Is Facebook wearing out its welcome?

Musings on whether the good in Facebook will keep me coming back or the bad will annoy me away

As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, Facebook has hit 350 million users. That’s well over the entire population of America. Not bad for something created 5 years ago in a dorm room.

This monumental success got me thinking about the great things Facebook has given us, and the not so great stuff that has tagged along with it. I’ve found myself growing out of Facebook recently because the annoying things are so persistent. But the good things that have hooked me, and hundreds of millions of others, keep me returning. For the time being, at least. I’m very curious to see if the increasing tedium of the social networking site won’t start to push those huge numbers back down in 2010, or at least slow its growth as users turn elsewhere.

Here are five reasons I keep visiting the world’s 2nd most visited website, and 5 things I could definitely live without.

I come to Facebook to …

Keep up with friends in other countries
As an expat, Facebook has been a godsend in making it easy to stay up to date on my friends’ lives from across the Atlantic, even salvaging some sense of the intimacy that was lost when I moved.

Share my internet finds
At the moment, Facebook is the most effective way to share funny/interesting videos or articles I find with all my friends at once. I don't want them to miss out on gems like the literal version of Under the Bridge, after all.

Check out and share photos
Photo tagging is a great idea. Not only can I share photos with friends and family, I can see all the ones I’m in and the ones my friends are in. It lets me look into their lives with minimal time and effort. The upcoming photo tag search will make this even better. 

Easily organize events
Right now Facebook provides the easiest way for me to organize a party, as trying to get each and every person on the phone individually is always a chore. Things like this are what Facebook should be all about - making people’s lives easier by connecting them in a useful way.

Remember people’s birthdays
I used to forget everyone’s birthday, but Facebook tells me every day whose is coming up next. It’s a little thing, but a big help for someone as forgetful as me.

And leave because of the …

Unchecked narcissism
This comes in many forms, from picture after picture of someone showing off their muscles (or muscle cars), to constant updates about every little thing someone does, to shameless self promotion. Many, many people can’t resist shouting LOOK AT ME every five seconds when they’re given an audience, and Facebook provides them with an audience around the clock. This is undoubtably why millions of people are clamoring for an “unlike” button.

Mafia Wars and other irritating apps
I actually kind of miss seeing inane updates from friends in my mini feed, because now it’s full of ‘accomplishments’ they’ve achieved in digital farming or pretend mafia warfare. Moreover, the novelty of seeing what people are up to has worn off and I hardly read updates at all anymore. Even more annoying, Mafia Wars has spilled over to Twitter as well with people tweeting their accomplishments and sending DM’s requesting I join. Please, give it a rest. I don’t care and I never will.

Utterly pointless content
I’m sure glad to know my friend Stefan is a fan of grilled cheese sandwiches and Carlos is a fan of the cold side of the pillow. I get that these are more gags than anything, but my tolerance for such a large amount of fluff content is decreasing as social media platforms become more refined and focused.

But it does look all melty and yummy...

Too-much-information status updates
This is another reason I hardly look at the mini feed anymore. There’s so much info in there that I don’t need, or want, to know. But on the plus side, TMI updates have given us facebookfails.com.

Reads best in valley girl voice

Overbearing dominance
Like it or not, you’re pretty much forced to be on Facebook to stay in the loop. Even my most stalwart friends who resisted for ages have given in and created profiles. Hell, my grandmother even has one. Somehow the fun and novelty of the whole experience is lost when it nears mandatory status.

It seems hard to believe right now that Facebook will just fade away, but it’s happened before (I’m looking at you, MySpace) and it could happen again if Facebook isn’t careful. I used to think life without Facebook would suck, but now I’m feeling ready for something new to come along. But maybe it’s just me. Do you see yourself still visiting Facebook every day a couple years from now?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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10 tips for taking your business into the Twittersphere in 2010

I feel compelled to say right off the bat that if you aren’t interested in genuinely engaging with your customers (spamming with links to your website or special offers does not equal engagement), don’t use Twitter for your business. But if you are ready to start a conversation about your company, it can be a powerful tool to develop your brand and add many loyal customers to your following.

These days if you aren’t using social media, you’re doing something wrong. Don’t believe me? Here is a list of companies using Twitter. The good news is you don’t have to have deep pockets like Starbucks, Coca Cola or American Airlines to successfully use Twitter. And up until a few months ago, it was enough to just be on Twitter. But these days you need to know how you're going to use it before entering the fray. To ensure you see a return on your efforts and that you get the most out of your energy, we recommend following these 10 tips for taking your business into the Twittersphere. Pretty soon you may just find yourself on lists like this.

1. Create a strategy. Ask yourself exactly what it is you want to get out of Twitter and what you're willing to give. Then put it down on paper. There are hundreds of ways to use Twitter: A listening tool to gauge sentiment about your brand or competitors; A tool to engage and converse; A podium to express your ideas and build a reputation as a thought leader; A forum to instigate debate; A medium to share news about your company or industry; A place to address customer service issues. There are many more, but only a few are probably right for you. Choose wisely.
2. Tune in to the conversation. You should start using Twitter Search right away to see what people are saying about you, your competitors and your industry. It’s free, invaluable consumer insight and it allows you to respond to complaints or compliments about your company. Listening closely will also help you get a feel for Twitter and its dos and don’ts.

   
3. Show that you’re human. Don’t be afraid to add your personality and opinions to the conversation or share things you find interesting that are related to what you do. Your tweets should sound like they’re coming from a person, not a marketing machine. By no means should you put your account on auto-Tweet and walk away or auto DM your followers. They really don’t appreciate it.

4. Have more than one tweeter. This will give your tweets extra character and will keep you covered in case someone falls ill or goes on vacation - it’s important to keep the feed going. But this brings up the issue of consistency. Make sure you have written Twitter tactical guidelines specifying the content and tone of your stream as well as your behavior on Twitter - this will ensure consistency and that you are always contributing to your strategy. 

5. Help solve people’s problems. Don’t just push your own interests and goals. Figure out what your followers need, and try to help them get it. This could be links to useful information, solving problems they have with your service or keeping them up-to-date on general industry news. 

6. Use 3rd party software to manage your account. There’s a lot of great software out there to help you refine info from Twitter into something easily manageable and highly effective. TweetDeck  is our personal favorite as it lets us organize followers, @’s, keyword searches and more into individual columns that can be taken in at a glance. Check out our previous post for more info on apps that help you manage followers. 

7. Make it useful when you do talk about yourself. You should use most of your tweets not talking about yourself, but when you do, don’t just push your name and offer out there. Give people useful advice, links, blog posts or cool pictures to make your message worth your followers’ while to listen to.

8. Follow people involved with or interested in your industry. Quantity does not equal success on Twitter. Creating a balanced ecosystem of following/followers that are all relevant to your industry and goals will give you the most back from Twitter. You’ll get valuable information and opinions and will be talking to the right people. 

9. Respond to people who @ you. This is fundamental for making your Twitter use a conversation and not just a stream of words flowing over your followers. Other tweeters out there are likely to @ you with questions about your brand or complain if they’ve had a negative experience. Make yourself more sympathetic and helpful by engaging with them.

10. Ask your followers questions. Racking your brain to figure out what new solutions your customers need? Just ask them. It can’t replace proper market research, but it can give you a quick, honest answer to what your targeted group of followers want from you. Why guess when it’s so easy to ask? See our earlier post about polling your followers to find the right polling tool.

Take your time getting to know Twitter and how it can fit into your business. Being patient in the beginning is better than immediately following hundreds of people just to try and boost your own following, and then pummeling them with loads of tweets. Finding the right people and the right, natural flow of conversation is the key to meaningful Twitter use and strengthening your brand.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Social media tools to help you sort through the Cyber Monday chaos

There was a time when the after Thanksgiving price dropping frenzy was confined to the US. But a few years ago, some enterprising marketers went and created Cyber Monday – the online equivalent to Black Friday – letting shoppers across the world wide web get in on the action.

