It appears that every man and his dog has something to say about Wimbledon 2011 on Twitter. No, seriously. As the global tennis audience ponders whether this will be Andy Murray’s year, the champion’s dog has opened an official account. Offering unique canine analysis as the tournament kicks off, Maggie May’s musings – allegedly written with a little help from Murray’s long-term girlfriend, Kim Sears – can be found at @maggiemay_hem.
For those seeking more professional insights, Wimbledon-mania has officially kicked off on Twitter, and here follows a guide to the top ten must-follow feeds:
1. @wimbledon
First stop is the official Wimbledon Twitter account, with over 112,000 followers and 3,700 tweets to date. As well as minute-by-minute, rather jovial updates on the latest news and weather, @wimbledon also offers Twitpics and videos.
2. @tennis.com
Tennis.com’s excellent Twitter feed serves up all things tennis related, including articles from former players like Jimmy Connors.
3. @tennis_updates
Does exactly what it says on the tin, so expect tweets by the minute during key match play this Wimbledon. More »
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the cornerstone of effective Twitter marketing and indeed all social media campaigns is to offer something at least entertaining, but preferably of value to your target audience.
Currently hosting one billion tweets each week, Twitter is a crowded marketplace to say the least, so here are five ways to boost your presence on the increasingly influential microblogging platform:
1. Get visual
A picture is worth a thousand words, and video is pretty great too. If you’re stuck for copy one day, use images to tell your brand’s story and convey some personality and warmth through your profile.
2. Get physical
While social technologies like Twitter undoubtedly connect people in a virtual sense, they can also be used to facilitate face-to-face contact. If you or a colleague is attending an industry event, get it out there via a tweet and arrange to meet your potential customers in person. Even we concede that nothing tops real-life interaction for new business growth.
3. Get personal
The potential to add a personal touch via Twitter is vast, particularly if your business is relatively small. By answering questions and conversing with individual followers you’ll show appreciation for your customers and build on their loyalty. More »
Your social media marketing strategy seems to be going well; your Facebook brand profile has attracted plenty of likes, your intelligent, timely tweets have won you an army of Twitter followers, but then, quite suddenly, things start to go wrong. Your Facebook fans have started to de-friend you, while on Twitter, your core followers are nowhere to be seen – and it’s happening at an alarming pace. But why do people break their relationships with brands in the social media space?
Interactive marketing services company ExactTarget has researched the issue, and here we present some of the foremost stats and tips to encourage your online relationships to thrive.
Of the 73% of Facebook users surveyed, a majority of 64% claim to be ‘fans’ of, or have ‘liked’ a company or brand.
Despite this, 55% of those fans find they no longer want to view your posts, and 51% rarely, if ever, visit your business page on Facebook after liking it.
Excessive posting accounts for 44% of the decisions to ‘unlike’, while 43% of Facebook users feel that their account is too crowded with brands.
38% say marketers aren’t offering fresh content, while 26% say claim that all they were interested in were offers and discounts. More »
New research indicates Twitter has the potential to predict economic indicators and even predict the movement of the stock market.
A study from Cornell University, posed the question ‘Is the public mood correlated or even predictive of economic indicators?’ The researchers investigated whether measurements of collective mood states derived from large-scale Twitter feeds are correlated to the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) over time.
According to an article in PCWorld, the research stemmed from the documented belief that the ebb and flow of the stock market is driven by decision making instead of reaction to news. The study looked at 10 months’ worth of tweets from almost 3 million users, focusing specifically on tweets about feelings.
The researchers analysed the text content of daily Twitter feeds by two mood tracking tools, – OpinionFinder that measures positive vs. negative mood and Google-Profile of Mood States (GPOMS) that measures mood in terms of 6 dimensions (Calm, Alert, Sure, Vital, Kind, and Happy). More »
An announcement from Twitter yesterday could mean the days of booting up enhanced third party applications such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to manage tweets are numbered.
