Does Twitter Really Matter?

After I spent a large part of 2011 competing with my colleagues for a higher social media status (ie Klout), I’ve taken a more relaxed approach this year with a little less focus on my Twitter account. Mike took that one step further with an interesting overview asking “Does Twitter Really Matter?” I had lunch with some clients last week who raised an interesting description of those who Twitter – seemingly I’m wasting my time. In your business, does it matter? Is it crucial or just part of the motions of your social media presence?

Top 10 Social Media Blogs

I have a fond memory of trying to decide what my blog for Zuni would be about. I spent countless weeks in preparation. It wasn’t until I met Jeff Bullas that I worked it out. Jeff really inspired me. Social Media Examiner have published their top 20 social media blog finalists and there is Jeff, amongst the elite. Stay in touch with everything going on by following these great minds in the social interchange. If you’re following blogging trends or need 26 tips for writing great blogs, there’s something for everyone.

Facebook’s Timeline – for Brands

The roll out of Timeline hasn’t yet affected Brands, but haven’t you ever wondered what they could look like? Rumour has it Facebook could roll this out as early as February 29th. Here we look at the potential for McDonald’s, Nike & Mercedes. What about Coke, Red Bull and Harley Davidson? Are you ready for Timeline?

25 Killer Australian Digital Stats

I always find it hard to find good Aussie stats in market – so thank you eConsultancy for collating a raft of my favourite stat publishers and making it easier to locate some decent info. Easy to locate graphs and simple to follow.

Faberge Egg Hunt London

Do you remember those super spectacular eggs that your mum probably had? I used to wish I could live inside one of those glorious creations. It’s nice to see an 1842 Russian brand embrace the digital age with their Egg Hunt launching next week. Raising money for charity, 200+ uniquely crafted eggs created by leading artists, designers, architects and jewellers will be displayed in central London. Pick up clues along the way, collect your map or download your app. I would have thought that social media would play a bigger part in circulating those clues and with the geo-location nature of the event, surely this is an opportunity missed? Likes on Facebook are indicative of perhaps a #fail.

Robots monitor patients’ recovery at home

At Children’s Hospital in Boston, doctors are piloting a project which allows patients to take robots home with them after their stay, for help with post-operative consultations and care. The primary function is videoconferencing with health care professionals, they are operated remotely by hospital staff. This is a truly phenomenal development for remote & regional people with high care needs and I’m sure a welcomed approach from families travelling thousands of miles seeking follow up care. Some days I just want to give technology a kiss.

Samsung’s Smart Window

I bet you thought the Dyson Air Multiplier was pretty brilliant (as do the now 2m+ viewers of this) and I think Samsung has taken it to the next level with their Smart Window. Your ordinary window comes to life with touch-window technology that personalises your lifestyle. Indeed, Minority Report here you are.

Can Siri pour a beer?

Apparently so. This is a strange concept to me, it kind of reminds me of Ice Break’s Add a Motor to It – more or less, because you can. Still, it’s interesting to see what people can create with Siri. Like starting your car.

Trippy Tribute Parks

Just as the name suggests, this is really weird – tribute parks for all the wrong reasons – starting with the Acid Park. These are pretty bizarre, just check out the others below on the same page – seriously odd.

Social Media Facepalms of 2011

I love how every new year brings a new list of things – the top 10 of this and the top 50 of that.  So I’m going to collate some beauties for you, starting with the Top 21 Social Media Facepalms of 2011. The beauty of this list is that it provides entertainment and education in the one collation. There are some blinders in here, but personally I dig the Chrysler tweet, as a motorist spending 15+ hrs in commuting time a week, I did laugh out loud.

12 Consumer Trends of 2012

It’s not often I read a set of consumer trends and say “tick, tick, tick” to myself. My goodness, I’m either actively involved or acutely aware of each of these – that’s a little pat on the back for me. I’ve started DIY Health myself for my diabetes – I started by writing this blog followed up with my daily monitoring on this half-brilliant app – it’s only half brilliant because it’s an American food library. Small steps, it would be great to see how these manifest during the year.

Flash replaced by RWD?

