Twist Image partner and author of Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel wrote an interesting article on his blog yesterday. In it, he asserts that a conversation is NOT a community. He’s quite right. While many clients are starting to recognize that the traditional model of shouting at people about their product has lost its effectiveness, a lesser number truly understand how to change. They may be aware of digital marketing initiatives but are unsure of how to get involved, or simply are not ready to commit. Because there are commitments. In time, money and effort.
Joel suggests a client needs to “make yourself more findable, approachable, likeable and spreadable.” But to do this—and to build a community people want to join—you need to honour your commitments in fostering your brand. Simply having a Facebook page or a Twitter account will not ensure a meaningful conversation with your customers. And meaningful is the metric that will help you grow.
November 2009 Archive
Just Being There Doesn’t Cut It
The Evolution of Twitter at One On One
by Mike Charbonneau
The Canadian International AutoShow's Twitter page.
I have been using Twitter with a client, The Revue Cinema, for probably a year and it’s been going quite well. For The Revue, a not-for-profit community-run cinema with few dollars for marketing, Twitter has been a great tool which we’ve used as an electronic marquee. It lets followers (those who decide to follow your Twitter feed) know about upcoming events and what’s playing at the cinema that day. So I started looking at our other clients, to see who else could benefit from exposure to the Twitterverse. The first one that made sense and seemed like a good fit was the Canadian International AutoShow.
So we created an identity for the AutoShow on Twitter and started to fill this new channel with links to automotive stories we thought would interest our followers. We then asked our client—who was in Germany at the Frankfurt Auto Show at the time—to tweet from the floor to give our readers insight on the show. Over the course of a few weeks, we slowly increased our followers to about 40 people. Not bad, considering this isn’t usually the time of year when people think about the AutoShow.
Closer to a month into the campaign, I created a hashtag—#autoshowcanada—to help people find the AutoShow on Twitter. Within 5 minutes, two people had retweeted (RT) the hashtag in their own post. By the tenth minute, another person had retweeted. So what’s the big deal and what’s all this talk of retweeting? Let me explain.
Up to this point, we had 43 people following the AutoShow on Twitter. Whenever we would tweet anything, only those 43 people would see our message. The instant that three people retweeted our message, it meant that it would now be seen by their followers. So in the space of 10 minutes, our conversation with 43 people grew to a potential 3,000. This is called message amplification.
Of course, not everyone of those 3,000 saw the message and of those that did, many had no interest. But, there was a noticeable effect. Over the next couple of weeks, our number of followers grew to over 100. Now, you should know that the number of followers is not the best metric to measure your success on Twitter. Why? Well, that’s another entry for another day. But if you are interested in finding out if your business can benefit from the flexibility of Twitter, give us a call and we’ll help you out.
The “Up To” Promise
by Mike Charbonneau
A Speedtest.net test of our internet connection.
Our recent efforts in the world social media multimedia have revealed (or, I should say, brought back to our attention) an issue with our internet connection. It’s slow. Really slow. Looking over our contract confirmed we have a high-speed connection which should give us “up to” 6 Mbps of download speed. Now, I understand the whole “up to” promise and how it’s dependent on where you are and the type of wiring that exists; it’s akin to achieving those theoretical gas mileage numbers but only if you drive at 20 km/h on a new road, with no wind, with optimum ambient temperature. But having checked Speedtest.net more than a few times, we rarely hit download speeds above 2.5 Mbps. Not what you’d call speedy.
So I called Bell to ask if there was a better option and apparently, there is. It’s called Optimax and it promises to deliver download speeds of 8 Mbps. Not up to but specifically 8 Mbps. And all for $10 a month more than what we are currently paying (on a 3-year contract and with a $125 installation fee). We expect the service on Monday, so I’ll keep you posted on the difference.
But the truth remains, we would have gladly paid the difference to get the service we required from the get go. I have to wonder why Bell couldn’t have looked at our service (which they can do), ascertained that it would never reach the ideal target and offered us a different option. I mean, think of it. They get more money, we’re happy with the service and now, we’re thinking of their company in a positive light for having given us with a solution.
I can see how it would require too much time and effort to look at each case individually. Perhaps “up to” is the easiest way to deal with everyone. But as I watch and participate in communications between brands and consumers, I have to wonder, is the easiest way the right way to go?
33 Things You Don’t Need If You Have an iPhone
I found this interesting link at TUAW (the Unofficial Apple Blog). If you’re in the market for a smartphone, this might be timely:
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1. Telephone
2. Calculator
3. Personal Organizer
4. Calendar
5. Wall Clock/Alarm Clock/Watch
6. Rolodex
7. Dictionary
8. Voice Memo Recorder
To see the other 25 items, click HERE.
Super-Scrutiny and Another Hero Fallen
I apologize, my French is showing*; both through the usage of the word “super” and my long-time support of the French national team. But, I trust that you’ll understand how upset I am after having to watch another one of my football heroes fall from grace. I’m talking, of course, about Thierry Henry’s handball in the World Cup qualifier between France and Ireland. But this isn’t an entry about who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s about how we find out the answer.
We’re big soccer fans here at the office, so a fair amount of time was devoted to scouring the web for footage, then replaying these videos frame by frame. On the heels of yesterday’s post which illustrated a shift from television to the internet, today’s post is further proof that we, as consumers, have changed the way we consume news. Hence the “super-scrutiny” part of this entry’s title.
A decade ago, you couldn’t review an event such as this with so much scrutiny. You could watch the proceedings unfold live, catch the highlights on your favourite news or sports channel, then pour over the details in the following day’s newspaper, complete with still photos. You can still do this, but today of course, you’re your own editor. Dig up as much information as you like. Write about it in your own blog, create a mashup or simply link to the source. It’s all about information. Find it, create it and by all means, share it.
* Tongue-firmly-in-cheek.
