Posts Tagged ‘twitter’
Tweet limit impacts Social CRM effectiveness - just ask O2
February 1st, 2012
The development of Social CRM has been well documented over the last few years, and we have written a number of posts on the subject, sharing Liberate Media’s experiences of Social CRM campaigns.
However, a very real issue in the development of Social CRM, at least in terms of Twitter usage, was highlighted last week by O2 who exceeded their daily limit while attempting to respond to a breaking communications crisis. O2 asked Twitter for an extension on the amount of tweets it could send, (Twitter’s daily limit is 250 direct messages a day, and 1,000 tweets) but this was refused.
O2′s PR and social media campaigns manager, James Paterson, confirmed the issue at last week’s 1-2-1 Digital Strategy Summit, run by Marketing Week. In fact, he confirmed that O2 actually accrued the same amount of ‘mentions’ in one day as it does in a normal week.
If you are not familiar with the issue, O2 was attempting to respond to the news that user’s mobile phone numbers were being leaked to websites that they visited.
In the Marketing Week piece, Paterson said it was important that O2 did “not stay quietly in [its] shell” as news circulated about the data leaks and that the company employed a strategy immediately to respond to user questions and communicate that it was investigating the issue.
The mobile operator did utilise other tactics as part of its Social CRM response, i.e. preparing a “Q&A” blog post to explain the technical reasons behind the data leak and to apologise for the concern caused.
Paterson said: “We wanted to respond to as many people as possible with fair answers. In the past we may have just given a Q&A to the well-known media outlets, but our people understand that if you answer queries and communicate to people on social media straight away, problems tend to be resolved more quickly.”
However, although O2 followed a clear strategy for its response, it was hindered by Twitter’s account limit.
Twitter has commented on the limit issue: “Limits alleviate some of the strain on the behind-the-scenes part of Twitter, and reduce downtime and error pages. For the sake of reliability, we’ve placed some limits on account actions like following, API requests, direct messages, and updates.”
“The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as updates.”
These rules obviously reduce the effectiveness of Social CRM response mechanisms for large brands, although in fairness Twitter was not designed as a CRM channel, therefore it has no responsibility to look out for such problems.
However, as Twitter continually looks towards brands to bolster its revenue strategy, it’s likely that it will not only expand this function, but also charge for it, a charge that i’m sure the majority of brands would be willing to pay.
In this instance O2 responded to a breaking issue well, and tried to be open by answering as many of its customer tweets as possible, but this was quickly curtailed when Twitter would not allow any further tweets that day.
This issue, and the others that are sure to follow, further highlight a real flaw in many social CRM strategies, while also drawing attention to a revenue opportunity for Twitter. If Twitter is not already working on a paid response they are likely to be jumping on it rapidly in the near future.
January 25th, 2012
It’s been an interesting week for a couple of major brands that have found themselves in a rather sticky social media situation.
Late last week, McDonalds felt the full force of a misfiring campaign when its idea to use a promoted tweet campaign, supported by hashtags, to highlight real life stories from farmers that grow its food backfired in a big way. Oddly the process started well, when McDonalds used the hashtag #MeetThe Farmers, which was a great choice as it focused on the issue rather than promoting the brand.
Unfortunately, or perhaps as a result of an overzealous brand marketer, the hashtag was changed to #McDStories and within an hour it had been hijacked to talk about unpleasant stories from McDonald’s customers, and instead of charming stories from hard working farmers, McDonalds received a stream of less than desirable comments.
You can see some of the tweets in this story from the Daily Mail.
Then, this week, after a rather moving letter in the ‘consumer champions‘ section of the Guardian (which you can see in full below), LA Fitness was forced to back down on a contract dispute with a customer. But it didn’t make it easy on itself.
In a nutshell, the story goes like this: LA Fitness had previous refused to allow a pregnant woman and her husband out of a 24 month contract after he recently lost his job, and they had moved away from the gym. She writes a letter to the Guardian’s consumer champions section, they contact LA Fitness with no favourable outcome, the story goes online, and The Twitter nation does the rest.
