this is nonsense of the horrible horseshit variety, but – hey – that’s just me).

Anyway, suffice it to say that there is an opposing school of thought which says that the Twitterads simply won’t work – no matter what anyone says, it’s not like Google (a search engine) and the ads are limited to 140 characters (difficult to communicate at the best of times). On top of that, these ads rely upon people re-Tweeting them and passing them on – a concept which I, personally, find difficult to understand.

The opposing school of thought also points out that Twitter’s infrastructure costs $25m each year to run. Currently it makes no money at all. It simply HAS to find a way of monetising itself – and no, Biz Stone, there’s no time left to do this in a gentle and questioning fashion. It’s acts together time boys, or you’ll go the way of MySpace, Bebo and Friends Reunited.

In fact, now I think about it – and as predicted on this blog last year – there’re only two social media sites left (when I say left, I mean with any sparkle in them). It’s Facebook and Twitter. (LinkedIn is a business medium – and even that, if you listen to the rumours, is on its way out.)

Two big social media brands, one of which will inevitably be eaten by the other in their rush to ‘monetise’ and justify their valuations.

TwatFace, anyone?

Facebook And The Daily Mail – Two Of My Favourite Things

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, corporate reputation, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , .

As you may know, the Daily Mail is having a go at Facebook for leaving its younger members open to abuse by older – how shall we say – more predatory members. The gist of the story was that someone posed as a 14-year-old girl, and, “within 90 seconds, a middle-aged man wanted to perform a sex act in front of me”.

Now, as this piece from a BBC blog rightly says, there are a number of issues with the story. First, because of the way Facebook works, it’s practically impossible for it to have happened. Second, the someone who posed as the girl a) didn’t write the piece b) sent in corrections to the piece which were ignored and c) was using another social medium anyway.

Daily Mail issues an apology – but the paper being what it is, it was small and on page 4. But an apology nonetheless.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, however, the story does throw up (yet another) issue with social media. It’s open to abuse. We’ve all heard stories about various people’s Twitter feeds being hi-jacked and messages sent to all their followers, proposing the sale of under-the-counter medications or the perusal of overly-endowed women with no clothes on. It started with spam, and now this stuff is becoming more insidious. It simply underlines the complete lack of any sort of control or regulation – which is what you get (or don’t get) when you’re dealing with media that can be accessed and utilised by absolutely anyone, regardless of proclivity or state of mind.

I suppose it’s a question of what sorts the wheat from the chaff? And if you’re a large brand or big organisation looking to leverage a social media strategy for a commercial end – you may think that you’re wheat, but how are you going to prevent someone turning you to chaff? You won’t know about it until it’s happened, at great cost to your corporate reputation. Is it, after all, a risk worth taking?

But back to the Facebook/Daily Mail standoff – I do think the paper has a nerve. Complaining about the danger posed by things presenting themselves as things they are not. I mean – I read the Daily Mail once, and was completely taken in by the way it presented itself as serious journalism. It was only much later that I realised I’d been conned, and that it was simply trying to take advantage of my naivety.

Social Media – Les Twittes Francais

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Another fascinating example of what social media is actually good for. Tittle-tattle.  Scuttlebutt. Gossip. Prurient  – and some might say, inappropriate – interest in the doings of others. Destroying the careers of powerful men.

Hold on – what? Yes – Nicolas Sarkozy, 23rd and current President of the French Republic is apparently ‘avin’ it away with the karate-chopping Chantal Jouanno, his (and I hope I won’t get accused of being sleazy when I state, quite attractive) 40-year-old Ecology Minister. Good grief, she’s young enough to be my slightly younger sister!

Apparently, it’s in reaction to his slightly taller wife, the fragrant – and self-confessed anti-fan of that outmoded convention, monogamy – Carla Bruni doin’ the do with Benjamin Biolay “a musician six years her junior” (this courtesy of the breathless, soaraway Daily Telegraph).

Now – I will confess I have enjoyed writing about this, but there is a point. And I’m not going to labour it.

The affairs – if indeed they actually exist outside the fevered minds of the gossiping classes – came to light via a rising tide of Twitter buzz, which gained critical mass and, in so doing, migrated into the – if I can use the term – mainstream. This is what Twitter – and indeed all social media – is good at. Taking a story with a hint of gossip, salaciousness, controversy and/or sex and spreading it far and wide, regardless of what the truth or reality might actually be.

