The Rise Of Mobile Social Media Use

Year 2011 has been dominating for smartphones and tablets. In fact, more than half of all mobile phone sales are occupied by smartphones already. It is the year where consumers sought and realized that the use of these devices can bring yet another effective and convenient way of computing.

Powerful mobile OS (Operating Systems), highly interactive and useful applications, increased phone memory and the ever-powered storage over the cloud which allowed users flexibility to access files wherever, whenever! These are only among of a hundred reasons why smartphones and tablets are overtaking feature phones.

Related: Top Social Networking And Blogging Sites Of 2011

MOBILE SOCIAL MEDIA USE IS ON THE RISE

Whether it is a feature phone or a smartphone, the ability to access social media is a commonly used feature among mobile owners. About 43 percent of users access the web through mobile device such as mobile phones, iPad, e-reader and handheld music player. In the figure below, the 97 percent for computer use only suggests that still, computer is the most convenient way to use and access social media contents.

How do consumers access social media (Source:Nielsen)

SMARTPHONE FEATURES AND HOW USERS HAVE VALUED THEM

With wide capability ranging from the basics of making and receiving calls to checking out different places nearby down to mobile payment transactions and updating social status and news feeds plus the practicality of use over other devices, smartphones continue to be the most preferred gadget. The next figure below lists down the features commonly available in a smartphone device and how these features have valued by users.

While downloading and playing music is the most available feature for smartphones and global positioning system (GPS) is the most valued feature, applications for social networking has been the second available and most valued feature.

How does social networking compare to other features consumers have on
their phones? And what features do they value most?

MOST USED APPS FOR SMARTPHONE USERS

The on-the-rise popularity of smartphones and tablets which allow users install a wide variety of applications also made it possible for mobile social networking apps to be the third most downloaded app and used by smartphone owners. The most popular app for social networking across all operating system is Facebook  while Twitter is the number five most used app on Blackberry and Windows mobile operating systems.

Gaming apps (the most popular of which include Angry birds, Fruit Ninja and Tiny Tower) are still the most downloaded and used applications for smartphones While Weather applications are also highly in demand. Other categories for the most downloaded and used applications by smartphones users include music (Google Music is the most popular) , news, entertainment, banking/finance and dining/restaurant.

Top 10 Categories of Apps Used by Smartphones Owners Who Downloaded Apps

USERS WHO ENGAGED IN MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING

As teeny as thirteen (13) and eldest as fifty five and over (55+) years of age have installed apps for mobile social networking. The most highly downloaded app of which is Facebook followed by twitter with LinkedIn, a site preferrable for professionals, as the least most downloaded app. Ages twenty five to thirty four (25 - 34) have the highest percentage of social networking app users.

Percentage of Social Networking App Users by Age

Which Brands Rule Twitter?

Twitter has been a great place for brands to get in touch with the people who matter most - customers! You may have come across those brands too, may be even hired their services or bought their products. SocialFresh carried out an extensive research and finalized the best brands on Twitter. 

What attracted me to the race was that the ones with a lot of followers didn't win the top slot but the ones who were engaging. Those brands won who made sure that their customers were delighted by having them on their timeline! There are no Top 10 Brands, instead we have 12 with 5 Brands tied for No.8 Spot! 

Which brands have been the best of the lot? 

No.1 @JETBLUE

No.2 @SOUTHWESTAIR

No.3 @WHOLEFOODS


The brand with the most followers on the list is Whole Foods with 2,137,890

No.4 @REDCROSS

No.5 @DUNKINDONUTS

No.6 @STARBUCKS


Starbucks has been tweeting the longest than the rest of the lot and has the highest Klout score!

No.7 @PEPSI

No. 8 @AJBOMBERS

No.8 @BERGDORFS

No.8 @BLACKBERRYHELP

No.8. @CHIPOTLETWEETS


Chipotle ruled with over 63,598 tweets!!