We all know that customer contract rules can be ridiculous, but a little bit of common sense from LA Fitness would have gone a long way to averting the communications disaster that it now finds itself in. It’s not as though it didn’t have a warning or two, and even if the customer’s tale of difficulty didn’t stir a social conscience, the contact from a broadsheet newspaper certainly should have rung alarm bells. However it was a relentless torrent of Twitter abuse that dealt the killer blow, and although LA Fitness has now refunded the couple’s money, the damage is done, and the story is accessible online for all to see.
You can read the full overview on the Wall Blog, and the original letter to the Guardian below.
Although the McDonald’s case didn’t relate to a customer issue, both cases show a real lack of understanding of how social communications work, and what it means to be a brand online. In McDonalds’ case if they had stuck to the heart of the matter, and focused on sharing stories of farmers the campaign would have probably worked. In LA Fitness’ case, if we look beyond their lack of human empathy, the knowledge that this CRM failing had gone to a national paper should have resulted in an immediate crisis communications response, without letting it go that far.
That letter as featured in the Guardian ‘consumer champions‘ section:
“My husband and I have been loyal customers of gym chain LA Fitness for six years. I am seven months pregnant, we are moving 12 miles away from the gym and don’t drive. My husband has lost his job and we are now on benefits. We can barely feed our children right now and can’t afford the two-year contract.
“Despite us sending LA Fitness a letter proving my husband has been let go from his job, his employer didn’t use the word “redundant” in the letter, so LA Fitness will not accept it as a valid reason to terminate the contract. I have been told that being pregnant entitles me only to temporarily freeze my membership. Moving away does not apply, as we need to be 20 miles from the nearest gym to cancel. We just cannot pay.“
Google changes the rules and upsets Twitter, among others
January 12th, 2012
Earlier this week Google announced a number of changes, which apply to the U.S. only at this stage, and are designed to accelerate personal search, and move towards social search.
The three changes fall under the following categories:
First: Personal results, aimed at helping you to find more relevant to…well…you.
Second: Profiles in search, meaning you can more easily identify people you’re close to or want to follow.
Third: People and pages, which focuses on helping you to find profiles and Google+ pages related to memes or topics of interest.
The additions offer more meaningful ways to connect with people around you, straight from the search results.
This all sounds well and good, and personalising and or customising results to be more relevant can only be more positive, can’t it?
Many commentators such as the Guardian and BBC have picked up on the other side effect of these changes which is to make Google+ much more relevant. For example, when you search for information, particularly about individuals, results from the social network will be prominently displayed on the first page of results, assuming you are a member.
That makes Google+ a much more attractive social network, as users will see fewer results from outside it when they search for information.
As you might expect, Twitter has offered its opinion on the issue, as it has perhaps the most to lose. Twitter’s lead lawyer, Alex Macgillivray, called it a “bad day for the internet“, and suggested - as a former Google employee - that there would have been dissent internally “at search being warped this way“.
Twitter later made a formal statement: “For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results any time they wanted to find something on the internet.
“As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter, as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users.”
Others have also criticised the change, Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land commented: “Search engines are supposed to send you away to the best information, even if they don’t have their own in stock. Google has previously been excellent at providing links to the most suitable information.
“Today’s change is one of the few times where I’m thinking ‘What the hell are you doing, Google?’”
Getting to the heart of the matter, Google was always going to find a way to move its social network, which is so far behind the game, to the front. Its best strategy to achieve this is to link its social network more closely to its search engine, which is after all the most popular in the U.S and Europe. But is that fair?
Google’s decision to favour Google+ posts which would not rank highly by its normal criteria (defined by the number of “authoritative” pages on the web linking to it) could suggest that it is favouring its own product in order to grow it more quickly. That in turn could breach antitrust (or competition) laws.
Twitter and Facebook content does not generally appear in Google search results because neither site provides Google with unlimited access to their content.
Twitter formerly had an agreement in which Google paid for access to index its database directly, but Twitter chose not to renew the agreement, according to a statement placed on Google+ by an official Google account, which said it was “a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments” because “they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer“.
Although these changes are likely to head to Europe eventually, the Guardian piece suggests Google may have to think twice about introducing the changes over here because it has a greater share of search in European countries, meaning a ruling on it affecting the market is more likely, and also if the changes extend to results on Android phones, then it may face more urgent calls for an antitrust investigation.
This wouldn’t be the first time that there has been a call for Google to be investigated on such grounds, but if these changes do come to Europe as expected, we could be on the verge of a few interesting legal actions.