This is why non-one can afford to ignore social media – not because it is a valid commercial communications, marketing or sales tool, but because it moves so quickly that it poses a real threat. When social gets you – you’ve no time to prepare – you’re back-footed and it’s damage limitation time.

There are two courses of action therefore. One, as I’ve said before, is to prepare for the issues that might happen, before they do – and monitor, monitor, monitor. The second is become President of the French Republic.

Apparently they’ve all had affairs and it’s not damaged a single one of them. Gotta love the French.

Social Media – Examples – Good And….Not Good

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

Here’s a couple of examples of what you can do with social media, dependent on who and what you are. My loyal blog snorkellers will be fully HP with my point of view (that social media is not a valid business communications, marketing or sales tool) but you’ll also know that I’m nothing if not open to new ideas. Unless those new ideas are genuinely pants or threaten the way I think the world should be. Obviously.

So – here we are from BMW, a luvverly film (and it IS a luvverly film) around some motorbike product or other. Obviously aimed at wealthy young (or not so young) men with a need for speed and a bad taste in trousers, beanie hats and friends. You’d need to be careful – this to my male snorkellers – quite how old you were buying one of these. Don’t want to look like a midlfecrisesian, now do we?

On the other hand, here’s a Twit feed from the British Armed Force, which links to this blog, again from the British Armed Forces. I would like to say – although I have no particular feelings about the conflict in Afghanistan (no-one asked me, d’you see) – that I think this is genuinely excellent and I am – deeply – in awe of the men and women who are out there, doing what they do. If you read anything today, click on the links herewith, and absorb the content. Amazing.

Anyway, conclusions. Look at the commentary stream following the BMW video. Are they going to buy a bike? No. Has BMW built a relationship with them? No. These people are all too macho and self-absorbed and – let’s be honest – a bit fricking thick. So – sorry BMW – it’s a waste of money. You’d be better off with experiential. (Oh, and, fair cop – the video is a little bit too fake, sadly.)

Meanwhile, Major Paul Smyth over at t’Army in Afghanistan. It’s genius. It’s compelling. It’s very scary and it’s shocking to read of the deaths of soldiers in what is, effectively, real time. (For what its worth, my thoughts are with their families.) Someone needs to re-think this whole war thing. Someone without their head up America’s bottom.

Summary – social media exists. It’s a great information-sharer. It’s brilliant for those without an axe to grind and with an interesting (perhaps shocking) story to tell. When it comes to branded stuff however – are you listening, blue propeller? – it’s a waste of money and it sucks.

Social Media – Thoughts For The Day

Posted on by in Corporate Religion, corporate reputation, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(N.B. dear blog snorkellers, there will be no links in the copy today. This is because I can’t be bothered to tell you where I’ve been and also it’s a test of faith. Like so many of the social media posts and threads that I stumble upon, today I am going to say ‘trust me’. Take what I say as read. Don’t ask for proof. For once in your lives, believe in something. Me.)

Facebook, apparently, has 400 million users, half of which log in every single day. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t think is true. Today I ran across a reasonably authoritative article that quoted a figure of 160 million logging in every day. But hey, what’s 40 million users per day between friends?

I’ve also made a big point of my belief that no brand, business or organisation is yet to make a significant commercial return on their investment in social media. This has got me into a lot of trouble – but I stick by it – every time I scratch the surface, the same old names crop up – Starbucks, BestBuy, Amazon, Dell, Coke, Ford. I gave myself into the gentle embrace of that most Googlicious of search engines and tried variations along the lines of ‘big brands social media’ and ‘brands social media success’. I know this isn’t scientific, but I couldn’t find any list of branded social media successes more recent than July/August last year. Not terribly reassuring, is it?

Mashable.com – useful blog, but hideously heavy going – published a list of Top 10 Twitter trends for last week. Tell, just who in the hell is Justin Bieber? I’m guessing here, but I’d imagine he’s got the same level of social and cultural significance as The Jonas Brothers, Tiger Woods, Super Junior, Lil Wayne and American Idol. I don’t think anyone’s in danger of drowning in this particular knowledge pool.