No.8 @RSHOTEL

So, which Brand do you find the best? 

Twitter 101 for Business

With Twitter reaching stellar heights in the past couple of months and the recent jump with deep integration with iOS 5, it's high time you began tweeting. But, as a small business owner, you may be in a fix on the issues you need to check out before beginning your Twitter-experience. Without the right kind of strategy, your Twitter marketing can be one head-less chicken.

Here are the points you need to cover before, during and after tweeting -

Use Your Own Voice!

This is one area where most forget to focus on. Your Twitter experience will be down to nothing if you don't use your own style. This isn't your average marketing experience. You have to be more personal, more intimate with your audience. You know you have to make sale, but you have to project the tweet in a way that will get your followers excited!

Keywords Works Wonders!

Get down and create a list of all the keywords that may be related to your business. This will help you to create content that is caught by the search engines. Use the right kind of words to fit in within 140 characters.

Keep Sharing!

Remember, unless you are an MNC, people will be bored to get content only from you. Be sure to mix it up and share tweets and content from all across the web. Get onboard and follow those from your industry and share interesting tweets. Keep an 80:20 ratio and your followers will lap it up!

Connect with the Right Kind

It's not always wrong to follow new people. But you need to connect with the right kind of them. Those who matter in social media, you must chat up with them often. There is no point in talking to those who have less followers. 

Links. Always.

One way to keep making good use of Twitter is by redirecting the visitors to your site. But how? Well, use Bit.Ly links. Shortened links can fit well in the last part of the tweet and the right kind of words will actually make your followers hit it and visit the link. 

Hashtag

With the new #Discover or Hashtag, you can write on topics and get some quality traffic too! For example, if you are sharing something on digital marketing, then a #digitalmarketing tag at the end of the tweet will work wonders. Hashtags are used by people to talk on certain topics. But you don't need to put a #hashtag on tweet which has the keywords. For example, you shouldn't write 

"Digital marketing is the way forward for business. http://bit.ly/example #digitalmarketing." 

Instead, just write the topic and link. Your tweet will show up in the search results.

Great. Now before you begin, make sure to create a proper profile with the right kind of profile picture (don't be an egghead) and background image (company owners, take note!). Make sure to give links and a proper bio. Have something to say? Drop your comment below!

image courtesy: michaelhyatt.com

Can Social Media Land You A Job?

Apparently, the growing community of people who goes online is dramatically increasing each year and there is no doubt that more and more people are using social media not just for communication but also for looking opportunities and careers. On the other hand, most popular companies especially those involved in business process outsourcing are utilizing social networking sites to get their target employees. So can the social media get you a job? The answer is YES!

And Facebook as the largest community on the web with over 800 million active user, leads in those social media that many users used to seek and successfully get their career although other social media platforms like Linkedin and Twitter are not left far behind.

See the infographic below as published in jobvite.com to learn more the statistical data on how social media strategy worked for getting and landing a job. 

"Take THAT, Facebook, Google!" - Twitter

I woke up this morning to the news of #newTwitter finally arriving. I was curious. The reason being this was a change which people were actually praising Twitter! I decided to hit the office and log on to Twitter later. Before I logged on to Twitter, I didn't see any change. After I logged on, there was not the slightest sign of change. May be it will update later on. Who knew?

Either ways, I accessed my Android market and saw that new Facebook, Linked and Twitter updates were waiting for my permission. Twitter updated and I logged in there first. The whole new interface simply wow-ed me. I was happy getting a cleaner interface, an interface that made sense. After the updates were done, I decided to religiously tweet about it. The moment I typed Twitter.com, I landed up in a place which I mistook for Bing! The New Twitter was right there in front of my eyes!

Rich interface and one that is clean. I am all for clean design and Twitter scored in a big way! So, I logged on. My profile changed and how! Compact design and something that gives a a visitor a sketch about myself.

So, the Home page changed dramatically. Trending topics were shifted to the bottom left and the entire design changed to a much more compact view.

