Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
Why do Twitter users protect their updates?
July 24th, 2008
Private or public Twitter accounts - what’s best?
There have been a few posts on this subject lately, so here’s my take!
Private - do they have something to hide? Are they from the dark side, or are they just plain shy?
A massive part of the social media mix is open conversation , transparency and the ability for people unknown to you, to comment and have opinions on what you have to say.
So why when it comes to Twitter do a small minority of users insist on vetting you before allowing you to see their Tweets. It’s like they want to check you before they except you!
TWO HUGE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT PROTECT YOUR TWEETS AND HAVE A PUBLIC ACCOUNT…
1. Everybody in the whole wide world has the opportunity to see your Tweets.
2. Public tweets are indexed by Google
Let’s face it, the whole idea of Twitter is to promote conversation and sharing, make contacts and friends in 140 characters or less. Protecting your Tweets makes it a lot harder to do this, and it is not great for social media optimisation either!
I guess the only reason you would want to protect your Tweets are:
A, You want to talk aggressively about other Twitter users.
B, Don’t want your boss to see you slagging him/her off.
C, You Tweet about your stamp collection.
D, You are talking to a mistress via Twitter.
E, You think you are far too important and senior to be followed by mere mortals
I can recommend another way of keeping Tweets confidential - Group Tweet - which allows you and your gang to send messages via Twitter that are instantly broadcasted privately to only the team members.
Maybe Twitter should just go back to the drawing board and not give users the option to have protected Tweets!
One reason FOR a private account I have come across is in a similar post, click to view here.
A comment is left that says “Twitter in a way is the space where I can say anything, it’s my “free space” to complain about brands, work, anything. That’s why I’m private on Twitter.” - she has a point!
What do you guys do - public or private - let me know your thoughts?
Will PRs and journalists own natural search?
July 23rd, 2008
You might say, “who cares?”, but for me this is a refreshing new angle on the ‘who owns online PR?’ discussion that has been going on within the social media industry for a while. Of course I’m going to like suggestions that PRs might be in line to own SEO, but setting my vested interests aside, this line of thought helps explain why it is crucial that journalists and PRs understand the long-term trends that are happening in natural search.
Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker made his own rather crude observations on the subject on Monday, in his overly optimised article, “Online POKER marketing could spell the NAKED end of VIAGRA journalism as we LOHAN know it.” He doesn’t say anything new - online headlines have always been important for driving traffic and natural links, and the only difference is that journalists are waking up to the impact optimised copy can have on their authority and popularity rankings - but the article drives home the SEO control that journalists have at their fingertips, should they choose to use it intelligently.
Similarly, Leon Bailey Green has today contributed a post to the E-Consultancy blog entitled: “Is the role of the SEO dead and should PRs own natural search?“, where he argues “off-site optimisation, link building or link baiting, should actually be in the domain of PR professionals”. He concludes “so if a web developer can build a search engine friendly website, a content writer knows how to write search engine friendly copy and an online PR guru can get blogs/websites/forums to link to that content, where does that leave an SEO?”
Regardless of who might own SEO in the future, or whether anyone will, it’s becoming more and more important for PRs and journalists to have a basic understanding of how relevancy, authority and quality of content will increasingly be the metrics used by search engines to rank sites. In addition, social networks are in some cases beginning to displace search, by creating trusted networks of relevant recommendations - which will make the role that PR plays even more important.
The tactics of PR and journalism don’t necessarily need to change, but individuals working in these sectors will have to be very good at what they do.
Natural search can appear very scientific, and I personally am on a mission to understand the techniques as well as I can…but ultimately, PR as an industry needs to focus on the quality of its output. There’s no place for fakers!
Nike judged on 10 year-old brand name
July 18th, 2008
Those of you reading this in the UK will know that knives are hot news in the British media at the moment, due to a spate of stabbings mainly focused in the London area. It’s an unfortunate and horrible youth culture issue which has reached the highest level of Government and is covered daily by all the major news outlets.
