Archive for the ‘Trends and research’ Category
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!
The timeline makes a timley come back!
July 7th, 2008
Timelines have been around for years but it seems just recently they have made a bit of a timely comeback, with a number of new timeline apps doing the start-up rounds. From a PR perspective, they can be a great way of telling a company story in a format that can be shared socially.
There used to be a time when to create a timeline you had to go through the rigmarole of setting-up Excel to crunch the numbers.
Here is a list of some of the better timeline applications out there:
Lifehaps - Simple to use drag and drop life timeline.
timetoast - Easy on the eye timeline that can be edited in minutes.
xtimeline - Make your timeline then add it to a group. E.g if your timeline was about Sony mobile phones then you could add it to the Mobile phones group.
viygo - Simple looking timeline with some excellent features, including your own Twitter timeline. Input your username and get a timeline of all your Tweets.
caplez - This has to be the best looking timeline interface, and it gives you the ability to add multi-media content to your timelines.
Dipity -Is another good addition with a great homepage that has its timelines in categories making them easy to search.
If the above is all a bit easy and you want to create a timeline the old skool way, you can always do it in Excel. Click here to find out how to do it.
What’s wrong with digital agency comment?
July 1st, 2008
“Client side comment only please…no agency comment needed at this stage…desperate for brand-side comment – can you help?”
In recent weeks we’ve spotted a growing trend in such requests from digital trade journalists, either directly or through feature tracking services that we subscribe to. It seems journalists are increasingly less interested in digital agency comment, and more and more focused on brand-side opinion only.
As an ex-journalist for New Media Age, I can appreciate the need for big brand comment, but what I don’t understand is why those at the coalface, the specialists in digital marketing, creative and design, are being sidelined?
I thought a story always had two sides?
Reading between the lines, the problem is being compounded by an absence of readily available client-side comment on digital matters. From my experience this is either down to a brand not prioritising a digital trade comment opportunity, or acknowledging that the subject matter might be out of their depth.
At Liberate Media we’re always willing to do a journalist a favour and help out with these sorts of requests, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating to have to battle to offer the agency side of the story. If you want to talk to a brand about their digital investment, why not also speak to the agency in charge of their digital strategy?
I’d be really interested to hear what features writers/editors think about this. Is it a growing trend, or merely coincidence?
Don’t be a social media optimisation (smo) H.E.R.M.I.T
June 30th, 2008
Social Media Optimisation (SMO), not to be confused with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been around since 2006. A gent called Rohit Bhargava was credited with inventing the term SMO according to Wikipedia. View his orginal blog post here.
If you want to learn more about Social Media Optimisation, I can recommend The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Optimization.
Here are some other relevant posts I have read on the subject:
Ultimate Social Media Optimisation List
SMO (Social Media Optimisation) and Social Media Marketing - Case Studies in Viral Marketing
New Rules for Social Media Optimization
Just to recap the smo is an optimised site that can be more easily linked to and bookmarked, is highly visabile in social media searches, and has added and extra user generated content like embeddable videos, photos and podcasts ect.
Most of the blogs we follow in the technology field have got their Social Media Optimistation down to a fine art, resulting in small blogs being catapulted into massive, mainstream, must-have RSS feed subscription and go-to sites. Getting your SMO strategy right can launch you into mainstream media and beyond!
So remember if you don’t want to be a social media optimisation H.E.R.M.I.T you should:
H: Help your content travel
E: Encourage the mash-up
R: Reward inbound links
M: Make tagging and bookmarking easy
I: Increase your linkability
T: Think about great content
This diagram below sums up smo very well:
Top Followed Tech Twitters And Their Tag Clouds
June 20th, 2008
Today I have been delving into the top followed Twitters Twitter statistics to find out what they talk about and the best way to visually do this is via a tag cloud.
First off, in no particular order we have Robert Scoble or the Scobleizer as he likes to be called, his Twitter bio says “Bio Tech geek blogger”
Click on the tag cloud to see the full size preview:
Next up we have Guy Kawasaki his Twitter bio reads “ Alltop, Garage, and Truemors”
Chris Brogan is next, his Twitter bio reads” Social media type, but love the emerging enterprise tech space too”
Jeremiah Owyang Senior Analyst at Forrester Research: Social Computing.
Loic Le Meur serial entrepreneur & blogger
What do these tag clouds tell us:
After a quick review of the tag clouds some of the most popular words seem to be Twitter, Google, Facebook, and Friend Feed. Other prominent words were related to their own products e.g. Seesmic for Loic Le Meur. There was also a lot of @ loving between each other!
If you want to find out about other Twitter tag clouds go to Twitter Stats