And, finally, I had a quick skim round the various Twitter feeds belonging to some of the bigger brands, just to reassure myself that the ‘Big Conversation’ hadn’t somehow become more valid and meaningful over the weekend. It hadn’t. Here’s where we’re at with corporate tweeting: “Woo-hoo! Just launched! check out the brand new http://www.starbucks.com/” (It’s the least I could do – give them a bit of a plug. Apparently, the fact that Mr Bux has got some social media icons on the home page, that’s enough to make the average punter believe they’re soc-med savvy. All smoke and mirrors.)

(B*gger – there’s a link in my copy.)

Anyway – conclusion for the day? Social media is obfuscation, flim-flam and chiffon gauze. (Sort of.) It still does not represent a route to market. An ROI cannot be extrapolated from social media. All business is about sales, and the value that those sales deliver to the brand, business or organisation – social media do not sell, nor can the effects that they may have on an audience be defined or evaluated. At best, social media raises awareness – but not of overtly branded messages because if you break the unwritten rules of the feral community, its members run back into the shadows, yelping abuse.

By all means – experiment. But don’t waste too much time, resource or money on it.

Social Media – Good, Bad and Ugly

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Very brief post – just to keep everyone thinking. So Twitter right, it’s all about stuff and conversations and motivation and – sometimes – some primeval horsesh*t from those who should know better – check this out (and no, I don’t care that it’s out of context, it’s frightening nonsense from a grown – well – human – I presume):

“More PR hip shooting I see.

 The empirical research show us that it is about commonly held and and understood values.

 I thought that was what Bruno Amaral showed at Bled.

His work is not based on counting fairies on a pin head it accesses tens of thousands of discourse items analyses them and identifies relationships.

It can be about ‘me’ but unless me is part of ‘me and me look alikes’ it will fail.”

This is a comment on a post found here – it’s not about Twitter, mind, per se, it’s about scial media. It’s a shocker. Enjoy.

Anyway, Twitter. Here’s a couple of things.

First, here’s the Williams Formula 1 twitter feed from the daughter of the team principal (Sir Frank), which has been posting interesting updates on pre-season testing over the last week. If you’re an F1 fan ( and I am, I am), you can dip in and out of this for news and views, without compromising your integrity and without – I have to say – a single brand mention. Works for me. Other teams are doing it as well.

And this is how Twitter – if it does have any use – actually serves a purpose. Distributing ‘what are you doing now’ posts for those who have an interest. When are the social media gurus going to realise that this is not an answer to the marketing ill – it’s merely another tool in the marketing toolbox and (if I can mix a metaphor) in the toolbox it is at best a signpost. Not a megaphone. (Yes, of course I have a megaphone in my toolbox. Don’t you?)

It doesn’t sell product, it doesn’t change opinion, except on an oily tanker sort of basis. (That’s an opinion turning circle of several hundred miles.)

To back this up, I present this. This is Advertising Age ‘Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands” survey from last week. Have a look and shudder with the realisation that it’s all – without exception – stuff that people have learnt about elsewhere.

Don’t know about you, but if I was a marketer, or a comms professional – oh! I am. If it was me, unless I had unlimited budget, Twiiter is the last place I’d be allocating time, resource or cash.

What some of F1 is doing is good. What overzealous, over-funded and overpaid marketers are trying to do is bad. The reality of Twitter is ugly.

Go figure.

Social Media – Who Will Rid Me Of These Troublesome Twits?

Posted on by in Social Media and tagged , , , , , , .

It’s genuinely insidious. Barely a day goes by without a further example of a misguided attempt to bend Twitter to a purpose for which it is clearly unsuited. In fact it isn’t actually suited to anything except self-promotion by a few deluded individuals – sorry, influential socmed evangelistas – now I come to think about it. What is it about Twitter that makes people think it’s some kind of digital messiah? I think it’s possessed of some sort of electronic voodoo and is turning otherwise sane people into the living braindead. It seems to be well suited to people living in the ‘Bay Area’ (wherever the hell that is, but it sounds deeply troubling) who appear to have an all-encompassing desire to tell people about their tall, decaff, skinny, soya lattes and the new to-die-for herbal muffin at Pratt’s Deli, but other than that, it’s pointless mojambo. Oh yes it is.