January 10th, 2012
Have you ever thought about which subjects attract the most tweets per second or TPS?
The newest sports TPS record holder is @TimTebow the quarterback who led the @Denver_Broncos (Amercian Football team) to a recent win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. His record stands at 9,420 tweets per second, recorded shortly after his team won the football match.
The all time leader currently stands at an incredible 25,088 tweets in one second. This is held by a Japanese show about sky-bound pirates, called Castle in the Sky, the Dec 9th screening of the new show holds the record for now!
Other notable tweets per second include Beyonce’s baby announcement at the MTV Video Music Awards, which earned her 8,868 tweets per second.
The best of the rest include:
- 2010 Japanese New Year celebration which topped out at 6,939 TPS
- The death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs brought 6,049 TPS.
- The death of Osama Bin Laden achieved 5,106 TPS.
- The 2011 earthquake that hit Japan in March achieved 5,530 TPS.
Social Media adoption stagnates among Fortune 500
October 27th, 2011
Interesting research from the University of Massachusetts shows that for the first time in 4 years there has been virtually no change in Fortune 500 companies adopting Facebook, Twitter or Blogging, which is a surprise to say the least.
According to the research by Dr. Nora Ganim Barnes, PhD, Senior Fellow, Society for New Communications Research & Chancellor Professor of Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, nearly one third of Fortune 500 are without either a Twitter or Facebook account. While the percent of companies blogging remains at 23%, that number now represents 114 companies with blogs instead of the 116 recorded last year.
Dr Barnes, suggests: “These results may signal a levelling off and possibly retrenchment when it comes to the adoption of social media among the 2011 Fortune 500. There is also evidence of change in the adoption of these tools by industry and a clear sign from some companies that these are not part of their communications strategy. Given that the Fortune 500 are the titans of American business, we may be seeing the slowdown in business adoption of social media. At the very least, this group appears to have slowed or stopped its adoption of the three most prominent tools - Blogging, Facebook and Twitter.”
The full research can be downloaded here and key findings include:
• 23% (114) of the primary Fortune 500 corporations have an external corporate blog. This represents a levelling off since 2010 and only a 1% increase over the 2009 study.
• Fortune 500 companies are blogging at a lower rate than other business groups, specifically the Inc. 500. In 2010, 50% of the Inc. 500 had corporate blogs and in 2009 45% had externally-facing corporate blogs.
• 62% (308) of Fortune 500 primary companies have corporate Twitter accounts. This is an increase of only 2% over the 2010 Fortune 500.
• 58% (289) of the 2010 Fortune 500 have a Facebook presence. There is an increase of only 2% over the 2010 Fortune 500.
• Specialty Retail stores are most likely to have a blog. These include Home Depot, Best Buy, Toys-R-Us and BJ’s Wholesale.
• 31% of the 2011 Fortune 500 do not have a Twitter account or a Facebook presence.
The figures are interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, does this really show a slow down in social adoption among the biggest organisations in the U.S? Or simply a reflection of the vertical structure of the Fortune 500, which at this (still) relatively early stage of adoption means those outside of the key sectors (Retail, Auto, Finance, Travel for example) are unlikely to adopt as yet.
Could this slowdown be linked to a pull back on budgets as a direct result of the economic slow down, and a more sustained focus on traditional and boardroom-accepted communications / marketing focuses?
However, whatever potential excuses we put forward, it’s clear that there is still much to be done in terms of educating large corporates in social media adoption, and more specifically its potential benefit. We also need to put more focus on making social relevant to vertical organisations / sectors, by highlighting specific approaches such as Social CRM, and Social Business.
Facebook introduces a subscription button, while Twitter launches analytics
September 15th, 2011
The giants of social networking have been busy this week with the launch of new features which will prove useful, and change the focus and reporting for digital campaigns.
First to Facebook, which announced the Subscription button yesterday. This allows users to choose exactly what they see in their news feed, both in terms of narrowing the noise from friends and expanding subscriptions beyond friends to include contacts of interest, e.g. journalists, political figures, bloggers etc.
From a marketing perspective it will place further emphasis (if any was needed) on quality and useful content that can be subscribed to, even if pages are not liked and individuals followed.