Remember the hype around HTML5 replacing the need for flash? Well some time later it seems we aren’t missing flash in any big way – with Responsive Web Design (RWD) becoming the norm. Sorry, what’s RWD? It’s a website design that helps the lay out to change according to the user’s computer screen resolution – it also fixes the screen of smartphone and computer tablets, ie taking 4 fixed columns down to 2 or a single column width. Clever! And something we need to be thinking about with the penetration of smartphones & tablets.

3 Successful Google+ Pages

The increasing hype with Google+ and why brands can’t ignore it any more is spitting out some great case studies for brands about to put their toe in the water. This review of the Top 3 Google+ pages discusses what they are doing and why it’s working. This also compliments Mike’s blog on the subject in case you missed it last week.

Solar Restaurant

I could get all profound about my resolutions for 2012, I’m sure they will come out eventually, and many have started with doing things “smarter”. Smarter for me starts with our environment. This pop-up restaurant only uses solar power to cook their food – meaning that they were only open on sunny days. The gig toured Europe for 10 days, preparing different meals based on the cooking temperature for meals. Pretty clever, based in Helsinki, a truly unique dining experience.

Sharing Wisdom

Nostalgia is such an important part of my life that I kept a journal for 20 years just in case I lost my memory in a freak accident and couldn’t remember who I was (well that’s why it started when I was 13 years old). Old Schooled is a wisdom sharing site – sharing the wisdom of your grandparents with the whole world. These heartfeld submissions make you remember how simply life can be, like “Happiness doesn’t just happen. You have to choose it”. Each submission enforces a donation of $1SGD to Sunbeam Place , a residential home run by Singapore Children’s Society for abused and neglected children in need of safety and protection.

Lego Infinity Banner

You know I love a good game in a banner, but this drove me nuts! I have tried and tried and I’m absolutely hopeless at the game. Did it make me want to buy Lego though? Not really, but it did a lot for brand reinforcement – it’s still the coolest building block on the block – and now their storage units are making them very attractive for our play room.

Car Part Sculptures

Yep, many people build new things from old, but when it comes to recycled tin cans and car parts, I really do find them ingenius. Some of them are a bit “how you doin’”, but just check out the TV cabinet!

Twitter - Dangerous for a brand's health

I like Twitter – really, I do – it’s one of the best ways i can think of to lose a couple of hours amongst a world of interesting links. And I’m a strong supporter of using Twitter as a customer service channel – we actively advocate monitoring and responding to users who are using it as a brand contact platform. The are I question is whether or not it should be used by brands as an active “campaign” channel – as a space to “reach” customers with brand messages.

It would seem that it is significantly easier to “Fail” in Twitter than in any other social media space. Looking at the Top 10 Social Media Fail lists from last year (eConsultancy, eModeration, etc.) , Twitter dominates as the platform for brands, politicians and celebrities making mistakes. The media is featuring yet again at the moment, this time it’s McDonalds in for a hiding for daring to run a campaign about the quality of their produce.  It must be a big story, because it’s in the SMH, not just the marketing press.

So are these massive stuff-ups (as reported by the media) really that massive, and should marketers who get Twitter wrong be black-listed for ever more ?

On the face of it, no. Twitter has around 1.8m Australian users, according to Nielsen in August 2011, or Social Media News’ December 2011 report. The AIMIA Sensis social media report from May 2011 puts Twitter penetration at 8% compared to Facebook at 97%.  That’s pretty small in terms of reach -  Bubble O’Bill’s got 1.15m fans on Facebook all on it’s own. Add to that the timeline nature of Twitter, where if you follow any decent amount of people, stuff flashes by pretty quickly, and at best you’re dipping into and out of the river of news. So how come there are so many examples of Twitter failures ? Surely it can’t be that much harder than Facebook or YouTube ?

It’s all because Twitter is public, it’s easy to search and it’s open. Slow news day ? Have a look at Twitter – someone’s definitely doing something stupid, it’s just a matter of doing a few searches to find it. It’s the journalists new best friend because it’s pretty easy to turn 5 tweets into a “bad news for the brand” story and run with it. There may be a massive backlash happening against a brand on it’s Facebook page, in front of hundreds of thousands of fans, but it’s never picked up because it’s too hard to find the needle in the haystack.

It’s also uncontrollable for brands – if you’ve got a campaign that’s being poorly received on your website, on your Facebook page, even as banners, you can quickly pull the ads or respond to each any every negative post and settle it all down. In Twitter, all you can do is Tweet back and doing that too many times is not a good look. Added to that,  a quick search on the hashtag brings up your public mistake forever more.

