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Are you an influential tweep?

By Dana Hashem

The clever bods at Twitalyzer have whipped up a list of the top ten most influential tweeters, and it got me thinking about just what, exactly, a tweep has to do to gain some kudos in the twittersphere these days.

Sorry, but you can’t get away with just clocking up lots of followers anymore.  That’s right, you know who you are – and we can see right through you (*cough @LadyGaga splutter*).  If you want to up your game and make a valuable contribution to the online community, take your lead from the likes of @rafinhabastos, @stephenfry and @KimKardashian and ask yourself:

• Do I tweet regularly?
• Do I often respond to tweets from followers with personal messages?
• Does my Twitter name get mentioned a lot by other users (including RTs and HTs)?
• Do I share interesting information and links before anyone else does?

If the answer to most of these is ‘no’, then you’d better head back to the drawing board.  This, of course, goes for corporate accounts as well.  Nobody wants to have news blasted at them – there’s more to be gained from actually interacting with your customers online. 

Don’t believe me?  Take a look for yourselves: @Starbucks = tweeting #WIN, @CostaCoffee = tweeting #FAIL.

Beware of the bacn monster

Spam is an all too familiar nemesis of any respectable inbox.  But beware, there is a legitimate challenger to spam for eating up your inbox: bacon (or “bacn”).  Bacn is essentially email that you sign up for, so newsletters, Facebook notifications and shopping alerts – us PRs probably get more of these than most! 

The lovely infographic on the left, starring the bacn monster and put together by Unsubscribe.com (whose mission is “to stop unwanted email at the source!”), shows just how big a problem this is becoming and just how lucrative it can be for the businesses distributing the messages. 

The problem for us is that we simply can’t afford to unsubscribe and give up bacon.  We need the newsletters and Google News alerts and we want the Facebook updates.  So, if anyone has any tips on how to cut the fat and get to the good stuff quickly – let me know!

Online over-sharing

by Nicole Melzer

A few days ago, when shopping for a new mobile phone, a shop assistant presented me with one of those so-called smartphones.  Music downloads, mobile shopping, mobile banking – what a great new world of possibilities and information. 

Now I wouldn’t consider myself to be old-fashioned and I’m fairly open-minded to new technology, but this got me thinking. 

“Connecting people!” is the very well-known slogan from Nokia.  Being connected to your friends and followers at any place or time is what is distinctive of our time.  This has been truly defined by the popularity of social networking sites, allowing you to share your thoughts, locations, links and so on with your friends wherever they are 24/7.

But what do you like to share with others? One simple question: would you like to share an interesting shopping website or funny video with your friends?  Most of us probably would.  But what about your online banking site?  Or how about letting others discover that you’ve been browsing some, erm, sites of a more adult nature?  It’s likely that this would make some of us feel a little more uncomfortable – however this type of online over-sharing is now a reality.  

The new US social discovery portal Dscover.me enables you to share your browsing habits with your friends, and follow other users in real-time.  All you need to start your webtours is Google Chrome or the special browser Rockmelt.

The idea behind social discovery tours looks simple: watch each other navigating the web and chat.  Essentially you will share whatever you are browsing, although users do have some say in this.  While it may not seem like you are giving away very much information, Internet services like Dscover.me or Sitesimon really blur the lines of what is public and private information and for me, the negatives of this really do outweigh the positives.

Still haven't found what you're looking for?

Facebook has topped the charts of Experian Hitwise’s twice yearly ranking of the ten most searched-for online brands in 2010, followed closely by YouTube and eBay.  Even with 500 million users worldwide, there are apparently still quite a few out there who use search engines to find out where the social networking site lives. 

Here at Johnson King, we find it quite surprising to see so many sites at the top where the brand names are literally the domains – quite useful for the likes of Google...

 

LinkedIn reaches 100 million members – but why the sudden rush to sign up?

LinkedIn has always been billed as a professional networking site as opposed to a social networking forum.  Despite this business focus, the site reached an impressive milestone this week – attracting 100 million members.

To celebrate the occasion, LinkedIn created this infographic to give an insight into the current user base of the site, including information on where members are located geographically, what jobs they have, and the popular times of day to log on.

According to Mashable, LinkedIn jumped from 50 million users to 100 million users in less than a year (despite taking six years to reach 50 million).  Do you think that the new features such as following companies and popular mobile apps have led to this rapid increase in popularity?  Or is it the wide variety of groups, such as the one and only “Invest in cheese” group, as referenced in the infographic?

 

 

 

 

Strike a pose

When you’ve got snaps to share from your night on the town, that legendary work do, or even your picturesque walk to work, do you post them to Facebook in a tagging frenzy so your virtual friends can share the memories?  Thought so.  But how much do you really know about Facebook photos?

With six billion pictures uploaded each month (the most popular day for uploads being Sunday), by Summer 2011 there will be a whopping 100 billion photos on Facebook.  Stats from Pixable suggest that women are the most addicted, posting and tagging twice as many photos to Facebook than men, with girls also polling as the favourites to strike a pose with.  Check out the infographic below (via The Wall) for an idea of the phenomenon that is Facebook photos.

