Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category

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Facebook Catches Up and Moves Fast into the Future

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

Facebook has officially redeemed themselves.

I’ve been upset with Facebook for more than a year now. They just weren’t innovating. Twitter allowed you to follow people without friending, which ushered in a whole world of celebrities on the Twitter train.

Facebook didn’t change. And Twitter went mainstream.

Recently, Google Plus has come out with a whole new innovation of social media  filtering. The ability to share status updates, news and video with select circles of friends – without letting other friends see. They beat Facebook to this seemingly obvious evolution of social sharing.

But finally, Facebook is catching up, and it looks like they’re moving far ahead.

At the F8 conference last week, Mark Zuckerberg shared a world of Jobs’ian beauty. It’s exciting. It’s beautiful. It gives users more control. It takes the best features that Twitter and Google Plus have to offer (following & filtering). I’m proud of Facebook. I’m excited about Facebook once again.

But, here’s my one big concern, and it’s probably everyone’s. This “semantic Web” that Zuckerberg is so excited about, and the privacy issues that we’re so fearful of. Your interaction with Facebook apps now automatically ends up in, no longer your timeline, but your ticker (the new right sidebar feature).

You don’t get to opt-in to this. You don’t get to say no. This just isn’t smart. I’m going to be self conscious about the songs I choose to listen to on Spotify now. Do I want people to know I’m listening to the new Jay-Z album? Now I don’t get a choice. If I want to do something, I am forced to do it publicly. Sorry Zuckerberg. This ain’t going to fly. Fix this. Focus on making things easier while giving us more control. And you’ll stay in the lead for good this time.

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Posted in Google Plus, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, facebook | No Comments »

Qwikster Social Media Gaffe

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Whenever an individual or business makes a terrible mistake using social media, we at Windy City Strategies want to make sure we call it out, in order to help us all avoid similar social media gaffes in the future.

But today’s is a weird one. It’s not a gaffe of commission, but rather, omission.

Netflix has separated the DVD-by-mail portion of their business into a new company, called Qwikster. The only problem is, it’s a new company name. And the Twitter name, @Qwikster, was already taken, and being used by a fairly lewd student, who repeatedly references sexual interests and recreational drug usage.

Oops. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise – an opportunity for Netflix to take back the  simply awful Qwikster name? But, what’s the lesson here. For years now, companies have avoided naming their company a name they can’t acquire the .com domain version of. Is a vacant Twitter name now a standard business requirement, too?

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Charlie Sheen Social Media Experiment

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Comedy Central is leveraging a whole new level of social participation with it s roast of the grand czar of crazy, Charlie Sheen. Using the hashtags, #SheenRoast and #CrazyTrain, Comedy Central is hoping to encourage interaction as well as crowdsource some comedic participation.

Throughout the live broadcast, short video clips will appear on Comedy Central’s social media dashboard for the event, which users can post to their social networks, encouraging their friends to tune in to the hysterics.

This is a whole new level of social media engagement. Many programs have helped viewers stay engaged in live programming using social media. But, this is a great way to help engaged viewers help engage their friends.

Comedy Central also uses Twitter analytics to review their programming, to see which jokes got the best laughs (tweets).

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Facebook Subscribe Button Only 3 Years Behind Twitter

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

We at Windy City Strategies called for this a while back. After all, it was Twitter’s single greatest advantage. The fact that you could track celebrities and other thought leaders without being “friends” with them. In fact, we suggested that Facebook offer a “follow” feature.

But, the fact that it took Facebook this long to launch their Facebook Subscribe Button is really telling. It tells a story of arrogance as well as defeat. Worst of all, if they had copied Twitter a bit faster, it might have prevented their massive and ever-popular growth.

At least they’re copying Google Plus’ Circles filtering feature more quickly.

Here’s the big problem. Celebrities aren’t using Facebook to share publicly. After all, “that’s what Twitter is for.” And while I can now filter my friends list, and keep my church friends from seeing my questionable humor, it would take me going back and defining my 600+ Facebook relationships.

So, yes, you can follow celebrities and your industry thought leaders on Facebook now. The problem is, they’re not here.

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Posted in Google, Google Plus, Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, facebook | No Comments »

Sonar App Offers Aggregate Geo-Location Notification

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

You walk in to your favorite restaurant in the city. You pull out your phone to brag to your friends, and possibly see that someone you know is there, too. So, what do you do? Check in to Foursquare, Google Places, Facebook Places, Yelp, or one of the many other check-in options?

