Author Archive

This is a guest post by Dan Zarrella who has observed the art of Retweeting..

Being interested in the science of social and viral marketing, the phenomenon of ReTweeting represents a wealth of insight into how links and ideas spread in social media, so I began by collecting ReTweets to understand their characteristics. When I collated the numbers below, my database had just over 84,000 ReTweets in it, and it now has over 130,000. I was working towards a system to visually map and analyze ReTweet streams (tree-like pattern a meme takes through Twitter, from person to person via ReTweeting). I also just released a beta of this visual map. I wrote a post on the data on my blog, but I’ll present some of that data here as well.

I graphed the length of the ReTweets in my database against a random sampling of other Tweets and found that ReTweets tend to be longer than other tweets, a condition that is probably partially due to the structure of a ReTweet. ReTweets generally contain some variation of the word “ReTweet” or its abbreviation “RT”. They generally also contain one or more @ links indicating the user they’re ReTweeting from.

“RT” is used more commonly than the full “ReTweet” to indicate that the tweet is a ReTweet. I’ll be doing further research into other variations of the word.

The word “please” occurs in ReTweets much more often than in other tweets, indicating that many tweets contain a call to action, explicitly requesting the ReTweet. Many times users will actually ask for user to ReTweet using the phrase “please ReTweet”.

The average rate of ReTweets per hour increases during the EST business day, and peaks between 10am and 4pm, showing that this may be the sweet spot during with to publish tweets designed to get ReTweeted.

Nearly 70% of ReTweets contain a link. This may suggest that ReTweets are a preferred tactic to spread external content on Twitter.

I’ve released a beta of the system I’m developing to analyze and map ReTweets. More granular and advanced analysis will be possible once I’ve finished developing the entire mapping system. Currently there is a search feature, which links to a collapsible tree-view of ReTweet streams like in the screenshot below. There is also a Most ReTweeted page that lists the most ReTweeted users for the last hour, day and week.

Dan Zarrella is a self-proclaimed social media and viral marketing scientist, check out his viral marketing blog for more of his posts, research and tools.

This past week, there has been a lot of buzz on the blogosphere about whether brands really deserve to represent themselves on Twitter. The commotion began when Mark Drapeau asked whether brands belong on Twitter on Mashable. He expounds on his opinion below — but we also see that there are those who disagree with Mark entirely. Keep reading for the full debate and then give us your $0.02 in the poll that follows.

CON: Brands Don’t Belong on Twitter (by Mark Drapeau)

Do brands really belong on Twitter? That’s the question I ask in my post on Mashable.com. Behind every Twitter account is a person. But if these people ‘hide’ behind organizational brands, it obscures their persona and therefore reduces authenticity and transparency, the heart of social networks. Could having a brand actually damage your brand?

Twitter is about people sharing information with other people. So how do one-dimensional organizational brands fit into this mix? When you really think about it, they don’t. As an analogy, when you call customer service, a human answers the phone (eventually) and tells you their name - and you’re not talking to “Sprint” or “Dell” but rather “Steve” or “Danny.”

Organizations need to engage in conversations with people. Indirect, intimate influence, what I call “I3,” is the way to do it. See the full article for my logic and many comments discussing and debating my views!

PRO: Brands DO Belong on Twitter (by Jonathan Kash)

In order to answer this question in more detail, we need to state several facts:

• Microblogging is here to stay.
• Monetization continues to be problematic for microblogs. Twitter doesn’t have a sustainable model, but other services (like QikCom) clearly see the need to provide returns to investors.
• Microblogging - and social media for that matter - is democratic; there are no rules defined by a governing body.

It is fairly narcissistic to make a statement that Twitter or any other platform should be commercial-free when brands offer as much value as individuals. A more appropriate question is how do brands offer value? Unlike individuals, brands must offer compelling and valuable information to followers.

Are there successful cases of brands participating on Twitter? Yes:

• Everyone has heard how @DellOutlet made a nice $500K for the company. Other companies have also been effective in using the channel, such as geek-tech retailer @woot.
• Public Relations: Countless organizations, such as Current.com and the Salvation Army, have used Twitter to tell stories.
• Look at any media property: CNN, Fox News and BBC are but a few that use Twitter to broadcast information.

Brands, individuals, and individuals representing brands are all here to stay. Realizing what could be a trend, I established an index of brands on Twitter in the spring of 2008. In the time since, the list has grown tremendously and several other lists have spawned off, including one for the government/public officials, another for newspapers, and even one for Spanish accounts. There are also a variety of Twitter-driven directories that will list detailed information on the account. The undo button simply doesn’t exist.