Upon clicking "@Connect" (awesome) all of those who had connected with me recently showed up in the timeline. The tweets made much more sense. On the top left corner, "Interactions" and "Mentions" have been added. Interactions tracked my chats with fellow tweeters while Mentions tracked the sole mentions that helped me separate existing conversations with new shares.

The biggest improvement has been with "Discover". Previously known as #Hashtag, Twitter has tried to give this a whole new meaning. With stories that users were discussing about to a brief sketch of them on the right side, Twitter has done a wonderful job!

Just underneath Stories, lies "Actuvity" which gives you a brief scope on the behavior of those whom you follow. Their recent activities will show up in this tab. Nice work in hiding this ugly "stalking" feature!

How about direct messages? DMs can now be accessed in a whole new way from the pull-down menu on the top right corner of the profile. Number of unread DMs will be shown in the section. Let's go inside, shall we?

A whole new Direct Message interface with the recent messages really gave Twitter that HTML5 look. I really liked this one.

All in all, Twitter has done a huge improvement. With the kind of positive feedback that Twitter is generating, it will definitely be music to the founders!

Twitter Changes - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

If you have logged on to Twitter today, then you may possible seen a nice little thing called "Activity" which replaced "Retweets" section. Also, the Mentions tab changed to "@YourHandle" which gave you the mentions and retweets, in real time. The Activity Tab is a great way to see what others are doing and the tweets that influential tweeps are favoriting. 

Yayy! New Update!

However, as with every change, there are certain good and bad sides. Here they are discussed for you -

The Good 

Real Time Update - Forget hitting the Mention every time to see whether anyone Tweeted you. Now, Twitter will update the stream in real time. 

From giving you an update in the @YourHandle tab about the tweets, retweets and follows that you receive to who retweets you and when, Twitter's new Mention tab is pretty cool. 

Crowded but Beneficial

The Activity tab gives marketers a clear insight on the people and whom they follow, which tweets they "favorite" and much more. If you are new to Twitter, then this feature will help you get the Tweeps whom your tweeps like. Thumbs Up!

The Bad

Crowded - This update is a major bad news for people who swear by Twitter's simplicity. Twitter is headed the Facebook's way for sure. @YourHandle should have been kept simple with Twitter "asking" for your permissions for displaying various content like who followed you and such. For example, if I don't want to know who follows me and when, I must have the option to turn the notification off. But sadly, Twitter doesn't want that. No Good for those who follow and are followed by thousands of people. Just Imagine the sheer amount of notifications.

The Ugly

Definitely the Activity tab. The subtlety of Twitter is gone with this new feature. This is a good feature for starting out but definitely not good for those looking to get a clear view of Twitter. What's really bad is the "stalking" nature of the feature. You cannot but resist seeing who followed whom and "favorited" whose tweet. This is definitely unwanted. 

Confusing!

Take-away 

All that can be made out of the recent new development is that it definitely makes Twitter, a bit like the rest. Twitter should bring in customization without which, this new development will be a complete fail for many.

Twitter Sign-Ups Triple with Apple iOS 5 Launch!

Twitter Times are Here!

Last week, Apple launched its latest operating system which Twitter had a deep integration with. Thanks to the popularity of the operating system, it has been nothing else but just beneficial for the micro-blogging site. Twitter reported three-times the sign-ups it normally reports everyday!

But here is the awesome part! This news piece just covered the first day of the launch which was reported by Costolo. With 4 million Apple 4S phones sold on the first weekend and with around 20 million users already upgrading the operating system, you can only imagine the number of first time users. Users have an option to sign-up to the site and there is not a single reason why they wouldn't!

Have you upgraded to iOS 5 yet?

With Twitter and Apple going the full distance in ensuring a deep relationship, small business owners need to stand up and make sense of their Twitter strategy. With 200 million users (half of them active round the clock) and a rapidly growing base, Twitter can change the shape of your business for sure! 