While the online slash fest is a great opportunity for every Christmas shopper on a budget, the vast amount of offers is staggering. To help you find your way to the deal you’ve been dreaming of, check out these social media tools that that help organize the madness into digestible chunks. 

Apps
The DealNews.com iPhone app was originally only geared towards Black Friday, but it’s now expanded to send the best Cyber Monday deals directly to your phone, minimizing the time you need to spend searching yourself.

If you’re in the States and combing the stores today, TGI Black Friday is a huge help in comparing deals on the go. It’s also useful for Monday, as many sellers feature the same deals online on Monday as in stores on Friday.

Twitter
Another way to have the deals sent directly to you is by following the Twitter feeds dedicated to finding Cyber Monday’s best deals. CyberMonday.com and Dealighted both provide nice feeds with frequently updated info and links to coupons. 

http://twitter.com/cyber_monday
http://twitter.com/dealightedcom


Facebook
Many retailers are using their Facebook pages to announce Cyber Monday deals early, so it could be worthwhile to join some new fan pages to get a head start.

Etsy is using Facebook to aggregate all their sellers for a huge Cyber Monday sale, check them out if you’re interested in handmade crafts.

If you need some gifts for the little ones, visit the Toys’r’Us Facebook page. They’re letting people vote on which toys they want to see go on sale on Monday.  

Deal Aggregators
And last but not least are the good old fashioned website aggregators. They let you search through deals from various stores by product category and price range. Cybermonday.com and cybermonday.fm are quite comprehensive resources for all your armchair shopping needs.

These were the best tools out there I could find. Do you have any social media tips for taking advantage of this year’s Cyber Monday?

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9 Twitter apps that make it easy to share files

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of Twitter applications.

How do you share files on Twitter?

Growing your followers means you will move beyond the people that you personally know. I’ve met scores of people on Twitter that I will never meet in real life. I also don’t have personal contact information for many of the people I know on Twitter either. So how do you send someone a file online without their email address? Surprisingly, there are at least nine different sites that can answer that question for you. From presentations to mp3s to documents to zip files and anything else, they can now be sent via Twitter. This really opens up the use of Twitter from a simple communication tool to a new way to share large amounts of information.

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a Twitter file sharing tool. Of course, all the apps have to be free, easy-to-use and require no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• store at least 15 mb of data
• share multiple file types: mp3, doc, ppt, zip, pictures, videos
• public and private tweets
• use OAuth so you don’t have to create a new account
• have it self-delete after a certain amount time
• share across multiple platforms

The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.


 

Tweetcube allows you to upload zip, rar, pdf, jpg, png, gif, mp3 and txt files. Or at least it says it says it does. I could only get to step two and wasn’t able to upload anything. According to Tweetcube, you can upload as many 10 mb files as you want, and after 30 days they get deleted. Or you could if it worked. Ten megabytes seems to be the lower end of the uploading spectrum anyway. 

PROS: You can upload up to 10 mb, uses Twitter OAuth so you don’t have to create an account.

CONS: It doesn’t work. Tried several times over two days to use the site. At first it wouldn’t let me login. After I got past that, I was never able to upload a file.

RATING:

 

Tweetmojo allows you to share videos, photos, files and tweets of up to 1400 characters long. There is no mention of upper size limit on file sharing and a tweet to their Twitter account didn’t get a reply. I tried uploading a 36 MB pdf and after waiting 10 minutes, nothing happened. It didn’t give me any indication that the file is being uploaded, so I don’t know if I didn’t wait long enough or if it never tried to upload the file. The Twitter OAuth didn’t work either so I could never log in to post anything to Twitter. There is also a timeline so you can see what other people have uploaded from the site. Tweetmojo does allow you to record your own video and post it from the site by using the Viddler video recorder. That is, if the sign in feature worked.

PROS: Allows you to upload any file type and you can record you own videos from the site. Nice feature that allows you to add long posts without having to upload a file.

CONS: It didn’t work. I was able to upload smaller photo files and record a video, but could never sign in to Twitter to use it.

RATING:

 

Twi.tt gives you the ability to upload pictures, videos, documents, audio and create a poll. The screen is divided into tabs so you can select from which area you want to upload. Under each tab is a selection of options, such as upload from computer, get from website, capture from webcam or post by email. Most of the these options aren’t available yet but there is a message that it should “be added in just a few days.” You can choose between posting your file to Twitter or just putting it in the Twi.tt public timeline. There is no mention of file size or how your files are hosted on their system or for how long.

PROS: Hurray, it works! There doesn’t appear to be a file size limit and a 29 MB file uploaded just fine.

CONS: Most of the site’s features don’t work yet. It’s unclear what happened to your uploads after you share them.

RATING:

 

TwitFS offers a free non-account version, which is pretty good. You can upload up to 100 MB at once, you can share videos, audio, pictures and documents, and you can publish to Twitter, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, message boards and send via email. You can also store your file for 30 days, send a direct message to an individual or message everyone in your tweetstream. Once uploaded, your file gets its own page and you can share the url or embed it in another program. If you register with TwitFS, you can upload a file up to 250 MB, a file manager, a direct link to the file, parallel downloads and unlimited file storage. For a small fee starting at $0.99, you get up to 2.5 GB maximum file size.

PROS: It does everything we could want from a file sharing site. It’s worth registering with the site for added features.

CONS: Um....can’t find any.

RATING:

 

Filetweet is the simplest of the file sharing systems. You can send a file to an email account or a Twitter profile, attach a file, add a message and decide if you want to send a private message or not. It’s that simple, though it’s unclear how long the file stays on their servers. You can see recent uploads, but you can’t resend them or delete the files. Also, I received an error message every time I tried to send a file to an email account.

PROS: Very simple to use. Login with your Twitter account and you can send a file to all your followers or via direct message. The upper file size limit is 100 MB, which is huge. If you need to send a file quickly, this is the easiest way to go.

CONS: You can’t access files you’ve already sent. If you want to resend a file, you have to upload it again.

RATING:

 

Filesocial is the prettiest site of the file sharing tools. You can upload any file up to 50 MB and post it to your public Twitter timeline. The file is stored on their servers for an unknown amount of time. Filesocial sends out a message to your Twitter stream with a TinyURL. People can view your file, download it or leave a message on it. It also opens the file without having to download it. There is also a downloadable client that allows you to drag and drop files you want to share.

 

PROS: Easy tool that allows you to share any type of file on Twitter.

CONS: Filesocial only allows you to post to Twitter. You can take that URL and share it on other sites or post in an email, but you can’t do that directly from the site.

RATING:

 

FileTwt is another simple site. You enter your Twitter username and password, enter a 114 character message and upload a file up to 20 MB. The file then goes out on your public Twitter stream. The site creates a TinyURL that links back to a page where you can download the file. It works basically the same as Filesocial, but not as well. It also offers the ability to sign up for an account, which allows you to send private tweets, better storage and allows for creating a friend list to send files to. The friend list isn’t a complete list of your Twitter followers.

PROS: Easy to use and share files with a simple one step process.

CONS: You don’t get a link to your file unless you go to your Twitter stream and find the tweet. The registered version doesn’t pull in all your friends and doesn’t give you the option to add friends that are missing.

RATING:

 

TwitDoc uses the Twitter OAuth to log you into their account. You can upload up videos up to 25MB, documents up to 15MB and photos up to 10MB. I’m not sure why they are using different file sizes for each type of file. Once you’ve uploaded your file and sent your tweet, you get a TinyURL, which links to a page where you file is. It’s a simple site that gives you the ability to share files quickly and easily. There is also a downloadable client that allows you to use the site’s features from your desktop.