Anyway, there’s a few recent examples which I will list here, in the hope that, by listing them, I can break some small part of the Twittery spell. If just one Twitterator reads it, stands back, and says (a eureka moment): “I see it all now! What a fool I’ve been! It’s crap!” (oh yes it is), Then I will feel justified. So:

Why did the BBC feel the need to broadcast live coverage of the Chilcott enquiry on the telly, and split the screen to feature live tweets from the self-same enquiry? This is so wrong on so many different levels – not least of which is I’m watching it on TV, I really don’t need someone giving me 140 character commentary on what I’m watching. Especially when that commentary was along the lines of ‘Tony Blair is looking visibly shaky’. I know, you f*ckwits, I can SEE it.

Twitter from space – big noise about how the astronauts on whatever cosmic caravan is currently spinning happily along the Earth orbital are tweeting about their tasks. Well, they clearly aren’t fulfilling one of Twitter’s major ‘selling points’ (what are you doing now) because a) there’s little or no mobile device network coverage in space and b) even the iPhone is difficult to manipulate when you’re wearing a spacesuit.

Olympic Twitter – apparently (here’s a random piece from a Google search I did) there are athletes at the Winter Olympics twittering. For those people with such a small amount of life that they’re following competitors in a winter sports event. And again, it’s not really of much real use – is it – because it’s not about what they are doing now. No downhill skier is going to be tweeting his experiences as he hurtles down a mountainside, barely in control, at 90-odd miles per hour.

So, there you have it. Three examples of totally superfluous Twitter use. It is the answer to the question that no-one asked. It is a tool for the horrifically self-important and the sadly less than self-worthy. It is shallow and superficial. Unfortunately, even athletes, TV producers and astronauts have ego and validity issues – and Twitter just feeds off them.

That’s why it’s called a Twitter ‘feed’. It’s like a tapeworm of the soul.

Ew.

Social Media – PR ‘Students’ And Twitter

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

You couldn’t make it up. This is another one of those jaw-dropping, what-the-f*ck moments. A moment when – for someone who’s spent the best part of two decades in the corporate communications business – I actually begin to question why I’m here and why the industry exists.

Here is a link to a post on the Teaching PR blog (May 2009), from Grady College, University of Georgia. I can only presume that this is a seat of learning with the same level of gravitas and respect that is accorded to Keele here in the UK.

It provides some hints and tips to PR students on ‘what not to tweet’. I’m not going to paraphrase it here. Trust me, you need to read it in all its truly frightening originality.

Without beating about the bush, the hints about ‘what not to tweet’ are not bad. Basic, but good guidelines for those embarking on a Twitter feed. But they’re all about image and communication – things that, arguably, a student of PR should have a natural feel for.

Personally, if I came across a potential communications practitioner making any of these mistakes, I would advise them that perhaps they have made the wrong career choice and that they should f*ck off and trouble some other industry with their ridiculous and naïve viewpoints and attitudes. (Hey – call me harsh.)

On top of that, if Grady College feel the need to give these hints and tips to their students, then they have wholly failed to engender any sort of PR sense into them – thus, arguably, their course should be shut down.

It’s this sort of misunderstanding, naivety and ill-informed behaviour that will provide the comms industry with the next generation of PR lovelies – all blonde hair and parties – that will perpetuate the crass mythology of PR as a business of fluff and spin and will continue to deny the industry its seat at the top table.

My faithful blog snorkellers will know my feelings on social media. This scary nonsense does nothing to change my opinions, or give me any faith in the future of our profession. I’ll leave you with the following:

“Earlier this semester, @BarbaraNixon tweeted a wise suggestion to her students: go to the Web and look at your last page of tweets. Is that really how you want to represent yourself to the world?

If not, it’s time to rethink your twitter strategy.”

No, it’s time to rethink your life.

Social Media – Vodafone Twit Highlights Need For Corporate Social Media Control

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, corporate reputation, Corporate Reputation Management, Crisis Management, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – corporate use of social media is a dangerous thing, and if you are going to dip your toe, then you need a frankly medieval ‘corporate use of social media’ policy in place to ensure the wingnuts do not scupper your dinghy.

As happened earlier this month over at Vodafone, a rather large purveyor of telecommunications services to the global community. Vodafone’s on Twitter, d’you see, and although it’s only managed to garner some 9.5k followers with its 5k-odd tweets, it’s pursuing its strategy with verve.