And in case you’re still fretting over those unflattering photos from last weekend’s mankini party, don’t panic.  The EU has just unveiled legislation to ensure your ‘right to be forgotten’, so you’ll soon be able to banish those dodgy photos forever!  

 

The 'Gamification' of life – losing touch with reality?

By Matt Tubbs

A recent Guardian article from SXSW raised some interesting questions about how computer game developers are looking to blur the boundaries between online and real life (or from OL to IRL, in technical parlance).  The article got me thinking about the gaming industry generally, and how companies are looking to use games as a means of getting their message across.

Statistics show that gaming is becoming a bigger and bigger industry. Black Ops, the latest title in the Call of Duty franchise, netted £233 million in its first 24 hours on sale and broached the £1 billion mark six weeks later. These figures put the game on a par with Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, and other massive entertainment releases. It is obvious that there is an enormous market for computer games that developers are looking to make their own. But do games really translate to life in the real world?

One would hope that in the case of Grand Theft Auto they do not, but other titles that replicate day-to-day life in a virtual environment seem to resonate particularly strongly with some. Who can forget the tragic case of the Korean couple who let their child starve while responding to the demands of their virtual baby? Or the deaths of two gamers who forgot to eat?

These are extreme examples, and the majority of those who buy into this multi-billion pound industry see gaming as a leisure activity. Due to the large audience potential, gaming also has a marketing application that companies are looking to exploit. Successful campaigns have hinged on encouraging people to “play” a game and receive rewards. An innovative recent campaign in Japan saw people competing to collect virtual butterflies scattered around the streets and trade them for vouchers.

Gaming as part of the entertainment industry has grown spectacularly in recent years. Sales continue to increase, and titles become more ambitious in their scope and audience. But will social gaming take off as a marketing tool? There is certainly a great deal of buzz around the topic, and it will appeal to creative brands looking to corner the market.

Those who begin to exploit social gaming’s marketing potential will, I believe, have an audience readily available – a smartphone equipped generation who are used to gaming for pleasure. This is almost certainly the audience that marketeers and PR firms will be looking to target with social games, and it is these people that will provide the impetus for growth in this sector.  

 

News: how do you like yours?

Technology has always played a critical role in the evolution of the delivery and consumption of news.  Clearly, it is currently the internet, coupled with increasingly advanced devices – such as smartphones and tablets – that is driving us news-hungry consumers to read and watch the news online.

McKinsey reported in April last year that here in the UK, the internet is in third place as a means of news consumption, just behind newspapers and TV.  But, in the US, the Pew Research Center has reported that the internet has overtaken newspapers to take second place.  With smartphones getting smarter and tablet PC sales set to rocket, we think it won’t be long ‘til the internet surpasses the newspaper here too.

 

 

Computer says no

By Fatima Meddad

Last month, Thierry Breton, the CEO of European IT services company Atos Origin, hit the headlines for his plans to ban internal email exchanges within his organisation in an effort to reduce information overload on staff.  A bold statement, the strategy was bound to garner a lot of interest – both in the media and the business world, where the email overload debate rages on. 

Arguing that the volume of email circulating within his company is now ‘unsustainable’, causing employees to waste between five and 25 hours per week just reading and responding to emails, the CEO announced his intention to enforce an internal e-death policy in 2014.

According to Breton, email is only necessary for external communications and employees should instead look to communicate with each other using a combination of social networking tools, like Facebook and Twitter, and collaborative social platforms.  It’s an ambitious idea, but can he really pull it off?

Email is practically second nature for most of us now, especially in a work context, so Breton will certainly have his work cut out eradicating internal email habits amongst his staff within the next three years.  But what’s more alarming is that, when it comes to communicating with co-workers in the office – be it over Facebook or IM – what’s to stop them chatting about sensitive work issues or disclosing confidential information during their conversations?

Social media tools are certainly an untapped resource within the corporate environment, but they can just as easily spiral out of control quicker than you can say “I heart Mark Zuckerberg”.  Unless measures are taken to adequately educate staff about the consequences of their actions and internal policies are properly enforced (at the very least), the information risk repercussions associated with such channels are vast for any organisation. 

Make no mistake Mr Breton, your intentions are admirable, but have you really thought this through?  Perhaps toughening up on email etiquette, encouraging more internal phone calls, or even a simple “no email” day once a month would be a more feasible place to start!

 

It’s a free world right? Not quite

When you hear the phrase ‘internet censorship’, does China usually spring to mind?  Of course it does.  The ‘Great Firewall of China’ has had a long and very public history when it comes to the censorship debate.

China’s policies are strict without a doubt, but in fact most countries that are connected to the internet conduct some level of internet censorship.  This could be anything from the obvious, such as blocking pornography sites, to restricting access to religious or political blogs and even social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter) in some regions.

Check out this awareness project by Evan You for some interesting stats on the who, what, how and why of internet censorship and take a stance.