And for brands, that’s why Twitter matters. Far more from a negative perspective than from a positive one. As McDonald’s said, the negative tweets were only 2% of the total tweet volume and the overall reach of that negativity probably very small, but the ease with which journalists can exploit Twitter for an easy brand beat-up means it’s somewhere to tread very carefully indeed. Unfortunately, it’s all bad news – thousands of people all extolling the virtues of your brand and their personal experience won’t catch any journo’s eye, but a few witty negative comments against a campaign hashtag makes for easy column inches in the marketing and technology sections of sites with much broader reach.

So until we can get journalists in “reputable” publications to stop publishing these Twitter derived non-stories that are the equivalent of a few friends gossiping at a bus-stop, we’ll keep seeing brands and marketers getting thrashed in public by people expressing negative opinions about their products.And until that point, consider very carefully the value added vs the risk of “campaigning” in Twitter.

Do you think it’s worth the risk ? Should you run campaigns on Twitter when you know there’s negativity about your product out there, or should you stay in the relatively un-journalist-infested waters of Facebook and LinkedIn. Let me know what you think…

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with many of these individuals. My time in promotional marketing allowed me to manage 10 under 25s and they all blossomed into fine young professionals of which I am still in touch with all of them today.

When Zuni was expanding last year we were brave enough to say our team of 5 needed a graduate, someone keen to earn and grow their skillset whilst we grew our business. The wonderful team at 303 introduced us to Elise Cooper and straight after my interview with her I came back to the office with my hand on my heart saying “can’t we just hire her now, I love her already”. There was a wholesomeness about Elise, a true, genuine, down to earth, entertaining and intelligent young woman who I knew would put her whole heart into what she wanted to do.

12 months later, Elise is still with us and every day that she takes on a new task I feel so very proud of her achievements and her development. So could you imagine my delight at seeing Elise within the APM Course Guide for 2012 – where she completed her education before embarking on her full time employment adventure?

Like the proud “mother” that I am, and perhaps a little glassy in the eyes, I share this post.

Drs and Dentists in Facebook

The health industry in Australia is highly regulated and so it should be after the onslaught of awfulness that our US friends have to endure. Speak to anyone in the industry and social media is a definite no-no, however I do think there is a time and a place for some innovation in this field. WhichDoc is a New York based company that taps a user’s Facebook profile for doctor and dentist referrals. All suggestions are kept anonymous, so users never know which friends are seeing a therapist. As Contagious point out in their blog, the strength of word of mouth and trust amongst our networks are on the rise, surely this is something possible even under the highly contentious Medicines Australia COP?

Sydney Festival

Are you missing out on all the awesome goings-on at Sydney Festival? Well fret no more – if you haven’t caught up with Sydney Festival TV as yet, then get onto it! STVDIO Channel is doing a sterling job of reliving the most exciting dance, theatre, opera, film, music and arts for our personal enjoyment. Never miss a moment of the best in the arts & entertainment world by signing up to your personalised newsletter.

Your Next Recruitment?

When I started blogging I had a firm vision that my blogs would be about helping people in one way or another. Perhaps the last link I sent out helped to make someone’s life easier. When I came across Break Thru, I found they were helping people too – in a very different way. This is not your typical recruitment service. Just ask Lloyd who works at Droga5 . Employment of people with disadvantages is not an act of charity, it’s good business sense. Before you seek out your next graduate, ask yourself as an employer, how can I really make a difference in our community?

Why every brand should be on Google+

There’s been a lot of “wait & see” with Google+ and I must admit that I don’t have a lot of contacts who have populated a profile on the Google network. Brands on the other hand may have a big reason to – with recent changes allowing you to overlay your social network (that is, Google+ network) over your search results. So what value is that exactly? Mike explains the impact and clarifies the position for brands in question.

Everyday activities changing lives

OneFeat is a social game that rewards people for carrying out ordinary missions or challenges – like “ride a roller coaster,” “visit your grandma” or “find the best Happy Birthday cake”. James had to do a range of these tasks as part of his army training to demonstrate resourcefulness (except his included things like driving a sports car valued over $350k, train with an international sports star etc). Take this whole concept one step further, and you have WeTopia – play the game and make real-world donations for virtual purchases through a partner charity. We seem addicted to gaming so why not spend your time influencing the real world instead of those virtual crops and cities.