PROS: Easy to use single function site.

CONS: There is no list of all the files you upload. You can’t control the files once they are uploaded if you don’t have the URL. It doesn’t handle audio files.

RATING:

 

Acamin is designed with a nod to the academic community. That doesn’t mean it’s limited to that field. You can post files to your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn account. I tried adding a picture and was given a series of error messages before finally being told that my image was posted to my Twitter account. When I clicked on the URL to link back to the image, I got a “This file is not available!” error message. According to the icons on the page, you can attach a file to an email, publish it online, get the code to embed your file and convert it to a pdf.

PROS: The ability to publish files on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as being able to convert documents to a pdf file.

CONS: It doesn’t work. I counted at least six error messages before the site attempted to send the file, then got another error message after posting.

RATING:

Conclusion: TwitFS and FileTweet did the best with TwitFS ultimately having the best features. It’s simple to use, accepts the largest files and allows you to share the file across multiple networks. Best of all, it works without any problems. FileTweet is good for a quick send if you don’t care about sending the file again or being able to delete it from the site’s servers. FileSocial is also recommended for it’s ability to view the files without having to download them.  

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Is console gaming becoming social media?

My earliest gaming memory is sitting in my living room playing Contra with my brother and wreaking serious 8 bit havoc while mom made grilled cheese sandwiches. That was what social console gaming meant through the 80’s and 90’s – playing a game with someone sitting beside you in the privacy of your home. But social networking’s ever expanding reach has utterly changed the face of console gaming, turning your living room into a global venue. 

 

Thanks to consoles going online, these days you’re not confined to just playing games with people in your living room. Gamers started competing online a long time ago, but consoles are now going beyond gaming and become bonafide social media tools. Via the plastic box in their living rooms, gamers today establish new lifelong friendships, stay in touch with old friends, and sometimes even find a husband or wife and make babies.

The social expansion continues. A few days ago, Microsoft launched a major update to Xbox Live - the online platform for the Xbox 360. You can now connect to Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and the Zune marketplace. So if you want to find someone to play a game with or check out what people are saying about new releases, or just Tweet about how sweet Left for Dead 2 is, you can do so seamlessly. And if you’re tired of gaming, you can check out playlists on Last.fm or stream a movie in HD.

Launched a couple years ago, the PS3’s Home is now really starting to hit its stride with more users and developers getting involved. Similar to Second Life, you enter the world as your avatar and walk around meeting other gamers, finding people to either play a match against or just have a chat. You can also check out movie trailers at the theater, play mini-games like bowling and can buy and decorate a house. This Sims like experience is sure to have staying power as it blends in with the overall gaming experience.

The other big console, the Nintendo Wii, is great fun for groups of real-life people, but as far as online capability goes it’s still in the stone age compared to what Microsoft and Sony have accomplished.

Console gaming hit something of a rut for a while in terms of breakthroughs, as the only major progress they made was having prettier graphics. But with the introduction of social networking, the possibilities are limitless, both from developers with big budgets creating new interactive platforms and users generating their own content. And with the expansion into social media, you know marketers won’t be far behind. Red Bull and Audi already have a presence in Home, and Kia ran a campaign on Xbox Live. And why not? It’s another great media channel for marketers to get creative in and deliver highly relevant content.

It’s an exciting time to be tethered to a box. Where do you think the future of the console is heading?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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The 10 funniest videos about Twitter

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications. 

As much as we love Twitter, we can’t deny that the idea of it, and the way many people use it, is pretty ridiculous. You folks out there on the Internet have noticed as well and have let the world know how you see Twitter through the magic of video. And some of them are downright hilarious. Here are my top 10 funniest videos about Twitter.

10. We start off with a good old fashioned rant.

9. What would the world be like if people on the street talked like they Tweet? One man goes on a mission to find out.

8. Just when you thought the Twitter craze was subsiding, it’s back… with a vengeance.

7. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you have incriminating evidence against your boss.

6. Breaking news from The Onion! Parents using Twitter, Facebook to stalk their children.

5. Amir explains to his friend Jake that Twitter is a place to store your secrets.

4. Twitter gets the Hitler treatment as it becomes part of the internet phenomenon of subtitling the Hitler rant from the film “Downfall.” Hitler is sad because his doggy died, and angry because Twitter is down again.

3. Has the world gone mad, or is everyone just saying everything they think and do out loud? Wait, what’s the difference?

2. Celebrity Twitter Overkill: when Ashton Kutcher becomes more important than news. And everything else.

1. And the very best video poking fun at Twitter out there in cyberspace is… William Shatner reading Sarah Palin’s Tweets as poetry! I wish there was a better cut of this as the actual reading is framed by talk show host babble (no offense Conan), but the performance by the former captain of the starship Enterprise is gold.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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We are our own Big Brother

New developments in social media and technology make more and more of your private life public

Social media offers up a way for people to express themselves in ways never possible, but like Uncle Ben told a young Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.”  Information that used to be difficult or impossible to find, people now freely offer up. Over the course of this week, my Internet prowling unearthed some new trends that made me wonder if social media wasn’t starting to ask me to put too much of my life out in the public domain.

We can now make it easier than ever for people stalk and track us. Check out the new SenseCam. This little gadget is designed to capture pretty much every aspect of your life on camera. You wear it around your neck and its fisheye lens takes a picture every 30 seconds. It’s easy to see the appeal – there’s potential for a whole lot of wonderful images and moments from your life to be captured that would otherwise be missed if you hands are otherwise occupied.




Somehow the thought of a whole lot of people walking around with these things taking automated pictures all the time makes me just a little uneasy.

Now combine that with SoundBiter, a new iPhone app that constantly records the world around it. This nifty little app constantly records all audio around you. If you hear something you want to share, you hit a button and the phone saves the last 60 seconds of audio. You can then instantly send it out to the world via Twitter.

This could be a fun party app but the potential for paparazzi to exploit celebrities they are stalking or for people to be quoted out of context means there is great damage it could do.

Another trend that’s taking advantage of technology’s watchful eye are location based services (LBS) like the new Google Latitude. Thanks to built-in GPS, most new phones know where you are all the time . Developers are creating apps to show you nearby locations of people in your network.

With automated alerts when someone you know is close by, don’t be surprised if your friends suddenly start popping up a lot more often when you’re out and about.

As if that wasn’t enough ways to expose ourselves, here is my personal favorite. This new scale guilts you into losing weight by Tweeting how heavy you are automatically when you step on it. The Internet has officially invaded your bathroom.

The brilliance of social media and technology is that it you can share your life with people in ways never before possible. If you want to stay in the loop, putting a whole lot of yourself out there is inevitable. After all, that’s the spirit of social media. But the question is how much should we share? Is the rapid advancement in social media technologies putting too much of our lives online? Perhaps, but these gadgets sure do look cool.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Polling Twitter

 Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of Twitter applications.

What’s the best way to get feedback from Twitter?

If you’re using Twitter for your brand, at some point you’re probably going to want to understand how your followers feel about your brand, service or product. Polling is an excellent way to get a quick understanding of how people feel. It’s also a great way to run a contest, get demographic information on your followers, or get a rating on an idea. There are several sites that do just this. Their features range from only one service to a wide variety of services with a slight service fee.

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a Twitter polling service. Of course, all the apps have to be free and require no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• have a unique url
• use analytics
• use multiple types of polls
• insert images
• brand polls
• make them visually interesting
• tag keywords
• categorize topics
• leave a message
• embed on our site

The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

Polls.tw is one of the simpler polling sites. You ask the question and then enter the multiple choice answers below. Polls.tw will post a short URL to Twitter. You login to Twitter using OAuth to track your results. It also allows you to leave a comment. That’s it. It could have been so much more with a bit of work.