Dr. Drapeau makes an excellent point regarding the issue of trust. @ExxonMobil fooled a number of the Twitterati this summer and provided a needed wake-up call. Know the person involved in the conversation. Failing to validate who someone is can have negative consequences. Ask any of social elite who were conned out of millions by someone claiming to be a Rockefeller.

I applaud Dr. Drapeau for his post as it forces people to think about how they are using Twitter. Are organizations providing value? Is personality added in an appropriate manner? Are you quantifying your investment? Most importantly: should I care about what are you doing with Twitter?

Take the poll: Do Brands Belong on Twitter?

After reading the arguments, what do you think? Do you think that brands have a place on Twitter or that they should go away? Better yet, could they even go away at this point? Take the poll and leave your comments.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government consultant, and regular contributor to Mashable.com and other venues. These views are his own and do not represent the official views of any organization.

Jonathan Kash is Director of Web Services at a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., and writes the blog Fluent Simplicity. He also created the Social Media Brand Index (originally the Twitter Brand Index). Interests include brand identity, online reputation and strategy.

This is a reprint of an original post that comes from Barry Graubart’s blog, Content Matters.

While marketers flounder about looking for a business model for the use of Twitter, I’ve seen some recent viral examples where Twitter was used for the common good. In both of these instances the network effect of Twitter made a huge impact.

The first example was the use of Twitter to help identify a potential kidney donor for Marielle, a teenager with failing kidneys, in search of a living donor. Her mother posted a plea to her blog, letting people know of the challenges she was having in getting potential donors tested. That blog post led to a tweet by @chrisbrogan which was later retweeted by many, including Laura Fitton (aka @pistachio). I first learned of Marielle’s situation through the @pistachio tweet. Clicking through, I found a form to apply to be a living donor. I filled out the form and submitted it to NY Presbyterian and also retweeted the original message to my network.

The next day I received a call from NY Presbyterian confirming they’d received my application but that they’d received so many requests “from the Internet” that they would get back to me if needed.

Subsequently, through her online outreach, Marielle has found a potential donor match and they are hoping to perform the transplant the day after Christmas. Wow!

The second instance is a great charitable fund-raising effort started by Amanda Mooney, a Chicago-based social media maven at Edelman PR. About 6 weeks ago, Amanda began to ask her Twitter followers to give up their Friday cappuccino and instead donate $5 to a worthy cause. She asked her followers to propose potential causes and chose one each week. My pet cause - Donors Choose - was selected the second week and we quickly raised enough funds to buy two Flip digital video cams for a classroom project. Fast-forward a few weeks and the effort has really taken off. This week’s goal was to raise $1,000 for the Staley Foundation, which provides support services for cancer survivors. The Staley Foundation was created by Alicia Staley, herself a three-time cancer survivor, whose website tagline is “Kick ass cancer survivor… need I say more?”

@AmandaMooney posted the first tweet a bit early on Thursday night and I was honored to be the first one to donate. By Friday morning, we’d surpassed the $1,000 goal and @stales quickly doubled the target. The $2,000 target was surpassed that evening and by the end of the weekend, we’d surpassed more than $3,400.

So, why is Twitter so important in this process?

What makes Twitter so critical is the network effect. Sure, we could start a weekly email list where those who opt-in could get a weekly request to make a donation. But it could only grow as quickly as the list grew. Instead, @amandamooney posts a tweet each week, which is then picked up and retweeted by some of her 2,000+ followers, then subsequently retweeted by many of those users’ followers and so forth. So, a simple tweet (and subsequent retweets) may easily be read by tens of thousands of people, more than would ever see an email list.

Twitter is beginning to move towards mainstream adoption. With that comes risks that spammers and marketers will muck up a system that’s just starting to take shape. Of course, with Twitter, you can’t spam someone unless they follow you, so I’m hopeful that the Twitter environment will remain clean for a bit longer so that viral activities like the ones described here may continue to flourish.

Barry Graubart has spent the past 20 years applying technology to content to develop high value information products. He currently serves as VP/Product Strategy for Alacra and also serves on the board of the Content Division of the SIIA and chairs its Social Media Action Committee. Barry authors the Content Matters blog and can be found @graubart.

We’ve been privileged to be able to republish a most excellent Twitter post from Connie Reece, a prolific social media enthusiast.

