Category: Uncategorized

Twitter listing – X Factor for social media types

I must confess I am sometimes a bit slow on the uptake and certain new social media thingies just slip by relatively un-noticed.  Thus it was with the announcement of Twitter lists a week or so ago.  I had a quick glance at it, reckoned that there was nothing a Twitter list could do that my User Lists in Seesmic don’t already do, and let it pass.

But today it has hit me.  Forget listing other people – the number of times people list me is (or will rapidly become) my highly visible social media popularity score.  Its basically the X Factor / Pop Idol for social media types.  Continue reading →

Ad agency + social media = car crash in slow motion

Here is an excellent article that highlights one of the classic mistakes of social media.  This is the assumption that social media is just another channel you can use to reach a consumer, rather than a channel that consumers use to reach you.  This results in the misplaced belief that an ad agency, or even traditional digital agency, can therefore “do” social media.  They can’t – because their expertise and business model is rooted in the world of the 0ne-to-many mass message.

I suspect the Toyota example referred to in this article will be a painfull thing to watch play out – for all the reasons the article highlights.

The big question is this:  how many organisations are going to engineer these sorts of car crashes before they wake up to what social media is all about?  Quite a lot I would suspect.

In the meatime – I would suggest the following precautionary principle – never, ever, let an ad agency, or media agency anywhere near a social media initiative.  And also take special care when asking a digital agency to get involved – simply because digital agencies make money selling web sites / platforms / digital places.  The whole point of social media is to get out of digital places and operate in digital spaces (conversations).  Note – this particular car crash I spotted a while back was created by a digital agency, also for an automotive client.

So tell me again, what exactly is Twitter?

A number of recent twitterstorms (#trafigura, #janmoir etc) have once again raised the issue, at least in the space that is occupied by the traditional media, of what is the role / point / whateverness of Twitter.  This Guardian article neatly sums up much of the argument to date.

Here is an explanation that no-one has yet proposed.  Twitter is the third wave of digital media – media that is defined not by a single  act of publication, but by multiple acts of observation.  It is a bit tricky to get your head around. Continue reading →

Because data loss happenz – how social media could help Zurich Insurance out of a tight spot

Zurich Insurance has just lost a tape on which was data on 51,000 of its customers.  I know this because I am one of them.  It is pretty major data too – bank account details, address, details of specific items insured and details on your security arrangements (safes, alarms etc).  Basically – short of handing over the keys to your house this is the next best thing, if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Luckily, there appears to be no evidence that this information has ended up in the wrong hands – according to Zurich.

What is going to be interesting is to see how this issue pans out.  Continue reading →

links for 2009-10-22

  • BREAKING: Google Announces Social Search
    This, together with the announcement that tweets are now Googleable, could be the start of something big. Google's biggest problem to datehas been the inability to penetrate social media. It looks like they are doing this hand-in-hand with trying to own people's individual social connections (i.e. Google Profile). Can see the commercial rationale here, but trying to build this wall around things could limit its social acceptibility and therefore use. There can't be conditions attached to search
    (tags: Google search social)
  • Coca-Cola launches social media campaign to spread its Open Happiness message | News | New Media Age
    This is what i call a web1.5 idea – i.e. basically a traditonal mass audience idea that uses social media channels for distribution. Interesting to watch – it may well be that its social components will not be sufficient to make it really work in these channels and it will become another one of those beached whales – a mass media idea washed-up on the social media coastline. But maybe not.
    (tags: coke campaign)

Ryan Air versus Easyjet: a clash of stories

Last night I watched the BBC Panorama programme on Ryan Air – an airline that manages to be at the same time successful but hugely unpopular.  Funnily enough it coincided with the BBC World’s Fast:track programme, with a segment (featuring yours truly) about how you can use social media to complain about travel experiences.  One of the companies featured here was Ryan’s Air’s rival Easyjet, show-casing their success in monitoring and responding to customers in Twitter – an approach to customers that is the polar opposite of Ryan Air’s. Continue reading →

#trafigura – catch it while you can

You may well know about the case last week of The Guardian versus oil trader Trafigura.  The Guardian has been running a campaign against Trafigura concerning dumping toxic waste in west Africa.  Trafigura has been very active in using legal means to prevent information about this spreading – including obtaining an injunction preventing The Guardian from reporting a question rasied on the issue in Parliament.  However, the information leaked / spread via social media, Twitter in particular, and the injunction was lifted.

My point is that this little piece of history  – i.e. the visibility of the #trafigura tag on which most of the action took place – will only last for a couple of weeks and then it will be gone.  This is because Twitter only keeps content in tags visible for this period.  I think this is a serious problem – see Twitter is making then destroying history.

Thinking the Unthinkable: Clay Shirky may be wrong (slightly)

Despite being one of the leading gurus on social media, Clay Shirky has only just started publishing his articles via a blog – and a very minimalist and basic blog it is too.  I might venture to say this illustrates my point that social media is about space rather than place – Shirky doesn’t need a fancy blog (place), all he needs is a launch pad to create and contribute to conversations (spaces). Continue reading →

The Rise of the Story or Why Social Media may Kill P&G

whats the story2(Warning – this post is 3,000 words, you may want to get a coffee)

Stories have always been a useful medium of communication – but the rise of social media has just made them essential.  If you haven’t got a good one, you could be in trouble.  Here’s why. Continue reading →

A Twitter tag is McLuhan’s light bulb

I have been working on-and-off over the last few days on a BIG POST about stories and how the social media revolution is putting the story at the centre of not just communications planning, but organisational management as well.

As part of this I was re-visting the ideas of Marshall McLuhan – author of ‘Understanding Media’  and originator of  ‘medium is the message’ idea – a phrase many use, but much less understand I suspect.  Continue reading →