Take a deep breath

You may recall these stop smoking ads from radio a few years back. Quit Victoria has managed to translate this powerful action-based ad into a digital execution. It was compelling on radio and I have to say it had the same effect on me watching a rather bland creative.

Free Education from MIT

The ‘Occupy Movements’ in various cities cited social injustice of college tuition.  Well Massachusetts Intitutate of Technology (MIT) are putting a spanner in the works by offering an online learning initiative for some of their courses free of charge to anyone around the world. Whilst you won’t earn a full degree, you receive an official certificate of completion. The interactive suite of tools will utilise OpenCourseWare, used by over 100m students, containing material for approx. 2,100 classes.

Clothing for Correspondence

Following my consumerism blog, I can’t stop reading about recycling in various forms. Then I stumbled upon Clothing for Correspondence – an Aussie letter-writing service that asks only an item of clothing in return for its written work. What’s also interesting is that there isn’t a charity behind it at all, the clothing is actually for the writers themselves. Cute.

Unusual Camping Tents

This isn’t exactly digital but it is super cool. I love camping and I love these tents. It’s given me a number of ideas for awesome designs. Unreal!

On Tuesday Google launched Search, plus your world, an additional option in search results that allows you to overlay your social network (that is, Google+ network) over your search results, allowing you to filter the world and easily search for content that has been recommended, developed or posted by your (Google+) social network.

They also announced much tighter integration of social results into the search space, including showcasing (Google+) personal pages off the back of searches and replacing some of it’s paid search with People and Profile pages and references.

There are a number of interesting angles to this – the bloggosphere and SEO universe has gone off about how this is now deeply skewing results to Google+, how it’s breaking Google’s mantra of “do no evil” and that there is a big possibility that the anti-trust suits being brought against Google will be extended into this space. Search Engine Land has some great examples of just how this is working, and the guys at Twitter are going mental about the fact that even though news breaks on Twitter, Google isn’t ranking Twitter in the social feeds.

Google have fought back, saying that Twitter were the ones who stopped the deal to supply a feed into Google, and that Facebook won’t let them get into their network, so they can’t add them into the loop, a positioning that’s been hammered a little, as seen in the Search Engine Land post.

This means that suddenly it’s imperative for all brands to start playing in Google+ – whereas previously we were advising all our clients to “wait and see” on Google, this was on the basis that from a user perspective, very few people are going there. However, we know that everyone uses Google, and now that Google+ is seeing massive favoritism in search results, you need to get in there.

From a slightly more business orientated perspective – this is an incredibly smart move by Google. As we discuss frequently at my ADMA classes, the growth of Facebook (and other social platforms) is a huge threat to Google – not only does it suck in large amounts of user time (if you take Facebook out of the mix, the amount of time Australians spend online has actually decreased over the last few months, because we’re all getting more social). It is also becoming a massive content store that Google can’t get into – videos, photos, text content etc. are being stored in FB and we’re starting to do things like Search for content in Facebook, get our news in Facebook, read our jokes in FaceBook etc. a dangerous trend for Google. So whilst it needs Google+ to work in it’s own right, it’s also a huge protectionist strategy to ensure that Google remains relevant as a search engine – by creating the social overlay, it creates benefits for both Google and Google+. Facebook has been following a similar strategy, with OpenGraph allowing Facebook to track you around the web, and then present comments, likes, reviews etc in spaces well outside the Facebook site itself.

What’s interesting about Google’s latest move is it’s response. It hasn’t just said “tough, it’s our product and we’ll do what we like to promote our company group products”, it’s come out and said “we’re happy to list other people’s stuff, but then they need to play nicely with us”. So they’re putting the onus on Twitter and Facebook to share in a way that suits Google, by threatening them with tight integration of Google+.  Suddenly Facebook and Twitter will be re-evaluating their whole data sharing with Google policy, based on the fact that their big users will now be strongly considering ramping up Google+ presences because of the search results.

A gutsy move by Google, and done at a time where they have enough market share to be highly successful. Google once again proving the definition of Frienemy

What do you think – is this proof that Google has well and truly abandoned it’s “Don’t be evil” mantra, or are they on the right track ?