As a news junkie, and one with an interest in global terrorism, I was glued to my computer monitor for a large part of the almost 60-hour siege at the historic Taj Hotel in Mumbai and the related terror attacks. I had NDTV from New Delhi in one browser window; CNN/IBN streaming in another.

And, of course, I was closely following the conversation on Twitter. In the process, I learned some new Twitter tricks to share with you here.

1. Advanced Search Leads to Eyewitnesses

With a huge volume of tweets adopting #mumbai as a hashtag, it was hard to sift the wheat from the chaff–or as my tech friends would say, the noise to signal ratio was way too high. Many people were tweeting and retweeting news reports, some accurate, some dubious. But buried in the avalanche of 140-character messages were some eyewitness reports, and I learned a new way to mine the nuggets: advanced search.

Go to http://search.twitter.com — now, see the small type to the right of the Search button that says Advanced Search? Click on it. Or, you could just go straight to http://search.twitter.com/advanced.

I used this feature to search for Twitter users located within 15 km of Mumbai. Voilà! Not all of these people were eyewitnesses–some were reporting what they were hearing on local news or from friends–but I quickly found three people who were nearby and tweeting about what they were seeing and hearing first-hand. They were also taking lots of photos, which soon found their way on to Flickr.

CNN found them too because before long, @vinu, @arunshanbhag and @dina were being interviewed via telephone for international newscasts, and the following day several mainstream newspapers quoted them as well.

Above, see screenshot of the Advanced Search form with the input parameters. Alternatively, you could use these search operators to get the same results:

#mumbai near:Mumbai within:15km

2. Twitter Detective: How to Spot the Trolls

After a few hours the #mumbai hashtag was infected with a number of people taking advantage of the opportunity to spread their propaganda. Suddenly we were hearing that the Mumbai terror attacks had been perpetrated by the Mossad (the Jewish conspiracy theory that routinely gets trotted out ); that all Muslims are terrorists (ditto); or that the attacks were the handiwork of Hindus, etc., etc. Some tweeters were more subtle but still had an obvious agenda.

It was interesting to see how many of these trolls had created Twitter accounts strictly for that purpose. Click through to the profile and you could see that they were following zero people and had zero followers, or a handful at most, and that the oldest updates had begun after the terror attacks took place.

The obvious trolls I blocked, in the hope that if enough people did that, their account would be suspended for unusual activity. Additionally, I found that you could eliminate these users from your advanced Twitter search by the use of the minus operator: i.e. #mumbai -trollname1 -trollname2

However, the list of people I wanted to block from the discussion got too long, so I just waded through their wretched rhetoric to read what interested me.

3. Tweetchat: Like a Chat Room for Hashtags

Brooks Bennett, whom I met as a fellow panelist for an event sponsored by the Texas Public Relations Association, created a new tool I enjoyed using to follow the #mumbai discussion. After we had discussed Twitter and hashtags at the TPRA conference, Brooks went home and thought, “What if you could have a Twitter chat room based on one topic?” … and then he created just that over the weekend. I had the fun of demoing it to the American Heart Association just two days later. (I’m telling you, things move fast in this social media world!)

Tweetchat turns a hashtag into a Twitter-style chat room. It’s just like Twitter Search in the way it displays a stream of each post that uses a particular hashtag. Unlike Twitter Search, the page autorefreshes (yay!). Plus, you can post to Twitter directly from Tweetchat–no switching between browser windows or applications. Additionally, when you post a Twitter update from Tweetchat, it automatically appends the hashtag for you, so you don’t have to worry about typos.

To use Tweetchat, go to http://tweetchat.com and log into Twitter with your username and password (not stored by the Tweetchat server; simply used to authenticate your account with the Twitter API). The “room” name is the hashtag you’re following. You can also send someone a direct link by using a format like this: http://tweetchat.com/room/mumbai

Brooks recently made some tweaks so that links now open in a new tab, and he fixed a bug that truncated messages that included an ampersand. I’m sure he would appreciate feedback when you try Tweetchat, so ping him on Twitter @BrooksBennett.

Those are my recent discoveries about Twitter. What new tips or tricks have you learned?

Connie Reece is the founder of Every Dot Connects, a consortium of marketing and media practitioners who are passionate about using new technologies to build bridges between people and ideas and causes. When a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2007, Connie created the Frozen Pea Fund, a grassroots, social-network-driven fundraising campaign that is now incorporated as a nonprofit organization. Connie is also a co-founding member and serves on the advisory board of the international Social Media Club. A popular conference speaker, Connie and fellow Every Dot Connects team members have launched a series of hands-on workshops to teach the basics of popular Web 2.0 tools. Connie and the EDC team are also available for strategic consulting or on-site training.