PROS: Easy to use and creates a poll that can be easily used by others.

CONS: It only creates one type of poll: multiple choice. All the other sites do the same thing but offer a lot more features.

RATING:

Poll Your Followers is another extremely simple to use site to create surveys/polls on Twitter. You can create either yes/no questions or multiple choice. Poll Your Followers pops up when you first view a Twitter profile. This is great if you ever go to that person’s profile, but if you use a third party site to access Twitter, you’ll never see the poll. You also get a short URL to the poll for retweeting and sharing with others.

PROS: Easy to use for short multiple choice polls.

CONS: Outside of posting a poll, it has no other functions. You can’t leave any feedback or find out who voted in your poll. This is another site that needs a few more features to make it worth your while.

RATING:

Twttrstrm is a free tool from Squidoo. It’s one of the more interesting Twitter polling tools. You can ask any kind of question, create keywords to track, pick a category and add tags to make the poll searchable. Once you submit your question, it creates a Squidoo like lense or page that has a wide variety of functions. The new page is a standalone site that allows any Twitter user to start a discussion, ask for advice, add YouTube videos and basically create a resource for others surrounding your Twitter question. 

From their website:

Here’s the magic part: as your followers click through and respond, the storm spreads to their followers. So, in short, it’s a threaded, viral, structured conversation in the middle of the Twitter melee.

There is an abundance of information that could be added to your Twitter poll, to the point where it can be overwhelming.

PROS: Twttrstrm is easy to set up. The lense aspect is unique to Squidoo and creates an incredible resource around your questions.

CONS: It’s a mess. Looking at examples from other more established polls, it’s a hodgepodge of information that can be very difficult to sort through.

RATING:

StrawPoll is the most visually interesting of the polling sites. You can ask any question as long as it only has two possible answers. It sounds very limited, but where they succeed is in listing the answers for each side of the question which helps provide some extra insight into the answer. You get your own url that uses the background of your Twitter profile.

PRO: Of the single feature sites, I like this one the best. It’s simple to use, visually appealing and allows you to see the tweets surrounding your poll.

CONS: It’s usefulness is limited to just the one type of question. The site feels like more of a gimmick than something that a business would seriously use.

RATING:

SocialToo lets you ask multiple choice or yes/no questions and gives you a bunch of useful tools for Twitter, identi.ca, and Facebook. On Twitter you can:

• Create surveys
• Auto-follow
• Auto-unfollow
• Blacklist
• Direct Message new followers
• Receive a daily stats email

There are a lot of useful little things you can do, but beyond the basic poll creation and stat tracking you have to pay for each add on. Also, it’s pretty ugly.

PROS: Simple interface and lots of nice add-on features.

CONS: You have to pay for the add-ons and it’s not the most attractive layout.

RATING:

With 17 different question templates including multiple choice, rankings and matrices, Twtpoll gives you all the options you’ll need to gauge public opinion. It gives you a custom url and your Twitter icon appears with the poll. You can also brand your poll, but this requires a nominal fee that you choose yourself. You can also add pictures to go along with each answer option, making the poll more visually lively. Once you start getting results, you can view them in pie charts, bar charts and tables. The only downside is that there’s no option to ad keywords.

PROS: Lots of question types, has a clean and simple look and it’s easy to spread your poll around.

CONS: Branding must be paid for and it lacks keyword tags.

RATING:

Poll Everywhere has the most polished offer of all the sites. But there’s a big catch: if you plan on getting more than 30 responses to your question, you have to pay them. The coolest thing about Poll Everywhere is that it’s mobile – respondents can send in answers via text message and the results update in real time in your browser or in a PowerPoint presentation. So this is a great tool if you want to give a presentation where the audience can text in responses to your poll and have the results displayed without missing a beat. The reports it generates are also more advanced than the other sites.

It’s not a bad deal if you need software to interact with an audience. Otherwise, you can get the functionality you need for free elsewhere.

PROS: Instant stats gathered from phones make it an ideal audience polling tool.  It also generates professional reports.

CONS: Price tag not worth paying if you just want to send your poll out through Twitter or other social media channels.

RATING:

 

CONCLUSION: While there are some sites that are easy to use, one trick ponies, it’s worth putting a little extra effort into your polls with the sites that offer more functionality. Twtpoll edges out Twttrstrm as it provides nearly all the features we wanted while still being simple to use and visually appealing.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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U2 and Foo Fighters usher in new era of interactive concerts

There’s no question the Internet has changed the way we consume music. Digital downloads have become a staple of our lives, but digital concerts? Is experiencing your favorite band perform live being claimed by the ever expanding Internet as well?

I don’t see bands ever forsaking the road, but they are starting to embrace the concept of concert via fiber optic cable as a way to get closer to their fans. Two weeks ago, U2 played a concert in the Rose Bowl which was simultaneously broadcast by YouTube to millions of viewers across 16 countries. It was a first for the world’s largest video provider, and, unsurprisingly, it was a major success. After all, what U2 fan wouldn’t go to the trouble of simply clicking a link from the comfort of their living room?

The roughly 10 million fans who tuned in were able to chat with each other via an integrated Twitter feed, many of whom simply posted thank you’s to the band. Never one to miss an opportunity to save the world, Bono slipped in a “donate to (RED)” button for the millions of viewers to contemplate clicking while in their happy spirits over the free show.

The event was another demonstration of traditional media’s decline in prominence. Those 10 million viewers showed up with zero promotion carried out in traditional media – the concert was promoted exclusively online. And while those numbers are pretty far off what the big network TV broadcasts get, it’s a major jump forward in seriously competing with them.

U2’s Internet extravaganza was well publicized and hard to miss, but did you catch Foo Fighters pulling an Internet first of their own last weekend? The alt-rockers broadcast a live show on Facebook (via livestream), becoming the first major act to do so. Even without much promotion, the 2 hour and 45 minute stream from their recording studio drew in 440,000 viewers.

The band played fan favorites in support of their newly released greatest hits album. During the show, fans were able to talk not only with each other, but with the band themselves who responded to comments and took requests. Imagine having that opportunity with your favorite band.

So are streaming concerts the wave of the future? Perhaps, but probably not the near future. The rights issues around concerts are far more complicated than broadcasting other media, as there are so many people who need to sign off on the project including managers, band members, the record label, the venue, etc. But the technology is there, the demand is there and there is money to be made, so expect the likes of Bono and Dave Grohl to be invading your living room more often in the coming years.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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One big dysfunctional twamily

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

How to recognize 15 types of tweeters

With millions of people around the world tweeting like mad, Twitter can seem a bit chaotic when you first jump in. But when you’ve been entrenched for a while and have a few tweets, RTs and @s under your belt, you’ll start noticing patterns in your Twitter feed. Twitter attracts many users who have very specific goals in mind – some good, some bad, and some just plain weird. Here are 15 different types of people in your extended twamily that are out there in large numbers. See if you can spot one of each among the tweeple you follow.

The suit
AKA the self-proclaimed social media guru, this ambitious tweeter usually has a corporate/marketing background and is CEO of some company they just made up. Most of these ‘visionaries’ with their can’t-be-missed offers are little more than con artists, but there are a few diamonds in the rough who really know what they’re talking about.

The n00b
N00bs can be the most frustrating - and the most entertaining. They have yet to grasp how Twitter works. When you see someone treating Twitter like a big, open chatroom, you’ve got a n00b.

The brand
Some companies get what Twitter is all about and use it to genuinely connect with their customers. Starbucks and Zippo have used Twitter to great effect, much to the appreciation of their followers. Others are little better than spammers, blasting their followers with offers and deals. In other words, all the stuff that ends up in a junk mail folder in your email.