Suddenly, last week, a tweet was tweeted suggesting that – avert your eyes, those of a sensitive disposition – “@VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty homo's (sic) and is going after beaver”. Well. Here’s commentary from www.pocketlint.com, suggesting that Voodoofone’s Twitter account is internally compromised.

Of course, it wasn’t, and – whether you choose to believe it or not, you have to give credit to Mojambofone’s crisis management people – pocketlint posted this yesterday, recounting Jujufone’s official explanation. For those of my blog snorkellers what is hard of de clickery, the explanation is pretty much ‘a big boy did it and ran away’. Only in this case, they appear to have found the big boy, and I can only imagine that he (or she, even) is in a small room somewhere, tied to a chair, while some HR lovelies get all 16th century on his ass.

 Moral of the story? There need to be rules. Perhaps Blackmagicfone has a ‘corporate use of social media’ policy, but it sure as hell ain’t working. As I’ve postulated before, there’s always a proportion of employees – and of the general public, as it happens – terminally afflicted with Twitterette’s. This is the unholy urge to shout ‘bum!’ and ‘poo!’ in public places and at inappropriate times. Generally when confronted with a mass medium (like Twitter, or Facebook), the implications of which they do not fully understand. They do not understand that their ‘bum!’ has a potential audience of – ooooh – everyone. (Luckily, in this case, it was an immediate audience of 9.5k people – although you can still find the post, because it’s been re-tweeted and re-tweeted – whatever that means.)

Anyway, bottom line – a proper use of social media policy, with proper rules, is absolutely imperative. It won’t stop this sort of nonsense altogether, but it may make the f*ckwits think twice. I recommend really, really serious disciplinary action. Boilings in oil. Skinnings alive.

But really, the way to deal with it – folks – is NOT TO GET INVOLVED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

How many times do I have to say this?

Social Media – Not Just For The Nasty Things In Life….Oh…Hold On…

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, corporate reputation, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

This piece from the new York Times. Jonathan Schwartz, the ‘last chief executive’ of Sun Microsystems – sounds like he ought to be the subject of a movie starring Tom ‘Frighteningly Insane’ Cruise – announces his resignation via Twitter. (Here’s the feed in all its Twittery glory.)

(Actually, I’m fairly sure that he didn’t announce his resignation via Twitter – technically speaking – I’m fairly sure that he did it like everyone else would have, in a letter, delivered by hand to Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle and a man ‘not especially fond of Mr Schwartz’.)

For the hard of clicking, who want everything fed to them on a plate, he did it in the form of a haiku.

That being as it may, the NYT has some interesting stuff to say about Mr Schwartz. Apparently, he ‘has been fond of using the internet as a soapbox’ and was ‘the first CEO of a major company to put up his own blog’ and, indeed, ‘pushed the Securities and Exchange Commission to put blogs on equal footing with press releases and filings when it comes to disclosing critical business matters to investors’. Doesn’t say whether he succeeded.

Which all sounds great. Then you dig a little and find that between April 30 2008 and Feb 3 2010, he managed 36 tweets. Hardly prolific, although he has amassed over 10,000 followers. (Sycophants.) Oh – and his Twitter tag is OpenJonathan, which I’m not wholly convinced by. Luckily, a lot of his Tweets link to his blog.

And his blog’s a belter. This is the way it should be done. The NYT under-egged the cake in my opinion. It was started in June 2004 – here’s the first post, read it before Mr Ellison takes it down – it’s been updated regularly and, as far as I can see, mixes core product messaging (at least I think that’s what it is, I’m not really qualified in the techie arena) with splendid, apparently homespun philosophy. I particularly like the post about having lunch with Tony Blair – genius.

Anyway, this isn’t a hagiography. What it is is a suggestion that more c-suite execs should be trying to approach this tone of voice and this balance of content and should be talking to their audiences through the medium of digital (and I do mean the medium of digital, not the medium of social – I know they’re easily confused. For the record Twitter is social – and we can see here that it’s nowhere near as effective or compelling as the blog, which is digital).

As we know, in this post-economic apocalypse age, our audiences – especially employees, suppliers, business partners and customers – want messages of comfort and reassurance, and want to see companies walking the walk, not just talking the talk. What better way to achieve this than by showing a bit of personality – something that people can relate to.

Why do I suspect that Mr Ellison of Oracle probably disagrees.