Tag Archives: Twitter

digital media, social media, twitter

#SurrenderYourSay is a winner

Last Wednesday I saw a post from Gregg Tilston letting his Twitter followers know that they may be seeing some apologizing for some of the tweets that would be coming from his account that day. Gregg happens to be the Social Media Global Lead for Flight Centre. He is one of a select number of professionals who I closely follow to keep up to date on what is happening in the world of SEO and social media. He caught my curiosity and I started to investigate.

It seemed that the Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada (with guidance from agency Saatchi & Saatchi Canada) was asking people to give up control of their tweets for 24 hours in an attempt to have people understand how Tourette Syndrome works.

For those who don’t know, people who have Tourette Syndrome suffer from involuntary vocal and physical outbursts known as tics, that cause them to lose control of the things they say and do.

What better way to illustrate the symptoms of Tourette then giving up control of our tweets. No editing. No giving approval before “pressing send.” Just like those who suffer from Tourette.

Here’s an example of a tweet from Gregg:

Screen Shot 2013-06-24 at 12.05.32 AM

And one from me:

Screen Shot 2013-06-24 at 12.07.07 AM

These were totally random tweets that Gregg, myself and thousands of people had populate their feed throughout the day.

I have seen many brands (mostly corporate for-profit companies) execute social media campaigns. However, none have been so true to their message and brand than this one run by Tourette Syndrome Foundation of Canada. Those who took part were not insulting their followers. In fact, it raised awareness in a humourous yet effective manner. For example, Gregg (because I know him personally) takes what he says publicly seriously. He’s one of those people who thinks twice before pressing enter on his keyboard. So when people saw his tweets that day they probably stopped and read his tweets twice. And because there was a link and the #SurrenderYourSay hashtag, they most likely checked out what the heck Gregg was tweeting about.

Personally, no one responded to me in a negative way. No one sent me a DM saying that what I was tweeting was insulting to them and was harming my “personal” brand. In fact, I received many retweets and a few favourites too.

According to an official post, over 3 million people were reached in the first 24 hours of this campaign. As I write this on Sunday night, over 1.5 million people have participated in the #SurrenderYourSay campaign.

Congrats to the Foundation on their great work, this campaign and everyone who participated.

social media, twitter

11 tools to help you get the most out of Twitter

Personally, Twitter has become my favourite social media tool. Although users are limited to 140 characters, we have come up with many ways to use this simple tool: whether it is using hashtags, embedding links to articles, photos or videos, or using the Direct Message feature.

Since it’s inception, many tools have been created to help people and social media agencies get the most out of Twitter. Here are just a few of them and what they do. If you know of others, please feel free to share them in the comments section.

In no particular order:

ReTweetLab – powered by HubSpot this tool is one of the most powerful I’ve come across to date. ReTweetLab takes a look at your last 1000+ tweets and analyzes them from everything to length, RTs, Day of Week, Time of Day and more.

Qlouds – the premier Twitter storage facility not owned by Twitter.

TweetReach – Want to know how viral that last tweet about Kim Kardashian you tweeted was? TweetReach is the tool for you.

HootSuite – I use this tool everyday to do everything from tweeting, RTing, searching for conversations and people on Twitter, and even to schedule tweets. They also provide social media analytics and a robust social media team workflow solution.

Buffer – An interesting tool that (via its free version) allows the user to schedule 4 tweets during the day at optimum times. The data they report back on helps you to understand which content is resonating with your followers.

TwitterCounter – the free version of TwitterCounter can help you track how many followers you’re gaining on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. And  you can also use this tool to compare yourself to Barak Obama or your next door neighbour.

TweetPing – Probably the “coolest” Twitter tool out there. Shows you a real life word wide view of who’s tweeting in real time. Kind of like looking at Twitter from Commander Hadfield’s view from the space station.

TweepsMap – Want to know where your followers are? This tool will report to you the city and country of where your followers reside.

TweetBig – Another Twitter tool that helps you manage your community.

Twitonomy – Twitter analytics tool currently in beta.

Metricly – Dashboard to track and analyze your social media data.

digital media, social media, twitter

itbusiness.ca: Vine is making the case for business use

As many of you know, I am  a partner with a social media agency in Toronto. I am also a regular contributor on social media with itbusiness.ca. The following article was first published last week. I hope you enjoy.

——

Earlier this year Twitter released the mobile video-sharing app, Vine. I also shared my early thoughts about Vine on my agency blog here.