The Twitterati
These monoliths of the twitterverse have risen from anonymity to become the idols of tens of thousands of followers who they’ve never met and whose names they couldn’t possibly remember. Some are deserving of their social media tycoon status, others not so much. At any rate, don’t expect to be followed back or respond to messages, their egos tend to be just a little over-inflated.

The celeb
Though there are a slew of fake celebrity accounts, the real ones are out there. Among the more interesting are Shaquille O’neal and Barrack Obama. Again, don’t expect much of a response from the bigger celebs. But the B-listers have been known to be fairly open. 

The newsie
If you’re on Twitter a lot, you’ll notice that breaking news comes across the Twitter waves faster than it appears in mainstream media. There are loads of regular people who love to race to break news to all their followers, but you can also follow proper news organizations on Twitter to get up-to-the second info on what’s happening in the world, like CNN, BreakingNewsON and fark.

The lurker
Every type of online community has its fair share of lurkers. You’ll find these users cowering in dark corners, eyeballing the updates of their many followers while rarely contributing anything themselves. Because, you know, they don’t have anything as important as Steve’s last update (eating yummy donuts, nom nom nom) to add the conversation.

The bot
When a spammer can’t be bothered to cut and paste their tweets 30 times a day, a bot does it for them. Thankfully, if you make the mistake of following one all it takes is a simple unfollow to be rid of them.

The guy stuck on repeat
Everything they have to say, they say over and over again. You know, just in case you missed it the first ten times. This may also be a symptom of a n00b who doesn’t understand how Twitter works or a spammer who is just trying to increase traffic to their website.

Mr Mundane
Like Steve and his donut eating mentioned above, many people feel compelled to tell the world inane details about what they happen to be doing at any given moment. Why they believe anyone cares that they are drinking coffee or thinking about what to have for lunch is a mystery that continues to elude the world’s top scientists.

The ‘everyone look how deep I am’ tweeter
This one is characterized by their deep, student councilor-like insights into life and the universe like, ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life.’ You may be saying to yourself, that’s not deep, it’s over-used drivel. You’ll be saying that a lot.

The whiner
Chronic complainers love Twitter because it lets them greatly expand the number of people they can tell how bad everything is at once. Always a good source for your daily bring-me-down.

The RT junkie
Retweeting is a great way to share interesting links and videos. But some people go overboard and post almost nothing but RTs. If you notice a friend with this addiction, stage an intervention and get them to add something of their own to the conversation.

The collector
This person’s mission in life is to gather as many followers as possible, as though reaching 1,000,000 twitter followers will grant them eternal life or make them an international celebrity. You don’t find this one, this one finds you. Beware, as they don’t usually have much of anything interesting to say.

The siren
There are endless amounts of beautiful young women who want to be your friend. Hard to believe, right? It’s too good to be true in reality, and it’s too good to be true on Twitter. Still, girls do manage to get hoards of followers by showing some skin and singing a tempting song to all the suckers out there. Do your best to avoid crashing on those rocks, these sirens aren’t worth following.

Which of the tweeple drive you crazy?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry. 

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Spooktacular Halloween – 2.0 style

What are the scariest online activities for this Halloween?

It’s my favorite time of the year, Halloween! For me, Halloween is Christmas for adults. We get to dress up, make fools of ourselves and have fun. In order to set the mood, we have to get our Twitter avatar properly set up. Trickotweet gives you several really cute and fun monster avatars to choose from. I went with the hockey masked one.

On to Facebook. Pet Zombie allows you to create your own pet zombie that you can feed, play with, cover in toilet paper and make dance. My zombie is named Marvin.

Cute isn’t he.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “How would I do in a zombie apocalypse?” Find out by taking this short Facebook quiz. Turns out I might survive.

I love carving jack-o-lanterns. But sometimes I have problems coming up with ideas. Extreme Pumpkins has lots of jack-o-lanterns that people have taken to unusual levels. The 2009 winners provide lots of inspiration to go far beyond the mundane. The site is packed with “how to” tips, patterns and lots of photos of pumpkins.

If you need some practice before you start carving your pumpkin, try carving a virtual pumpkin.

If you don’t want to sit inside this Samhain, join a zombie walk.


What could be more fun than dressing up as the undead and shambling down the street?

If dressing as a zombie isn’t your game, why not play some? Re-kill the undead with Boxhead, a Lego like character game where you’re stranded in a tunnel where you shoot or get eaten. The more you kill, the better your weapons become. If the undead become too much, shoot barrels to thin the herd.

If you need something a little bloodier to slake your zombie thirst, Endless Zombie Rampage is your game. You have to defend your ground against gut-munchers with a handgun. As you gain experience points, you can upgrade your weapons to assault rifles, shotguns and laser cannons. Both games are great fun.

Sometimes you can’t be at your computer (you have to eat, poop and sleep sometimes). Thankfully, 148apps.com has found four iPhone applications to fill the void that’s in your soul when you leave your computer. Alive 4-ever gets their highest rating and from the images, it looks action packed. Personally, I can't wait to play Hysteria Project, check out the screen capture below. There are also iPhone versions of DOOM and Resident Evil for a bit of classic game play.

Finally, this All Hallow’s Eve, I want to leave you with this bit of stop motion zombie mayhem fright, Chainsaw Maid. 

What are you favorite Halloween sites?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Analyze your Twitter profile

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

What’s the best way to get analytics on your Twitter profile?

As you try to build your Twitter profile and find new people to follow, it’s important to track how you use Twitter. Odds are you’re doing things with your account that you’re not even aware of. By using analytics, you can discover not only what your Twitter habits are, but the Twitter habits of your friends as well. This is important info when you want to get a lot of exposure for a tweet or launch a Twitter campaign. There a lot of websites that provide one aspect of user statistics or have a gimmick to measure popularity, but today we’re looking at sites that provide thorough user statistics. In the future, we’ll cover user trends and ranking.



I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a Twitter account analyzer. Of course, all the apps have to be free and require no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• see how many daily tweets are added
• see how many daily chats we have
• analyze subjects we tweet about
• see the hashtags we use most often
• see our online follower growth rate
• see the location of followers
• see who is retweets most often
• see who we contact the most
• see who mentions us the most


The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

Twitter Grader is best known for its Twitter user account grading. What people don’t realize is that it also has analytics. Well...sort of. They can analyze followers within their site, meaning that if your followers or followings are registered with Twitter Grader, they can be analyzed. Of our 3,681 followers and 2,705 following only two people were found. 

Twitter Grader’s best feature is its user history. This is a quick chart that shows how your follower rate compares to your following rate. You can also register with the site to get more functionality, but I didn’t see any after registering. While it’s not a very good analysis tool, the site’s account grading is still the best bragging rights tool available.

PROS: You can grade your account against other Twitter accounts with a tangible grade. You can also see how many people follow you and you follow.

CONS: None of the other metrics really work or have any meaning. While the grading is a good indication of how well you use Twitter, none of the other metrics are useful.

RATING:




Twitter Analyzer is a great free tool that provides over 26 different analytics, and more are in the works. If you need to know specific information about your Twitter habits, this is it. From the number of times you tweet a day to what groups your Twitter followers fall into to the friends you mention most in your tweets, Twitter Analyzer covers all my analytics needs and then some. It is easily the most thorough free analytics tool available today. The best part is you don’t have to register with the site to use it. This means you can also check out the Twitter usage of your friends as well. Analytics like “the friends you’re most in contact with” can help you identify the people that influence the people that influence you. This can be incredibly helpful in building your online network.

PROS: If you need to know something about your Twitter habits, this is the place to go. I’m looking forward to seeing what the ‘Trends’ and ‘FUN’ tabs will add to the experience.

