Archive for category Social media
Twitter and why do people follow
Posted by johnweet in Social media on November 6, 2009
Whenever I get a twitter follow notification I always go and look at the persons profile to a) understand why they would want to follow me and b) to see if they are worth following. I got a notification telling me that Grant Shapps was following me.
“Grant who” I thought and clicked through to his profile
Grant Shapps is a politician and his constituency is round to the North of London whereas I am based right down on the South coast in Ringwood, 105 miles away. I cannot possibly believe that I have anything to say that Grant may find interesting and I do not think I have any interest in what he might want to say.
I do wonder whether he is just playing the numbers game rather than being really targeted and taking the time to look for people that it may be worthwhile connecting with.
When will PR professionals get up to speed on social media?
Posted by johnweet in Public Relations, Social media on July 25, 2009
I was on a domestic flight today and used the time to catch up on some reading. I was reading a CIPR profile magazine from earlier this year in which they were reporting on the CIPR marketing communications seminar. A show of hands revealed that less than 20 percent of the people there were up to speed digitally. I’m not surprised but I am also a little shocked.
I am shocked that more PR professionals are not getting up to speed. I admit that I am a little scared that I will get left behind in this revolution and that I won’t be able to offer a full range of services to my clients when they ask for it, or even worse that they won’t ask me they will just go somewhere else. If I am scared then why aren’t more people?
Here in the Wessex region of the UK the local CIPR group are trying to do our bit. We arranged a social media fast facts workshop this week. The event was based on Pecha Kucha where each presenter gets 20 slides to present his topic, but here was the challenge, each slide changed automatically after 20 seconds, whether you had finished or not. This really did make for a fast paced and fun event.
We had six speakers who were, in order of appearance:-
Tom Chapman of Headstream presenting a case study on Samsung football.
Heather Yaxley of Greenbanana presenting blogging.
Yours truly presenting twitter
Darren Lilleker of Bournemouth University presenting how politicians are using social media
Dan Kerins of the Southampton daily echo on how they are engaging with their publics through social media
and finally Luke Williams of social tech solutions on Evaluation, Metrics and ROI of social media.
The event was hosted by Five by Five digital in Southampton and was well attended by 33 people. But, with a total CIPR membership in our region of 300 this is still only 10 per cent. If the 20 percent figure from earlier on is correct and if we were to assume that all people who attended were new to the subject then that still leaves 70 percent of our membership who may not be engaged. I know the maths is simplistic and relies on assumptions but it is still a large number that are not engaged in social media. What are thy going to do if a client or boss asks them about it?
If they want to offer a full integrated campaign then they will soon have to show that they have at least considered social media. they may consider that some of this stuff is a flash in the pan and will have a limited life but what they do need to remember, as Luke Williams told our group on Wednesday is, that the tools may fade and die but the concept will remain. The public are used to instant communications and it is unlikely they will ever settle for anything less. PR professionals will need to get up to speed at some point or risk losing clients and / or a job. This may sound like scaremongering but I believe it to be a fact.
All slides from the event are available here
Just started getting spam comments on my blog…
Posted by johnweet in Social media on May 30, 2009
I’ve had a blog for a while now but have only just started getting spammed. Why is that? Does this mean that my blog is more visible now so should I be pleased? Or is there another reason for it? How do these people choose a blog to target? Is there any way I can block this from happening other than highlighting them as spam when I get them.
Social Media marketing can get you into a mess…..
Posted by johnweet in Public Relations, Social media on May 27, 2009
…. that PR has to dig you out of.
I was having a conversation with Heather Yaxley last night about companies using Social media. We were saying about how there are many companies out there who are purporting to be experts in Social media and who are offering to put together marketing plans that use these new tools for their clients. We were agreeing that for some companies this could prove to be very dangerous territory to enter.
Heather suggested that it is all too easy for marketeers to get their clients into a mess on social media and then they need PR professionals to dig themselves out of it.
Interesting then that I saw a tweet from Sam Shepherd at the Bournemouth daily Echo this morning pointing me to a URL on the Guardian web site about Neals Yard Remedies. Not strictly social media, but relevant to our discussions all the same. The whole point of the page was that people could ask questions of Neals Yard about their ethics and Neals Yard would then respond.
The result, hundreds of tricky questions and no response from Neals Yard, despite being chased by the page moderator who posted as follows:-
“have just had a chat with NYR.
Unfortunately, despite previous assurances that they would be participating in this blog post, I’ve now been told they ‘will not be taking part in the debate’.
So yes, as several people have pointed out, this has become something of ‘You Ask’, rather than a ‘You Ask, They Answer’. I’m still hoping NYR will reconsider.”