What the Bible can teach us about Personal Learning Networks: Spermalogos & Twitter birds

Yesterday, while reading Acts 17:18, I stumbled upon the rather intriguing term "spermalogos."If you're not up on your New Testament Bible stories, let me briefly set the scene for you. In this verse, the apostle Paul has just arrived in Athens and finds himself in the Greek agora preaching the gospel of Christ to a bunch of philosophers. The reaction from the philosophers? A baffled "What is this spermalogos trying to say?"

The NIV translation says they called him a "babbler" and explains that the term refers to a "bird picking up seeds here and there" and that it eventually "came to refer to the loafer in the marketplace who picked up whatever scraps of learning he could find." A bird picking up scraps of information from others? Maybe it's just me, and I'm ripe for another social media fast, but when I read this, I couldn't strike this picture from my mind of a little blue Twitter bird flying around the social web, occasionally picking up a seed of wisdom from its personal learning network (PLN). Kind of like this:

I love that metaphor! But there's more to it. The NIV study notes further clarify that a spermalogos picks up these scraps of learning and then parades them around without digesting them himself. What a great way to depict the limits of a personal learning network. There is no learning without digestion. Okay, strike that - that didn't sound so good. Let's try again: In order to learn from the seeds of wisdom provided by our PLN, we have to carefully examine them, question them, absorb them. We can't just skim over information in a superficial attempt to digest it.

Unfortunately, the fast paced nature of the social web might be priming us to do just that (see Nicolas Carr's book The Shallows for a very grim view on this issue). Even if you don't quite buy Carr's argument that we are losing our ability to read and think deeply, raise your hand if you have ever retweeted information from your PLN without having (fully) read the information contained in it! As much as I hate to admit it, I know I have. And I know it happens quite a bit - especially when you see a tweet retweeted in your timeline seconds after the original tweet went out. Parading scraps of information around without digesting them first? Sounds a lot like the practice of retweeting without first studying the information contained in a tweeted link, doesn't it?

It also reminds me of the practice of bundling tweets and repackaging them in newspaper style format through services such as Paper.li or Scoop.it. Although these sites refer to themselves as content curation services, I wonder if what they are being used for should really be called curation. Aggregation maybe, but curation? If all we do is bundle undigested pieces of wisdom together to share with others, have we really curated anything? A true curator adds a point of view and contextualizes the scraps of information s/he is culling together thereby framing the message. In order to curate then, we need to provide a frame to hold each precious little piece of wisdom, but in order to develop that frame, we first need to digest the information (for an excellent read on the topic of frames & curation, I suggest Maria Popova's piece on curation as a new kind of authorship). Aggregation may be possible without digestion, but curation sure isn't.

Back to Paul though. So these philosophers who according to Acts spent their time hanging out doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas, just called him a spermalogos (or in my version of the story, a blue Twitter bird). Although this may sound like an insult, some people have pointed out that that's not necessarily the case. These idea hungry philosophers saw him as someone who having picked up bits and pieces of wisdom here and there, could "make a significant contribution to their understanding."And there's a lesson in that as well. As we travel around the social web, we need to remember that we can gather scraps of wisdom from the people we encounter there. In a way we're all spermalogos traveling around the Internet. Or maybe we're Athenians picking up the bits and pieces of wisdom our PLN leaves behind everyday around the market place of ideas which is Twitter. For us to learn from these ideas though, let's not forget to take the time to truly absorb and digest them.

Twitter Tips for Beginners!

Twitter now provides the quickest and the sure-shot way to gain more publicity and find more customers. 

Here, you are able to communicate your business’s vision as well as share interesting links with your audience. If you are on Twitter, you can follow experts as well as newbies and stay on top of the trend.

If you are beginning with Twitter, here are the tips which would certainly help you gain more audience and bring in the profits.