CONS: Some of the analytics get a little confusing. Under ‘Mentions’, it’s hard to tell what exactly the difference is between the mentions. What is the difference between “the friends you mention the most in your Update Messages” and “the friends you mention the most”? Since the results can be slightly different, some deeper explanation of the functions would be appreciated.

RESULTS:

Twitalyzer measures your Twitter profile against five analytics: Influence, Signal, Generosity, Velocity and Clout. The concept is similar to Twitter Grader – your profile is measured on a scale of 0-100. The grading is rather harsh, so you really have to work on your account to bring it up. Each of the five areas go into more detail and offer up suggestions on how to improve your score. This can be very helpful if you’re trying to be more influential on Twitter. A nice additional feature is the use of time-based analysis using Google Motion Charts and the ability to set benchmarks to work towards. Finally, if you’re weak in one area, Twitalyzer provides the top 100 people in each of the five components you can follow and learn from.

PROS: Simple to use and provides lots of details. While it doesn’t hit many of the criteria I set out to find, the information it does provide empowers you to create a superior Twitter account.

CONS: It takes several uses to remember exactly what the five components do. Even after reading each one, I found myself returning to refresh my memory. There are also some loading issues. When you click on any of the analytics under “Recent Activity”, it either takes a very long time to pull up the information or it just hangs in limbo forever.

RATING:

TweetStatswas the first Twitter analytics tool I ever used. It’s bright, colorful and simple to use. Not much has changed in the time I’ve been using it. There are eight graphs and two tweet word clouds. From time of day to who you reply to and retweet the most, the graphs give you a quick overview of your Twitter activity. As for the Tweet Cloud, this gives you a great breakdown of which words you use the most, the top five words you use and the top five hashtags you use.

PROS: Simple and colorful. The Tweet Cloud is a great way to see what you’re saying online.

CONS: The site needs more analytics to deliver real impact. If you need a quick breakdown with graphs you can use in a report, TweetStats will do in a pinch.

RATINGS:

Xerfer serves up your Twitter usage. You can find the times you most often tweet, reply and which days and hours you’re mostly likely to tweet. This is a useful function, but considering that other sites have this as one part of a bigger package, it just isn’t enough. Sure, you can research anyone on Twitter, but you can do the same thing with other sites.

PROS: Easy to use and simple to understand but with useful graphics.

CONS: Doesn’t provide much past the one chart. With other sites doing the same thing and providing more content, it’s hard to recommend this site.

RATING:

Klout is another grading site, but with much more statistical analysis. Using five key analytics – reach, demand, engagement, velocity and activity – Klout allows you to not only  see who you influence and who influences you, but also shows who is losing influence and who is gaining influence. The site feels very similar to Twitalyzer in look and feel. There is no explanation for what their five analytics mean or how to influence them. Klout’s current offer is a good start, but still has some growing to do.

PROS: Lots of analytics that provide a good deal information. The influence tracker is a great feature to find out who is most influential in your network while helping you build your own influence.

CONS: Little explanation of any of the analytics used. Klout could easily rip off what Twitalyzer does to create a better experience, but for now they are living their shadow.

RATING:

CONCLUSION: While TweetStats and Twitalyzer both have very useful analytics, neither comes close to the depth and variety of Twitter Analyzer. Twitalyzer’s benchmarking tool is a great way to set goals for yourself. Combined with Twitter Analyzer, you have all the software you need to mount a Twitter campaign and measure its success. Because the analytics are live, you can make course adjustments on the fly to optimize your Tweeting.

What tools do you use to analyze your Twitter profile?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Help stop global warming in one minute, or less.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but global warming is for real. Oceans are rising. The polar caps are melting. Land masses are shrinking. There is no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, and the planet is in grave danger. In fact, some pessimistic experts opine that it’s already too late, and you may as well hand in your papers and kiss your backside goodbye.

So should you scream ‘Armageddon’, drink all the wine you’ve been hoarding and turn to spirituality in anticipation of the inevitable?

Er, not just yet. Sure, as human beings we’ve some explaining to do for our fatheadedness (Reality TV, Sarah Palin, Karaoke.) But we’ve also demonstrated we can make the impossible happen, especially when our backs are to the wall.
 
We’ve saved the panda from extinction. We’ve plugged the hole in the ozone layer. And Michael Bolton no longer pollutes the airwaves.

We can reverse global warming too. All we have to do is rally around and make a genuine effort. OK, this is where the ad spiel comes in.

We’ve just launched a website for our client Schneider Electric. It’s called ActiveBE.com. This site is helping raise awareness about climate change. The idea behind the site is to help visitors record and upload a short video of themselves pledging to do their bit to stop global warming. These videos will be compiled into a global video petition that will initiate debate and discussion around this issue amongst key opinion leaders.

You can do your part by recording your video petition on the website, or uploading a short video you’ve made using your cellphone or digital camera.

Get started right away. Record your video pledge now.

It would also be fantastic if you could populate the social media properties we’ve created around this project.

Become a fan on Facebook here.

Join our MyGreenPledge Group.

Follow ActiveBE on Twitter.

Join ActiveBE on LinkedIn.

Thanks a bunch in advance. I hope to see you on ActiveBE.com.

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

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Social media and death

How to use social media to cope with loss

As Halloween draws near, our thoughts turn to the more macabre areas of the imagination. While visions of ghouls, goblins, vampires (no, not the sparkly Twilight kind) and zombies creep into my mind, the celebration of the darker nature of humanity eventually brought me to thoughts about death. Sure, social media helps people connect to meet up for coffee, attend conferences or find a good place to buy shoes, but how does it help us cope with death? I had no idea, so I set out to discover how support groups are using social media these days.

The Compassionate Friends , a support group for families dealing with the death of a child, has gone beyond a standard support site and added a Facebook page. You can leave videos, upload photos and participate on their discussion board to help build a community on a site you already visit regularly. Their discussion page is very active with many people offering up stories and advice about their experiences.

Pocket Cemetery is an iPhone app that lets you create memorials to your lost friends and relatives (or beloved celebrities and pets). You can create customizable virtual gravestones, send virtual flowers and send prayers and messages.

This is the only iPhone app I could find in this area. As death is something that touches us all, without exception, I’d expect to see a lot more effort to cater to our need to cope in the future.

People often turn to religion in their grieving. Tangle, a Christian lifestyle site, has embraced Web 2.0 technology. They’ve launched an online prayer wall that allows you to share videos, photos, leave prayers and have someone add their own support for you. They allow you to share your prayers through Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and via email and Twitter. Tangle is very active within the Christian community, and with comments posted on almost every prayer, many people are finding the community support they need.

Muxlim.tv is the world’s largest Muslim lifestyle site. On it, you can read blogs, watch videos, listen to prayers, take polls and a whole lot more. It’s a social media haven for Muslim’s online. Once you register, you create a personal profile, which appears to be a cross between Facebook and MySpace.

But what about those of us who aren’t religious? Experience Project is for anyone regardless of religious preference – or lack thereof. You can create a group to talk about your experiences where others can comment and offer support, insight and help. Each group has its own built-in support system that helps create a support community.

Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, but with the help of social media many people are finding it a little less painful.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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When to DM and when to @

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

It’s the difference between looking like a n00b and looking like a pro

In our previous post entitled “These are the twrules”, rule #10 is: “Don’t have a huge conversation.” It’s always good to communicate with the people you follow on Twitter. You can make new business connections, find an excellent resource or make new friends. I’ve done all three through Twitter. It’s very easy to start chatting with people and the more you use the site, the more this will happen. Just remember that it isn’t a chat room or instant messenger.

Twitter is a broadcast system where you send out a message for everyone to hear. Imagine Twitter as your local television station. They broadcast the latest episode of “30 Rock” and anyone watching will see the episode, but so will anyone else searching for the words “30 Rock.” This is the essence of Twitter. Anyone following you can see your message and so can anyone searching for the keywords in your tweet. Now imagine that anyone that sees your broadcast can respond to it with their own message. This is called an @ reply. 

