Posts Tagged twitter
Walk the talk
Posted by John Weet in Social media on May 25, 2010
I would have thought that it was a pre-requisite for a company that positions themselves as social media experts that they should walk the talk. I received a “Hi, John Weet. xxxxx is now following your tweets on twitter” email this morning.
I clicked through to their twitter account and saw nothing to tell me who they were. It was a company account and there was no clue in the name. The profile wasn’t filled in and the last tweet was made via facebook 7 weeks previously. I also scanned down at the tweets they had made to see if they were saying anything that I wanted to listen to. There wasn’t much of value to me.
Normally I would have exited at this stag but I was intrigued. They have 4,839 followers so a lot of people are following them. They had no easy link on their profile so I had to type in the link that appeared on their background.
The link took me straight to their blog, the latest blog entry was dated 8months previously. None of the blog entries were categorised or tagged.
In the head of their home page they have a graphic that says.
“does your brand need a voice online? What is a social network? I want to start a blog? Are you looking for a way to connect with your consumers in this digitally connected world? We can help”
Looking at the “About” page you can see that they are positioning themselves as an online communications agency.
So let’s say that i stumble upon their web presence and decide that I want this company who have a relatively inactive twitter account, and who have a very inactive blog to help me out with social media. Ideally I would like to meet up with them for a chat so let’s go to their contact page and see where they are based. Oh… all I get is an email address. I have no clue where they are.
So what lessons can we learn from this. Some lessons will apply to all and others to those trying to set themselves up as social media experts.
1) Write a profile on your twitter page. If people don’t know who you are and where you are coming from why would they follow you (I could be wrong on this one as the company in question has almost ten times the followers I do)
2) If you want people to go to your space on the web once they have been to your twitter page, then make it easy for them. Put your blog URL in your profile and not just on your background.
3) If you have a blog and you are offering your services to others to help set theirs up then keep yours current
4) If you are offering your services to people then make sure they know where you are based. I know it’s not essential in our modern connected world but some people do like face-to-face meetings and they look for local companies.
Please comment if you think there are any more lessons to be learned.
When will PR professionals get up to speed on social media?
Posted by John Weet 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
Easy Jet, Getting it right on Twitter
Posted by John Weet 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.
Is Twitter a numbers game?
Posted by John Weet 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.