As soon as it came out two very distinct camps started to form. The first camp argued that nothing of real value could be created in just six seconds (or less). These were probably the same people who argued that 140 characters was not long enough to tell any sort of meaningful story.

The second camp was mostly filled with creative types. These people didn’t see a 6 second limitation. Rather, they believed that Vine was just another platform where art could be created. They focused on the medium rather than the message.

And if you have spent any amount of time on Vine or even Vine aggregators such as Vinepeek then you now know that people’s creativity knows no bounds. One of the most popular personalities (and my personal favourite) on Vine is Adam Goldberg: six seconds of pure entertainment.

However, in my circle, most people are interested in whether or not there are any business uses for Vine. Of course there is. Two examples pop into my head.

The first is Wired Magazine. On a regular basis Wired Magazine publishes six second videos of visitors and promotions of upcoming stories and features they are working on.

The second is the Humane Society of New York. In February, the Humane Society placed a cat in an adopted home courtesy of a Vine video that was posted earlier in the month.

It is still early to properly quantify the business value of Vine but here are some tangible points:

  1. If you’re hiring, Vine is a great tool to showcase the type of culture your brand lives and breathes.
  2. For those in the publishing industry (books, magazines, digital, etc), Vine is a great way to offer a preview of what’s to come.
  3. Leave a call to action (visit our website or call our number) in your Vine. It can be in the comments or tag section. Or the call to action can be part of the video.
  4. Like all types of content, content best practices still applies with Vine: Publish on a regular basis, produce interesting and shareable content, and listen to your community as you continue to publish Vine videos.

There are plenty of examples of companies already using Vine. If you’ve come across a brand using Vine in an interesting and compelling way, please share with the rest of the community in the comments section.

social media, twitter

HootSuite vs Buffer

Earlier this month I conducted a non-scientific analysis comparing two social media publication tools: HootSuite and Buffer. To set the stage here are some facts:

  • The social media agency that I am a partner of is a paying HootSuite client.
  • I use HootSuite (not just for business) to publish to a variety of platforms including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • I use HootSuite to publish in real time as well as push out scheduled messages.
  • I have used the free version of Buffer (sparingly) to send out scheduled tweets.

I scheduled 10 identical tweets on both platforms between the dates of Monday, March 4 2013 – Wednesday, March 6 2013.

HootSuite’s schedule engine heavily loaded the tweets on Monday. Buffer scheduled 4 on Monday, 4 on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday. Here are the results:

  • 4 tweets from HootSuite had no clicks.
  • HootSuite’s analytics (unless I’m missing something) didn’t share how many RTs or mentions the tweets received.
  • The 10 tweets sent through HootSuite’s scheduled feature received a total of 33 clicks; the highest tweet received 14 clicks and was about Toronto’s Community Managers.
  • Every tweet sent through Buffer received at least 1 click.
  • The average tweet sent through Buffer received 6.5 clicks.
  • The most popular tweets each received 12 clicks (Toronto’s Community Managers, Co-working Spaces in Toronto, and an interview with Gregg Tilston of Flight Centre).
  • The Co-working tweet also received 1 RT and 1 mention.
  • In total, the tweets sent through Buffer received 2 RTs, 1 mention and 65 clicks

Conclusion:

Use Buffer to send out more than 4 scheduled tweets at once. The platform will ensure they are spread out evenly. What will I do? I will continue to use HootSuite. Scheduling has benefits (as seen above) but I also place a high level of importance on engagement, monitoring, moderating and searching for conversations and topics. These are things that provide me with personal and business value.

digital media, social media, twitter

itbusiness – Is credit card alliance Foursquare’s saving grace?

The following post was originally posted on itbusiness.ca last week.

By now you’ve probably heard that Foursquare had initiated a retail program that allows users to check in to locations and save money with their Visa or MasterCard. In fact, it’s been almost two years since Foursquare created this initiative with American Express.

The most recent announcement is quite interesting as Forbes opined at the beginning of the year that Foursquare was doomed for failure in 2013. Which leads me to ask this question: Will this latest initiative with Visa and MasterCard help Foursquare become relevant, profitable and an important ally of retailers?

Time will tell but I think it is not too early to say yes.