•  Begin with a “Hi” – Twitter is just like the real life where in order to get more listeners, you need to communicate the right ideas. Introduce yourself, your company and your visions and how you aim to contribute more towards the betterment of the community.

For reading further tips look up at tomraftery.

Incorporating Personal Learning Networks into Course Projects

Last semester I introduced a brand new project into my social media class which I've been meaning to report on for a while now. I decided to set 25% of the final grade aside for an assignment the students were allowed to design themselves (the project is described in detail here). The idea was to help students develop independent learning skills by teaching them how to use social media tools to create a personal learning network (PLN) capable of supporting their project goals. Students were able to tailor the assignment to their own learning needs by:

• identifying an area of social media or PR they wanted to learn more about
• outlining a plan of study, and 
• deciding on appropriate learning deliverables to demonstrate their mastery of the material.

The projects the students created ranged from doing PR work for real-world clients to designing their own digital portfolios and social media resumes. The nice thing about this assignment was that as an educator, I got to see and evaluate not only the final product, but also the process the students went through to produce these final products. Below is a Prezi one of my students created to introduce her PLN. I love this Prezi because one look at it told me that this student really 'got' the idea of a PLN -- she really was able to identify experts capable of informing her particular project needs.



To be fair, students' initial reaction to the project may not have been one of absolute enthusiasm... I think the idea of independent learning and PLNs may be so different from the standard academic fare, that it was met with a bit of resistance at first. When I asked my Twitter network to tell me what they got out of their PLN, one of my students responded:

Let's hope that this epiphany hit the student before filling out the end of semester evals :)

So, would I do this project again? You betcha! I'm absolutely convinced that one of the most important skills we can teach our students is to become independent learners. Social media technologies have given us the opportunity to connect to experts all over the world -- all we need to do now is show students how to put these technologies to use in their own learning. It's not just students though that stand to gain from this. PLNs also provide powerful professional development tools for academics. Below is a presentation my colleague and I gave last week to our faculty in order to encourage them to develop their own PLN.

Promoted Tweets

Everyone's talking about Twitter's new revenue model called Promoted Tweets. What is it? In plain english, Promoted Tweets are just paid search. A brand buys some keywords from twitter, when the user searches for said keyword in twitter's search function, the paid search Brand tweets will rise to the top of the search queue and populate first, over the community's conversation that may incorporate the same keywords.

Someone like Justin Bieber probably won't need Promoted Tweets. However, this could have been very handy for Motrin, back in the day when the Motrin Moms debacle erupted. Or for Southwest Air when Kevin Smith shook up the tweetstream with his outrage. In instances like that, when thousands of people are chiming in and creating a tweetstorm, Promoted Tweets would help a Brand elevate their POV to high ground rather than drown in the tweet tsunami.

Am I wowed by Promoted Tweets? Not so much. Not yet, anyway. I've got my eye on the next gen of Promoted Tweets, that's gonna be the game changer.

The next gen of this model will change how tweets appear in your personal tweet stream. I have a feeling that's going to rock a lot of boats, which is why that's the next gen feature. Twitter is going to have to do a lot of testing before they roll that out. It sounds pretty invasive and in fact, may be outright disruptive.

According to the NY Times, "In the next phase of Twitter’s revenue plan, it will show promoted posts in a user’s Twitter stream, even if a user did not perform a search and does not follow the advertiser...For example, if someone has been following people who write about travel, they could see a promoted post from Virgin America on holiday fare discounts."

That's going to be tricky for Twitter to implement. Twitter users tend to be finicky curators of their "streams." A lot of people I know approach their tweet stream like a Bonsai project, ever so carefully pruning and cultivating to ensure they don't have spammers in there or people who are "too noisy" or too focused on a specific topic they aren't interested in or if they're like me, cultivating a stream that is the almost-perfect balance of lifestreamers who happen to work in fields related to mine or live in the Philly-area. Tweet streams are serious business for much of this dedicated community, so effecting the individual's curation of it may be a landmine for twitter.