This is a guest post Samir Balwani of the Internet Marketing blog Left the Box. He writes about social media strategies and how businesses can better utilize the web. Follow him on Twitter or sign up for his newsletter.

The post below features some pretty well-known case studies, but if you are new to Twitter for Business, this is a great place to start.

Twitter has become a popular business tool for everything from Public Relations to Customer Relations Management.

It’s an integral part of business social media campaigns but because of its youth, Twitter strategies are still vastly misunderstood. To better understand how people are using it I decided to explore the three corporate stars of Twitter. I asked each to describe how they’re using social media in 140 characters.

Zappos

One of the best things that Zappos did was create their twitter.zappos.com page. It shows their dedication to keeping in contact with their consumers, and gives people a rare look into the company itself.

What does this level of transparency bring? Trust. The less a company is perceived as a black hole the more people trust them.

When a business is no longer seen as a business but a friend, you overcome the distrust of online shopping. People feel safer using your site with their credit cards and know that returning something won’t be a hassle.

Not only are the Zappos employees easy to contact but the CEO is using it consistently. Tony doesn’t only push out press releases, but instead talks as if he were any other employee. He’s the point man for delivering discounts and conducting research for Zappos on Twitter.

Their use and the Zappos Twitter page has created an online fan base. Not only are they able to generate buzz quickly but they’re able to take care of PR problems right away. If you don’t think Twitter, along with great PR, hasn’t helped make Zappos what it is it now, you’re sorely mistaken.

Ford

Scott has taken Ford’s social media campaigns to a new level and have really used Twitter as a major part of the strategy.

Ford introduced multiple Twitter accounts based on what they talk about. You can follow @forddriveone, @fordtrucks, or @forddrivegreen depending on what you want. Not only that, but Scott has said before that each department will have a team sending out messages and chatting on Twitter.

They’ve used Twitter to create a strong customer relationship. Scott has been known to generate buzz about new launches (for example, the new Mustang) and is quick to track any Ford mentions.

The brand’s social media strategy spans beyond Twitter and is also targeted towards bloggers. For example, they have invited bloggers to events. Twitter allows them to keep in touch with these bloggers and the Internet-savvy fans of Ford.

Comcast

Comcast has taken customer service and super-sized it with Twitter. Frank is in charge of @comcastcares, which is the company’s response to some public relations mistakes of past.

Frank monitors Twitter for any mention of Comcast and works to quickly alleviate any issues. At the same time, he offers great customer service.

The brand uses Twitter for customer service, and with it, public relations. By quickly resolving any problems people might have, they save themselves from having an Internet public relations fiasco.

It’s smart because many of Twitter users are bloggers and business owners, and we know the power of bloggers and how a minority can make a lot of noise.

Twitter’s ability constantly monitor people’s feelings lets brands target aggravated (and happy) customers. You’re able to create a relationship based on helping them use your product and letting consumers know just who you are. Using it to mold and grow relationships means better public relations, more brand evangelists, and more customers.

Related:

• Motrin’s Twitter Moment
• Twitter for Business Reading List
• Let Pistachio Consulting help your business get started

Dirk Röhrborn is the founder of Communardo where he is involved with Communote, an internal microsharing application. In this interviewFAQ, he provides insights into the application and decisions for its implementation and execution.

Q: Why did Communardo develop a new micro-sharing platform?

A: We have worked extensively with quite a number of social media tools, e. g. open source and enterprise wikis and weblogs, in projects for our clients. We have been using tools like these also internally for many years. However, a lot of very important project team communication cannot be captured. People use (sometimes abuse) e-mail and instant messaging and many good ideas, reasoning behind decisions, risks, problem solutions etc. is buried in mail boxes and IM log files. We wanted to capture these parts of informal communication. We’ve got some very good inspirations from the Wordpress Prologue theme which is in fact a great tool, but we do need a platform with better manageability and scalability. Therefore we developed “Kenmei” which we will now offer as online-service at communote.com.

Q: Why don’t you just use Twitter.com?

A: We love Twitter for personal use and business networking purposes. There is no better communications platform around. However, for our internal project work we rather need a tool that is topic-centric rather than people-centric like twitter. Further, we need confidentiality. Don’t misunderstand me; we are enthusiasts about information sharing and knowledge exchange. But we are also bound to legal agreements with clients that demand confidentiality. Therefore we must use a secure micro-sharing platform either behind the firewall or at least as secured service private to our teams.