By using an @ symbol and the Twitter user’s name, you can reply to their message. As such, you can have a simple conversation. So if I ask, “Does anyone know a good steak restaurant?”, anyone that lives in my area can contact me with an “@stefanhy you should try Mando.”

And I might reply with  “@username Thanks.” Since my tweet and my follower’s tweet have been broadcast to all of our followers, and if our respective followers aren’t following both of us, they are only seeing a fragment of the conversation. That’s why a conversation shouldn’t go much beyond this.

If I need further information about location, prices, reservations or opening hours, as a good tweeter, I would move the conversation to direct messages (DM) that only the two of us can see. DM’s are best used when asking someone a question that the general population doesn’t need to be aware of. If I’m asking @maydbs if she’s going to debaser for lunch, it’s not really a question everyone needs to see, especially my followers who aren’t in the Malmö area.

Any direct remark that is only useful to you and the responder should always be a direct message. Any tweet that is business related should probably be a direct message. Also, use DM’s for setting appointments, giving someone a notice, planning events or confirming personal information.

These aren’t rules set in stone. It’s more of a general guideline. Like most things, the more you use Twitter, the more you’ll get a feel for the do’s and dont’s. How you use Twitter and how you communicate with others can greatly effect your follower count and how people view you. If you feel like you’re having too many instant messenger style conversations, odds are you probably are. Be vigilant of how you use Twitter and you’ll discover that your experience will be more beneficial and rewarding.

What are your rules for using @replies and DM's?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Fall is in the air

Time to bundle up

Summer is over and gone and taken with it all those sunny days on the beach. It’s rainy in Atlanta and snowy in Stockholm. Time to put away your swimsuits and dig out the scarfs, gloves and coats. If you find that last year’s fashion has become horribly out of date, check out Uniqlo’s  website for a fun and unique way to shop for clothes.


Having lived in a warmer climate for ten years, how to wear a scarf is a bit of a mystery. Then I found this video that shows how to wear a scarf in six different way. Now I can do something different every day of the week.


Knowing what the weather will be like has never been easier. AccuWeather.com has an iPhone app, Mac and Windows dashboard widgets, a Twitter & Tumblr app and a browser toolbar. Now you can find out if you need to wear a windbreaker, heavy coat or if you’ll need an umbrella anywhere you are.

No matter how bad the weather gets where you are, there is always worse weather somewhere else.

You could be caught in a huge hail storm.


or a tornado


or a blizzard.


So this fall when you’re stuck inside trying to keep warm, just imagine relaxing on an island paradise and dream of a happier place.

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Blog Action Day: 5 ways to use social media to affect climate change

Social media is the new voice of the people. Don’t believe me? Twitter kept alive the civil unrest in Iran after the elections and awoke interest around the world leading to global protests. This week in the United Kingdom, bloggers and Twitter usersfought back against a court injunction that called into question the Guardian newspaper’s right to report on a parliamentary debate. Within 16 hours, they were able to get to the judge to overturn the order. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are filled with groups to join on almost any and every issue you can think of. From Dafur to H1N1 to climate change, groups are forming to affect change. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Living right next door to Copenhagen, the upcoming United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP15) in December is a constant source of conversation. Climate change has become more and more a topic of daily conversation. Every day, we see more tweets, blog posts and YouTube videos being used to crack the public consciousness. Social media is activating more people in better ways than in the whole history of communication. It’s no longer students on college campuses trying to find a few hundred votes. Now you can mobilize a city, a state or a nation from your living room.

Here are five ways you can help affect climate change though social media.

1. Join a Facebook group – Don’t join a group just to join. Find a group with lots of members and actively post news, videos and content you find online. Start discussions with other members of the group and invite your friends to join.
2. Sign an online petition – Care2.com has an entire section dedicated to petitions involved with climate change.
3. Add a badge to your blog or online profile – If you’re active online these days, odds are you have a blog, a website, a facebook profile, or a Twitter account. Show people that visit your site that you care about an issue. Blog Action Day has done a great job of raising awareness of what they’re doing. They have created a series of badges with the most common banner sizes that you can add to your blog or website. You can also add one to your Twitter profile or add a link to your Facebook profile.
4. Share videos – Here are six videos that will help you get started and give you ideas for our next suggestion.
5. Make your own content – Create a new website around an issue, make a video about a project you are working on, write a song, do a dance and show people how you would affect climate change.

The good news is you’re already doing the 6th thing. You’re reading blogs that promote climate change. Check out more of the bloggers participating in the Blog Action Day. If we all work together and make our voices heard, we can make the people in charge listen and change the world for the better.

So what would you do to get involved in affecting climate change?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Twitter follower management apps

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.  

What’s the best way to manage your Twitter followers?

The longer you’re on Twitter, hopefully the more followers you’ll gain. The more followers you gain, the more difficult it becomes to monitor who you follow and who follows you. Fortunately, there are lots of applications created to solve this very problem. It’s important to monitor your followers and the people you follow to make sure you’ve got the right audience. Finding the right online application will make doing this simpler and help make you even more productive on Twitter.

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a follower management application. Of course, all the apps have to be free and have no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• see who we’re following
• see who is following us
• unfollow/follow people
• bulk unfollow/follow users
• see how active our followers are
• view profiles
• tag followers to better organize them
• add comments to followers profiles
• sort followers by Twitter activity
• offer suggest for new people to follow

The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about 10 minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

 






The URL is Huitter.com but the site is also called Mutuality. You can find both names in various places on the web. It allows you to sign in using Twitter Authority, which is nice since you don’t have to create another account just for this site. Once logged in, you’re presented two options: Manual, for people with accounts with under 10,000 followers; and Auto for accounts with over 10,000 followers. The Manual version is free, while the Auto has a slight charge. Mutuality doesn’t do much. You can follow all who follow you and unfollow all who do not follow you back. It’s possible to make exclusions to these tasks but you have to know their Twitter name.

PROS: You can bulk follow or unfollow Twitter users.

CONS: That’s all you can do. This is the definition of a single service site. It does one thing and not very well. At the very least they need a way to view your users to find the accounts that you want to exclude from your action.

RATING:

  

UnTweeps allows you to unfollow users based on the last time they tweeted. This is a great way to cut out the dead users. It’s very easy to use and uses the Twitter Authentication to login. On the downside, you can only use the site once every 14 days unless you want to pay for the service. You can get a 3 day subscription for $1.37 or a monthly subscription for $5, which can only be paid through PayPal. I would have taken a screenshot but after using it once I discovered I had to pay to get back in.

PROS: Easy to use and allows you to filter your followers based on how many days since their last tweet. The site is very straightforward and looks great.

CONS: The one time use feature is a huge drawback for a single service site. UnTweeps only does one thing and then charges you for it after you use it once. It’s even more limiting by the fact that you have to have a PayPal account.

RAITING:

Friend or Follow was my “go to” site to manage my Twitter account before I started researching this article. You don’t have to register with the site. You simply enter your Twitter username and it will pull in your following, fans and friends. The interface is very graphic. Each follower’s picture is lined up and when you roll over their photo, you get their name, followers, following, last tweet and the date the account was created. Because you don’t login, you’re unable to follow or unfollow from the site. When you click on a photo, it takes you to that person’s Twitter account. It’s also possible to sort users by A-Z ascending or descending order, most recent tweet and the date the account was created.

PROS: No login and easy to use. Easy to navigate and sort users.

CONS: You can’t follow or unfollow from the site. Looking at a bunch of tiny boxes can be hard on the eyes and makes it difficult to keep track of what you’re doing.