So, on reading that Nike has had to withdraw its shoe range oddly titled ‘Air Stab’ i was a little surprised to say the least. Not that the range had been withdrawn, but that it existed in the first place. Surely no brand could be that callous or stupid to actually try and benefit from this horrible situation? Well no, of course not, but the headlines may have already done the damage.
On further investigation, according to the BBC’s article, it turns out that the shoe was first launched in 1988 as a STABility running shoe, which led to the name: Air Stab. The range was then relaunched two years ago, and Nike made the decision to remove the range from its London store in the light of recent issues. Some might argue they should have removed it earlier, but it’s not quite the story that one might first assume.
However, and unfortunately for Nike, the story doesn’t end there. Nike also has a shoe range called Pocketknife, and the discussion around whether this should be removed as well is gaining pace, check Brand Republic’s forum as an example.
From my perspective i certainly don’t think the name of a sports shoe will affect crime, but it could be argued that the names are ill-advised. I expect Nike’s UK PR team have been busy over the last few days.
Chris Littmann’s post on the Sporting Blog tells the other side of the story.
Virtual sex too Lively for brands?
July 17th, 2008
I was watching a rerun of the Mighty Boosh a couple of nights back and one bit clicked in a new way. It’s the moment when the Crack Fox plays Vince some Foxy Porn – “for the fuzzy tingle times” - instead of his life story.
I’d been back on Google Lively Beta that day for another underwhelming virtual experience and had trawled through the list of user rooms, a lot of them offering Foxy Porn (er – or similar). The Boosh gag was laced with that uncomfortable truth of the ubiquity and motive power of sex in all media.
Since then Google has responded to the harrumphing about porn rooms on Lively but I wonder how many brands will risk visibility in virtual spaces where an accidental click can associate them with, let’s say, humping foxes.
Meantime, has anyone else tried out Lively and has positive, smiley results? I love the virtual experience when it pings but I’ve rarely found it on the community worlds so far. I’m too old for Habbo and WeeWorld (even with its own new-ish virtual world). They keep growing and BarbieWorld now has 10 million registered users, so maybe it’s the more controlled, youth spaces that will win the brands’ respect and trust.
The 5 stages of Twitter from a PR perspective
July 16th, 2008
I began experimenting with Twitter at the start of the year, and in that short space of time have observed a dramatic change in usage patterns of the micro-blogging tool.
From a communications perspective, this can be broken down into different stages of adoption, which I feel offers valuable lessons in how user behaviour is evolving as a whole across social networks. Only today, within my own network of followers/followees, I felt we might be on the cusp of a new adopter stage, and so I thought it might be a useful exercise to analyse this in my own words, to see what lessons can be learnt.
- Discovery - at the start of the year (and admittedly the year beforehand), Twitter was very much in early adopter stage. The tech-savvy were the first to try it and decide whether or not it was a useful communications tool. This stage was characterised by a sense of ‘elite’ ownership i.e. those using it felt inspired by the fact that they were living at the cutting-edge of social media.
- Experimentation - Twitter asks the question : ‘What are you doing?’. Following early-adopter phase, users experiment with how they can respond to this question in an interesting way, increasingly pushing the boundaries of usage. Functionality moves from basic status updates to more engaging conversation.
- Self-promotion - as Twitter networks grow, users realise the profile-raising potential of the communications tool. Until very recently, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people using Twitter for PR/self-promotion purposes. A growing trend has been to use the tool as a platform for seeding blog posts, product launches etc.
- Collaboration -we’ve been heading towards this for the past month or so, but today I saw Twitter come alive as a truly collaborative tool. Social media encourages openness and honesty, and within networks Twitter can be a great place to ask advice and receive timely, expert feedback. It’s a great virtual tool for the sharing of ideas, and bouncing around of creativity.
- Criticising - it’s bound to happen. Just as Twitter reaches its usage peak, people will start to want more than the tool is technically capable of delivering. Users will start asking “what’s next?”.
Which leaves us with ‘Migration’. I think Twitter has a bit more life left in it yet though!