Q: Why should busy users use another tool for communications?

A: Good question. People say: “all these users generating own content takes up our time”. But, user generated content is nothing new. If you look at today’s companies you will find many people writing notes into large paper notebooks. Some changed these for a shiny new notebook computer or smart phones and type notes into files, email messages etc. This is all UGC. But it really takes archeological capabilities to find and share important information this way. So what we need is a tool that our colleagues can use to write down their notes into one space easily, ideally using the client of their choice.

Q: What makes communote.com different from other micro-sharing tools?

A: First of all, there is this topic-centric approach that in our opinion fits the needs of internal communication better than a pure people-centric approach. Second, we have invested heavily into the development of the tagging and filtering tools to make sure that every note can be found instantly when needed. Third, we make sure that micro-content can be exported for later processing. RSS can be used to integrate micro-content into news readers and web portals. Further, we added an access control feature as well as LDAP integration to meet enterprise requirements.

Q: How do you use Communote in your own company?

A: Well, mostly in project communications. However, other teams are catching up, such as sales / marketing, HR and finance. One very interesting use is the “IT systems log”. This is a microblog where our technicians are noting any system change and extraordinary event into a microblog rather than another logbook. This makes later analysis and sharing within the team much easier.

Q: When will it be possible to use communote.com?

A: Our team is currently busy with completing the platform and setting up a stable systems environment. We plan to start the public beta-test in November. During the beta-phase we will be introducing a number of new features. The release of the commercial service is scheduled for January 2009.

Q: What are your future development plans?

A: We are currently looking into the development of certain APIs to allow for better integration with other systems, e.g. instant messaging and email. Further, we are developing micro clients for mobile and desktop use right now. The next big thing with 6-12 months ahead will be dashboard applications that provide us knowledge workers with a mash-up of better personalized information feeds than today’s tools.

This blog post was written by Erica O’Grady (@ericaogrady).

Twitter To Go?

When J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas first heard about Twitter from one of his customers, he was puzzled but intrigued. Today, he credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way to build Community.

If you’re reading this article, then chances are you’re already on Twitter, and you may even have experienced the power of Twitter for building your own personal or corporate brand. Recently, more and more companies have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon to help manage their online identities making it increasingly harder to stand out from the crowd.

But Cohen and CoffeeGroundz have found a way to do just that. Shortly after joining Twitter, Cohen started following members of the local Houston Twitterati and in no time had amassed over 1000 followers. Cohen is a naturally charismatic, giving, and friendly guy - traits that make him a natural on a network like Twitter.

On Becoming The Purple Cow

Nothing can build your brand faster than being or doing something remarkable. Seth Godin, author of the recently released Tribes calls this becoming “The Purple Cow”. Cohen didn’t set out to become a Purple Cow - but with one brief 140 character message - that’s exactly what he’s done.

On October 31st, 2008 Sean Stoner (@maslowbeer) was hungry. As a regular customer at CoffeeGroundz he sent the following Twitter to Cohen:

Cohen quickly replied and Sean went through the drive-thru at CoffeeGroundz to pick up his burrito.

This simple exchange got a lot of coverage on Twitter and was hailed as potentially the first time that Twitter had ever been used to place a To-Go Order. Seeing an opportunity, Cohen started taking to-go orders via direct message from any of his Twitter Clientele.

CoffeeGroundz offers free Wi-Fi, plenty of outlets, and they serve beer and wine - making it a cross between a Coffee House and a Lounge. Today, customers can order beverages and tasty bites from the comfort of their seat using Direct Messages to @coffeegroundz. How cool is that? You don’t even have to stop working to walk to the counter and order a coffee.

Building Community While Making a Profit

Recently, CoffeeGroundz was the venue for a Houston Tweetup that Cohen nicknamed “The Great Twitter Party”. Nearly 100 Houston Twitterites spent a lovely Sunday afternoon there at the largest Houston Tweetup to date. And did I mention that they bought lots of food and beverages? So the next time someone tells you that you can’t make money from Twitter, tell them to think again!

Below is a quick video I shot on Ustream with J.R. Cohen of CoffeeGroundz Houston. It starts off slow, but Cohen is so charismatic that it’s worth a look.

Erica O’Grady is the #1 Erica on Google - Most days :o) Currently she is a Social Media Consultant based in Houston, Texas (the damn near finest city in the South). You can read her blog at ReinventingErica.com or follow her on Twitter.