That said, as an advertiser, if I could join a conversation about a topic related to my field or product and share information related to it, that does sound mighty appealing. For me, it's really going to boil down to the integration of the second generation of this product. Am I butting into someone's stream, or am I a blade of grass gently shooting up alongside the stream? Can't wait for the little blue bird to let us know.

You don't need to tweet to get value out of Twitter

Yes, you heard me right: You don't necessarily need to tweet in order to get value from Twitter! Let me explain why I say this. For the last few semesters I have been encouraging my PR students to get on Twitter. I've explained the necessity to be Twitter literate (twitterate?) and discussed examples of corporate, non-profit, and personal uses of Twitter. I've even thrown in a lecture on how to use Twitter as a job search and personal branding tool. The response though has been mixed. While some students get really excited, others react much less enthusiastically.

Let me make a confession here before moving on: I probably fell into that second category myself when I first learned about Twitter back in 2007. I saw its potential as a PR tool, but as an academic, I didn't see the need to tweet myself. I set up an account mainly because people were talking about it and I felt it was something I should discuss in my social media class. I basically registered my account so I could learn about Twitter.

So now you know - I never planned on tweeting myself! Having said that, I think I can understand my students' initial hesitation about joining the twitterverse. I've been there. So here's my advice for them (and anyone else sharing their feelings): Just set up an account, develop a network and listen in - no need to jump in with your own tweets right away! Staying away from tweeting for a while might even open your eyes to Twitter's potential as a powerful social search engine.

So how do you develop a good network?

1. Start by identifying a few people in your field whose work you admire. Then look them up to see if they tweet. You may use Twitter's built-in search engine to locate people on Twitter (click on the 'Find People' link on the top right hand side of the page), or you can check their blog or other social networking site to look for their Twitter handle.
2. Now you can piggy-back off their following/follower list! Go through both lists to see whether there are any people who share your interests or who tend to pass along valuable information. A quick look at their latest tweets usually is enough to make that call.
3. When someone in your network sends out an RT (retweet), look up the person who sent the original tweet. Again, check their latest tweets to see if you could benefit from the type of info they tweet.
4. Check out the #followfriday suggestions from the people in your network. Every Friday thousands of Twitter users all over the world participate in this event by suggesting people who are worth following.
5. You can also check Twitter for suggested users although those suggestions won't be tailored to your specific needs. Twitter uses the analogy of your local book store's staff picks to explain its suggested users list.
6. If you want to receive suggestions on who to follow based on your current network, give Mr. Tweet a try. Mr. Tweet looks through your relationships and tweets to identify the influencers and followers you should follow.
7. An even easier way to discover new and interesting Twitter users is to consult a Twitter list. Twitter is in the process of rolling out its own list feature to the public, so you may want to check your favorite tweeter's lists once the feature goes live for everyone.
8. In the meanwhile, check out the lists published on TweepML, another service that allows you "to manage and share groups of Twitter users." Use its "find a list" search tool to locate lists of Twitter users in your field (for instance, check out this list of educators on Twitter, or this list of PR pros).

If you implement all of the steps outlined above, you should end up with a pretty good-sized group of people to follow. Now all we need to do is a bit of network tweaking:

1. Start by filtering your incoming tweets. That's the only way to keep on top of Twitter when you are following a large group of people. Get a Twitter desktop client such as Tweetdeck or Seesmic and divide the people you follow into groups. For instance, I have a group for PR educators, one for PR professionals, another one for non-English tweets, etc. By organizing them into categories, the tweets will be neatly displayed in columns which will make it much easier to scan your tweets for relevant information.
2. "Test drive" your Twitter subscriptions for a month or two. Then re-evaluate. Are there accounts you are subscribing to that aren't providing much value to you? If so, hit the "unfollow" button! Think of your subscriptions as coming with a money back guarantee. If you don't like what you see, simply cancel at no cost to you.
3. Don't forget to repeat steps 1-8 every now and then to add new voices to your Twitterstream.