As one always does at the beginning of a new year, I’m turning over a new leaf – getting more organised, getting more efficient and trying to ensure I can get more work done in less time so I can maintain a great Work-Life balance.

One of my big challenges is time management – lists, priorities, getting focused on particular tasks etc. So in the spirit of the digital age, I’ve been looking for cloud based tools merged with leading edge thinking to help me overcome a life-long struggle to stay organised.

The first tool I’ve adopted is Thymer, a great To Do list that Sarah found in her pursuit of the ideal timesheeting system. I’ve subsequently come across a whole genre of online To Do list tools, but Thymer seems to be doing the trick, and we’re going to trial using it as a replacement for the whiteboard we all huddle around every morning, where we discuss what’s going to get done in an agile like manner.

I’ve also installed RescueTime , a little bit of software that sits on your machine and records every website you look at, every application you use and every minute you spend shuffling emails. It’s interesting looking back over a day and being able to see how much time i’ve spent on news sites, Facebook and other time-sinks, and just having the information makes me more aware of my productivity levels. I’m not yet ready to install the blocker versions that allow you to shut off activities for certain periods of time – i think i’ve got to take responsibility for my own willpower, but it’s another interesting example of where simply showcasing the data means that behaviour changes.

I’ve also had a look at a concept that i saw presented at the Fuji Xerox Nextworks sessions and raised (i think) by Mike Walsh – the concept of “Continual Partial Attention”, where we feel like we have to pay attention to everything in order to avoid missing out. I came across some really interesting stuff – some quotes from Linda Stone :- “ We have focused on managing our time. Our opportunity is to focus on how we manage our attention”

“in the cases where people reported managing their time, they more often reported experiencing burn-out, they didn’t know how much longer they could go on at their particular job or lifestyle. There was often a sense of helplessness and overwhelm. The endless list, the one that gets added to and never completed, at the center of it all, left them with a heavy heart and a burdened sense of tomorrow….. What did surgeons, artists, and CEO’s have in common? Most of them reported that they managed both their time and their attention. In surgery, in the studio, and in the time carved out to think through strategies and issues, these professionals reported shutting down the devices and endless inputs (email, phone, interruptions), at scheduled times, and claiming those moments to focus. In almost every case, these professionals reported experiencing “flow” (a la Csikszentmihalyi) in their work.” (from the Huffington Post article by Linda)

It’s an interesting concept for us as a business, where what we provide to our clients is insight, strategy and ways of improving the value of their digital presence – all services around value improvement where the quality of the information is dependent on the skill, knowledge and experience of the strategist. And yet, as with most agencies, our primary pricing model is the good old fashioned hourly rate.

We’d all agree that  3 hours of highly focused, no-distractions, deeply involved time is worth more than 3 hours of time where a digital distraction steps in every couple of minutes ? So how do you grade time and cost accordingly ? Some interesting questions…

Social Media Fatigue?

Every weekend I go through a phase on my mobile to put more energy into social networking than I do cooking breakfast, and quite frankly it’s making me tired.It appears that my addiction to Foursquare isn’t isolated either, hitting the 15m user mark worldwide. What I need are the rewards – why aren’t Aussie retailers jumping on this bandwagon? If the incentive isn’t there, I can see it falling on its face in our market pretty quickly. To egg me on further, I achieved my 2011 Twitter follower target of 100 people (since returning from maternity leave), and so the cycle perpetuates.

iPads convert at higher rate than desktops

I’m going to be honest with you, I’m really a luddite. I’m not an early adopter by any means and I take some mean convincing to get on board with new technologies. When the iPad came about, I thought it really was a glorified phone, without the phone parts. As I approach 3 weeks in England with 2 kids in tow, I’m starting to feel a little differently about this entertainment unit and looking at conversion rates, so are other consumers. iPads are doubling the desktop conversion rate at 3.82% v 1.9%. This great article compares most mobile devices and the iPad is very strong indeed. Retailers ignoring the strength of the tablet are ignoring the low hanging fruit.

Sword Dancing to Techno

Sometimes I really don’t understand people. This is one of those times. It just strikes me as so very odd, particularly when the brother gets into it, with, well, his sword. This is even more odd considering they are over 12 years old.