  1. Immediate ROI. Retailers (and all businesses for that matter) have been concerned about the value of social media ever since it was determined that one could actually measure social media. Participating retailers will find ROI from this program just by plugging in. However, they will still need to actively engage and communicate with their community and potential audience members. Now that this opportunity has been handed to them how innovative will retailers become to attract people via social media in general and Foursquare specifically? And what active role will Foursquare play in this? Will we see sales offices open up similar to their social media cousins such as Facebook and LinkedIn?
  2. Huge big data opportunity. Big Data is going to continue to be huge in 2013 and this is just one example of why. Foursquare and the credit card companies are the biggest winners here. For years, credit card companies have been harvesting data on the purchasing habits of customers. Foursquare has been compiling data (although not as rich) for a few years now. This marriage of sorts will – for the first time – now combine consumer behaviour and social media. In fact, I believe that American Express’ recent partnership with retailers and Twitter is a direct result of lessons learned (and data obtained) from their Foursquare initiative of two years ago. Look for Visa, MasterCard and American Express to use this data to offer special services, insights and even products to their corporate and consumer clients in the very near future. Also look for Foursquare to continue working with retailers and credit cards companies to be their social media partner.
  3. The importance of the check-in. Many retailers still rely heavily on their store fronts for the majority of their revenues. This partnership with Foursquare shows the importance that bricks and mortar still plays in today’s digital economy. However, I believe that Foursquare will now start to develop a GetGlue-type solution by offering consumers the ability to virtually check in. Why? in 2010, e-commerce accounted for $15.3 billion in sales in Canada. And it’s growing.

For Canada the question is when will we see this initiative north of the 49th? Don’t hold your breath. The Amex initiative is still not available in Canada after two years. So the chances of Foursquare opening up this program anytime soon in Canada is unlikely.

digital media, social media, twitter

Vine – the newest social network

Vine seems to be all the rage these days – It is the video equivalent of sharing your life 140 characters at a time. And yes, it’s owned by Twitter.

I consider myself an early adopter so I looked forward to downloading and testing this much-talked about app this past week.  At the moment, Vine is available on the iOS (Apple products) OS.

I’ve also had the opportunity to play with the app previously with Andrew Jenkins.  Andrew was recently a guest of mine on thirdoceanTV.

In short, Vine enables the user to “create and share beautiful, short looping 6 second videos.”

Here are some early thoughts:

From a consumer standpoint, Vine has the characteristics to be sticky like Instagram:
– its easy as pie to use.
– connecting with larger social networks like Facebook and Twitter is seamless. This allows Vine content to be shared even with those who are not on the new platform.
– Vine is not just a video creation and sharing app; It’s a social network. When you create a video it automatically becomes part of all the other Vine videos. And the user can also consume these videos on the Vine platform.

To see some examples, check out some interesting user-generated videos on VineRoulette.

As a partner with thirdocean, I’m also interested in the implications of this new platform on how brands and agencies communicate and create new and interesting content. Geoffrey Colon wrote an interesting piece earlier this morning on Vine and why brands should be testing Vine. Here are his 5 reasons (in short and in my words):

1.) Test and Learn.
2.) We know visuals are more compelling than just text.
3.) Tell stories in 6 second snippets.
4.) Showcase your company and product.
5.) Tell stories of the people and the company they work for.

Obviously these are still early days. I’m sure there will be many case studies coming out over the next few weeks and months on the application of Vine both from a consumer and brand points of view.

A version of this article showed up yesterday on the thirdocean blog.

digital media, social media, twitter

The World According to Tweetping – 140 characters at a time with Twitter

If you ask my wife, she will tell you how massive of a fan I am of Twitter. One of the reasons is that it is a quick and efficient communications platform that can be used by anyone, anywhere with a mobile phone, tablet or computer. Not too long ago she finally opened her own Twitter account. I announced then that with her getting on Twitter, that everyone in the world must be on Twitter. I tell you this story to tell you how wrong I was and still am.

Not everyone is on Twitter. All one has to do is check out a new and very cool visualization tool called Tweetping.

Tweetping allows you to visualize, in real time, where Twitter is being used globally. One of the things that struck me right away was how dark most of Africa and Asia was. Here are some other observations:

  • At approximately 3pm EST, Europe is more active on Twitter than all of North America
  • Brazil heavily dominates the use of Twitter in South America
  • In Canada, most of the use is along the corridor between Windsor and Quebec City
  • In the United States, the east coast is busier than the west coast.

Tweetping is built as an open source project and was created by Frank Ernewein. Check it out.

social media, twitter

Securely Back Up and Index Your Tweets

There are many “shiny new tools” that come out to serve the social media industry these days.

Late last week one such tool was publicly launched in beta and actually grabbed my attention: qlouds.net.