Do this for a while and I'll almost guarantee you'll see the value of Twitter and will want to get involved yourself. You'll learn so much from the people you follow and come across so much great information you'll want to reciprocate by sharing your insights.

U.S. Government to Twitter: Please no Fail Whale during the Iranian Election Crisis

As Iran is working to restrict access to the media in light of the recent election uproar, the U.S. government has responded in a rather unusual manner: According to news reports, the State Department asked Twitter to move its scheduled maintenance to a different time in order to allow Iranians to tweet about the ongoing crisis:

• Mashable report
• CNN report
• Q&A with Clay Shirky on Twitter and Iran on the TED blog 

Twitter acquiesced to the State Department's request and issued the following statement on its blog:

When we worked with our network provider yesterday to reschedule this planned maintenance, we did so because events in Iran were tied directly to the growing significance of Twitter as an important communication and information network. [...] It's humbling to think that our two-year old company could be playing such a globally meaningful role that state officials find their way toward highlighting our significance. However, it's important to note that the State Department does not have access to our decision making process. 

Looks like the State Department has come to understand  the importance of social media in times of crises. The governments of countries such as Iran, China, and Myanmar should have learned an important lesson too: that restricting access to the media no longer works to crack down on dissent. Governments trying to control all information flow are facing the same reality as businesses trying to control all branding messages - they are fighting a losing battle. Despite Iran's efforts at blocking social networking sites and threatening Internet users, Iranian citizens have managed to post pictures of the unrest to the Internet,  upload videos to YouTube, and post their stories to Twitter and Facebook. And now that traditional news outlets (banned from reporting directly from the scene) are relying on these social networking services in their reports, the story does get out. Maybe even in a more authentic way?

Spring 09 Student Podcasts

Here's a fresh batch of podcasts from this semester's students! Each student team was instructed to produce a 5-10 minute podcast on an issue pertaining to class. Teams were given the option of either interviewing an expert on the topic of social media or organizing a panel discussion on a social media and PR issue. This semester, we relied entirely on open-source software (in this case Audacity) to produce the podcasts. Here are the results:

• Interview with Janis Krums, the twitter user who shared the first picture of the Hudson River landing - Reanne, Austin, Ginny, Ben
  
• Interview with Cynthia Baker, President and Founder of Accolades PR in Austin, TX - Monica, Jaime, Ailynn, Alejandra
• Panel on Twitter - Sara, Joe, Jesse, Kirby
• Interview with Lauren Perdue, a social media professional with Peer Buzz in Austin, TX - Alex, Stephanie, Ashley

Twitter's Agenda Setting Power: Example of a Hail Storm

I just made it home from work yesterday right before a brief but vicious hail storm descended upon Austin. After checking the radar on TV and realizing I'd probably be fine, I turned to the important things in life - checking my Twitter feeds. And there I saw this:

Must be a hail storm in Texas right now. Mighty Twitter knows all.

Nothing too unusual considering the speed with which messages get spread through Twitter. Except that in this case, the tweeter was @pphilp and lives in Canada. It took me a second to realize that the hail storm must be a trending topic on Twitter and lo and behold it was:

How can an event this localized dominate the Twitterverse so easily? A number of possibilities come to mind: either yesterday was a very slow "news day" for Twitter, or there is a disproportionate amount of Twitter users living in Austin. Or maybe it's a combination of both? TwitterGrader does support the idea that Austinites might be particularly prone to tweeting - it lists the city among the top 10 Twitter cities. Maybe the tweets around events in Austin are more likely to make the trending list because there are simply a lot of Twitter users in Austin? Think about the power that gives Austinites and other tweeters from Twitter-friendly cities in terms of setting the agenda for what other Internet users hear and think about.

Whatever it may be, here's an example of an event that didn't make it past the local news in the traditional media (at least I'm not aware of any of the major networks running a story on the Austin hail storm, let alone the international media). Yet, Twitter spread the news of this localized event all the way to other countries - and all of that pretty much in real time. 