Some poor PR person has a lot of work on his hands to restore any sort of credibility to their name now. Neals Yard may just dismiss it and say “it’s only one web site it doesn’t matter” but the power of social media is that this story is now being tweeted and re tweeted and it will grow I am sure.
Easy Jet, Getting it right on Twitter
Posted by johnweet in Social media on May 8, 2009
I flew with Easy Jet for the first time a few weeks ago. I only had hand luggage so thought I would turn up and check in at one of those handy self check in machines that all the other airlines (the ones I tend to use anyway) have. I arrived about an hour before my flight to Basel only to find no self check in machines and a horrendous queue. Feeling quite grumpy I sent the following tweet while in the line.
We had a little bit of email correspondence and I felt that I had aired my grievances and that I had been listened to.
I wouldn’t say I’m a convert to Easy Jet. I’m not a big fan of the scrum that takes place at boarding and also I am far closer to Southampton and Heathrow, so these are certainly my airports of choice. However what I will say is that I will not go to great lengths to avoid them as I have done before.
The Curse of the RSS feed
Posted by johnweet in Social media on April 17, 2009
RSS feeds are fantastic. There are so many people out there that have interesting things to say and who I can learn from. I have set up my reader (I use Google reader because I find it easy and I can access it from one of many PC’s that I use as well as from my phone) to bring in feeds from blogs, twitter searches, google searches and things that my “friends” have Dugg. I use the reader to gather information from my clients, from my clients markets, from the social media and PR world as well as for things that amuse and entertain me.
The problem is one of overload. I have been a little busy of late and have also been travelling on business. In all I have probably not made a conscious effort to read my feeds for a week or more. Now I have 357 items to look at. I need to make a choice now. Do I just go through and mark all as read or do I skim read them, star those that I want to go back to and mark the rest as read. This could take two or three hours.
Information, both a curse and a blessing.
Playing catch up on social media
Posted by johnweet in Social media on March 30, 2009
I am playing catch up on social media. Having come into PR later in life than many (after a succesful career in engineering) I have spent the last seven years trying to get to grips with traditional PR tools and techniques let alone trying to get up to speed on social media.
I did begin to see the writing on the wall though several years ago and realised that if I am to survive in this industry I need to get engaged. I created an entry on Face book, much to the dismay of my kids. I signed up for a FlickR account and dabbled with a blog, although this was really just a means for me to rant and get things off my chest. I joined LinkedIn and also signed up for Plaxo. But that was it. I couldn’t find the time to make sense of them and to understand what they could do for me and what they could do for my clients.
I have found the time now and I understand them better, I am becoming an evangelist and spout about social media to anyone who will listen, but I do recognise that I am not an early adopter, I know I am behind the curve. As Heather Yaxley points out in her Greenbanana blog some PR people have been around this arena for years. I haven’t, I am a new boy and am certainly a long way from being an expert, but then again, who could be an expert in this field when it is constantly changing and when there is so much more out there to learn.
As an example, I came across YouAre the other day, I haven’t found the time to review it fully yet but it looks like another Micro Blogging site like Twitter, and more besides. From what I can see this started up last year and has yet to hit the mainstream (I stand to be corrected on this). As a PR professional I do owe it to myself to keep on top of sites like this, and all the others that get lumped together under the social media umbrella. If I don’t keep current then in these changing times I will get left behind.
Even though I am playing catch up I will still act as an evangelist. I am enthusiastic about the subject and I hope that my enthusiasm will rub off on my peers because what I do recognise is that, even though I am behind the curve there are many more PR professionals behind me. I will encourage them at every opportunity to get engaged and if in the process I can share what I am learning, and learn from them also, then this will in the end benefit us all.
Is Twitter a numbers game?
Posted by johnweet in Social media on March 2, 2009
I have seen other blog posts on a similar vein to this one but I don’t care. I’m going to talk about it because it intrigues me.
Whenever I get an email saying that somebody is following me I go and look at their profile.
I also use Social Too to give me, on a daily basis, a list of people who have begun to follow me or stopped following me (a very useful tool). Again, when i see that somebody has started following me I go and look at their profile.
The reason I look at profiles is to a) ask myself what it is that I have said that makes this person want to follow me and b) to consider whether they are worth following back.
I fail to understand sometimes why some people who decide to follow me want to. I had one the other week who was a beer drinking Newcastle united supporter who works as a labourer. I looked through her tweets and could not see any shared interests at all. Why on earth would she want to follow me unless she is working a numbers game, trying to build up her followers by following more. What is the point in that?
