Taking the Twit out of Twitter

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Dublin Web Summit. Ray Nolan, one of the speakers and Founder of HostelWorld.com and Worky.com, made a comment that stuck in my mind. He advised not to “tweet away your career” as he believes if you’re on Twitter all the time during your work day then you’re probably not doing your work and are therefore potentially less employable.

I would imagine that everyone reading this has at one time said that “so and so” is “always on Twitter”…how do they do it? There’s no big secret. These people are not glued to their PC, dashing out on occasion for a sneaky toilet break. Only 25% of Twitter traffic comes from the website Twitter.com. Most people use a few third party Twitter applications set up that allow them to conveniently update their profile, regardless of where they are.

So what tools can you use to allow you to use Twitter with ease? Continue reading »

Study: Brands That Do Better Online Do Better Financially

I came across an interesting study over the weekend of the World’s “100 most valuable brands” which concluded that there was a clear and significant relationship between quality online consumer engagement and financial performance.

Wetpaint/Altimeter group looked at how well these brands were engaging with consumers using social media and “how that engagement correlates with their most important financial metrics: revenue and profit“.

They found that “socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful“.

The report below provides brief case studies on four of the top brands – Starbucks, Toyota, SAP and Dell – looking at the strategies behind their success using social media. Interestingly Starbucks although a humongous global brand has a relatively small social media team of only six people, yet has one of the largest fan bases on Facebook and over quarter of a million Twitter followers.

What were the takeaway points for someone readying to implement a social media strategy for their business?

• Engagement via social media IS important — and we CAN quantify it.
• What’s in it for me? The report quantitatively demonstrates a statistically significant correlation between social media engagement and the two most meaningful financial performance metrics – revenue and profit. Money talks, and it’s declaring that it pays to engage meaningfully in social media.
• Emphasize quality, not just quantity. Don’t just check the box; engage with your customer audience.
• To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. A few minutes each day spent by every employee adds up to a wealth of customer touch points.
• Doing it all may not be for you — but you must do something or risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.
• Find your sweet spot. Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. If you are resource-constrained, it is better to be consistent and participate in fewer channels than to spread yourself too thin.

PepsiCo Sponsored Blog Fizzes up in their Face

Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Just as advertising and corporate sponsorship keeps many print publications on our shelves, so too it keeps the wheels of the internet turning. More and more websites are integrating advertising platforms and negotiating sponsorship deals with big brands to ensure they’ve the cash to keep their online show on the road. However it’s often a fine line between making your website attractive to potential advertisers and maintaining the integrity of the site to ensure that you don’t alienate your website visitors.

One such website that has crossed that line is ScienceBlogs – one of the largest online communities dedicated to science.

This week ScienceBlogs got in to bed with PepsiCo, launching a PepsiCo ‘sponsored blog’ – Food Frontiers. However after just two days up and running, the blog was pulled. The result negative PR for PepsiCo and ScienceBlogs unleashing the wrath of their online community. So what was the problem? Continue reading »

I Need an iPhone 4 but Don’t Know Why

I’ve watched this video a few times now and the nerd in me had a good ol’ snort each time. A clever video which highlights the power of brand ‘iPhone’ and the Apple marketing machine:

Free Web Technology Conference in Dublin

I’ve been to a couple of great events lately but with conferences costing €100 and upwards…not to mention time out of the office, it can be hard to pick and choose which conferences you can afford to attend…or not to attend as the case may be!

There are a growing number of quality free events springing up all around the country -- two Dublin events that spring to mind are the Digital Mizfits events organised by Suzanne Fitzgerald of Moo Pictures and the Measure It! series run by Damien Mulley of Mulley Communications (haven’t managed to get to a Measure It! myself but reports from others indicate it’s well worth popping along if you can….next one is August 4th).

This Irish Internet Association and the National College of Ireland are hosting the “Dot Conf” on July 22nd -- registration at 10am with the first speaker kicking off at 10.30am. According to the IIA:

“the dot conf is a new web technology conference for anyone who works, rests or plays with the internet. It’s a one day event and it’s free. Essentially it’s a teddy bears picnic but with internet folk instead of bears.”

It’s a full day event being held to mark the launch of the NCI’s new MSc in Web Technologies with an interesting mix of speakers and best of all it’s free.

My mission of 2010 is to get out and about more, flashing business cards like a blackjack dealer so I’ll certainly try to get along to this.

Click here for all the details or check out this video on the conference:

[Nod and a wink to Sinead Cochrane on whose blog I first spotted this]