Why do I like qlouds? As a heavy Twitter user it’s like magic to me.

First off, Twitter doesn’t “remember” all my tweets. Qlouds does. As soon as I registered my account, qlouds stores all my tweets. ALL OF THEM: Mentions, Tweets, ReTweets, DMs, and favourites.

And qlouds comes with its own search engine: I can search user name and even subjects.

If you’re interested in signing up for a free beta trial of qlouds, visit qlouds.net.

Uncategorized

A fun and interactive @UFC Infographic

What do you get when you mashup the Ultimate Fighting Championship, social media and infographics? A fun and interactive infographic like the one below.

Enjoy!

(if the infographic doesn’t respond please visit: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/UFC/Dashboard1?:embed=y )

 

Dashboard 1

The UFC has put alot of emphasis on social media. If you watch any of the Pay Per Views you will notice that each fighter and personality has their Twitter handle (@TitoOrtiz, etc) displayed. However, it seems that the number of followers doesn’t correspond to base salary or even Twitter bonuses.

In the data I found, Mauricio Rua had the most followers but Tito Ortiz earned the most as reflected by base salary. And the only one to earn any Twitter bonuses was Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

2011 fighter of the year Jon “Bones” Jones was 3rd in base salary earned (although his PPV, win and fight bonuses would amount to much more), 2nd in number of Google search results, and 3rd in Twitter followers.

What is very interesting to note is that PPV kings Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva are nowhere to be found in the top ten UFC base salary earners.

Sources:

http://www.mma-manifesto.com/ufc-fighter-salary-database/salary-main/2011-fighter-salaries-top-10-earners.html
http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/11/01/ufc-twitter-bonus-winners-announced/
http://twitter.com

digital media, social media, twitter

my #FollowFriday list for 2011

It’s finally here.

Twitter
Image via Wikipedia

The last unofficial workday of 2011.  So what better thing to do then continue something I started last year here.

Here is this year’s list of Tweeple (people on Twitter) who positively impacted my  life in one way or another (in no particular order). After reading this make sure to follow all these people. Your life will be better for it.

  1. @jpuopolo – Joseph has been a good friend and supporter of mine for a little while now. I first met him at freelancecampTO. Before we met he was just the dude who used Charlie Brown as his Twitter avatar. Today?  He’s my UFC buddy. He’s been kind enough to open his place up to host many a UFC PPV. And he’s also offered his stickers for our XConnectTO events.
  2. @manalsiddiqui – Who would have thought that meeting on a TTC Streetcar party would have netted me a good friend in Manal. Manal is one of the few people I know who spends so much of her energy and heart into making Toronto an even better place to live in.
  3. @salimavalji – We met briefly at MusicConnectTO and then again at a Mobile Monday event. Next thing you know I was heading up to Stratford with Salima for Canada 3.0. Salima is a bright young lady whose understanding of social media and digital marketing is second to none.  Knowing Salima this past year has helped me gain a better understanding of my own industry and business.
  4. @OrangeYYZ – ING DIRECT’s foray into co-working with their Network Orange space has been a success as far as I am concerned.  Our business, thirdocean, proudly calls the space at 221 Yonge home. Thanks to Melissa, Conrad and everyone here for making 2011 so special for us.
  5. @thehartley – Matt has come through for thirdocean like no other this year.  He has hosted 3 events for us this year: HashUpTO, FilmConnect and WebPalTO.  His tweets on #cdntech and baseball are always enlightening if not downright hilarious.  Thanks Matt.  We shall do more lunches/drinks this year.
  6. @hessiejones and @azimalibhai- I met Hessie through my friend Azim when they were both with Due North.  Today, they are both carving out their own path.  Azim is an independent consultant in the media space while Hessie is starting to kick butt with a new Toronto-based startup.  They have both introduced me to some amazing people.  Thanks!
  7. @TheWorkRepublic – Thank you very much Ray, Maurice and Milan for hosting me on many days.  It’s always a trip hanging with you guys during the day. TWR is the best place to work north of Bloor Street.
  8. @funkstop – Although an entire continent away, Rahim has continued to support and be an inspiration to me and my business.  The folks on the west coast are lucky to have a talented guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

There’s probably a bunch of Tweeple that are not on this list that have impacted and continue to impact my life in a positive way.  This is an incomplete list.  I have also not included the many people not on Twitter who I interact with often whom I could not do without.  To everyone, thanks for making 2011 another amazing year!

If you’re not on Twitter, get on and follow me at @karimkanji.