Braille-writing software for touchscreen devices

Vision and hearing impaired individuals completely astound me with their ability to compensate for their disabilities and if there is anywhere that technology can make a profound difference then I believe it’s here. Stanford University has impressed the pants off me with this new software which is a touchscreen braille-writer. Instead of the user having to find buttons on the screen, the technology builds buttons around the user’s fingers. By touching eight fingers to the glass, the keys orient themselves and the keyboard is built.

QR Codes in Fashion & Art

Fashion has so many opportunities to be innovative and when it comes to adding in a pinch of technology, the unique QR code lends itself nicely. These inventive designs are very clever, particularly the wrapping paper edition. QR codes have had a very hazy start, but I can see their popularity growing rapidly in 2012.

Crowdsourcing the homeless for food

I’m interested in hearing from you on this one. I’m a fan of crowdsourcing and I’m a fan of giving the less fortunate a go. However, I’m not sure if this crowdsourcing concept is just exploitation. The concept is simple – TaskTurtle crowdsource the homeless or elderly in exchange for food or USD$2. If they guarantee the job to be done, then surely market rates for the job should apply? I’m about to crowdsource myself a teenager gardener – and I’m happy to pay more than the award rate. Any takers?

Safer Dutch Streets

I tend to wonder if I would put myself out there when I see a crime in action, I’d like to think that I would. The Dutch clearly believe they will with their latest banner ad showing you what to do. I commend their positive outlook and community education program. Would love to know the behavourial change outcomes of this campaign.

This Pooch is Made for Walking

I’m a big fan of the Pedigree Adoption Drive and now the UK has introduced a nice feature – the virtual dog walk . It’s quite clever, allowing users to take a real-life rescue dog on a virtual walk around the web. The neat part is everyone who has a website or a blog can host a campaign MPU on their site to help raise awareness and show their support. For every completed journey, Pedigree will be making a £1 donation until the £100,000 target is reached. As I learnt at Calmsley Hill City Farm on the weekend, Australia euthanased 126,000 dogs in the last 12 months. Help save a life.

12 Year Old App Developer

You don’t have to be a parent to appreciate how clever kids are. Enter 12 year old Thomas Suarez who created his own app and convinced his parents to fork out the fee to get it into the App Store. Watching him on stage gave a whole new meaning to confidence – with his iPad in hand and I’m assuming limited speaking experience, if he’s not the school captain I’ll be surprised. I love his raw approach and community spirit.

Unlock Doors With Lockitron

Keyless car entry isn’t anything new, but have you thought about keyless beachhouse entry? Lockitron is a service enabling any smartphone user to unlock a pre-configured door from up to 15 feet away. You can also allow other smartphone users temporary access by sending them an invitation – think builders getting access for a limited time or access could be distributed to party guests for one night only (could have saved Corey Worthington a whole lot of trouble). Don’t have a smartphone? No drama – you can send a text invite to open doors too. A great tool for a unique party entry, the Smirnoff Secret Party or the likes would be pretty cool.

25 Brilliant Facebook Brand Pages

I’m asked regularly for examples of great Facebook Brand pages and eConsultancy have collated 25 of the best right here for you. From auto to retail, kids to IT and overpriced jewellery, there’s plenty to learn from these gurus getting it oh so right.

Do Your Toys Play When You’re Out?

I used to think that my bedroom came alive when I was young, that my toys would rally together and have their own tea party. When Toy Story came to town I really believed it very possible.  All these years later this gorgeous Google Street View stop motion animation just delighted me. I could watch this over and over. I could have shed a tear when the sunset dropped.

Google Changes

Two big changes to Google in recent weeks have caught my attention. The first is the placement of PPC ads – moving them from the right hand side to the bottom of the page. Google is well known for trialing new things all the time, so I’m sure if it fails we’ll find it right back where we expect it. The second change is that Google now encrypts up to 33% of search referral data . Google Analytics can be difficult to work out at the best of times, so I’m grateful to eConsultancy for their wicked blog in layman’s terms. So if you think something is amiss in your last report, you may well just be right.

ebay Store Front

Just when you thought the online entity couldn’t really do anything different, they created a shop front in NYC, complete with QR codes so you could track your items online. It’s quite popular on Facebook.