Sonar, a new geo-location notification aggregate, can now do better – telling you which of your Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn friends are there – and tweet them directly to let them now you’ve arrived. This all-in-one functionality is terrific obviously, but relies on all of your contacts actually utilizing one of these services to check in themselves.

And how many people are going to check in via LinkedIn? Well, perhaps a business conference, I suppose?

It’s an example of an awesome possibility that will only become awesome once these services start auto-checking you into places – which admittedly, is uber-creepy.

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Posted in GPS, Google, LinkedIn, Smartphones, Social Media, Twitter, facebook, mobile-marketing | No Comments »

Twitter Launches New Analytics Tool to Justify Itself

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Recent analytics studies have shown that Twitter is being unfairly prejudiced in most reports. After all, the 140 character limit on Twitter means that if you want to share a link on Twitter, you often can’t fit it. Hence the evolution of bit.ly and other link shortening services. But here’s the problem. These referral services often take Twitter’s credit as the referral.

For instance, let’s say you share a bit.ly link on Twitter that links to your site. If you look at your site’s referring traffic, Twitter doesn’t get credit for the referral. Bit.ly does.

Perhaps because of this, Twitter has released their own Analytics API, hoping to help Webmasters understand the importance of the growing social media juggernaut. In essence, Twitter is adding their own t.co URL to any third-party URL shortener to ensure they get credit for the referral.

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Posted in Google Analytics, Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

NBC News Social Media Gaffe

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

Whenever an individual or business makes a terrible mistake using social media, we at Windy City Strategieswant to make sure we call it out, in order to help us all avoid similar social media gaffes in the future.

This story isn’t as much of a social media guidelines question, but a social media warning. NBC News found out that their Twitter feed had been hacked, when they saw the news, “Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked. Flight 5736 has crashed into the site, suspected hijacking. more as the story develops.”

Just days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, this incredibly insensitive hack is a scary sign at what hackers can do to delegitimize respected news organizations. And since Twitter password strength probably wasn’t a strong part of NBC’s IT worries, you can bet it is now.

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter | No Comments »

Social Media Starts to Drive More Web Traffic

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

Recently at Windy City Strategies, we noted the odd reality that social media really wasn’t serving as an effective traffic driver for Websites – at least, not nearly as much as we might have thought.

In a revised study by the same company we originally cited, Facebook has taken a serious leap forward. From out of the top 10 to the number 4 position. Whereas Twitter, previous ranked above Facebook (and referring 60% more traffic) has fallen to the 10th spot. Honestly, these new findings make me question the original report more than anything.

But, if this new study is correct, understanding how to take advantage of the viral, easy-to-share nature of social networks is more important than ever.

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Posted in Social Media, Twitter, facebook | No Comments »

Twitter Renews Bing Partnership. Not Google’s.

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Twitter has renewed their search partnership with Bing, and sort of publicly teased Google about it via Twitter. In a tweet that referenced “Search w/o Twitter = old news”, Twitter makes fun of the fact that Google’s search engine no longer carries Twitter feeds, which are turning into the industry’s most real-time news outlet out there.

It’s a big differentiation for Microsoft, specifically in terms of news searches. And they seem quite happy to brag about it.

Of course, Twitter probably can’t be thrilled about Google’s new attempt at social with Google+ and probably had a little bit of fun with these Twitter teases.

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Posted in Google, Search-Engine-Optimization, Social Media, Twitter, bing | No Comments »

Teens, Transmedia and the VMAs

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Teenagers no longer watch TV. They interact with it.

That’s the biggest transmedia lesson we can take from this year’s Video Music Awards hosted by MTV. 5 1/2 million tweets. 66,000 Facebook posts. 80% of them positive. 65% of them posted by girls. 50% of them taking place via mobile.

You  might ask, why did Twitter have such a big response as compared to Facebook, the social media giant? Well, MTV encouraged it, incorporating hashtags # in the show – leading the discussion. Social media now allows us to watch TV together, even when we’re alone. To provide a collective running commentary.

It’s a brave new world. And it’s taking place two screens at a time.

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Posted in Smartphones, Social Media, Twitter, facebook, mobile-marketing | No Comments »

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