I also sometimes get nothing from the profile that makes me want to follow them. I had one the other day that said his name was ploton and he was from the planet zog, or some such similar inanity. This gives me nothing at all on which to base a judgement as to why I woudl want to follow them.
Another useful tool for determining people to follow, people that can add value, is Mr Tweet. Mr Tweet looks at the subjects you tend to Twitter on and then suggests others that you may like to follow. One of my first steps is to look at the number of tweets these people make a day. Too many and I don’t bother. I don’t want them clogging things up so that I miss something I really do want to see.
I had one the other day that against my better judgement, based on the number of tweets per day, I did decide to follow him. he was obviously reading the telegraph on line yesterday because he tweeted about every single story he read. If I want to read the telegraph I will read the telegraph I don’t need somebody to give me a link to each individual story. Again, is this also a numbers game. Seeing if you can get in the record books for the greatest number of tweets per day.
I saw an interesting blog the other day where somebody (and forgive me that i can’t remember who) introduced me to the 90:10 rule where 90% of your tweets should add value and the remaining 10% can be for other stuff. A good rule I think.
So for me its not a numbers game. I don’t have hundreds of followers and I don’t follow hundreds of people. The people I do follow I can either learn from or they provide me with amusement. For those that follow me I hope I can add something to the discussion.
Social Media ROI
Posted by johnweet in Social media on February 28, 2009
Saw an interesting blog post from Axel Schultze today on Social Media ROI. ROI is of course an important conversation to have when working for an agency or as a consultant. How else, particularly in these difficult times can you prove your worth.
The formula that Axel comes up with is
Contribution Margin in currency generated from externally referred customers over cost in currency for human interaction and other cost to manage and engage in the ecosystem= Social Media ROI.
Now I started thinking about this. For some businesses this may work. I can see for instance how it might work for a client in a B2C environment where people can purchase on-line. You can see where people are referred from and input the amount of any resulting order into the equation.
But what about when you are working in a B2B environment and where you may also sell through distributors. Your goal with social media may be to raise awareness or to establish yourself as experts in the field. How do you measure contribution margin then?
I don’t think there is a single answer. It depends on the goals of your social media strategy and the type of business you are in.
For the full blog post go to socialmediatoday.com
Come on in – the water’s fine
Posted by johnweet in Social media on February 25, 2009
Social Media and User Generated Content (UGC) are big things. They are becoming more and more important to the marketing communications industry and I worried that if I didn’t get involved I would find myself left behind.
I hadn’t really thought about it before but I was already active in the social media scene. I have had an account on Facebook for several years but never really used it. I also registered with LinkedIn many years ago, but only ever got as far as setting up some basic profile information. I also have an account with FlickR and have a personal blog.
After enrolling on a short course on Social Media, presented by Luke Williams of socialtech I decided to get more involved and what better way than jumping in with both feet.
What I am going to do is briefly describe what I did, I’m not saying this is the only way to approach it, or that it’s the best way. It’s just the way that I did it.
I completed my profile and linked up with many of the people in my address book. I then searched for groups that i felt were relevant to me. I have dabbled a little bit in discussions and know that I need to get involved more. That’s my next step.
Twitter.
I signed up for an account then started searching for people that (a) I could learn more about social media from (b) Any of the employees in my clients organisation and (c) Celebs and other people who may provide some light entertainment along the way.
There are a number of tools that are helpful when searching for people, I used Twilerts and identified many people that I thought were worth following. I then looked at the people that were following the people that I found and then started following some of them too. I didn’t always get it right. some of the people I followed didn’t have anything to say that I wanted to listen to so I swiftly unfollowed.
When i started on Twitter I also felt pressured into posting continually so I posted anything. I’ve calmed down now and post when I think I’ve got something worthwhile to say, as well as sometimes just to get things off my chest.
My next step was to follow links from twitter posts taking me through to blogs.
Blogs and RSS feeds
I subscribed to many different blogs initially. blogs on social media as well as industry blogs. The amount of information that I had available to me now was huge and it has taken a long while to wade through it all.
I know that I am no expert yet, and when I say that, i am not saying it as a true expert who is dismissing the title as Lisa Hoffman may do. I am saying it because I do understand that I am still on a learning curve, but then I am not alone. everybody involved in Social media is constantly learning as the tools evolve, as new widgets, gadgets and sites are developed.
The same rules as for traditional PR still apply though. Understand your audience, understand the message you want to get across and then decide what media to use to get that message across. If social media is appropriate then you need to try it. If you don’t it is only a matter of time before your competitors do.