The total number of people subscribing to posts and the number of people you’re subscribed to will appear on your profile. Facebook has also confirmed that the subscribers tab will replace ‘likes’ as the most accurate engagement indicator, which will change the focus of many Facebook campaigns and again reflects the push towards being useful rather than just popular.
You can read the full update from Zach Rait who posted on the Facebook blog yesterday and Mashable has also posted on the launch.
In brief, Facebook says: “In the next few days, you’ll start seeing this button (the Subscribe button) on friends’ and others’ profiles. You can use it to:”
1. Choose what you see from people in News Feed
2. Hear from people, even if you’re not friends
3. Let people hear from you, even if you’re not friends
Over to Twitter, where Twitter Web Analytics is now being introduced.
Christopher Golda at Twitter posted about the launch on Tuesday, confirming:
“Today we’re announcing Twitter Web Analytics, a tool that helps website owners understand how much traffic they receive from Twitter and the effectiveness of Twitter integrations on their sites. Twitter Web Analytics was driven by the acquisition of BackType, which we announced in July.”
The product provides three key benefits:
• Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network
• See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site
• Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration
The tool will allow brands to understand how website content is being shared across the Twitter network and view the amount of traffic Twitter sends to a site.
Golda continued:“People have struggled to accurately measure the amount of traffic Twitter is sending to their websites, in part because web analytics software hasn’t evolved as quickly as online sharing and social signals.
“Twitter Web Analytics will be rolled out this week to a small pilot group of partners, and will be made available to all website owners within the next few weeks. We’re also committed to releasing a Twitter Web Analytics API for developers interested in incorporating Twitter data in their products.”
This will be a hugely useful tool for the digital marketing industry as it offers a standardised, if basic, insight into Twitter analytics for all. Twitter has also recognised that it must open up to existing analytics providers to be successful.
Banned from using social networks for 5 years
September 14th, 2011
A man in the UK has just been jailed for 18 months, is banned from using social networks for the next five years and has to inform police of any phone he owns or buys that provides internet access.
The man in question is Sean Duffy and the reason for his punishment is internet trolling. To be more precise, Duffy mocked a dead teenager who had committed suicide by posting offensive remarks on a page dedicated to her memory, and creating a YouTube parody of Thomas the Tank Engine with the deceased girl’s face in place of Thomas.
After the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector James Hahn, of Thames Valley police, said “Malicious communication through social networking is a new phenomenon and unfortunately shows how technology can be abused. However, our investigation shows that offenders cannot hide behind their computer screens.“
Which age ranges are the most prolific users of social networks?
March 17th, 2011
We’re all fond of a good stat in the worlds of social and communications, so when a stat conversation breaks out about demographics on some of the leading social networks, you’re bound to get a whole range of different answers to the same question.
Earlier today, i was discussing the question that forms the title of this post: Which age ranges are the most prolific users of social networks? More specifically we were talking about Twitter and Facebook, and the assertion that the most prolific users of social networks are pushing towards the 35 and over age range. I spoke to a number of different people and each had a slightly different take on what the basic make up of age ranges would be. Each also had the stats to back up their argument, so which should we believe?
First off, we have to take into consideration where the stats come from, both in terms of a reliable source and the geographic region the stats are sourced from. Most stats are skewed towards U.S users, so if we are considering UK-specific or European users we have to dig a little deeper.
This is all fairly obvious stuff, but it’s worth pointing out because of the many sources that i’ve looked at today, the vast majority, even when they say they use the same sources, come up with separate answers.
Therefore, i thought it might be helpful to reference a few of the stats that i’ve uncovered and the differences between them.
In terms of infographics, these versions from Kiss Metrics and Digital Surgeons are easy to understand at a glance, and use reputable sources, but in terms of age ranges for Facebook there is quite a difference.
The infographic from Kiss Metrics shows a clear rundown of demographics, this was posted last month using Google Ad Planner and Twitter sources, among others:
Facebook - 57% - 35 or older
Twitter - 56% - 35 or older
Here’s the Digital Surgeons infographic using a range of Google and Facebook sources:
Facebook - 37% - 35 or older
Twitter - 53% - 35 or older
As for European research, the latest data from ComScore is a good guide, and the 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review, launched last month, is an excellent resource. See the overview here and below
ComScore say: “The profile of social networking users in Europe reveals an audience that generally skews younger, with 15-24 year olds representing 25.3 percent of users, followed closely by 25-34 year olds at 24.3 percent. While the breakdown of European visitors to Facebook and Twitter mirrors that of social networking site users in general, LinkedIn has an older age profile. Only 10.4 percent of its visitors are under 25 years old, while half of the site’s audience is between the ages of 35-54. This older age profile is understandable given the site’s orientation toward professional networking.”