Explaining Twitter in 140 characters or less - is it possible?

Good talk by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams on how Twitter evolved from the original idea of letting people share moments of their lives into something a lot more complex. Williams contends that although Twitter was initially designed as a broadcast medium, it's the users that ended up shaping the system into what it is today. Some of Twitter's current uses go far beyond the original idea of allowing people to stay connected and were completely unanticipated according to Williams.

I think that's one of the reasons many people have a hard time "getting" Twitter. Twitter is many things and continues to evolve in directions that are hard to anticipate - even by its co-founder. The ever-changing nature of Twitter means that we need to stay open to its many possibilities and that we can't just categorize it one way. It's another good example of what I talked about last week in a short guest post on the PRSA ComPRehension blog: the danger of static views of social media technologies. It's difficult to summarize what Twitter is all about. Imagine having to do so in true Twitter fashion: in 140 characters or less. I don't think I could do it. Could you? ABC tried to explain Twitter last week and they did a nice job but it took them 7 minutes to do so!

One other thing worth pointing out in this talk is the demonstration of Twitter as a backchanneling tool for presenters. We've seen it with Sarah Lacy's interview of Marc Zuckerberg at SXSW last year and we saw it again last night at the Texas Public Relations Association (TPRA) awards when comedian Sherry Belle offended her audience and was castigated in real-time on Twitter.

What a day: A new President and a new White House website

Within seconds of the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States came another big change today: the take-over of the White House website by the new administration. Social media enthusiasts will be excited to learn that the new site resembles the much praised Change.gov site the Obama team had put up to communicate with the public during the presidential transition phase. The new White House website contains a blog and the first post by Macon Phillips, Director of New Media for the White House, clearly describes the priorities of the Obama administration's new media efforts (emphasis added by me):

1. Communication -- Americans are eager for information about the state of the economy, national security and a host of other issues. This site will feature timely and in-depth content meant to keep everyone up-to-date and educated. Check out the briefing room, keep tabs on the blog (RSS feed) and take a moment to sign up for e-mail updates from the President and his administration so you can be sure to know about major announcements and decisions.

2. Transparency -- President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise. The President's executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review, and that’s just the beginning of our efforts to provide a window for all Americans into the business of the government. You can also learn about some of the senior leadership in the new administration and about the President’s policy priorities.

3. Participation -- President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

Update: Wow, I must say Obama's new media team is on the ball! I published this post at 1:52 p.m. and received a Twitter notification exactly 32 minutes later to inform me that Government Tweets (dotgov) is now following me on Twitter. And I thought they were all busy celebrating...

More on Social Media & the Mumbai Attacks

I had planned to discuss the Cluetrain Manifesto in class tomorrow, but the events of last week in India have lead to a slight change in plans. As Twitter user naomieve observed a few days ago, Mumbai is a social media experiment in action and because it is such a great case study, I figured that we should take a closer look at the role social media played during the live-reporting of the Mumbai attacks. I've put together a slideshow that covers the types of social media used by citizen journalists during this tragic event:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: citizen mumbai)

Tweeting about layoffs at Zappos

Very emotional day for everyone at Zappos. I’ll be sending out an update later today with details of what’s going on.

That's the message Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh sent out over Twitter today. The details he would later reveal were plans to lay off 8% of the company's workforce in order to deal with the economic slowdown. The company, which has more than 400 employees on Twitter openly discussed the layoffs on its employee Twitter page. Asked if it was okay to tweet about the layoffs, Hsieh responded: "Our Twitter policy remains the same as it's always been: just be real, and use your best judgement." Nice to see a company being that transparent about bad news for once.

The Dark Side of Twitter: Terrorist Tweets

Seems like I forgot to mention that twitter also makes a good terrorism tool according to a military newsletter supplement discussed in a recent Wired post.