Twitter are introducing a two column format that allows you to see video and pictures from tweets on the right hand side of the page without clicking off the site, a move designed to make Twitter a Facebook type destination. More in this video:
While Lady Gaga passed Britney Spears and Ashton Kutcher to become the most followed Twitterer ever (like OMG) with 5.7 million followers this week, Roger Federer’s tennis trick viral for Gillette is the most shared video on Twitter (and on all social media), according to the Viral Video Chart. Nothing fake about his talent, though the staging may raise an eyebrow or two?
If you’re a brand about to launch a Twitter account, one of the first issues you face is what does it look like and who is going to run it? Do you go for the anonymous brand approach, which isn’t as good as having a real person, or appoint one of your employees to front it? If you choose the latter route, who do you appoint and what happens when they leave in 2 years time?
Well some brightspark at MTV has come up with the solution to all these conundrums, with a big wad of publicity attached too. They ran a nationwide campaign to find an MTV ‘Twitter Jockey’ – a representative of the station who will serve as their brand ambassador on Twitter for as long as the DJ style contract lasts.
The winner, trailing a load of publicity in her wake, is Gabi Gregg AKA @MTVTj. The 23 year old fought off other contestants in a apprentice style competition which included organising a ‘Tweet-Up’.
While not every brand will have the $100,000 prize budget to attract a ‘Twitter Jockey’ in such a high profile way – the principal could be applied across any organisation prepared to invest in the channel.
While only 14.6% of internet users are Twitter users, they are by far the most active content generators and primarily want product updates from the brands they follow, a new survey has found.
According to ExactTarget, daily Twitter users are about three times as likely as internet users on average to upload photos, four times as likely to blog, three times as likely to post ratings and reviews, and nearly six times as likely to upload articles.
“Consumers active on Twitter are clearly the most influential online,” explained ExactTarget’s Morgan Stewart “What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter. While the number of active Twitter users is less than Facebook or email, the concentration of highly engaged and influential content creators is unrivaled—it’s become the gathering place for content creators whose influence spills over into every other corner of the internet.”
The study also established that brand information is top of Twitterer’s wish list, closely followed by discounts and sales. More »
Twitter introduced a feature this week that recommends three more people when you follow one, you may have seen it.
This raises the intriguing question - who does Twitter think is your profile match?
If it’s true you can judge someone by the company they keep, the people Twitter are selecting to align with your profile will have a bearing on your online reputation.
Who does Twitter think are my peer group? Stephen Fry, Seth Godin? or is it wee Jock Poo-Pong McPlop, custodian of the Aberdeen public lavatories? – who I’ve just discovered has a LinkedIn profile!
To find out I conducted a simple experiment from another account and found my Twitter profile buddies to be NMA’s, Andy Oakes, Amy Mae-Lee from Mashable and Local Social Summit AKA Dylan Fuller. Not bad associations for an agent of online pr. More »
Agency i360 has conducted research measuring the type of content brands are putting on Twitter, establishing this is 75% broadcast information and 16% conversation with consumers.
Consumers’ motivation for tweeting about brands is 43% to do with sharing news and information, 35% comment on using the brand and 21% opinion about the brand. Only 1% actually want to converse with the brand on Twitter.
Other useful findings include that 90% of tweets come from consumers rather than brands and 12% of consumers’ tweets mention a brand.
When a brand is mentioned it is likely to be a social network, an entertainment or technology brand.The top brands mentioned on Twitter are Twitter itself, Apple and Google.
i360 say that as brands talk mainly at consumers rather than engage in conversation, there is still a massive opportunity for marketers to become part of the conversation.
It appears that every man and his dog has something to say about Wimbledon 2011 on Twitter. No, seriously. As the global tennis audience ponders whether this will be Andy Murray’s year, the champion’s dog has opened an official account. Offering unique canine analysis as the tournament kicks off, Maggie May’s musings – allegedly written with a little help from Murray’s long-term girlfriend, Kim Sears – can be found at @maggiemay_hem.