Breaking down the figures for Twitter and Facebook in Europe, ComScore say:
Facebook
15 - 24: 27.1%
25 - 34: 24.6%
35 - 44: 20.4%
45 - 54: 15.6%
55+: 12.4%
Twitter
15 - 24: 28.1%
25 - 34: 22.5%
35 - 44: 19.9%
45 - 54: 15.9%
55+: 13.5%
So you could say the largest segment is 15-24 years old, but equally more than 60% of users are over 25; or about half of all social users are 35 or older. More specifically:
Facebook - 48.4% 35 or older
Twitter - 49.3% 35 or older
So, yes, most of the stats agree, social network users are older than many might expect, but it’s not quite fair to say the younger age ranges are disappearing. We should also be aware that the degree to which the age range is present depends on geographic location, and the source.
Facebook for friends, Twitter for football fans?
February 9th, 2011
There is some interesting news on Mail Online if you’re into football and Twitter:
According to a report by Barclays, an explosion of Twitter activity saw close to a million tweets about the Premier League and its clubs in January, as fans took advantage of being able to ‘follow’ their favourite players, clubs and journalists and debate top stories as they happen.
The club most tweeted about in January with 301,169 tweets was, you guessed it; Liverpool FC - due to their heavy transfer activity, including selling Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £50m and purchasing two other players for almost the same amount money.
Some of the clubs with the least Twitter mentions include: Coventry: 499, Stoke: 450, Blackburn: 393 and Wigan: 25.
Kenneth Cole - Social Media fail or social fail?
February 4th, 2011
No doubt you’ve heard all about the Kenneth Cole Twitter issue that broke yesterday (February 3rd) by now. If you haven’t, here’s a brief review:
Kenneth Cole, and I mean the man himself (apparently), tweets the following: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at (adds link) KC.”
The ‘KC’ closing is a key part as it signifies Kenneth Cole tweeted this himself, and he has basically just tried to market his Spring collection around serious unrest in Egypt, which is turning the country upside down, causing wider instability in the region and taking lives of those on the ground fighting for what they believe to be right.
Wow! Without wishing to over simplify this, surely that’s amazingly insensitive and completely inappropriate to say the least.
On seeing the Tweet relatively early on, I watched the inevitable happen, as Kenneth and his business felt the full force of those with a social conscious, and access to various social networks (unlike those in Egypt). Some of my favourite examples are included below.
I did consider blogging on the issue at the time, but assumed it was fairly cut and dry; the stupidity of the Tweet will result in a hefty backlash. Kenneth Cole eventually sees the error of his ways as his wares are boycotted, and he becomes another social media case study, while we debate whether his actions were down to a lack of social media experience, or a lack of knowledge on the gravity of the unrest in Cairo.
However, it appears Kenneth has some supporters. I don’t want to get all moral on this blog, but i was amazed at the amount (although small overall) of people suggesting his tweet was a ‘funny’ or ‘innovative’ stunt.
One such example popped up, somewhat suspiciously on Chris Norton’s post on the subject, which i also commented on and put down to lack of understanding at best, or a ploy from somebody employed to lessen the backlash at worst, hence the suspicion.
However, the fact remains, even if you don’t agree that using such a sensitive issue as an excuse to sell your products is wrong, surely you must understand that many people do. And, some of those people not only buy the products in question, but also influence many others.
In other words; agree with it or not, this is a massive business mistake as well as a reflection of the brand, and as a result it will affect the business negatively.
Here’s a great example of a tactic (spoof account) one Tweeter used to express his/her emotions about the issue, and since then Kenneth has made this apology on Facebook, although the time this took and the earlier response; “Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC”‘, suggests the social issue may be bigger than the social media issue in this case. The 403 responses (at time of writing) may also offer additional insight for anyone unsure of the problem.