RATING:

With its rainbow color pallet, Tweepular looks like it was designed by someone with a passion for Skittles. But this is the first site that really gets what Twitter follower management is all about. You can bulk follow and unfollow, see who you mutual follow, who doesn’t follow you and who you don’t follow back. The main display shows each follower and has their Twitter name, last update, date added, if you are following them, if they are following you and their follower count. Under their photo, there is a follow and unfollow button. There is a tick box that allows you to select multiple accounts to follow/unfollow. There is also the ability to sort by “tweepularity”, number of followers, date added, last updated or A-Z ascending and descending. Finally, they have a tab that recommends new followers to you. There is a warning window that appears when you first visit the site. After using the site several times, I never experienced any problems. I'm not sure what the reason for the warning is.

PROS: Tweepular has all the main features we want plus it suggests new people to follow. It’s easy to use and simple to understand. You can see who you’re following and see who is following you. Plus, it has the standard unfollow/follow accounts, bulk unfollow/follow users and allows you to see how active accounts are.

CONS: We can’t tag accounts or comment on profiles to better organize followers. It’s not a deal breaker, but it would be nice to have.

RATING:

Refollow has it all. There are seventeen different ways to filter. Besides the expected follow/unfollow filtering, you can also sort by never followed, with picture, without picture, last tweeted, search for, users who are following other users, users who are followed by other users, users who have @mentioned you, and more. Sorting is available by last tweet, tweet count, screen name, follow count and friend count. You have the ability to bulk follow and unfollow. Moving your cursor over a profile brings up a window that shows their last tweet, any tags you’ve given and their entire Twitter profile. There is a details button that opens a sidebar with the person’s profile, the ability to retweet their last tweet, tagging options and comments.

PROS: WOW, this site hits all of our criteria save one – the ability to suggest new followers. I can’t recommend this site enough.

CONS: It doesn’t recommend new followers, but we can find those people though other sites if we have to.

RATING:

Twitter Karma was my other “go to” site to manage my followers. It’s slow to load and times out if you have more a than a few thousand followers. The site allows you to see who you’re following, who is following you and who you mutually follow. It also allows you to bulk follow/unfollow and select individuals to follow/unfollow. 

PROS: Simple to use and easy to navigate.

CONS: Very slow to load and refresh. It doesn’t do anything beyond allowing you to follow or unfollow accounts.

RATING:

I also tried to use MyCleenr, Tweeple, Tweetscan, Mr. Tweet and Twitterless. Some of the sites simply required I follow them on Twitter, like Mr. Tweet and Twitterless, but then I never heard back on how to access the site. In the case of MyCleenr, it simply couldn’t handle accounts with more than 700 followers.



CONCLUSION: Refollow and Tweepular are the hands-down winners here. Refollow slightly edges out Tweepular due to the variety of filtering options and the ability to tag and comment on user accounts. This is a great site for beginners as well as super users. Tweepular’s colorful design, broad functionality and suggested user tab make it a strong runner up. This is still a wide open field as the top two sites are miles ahead of the rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more contenders in this arena soon that offer even more features.

Which Twitter follower management application do you use?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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Sorry all, had to shut down the comments because of too much SPAM.

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Google verses the world

Google moves one step closer to world wide web domination

Google has once again dominated internet conversations. People clamored over each other trying to get an invite to the beta release of Google Wave.

Only 100,000 invites were given out and each invited person was given eight invites. Contest were constructed, promises were made and hoops were jumped though to get one of the precious invites. The irony is, as far as I know,  very few people that were invited by the inital 100,000 have received their Google Wave invite.

While you wait on your Google Wave invite, check out Google Wave: A Complete Guide to see what you’re missing.

Another app has been released to much less fanfare. Google Sidewiki is a toolbar application that allows users to add more content and provide context to a website. Imagine visiting a website and being able to add more information for others to see. Sidewiki does just that.

The release has been applauded for it’s user interaction and criticized for allowing people to add content that wasn’t provided by the original site creator.

Taking the offline to the online, Google announced the release of TED 5000 (The Energy Detective) from Energy Inc. The device is a home energy monitoring device that measures a home’s electrical usage in real-time. The Google PowerMeter takes that information and puts it online or your mobile phone.

Personally I think this is a great way to be more aware of your power consumption and helps people decrease their energy useage.

Finally incase you think Google might becoming the Microsoft, Hitwise is reporting that Google controls 71% of the search engine market share.

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These are the twrules

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

10 tips to good Twitter manners

It doesn’t matter if you’re CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a 75 year old grandmother, there are basic guidelines that people follow to get the most out of Twitter. These are the ten twrules that I find most important.  

1. Don’t Auto DM – The whole business model of Twitter involves people following people they don’t know. You don’t have make your first impression an obnoxious bore. In the summer of 2008 it was a great way to promote yourself, now it’s just annoying spam. This is probably the quickest way to get someone to unfollow you. Honestly, no one cares that ”you’re glad they are following you and that you look forward to their tweets.” If you would like to block people from auto DMing you, start with this opt-out page from Social Oomph.
   
   
2. Share useful information - We’ve all been guilty of tweeting the most banal subjects: ”I just got coffee”, ”That ham sandwich at lunch was delicious”. The good news is it is OK to do it occasionally provided you also provide useful information. People want to connect and showing that you share a common interest through useful links, insight and comments works best. Keep your lunch, bathroom and bedtime events to yourself.
   
   
3. It's OK to ask for a ReTweet, just say Thank You - The best way to get people to retweet your tweet is to ask. It sounds simple but most people don’t do it. When you have really good content, ask for people to share it. Odds are they will. You’ll garner even better good will after you thank people for their time.
   
   
4. Give credit to someone for good content - It’s easy to steal a tweet and use it as your own. It’s better if you retweet and give credit. Odds are then next time you tweet something good, that people will retweet you.
   
   
5. Don't spam - A certain amount of self-promotion is to be expected. These days everyone has a blog or a website. Be proud of your links. But don’t just don’t repost the same link over and over again. Mix in other links, retweets and comments instead of the same link.
   
   
6. Watch what you say – This is one of the most important guidelines. The internet has a very, very, very long memory and rarely forgets. One offhanded comment or inappropriate link might not harm you right away but could find you later. Or it could set the internet on fire with bad publicity and brand reputation damage. If you think your tweet might be too controversial, odds are it probably is.
   
   
7. Become a resource - This is especially important to smaller companies. Show you’re more than just a brand trying to sell someone on your product. Provide links to news, website or blogs that your clients might find useful. Become an expert in your field so when you do tweet your followers look forward to what you say.
   
   
8. Tweet often but don't over tweet or under tweet - This is the hardest to define. How much is too much? How little is too little? The ”experts” say that 20-30 tweets a day is too much. Anything less than 10 times a day is too little. You need to establish a presence and anything less than 10 times a day will be lost in the stream of tweets. Otherwise, go crazy. Tweet as often as you feel comfortable. Through feedback and time, you’ll develop a natural feel for what you think is the proper amount your audience will accept.
   
   
9. Learn the lingo - What is RT, hashtags, DM – it’s important to be able to talk to the talk with others. Learn what the language of Twitter is before you get started.
   
   
10. Don’t have huge conversations – Twitter isn’t a message board or instant messenger. Its main function is send out a single message. Of course you want people to respond to your tweets. As a rule of thumb, anything longer than three tweets back and forth should be moved to DMs or another channel like email, AIM or MSN. Since everyone that follows you can see your tweets, if they aren’t following the other person, they miss half the conversation and your tweets are cluttering their twit stream.

If I could offer one last piece of advice, read and listen to what’s being said by your followers. You’ll have a much richer Twitter experience and develop greater relationships. There are more rules that could be added but these are the top ten that I find the most useful.

What are your rules for good tweeting?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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