Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Twitter’s Latest Valuation: $1 Billion

September 25th, 2009 • Industry News, Social Networks
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Image via TechCrunch

(Image via TechCrunch)

Twitter, the hot microblogging service, is set to close a round of financing of around $100 million that values the three-and-a-half-year-old start-up at $1 billion, according to The New York Times.

Twitter’s last round of financing, raised in February, valued the firm at $250 million, meaning Twitter has quadrupled in value in less than a year.

The news of the new valuation was first reported last week by the blog TechCrunch. This morning, details about some of the new investors and the timing were added by the Web site of The Wall Street Journal.

So, faithful readers, is Twitter worth all of the fuss? No one has quite figured out a business model for Twitter yet, but obviously the company is generating a lot of buzz. It was just a few years ago no one could understand why Twitter was getting so much coverage, but now it’s raising money with a billion dollar valuation. Did the early explosion of coverage make that happen? Or was the early coverage simply serving as a predictor that it would eventually happen?

Twitter’s 140-character limit not enough? Try Woofer’s 1,400-character minimum

August 25th, 2009 • Fun, Publishing
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For anyone too garrulous for Twitter, please meet Twitter’s evil twin: the macroblogging site, Woofer.

While Twitter limits users to 140 characters per tweet, Woofer requires each post to have a minimum of 1,400 characters. Similar to Twitter, Woofer counts down the amount of characters you have inputted with a big number at the top right of the screen. But you’re not allowed to post anything until you hit 1,400, according to Network World.

While Woofer claims no affliation with Twitter, Woofer’s user interface is near identical to Twitter. Woofer challenges users to post a 1,400 minimum character requirement for public posts and see what people did with it. The site instructs users to “Be eloquent, use adverbs and DEA (don’t ever abbreviate).”

The farcical Web site is run by Join the Company, a small company in Washington, D.C., which specializes in launching “entertaining websites that change the way people use the Internet.”

For the most part, it appears “copy and paste” is the preferred method of Woofer users to reach 1,400 words. Some of the first woofs reached the minimum by reciting the opening paragraphs of Moby Dick, the Gettysburg Address and the Old Testament.

As of Tuesday morning, 1720 users had posted 2059 “woofs” –for a whopping total of 39,683,934 characters. If you’re wondering, that’s about 20,000 characters per woof.

OMG! Check UR Facebook Page B4 Big Interview

August 21st, 2009 • Human Resources, Social Networks, Studies & Research
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After months of searching for a new job, you’ve finally scored an interview for a position that doesn’t require you to say “Would you like fries with that?” So, when preparing for that interview, you start making a mental checklist: Resume? Check. Interview suit? Check. Removing “Girls Gone Wild” pics from your Facebook page? Uh oh.

According to a new study conducted by Harris Interactive for CareerBuilder.com, 45 percent of employers questioned are using social networks to screen job candidates — more than double from a year earlier, when a similar survey found that just 22 percent of supervisors were researching potential hires on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The study, which questioned 2,667 managers and human resource workers, found that 35 percent of employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site. (The survey has no margin of sampling error because it was not drawn from a representative nationwide sample but rather from volunteer participants.)

More than half of the employers who participated in the survey said that provocative photos were the biggest factor contributing to a decision not to hire a potential employee, while 44 percent of employers pinpointed references to drinking and drug use as red flags. The top examples cited include:

  • Candidate posted provocative or inappropriate photographs or information – 53 percent
  • Candidate posted content about them drinking or using drugs – 44 percent
  • Candidate bad-mouthed their previous employer, co-workers or clients – 35 percent
  • Candidate showed poor communication skills – 29 percent
  • Candidate made discriminatory comments – 26 percent
  • Candidate lied about qualifications – 24 percent
  • Candidate shared confidential information from previous employer – 20 percent
Recently, a British woman was publicly fired on Facebook for defaming her employer.
The woman, whose identity was blacked out on internet blog Applicant, reportedly vented her frustrations about her boss and workplace on her Facebook status, according to World News Australia.

After posting “OMG I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervvy (sic) wanker always making me do sh*t stuff just to piss me off!! WANKER!” she was immediately fired by her boss. Unfortunately, the now-unemployed worker had added her boss as a friend, allowing him, and all other co-workers see her status. The boss then proceeded to identify her day-to-day mistakes while ending the post with a notice of termination: “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”

What’s the lesson here? Social networking is a great way to make connections with potential job opportunities and promote your personal brand across the Internet but, if not used appropriately, can hurt your job search and can lead to job loss. Job seekers need to be mindful of the information they post online and how they communicate directly with employers. Just because social media is all about transparency doesn’t mean you have to be transparent in everything you do. Transparency comes with a cost — in some cases, losing a job.

Twitter Has Hollywood Quaking in Its Jimmy Choos

August 20th, 2009 • Industry News, Social Networks, Tools & Resources
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The weekend is almost here, so you decide that you want to go to the movies this Saturday. Do you make your movie pick based on advertising or do you ask a friend for recommendations?

Your friend, of course. And, as we know, the loose definition of “friend” now encapsulates social media peers. With the rise of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook, word of mouth now moves at the speed of an iPhone. Think about it – as soon as someone leaves the movie theatre he or she can tweet instant raves — or pans — to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll. This phenomena has Hollywood quaking in its Jimmy Choos.

Gone are the days when TV commercials and newspaper ads dominated movie marketing. According to Nielsen’s “Trust in Advertising” study, only 14 percent of people trust advertisements whereas 78 percent of people trust the recommendations of their friends. Empowered consumers now have a greater ability to influence companies, brands, and yes, even movies.

Studios are trying to gauge the impact of an avalanche of tweets and how it affects the staying power of a movie. This summer, movies such as “Brüno” and “G.I. Joe” have had unexpected tumbles at the box office — just within their opening weekends — while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster, reports The Washington Post.

What’s the learning from this? Word of mouth — particularly with turbocharged social media channels – is a real and powerful force that can’t be stopped. Studios now have the opportunity to engage in conversations and directly engage with consumers. People want real-time news, and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a first-person way. Also, this may prompt studios to create quality movies instead of shoving garbage movies down people’s throats through aggressive marketing campaigns.

SEC Fumble: Social Media Ban Revised

August 19th, 2009 • Industry News, Legal Issues
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The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has been tackled by the very social media channels it has been trying to ban.

The Southeastern Conference told The Charlotte Observer that the conference is revising its restrictive policy on social media. Why? Because of the negative reaction in the media and on social media. Previously, the SEC wanted a conference-wide ban on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and TwitPic.

“I know what’s being written,” said SEC conference spokesman Charles Bloom. “The thought process is to get it loosened up a bit.” Bloom expects a revision to be finished in a day or two.

Bloom also told the Observer that the main concern is video. That’s perfectly understandable — if not enforceable — considering the conference has a $3 billion, 15-year deal with CBS and ESPN. While video will still be off-limits, it looks like tweets, Facebook status updates, and even pictures will be acceptable, so long as they are for non-commercial use.

In contrast, the Big 10 also recently released a social media policy, but invites fans to take an active part of games. With this policy, the fans win.

What Women Want from Social Networking Sites

August 18th, 2009 • Behaviors, Studies & Research
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According to the female-oriented social networking site ShesConnected, women who are core social network users expect a lot, according to “The Power of Social Networking For Women Research Study.” Participants in the survey were recruited through several social networks and were encouraged to share it with friends, as reported by eMarketer.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook was the most popular social network among these users, with 83% belonging to the site. Nearly three-quarters (73%) were members of LinkedIn and 55% were on Twitter, while just 41% belonged to MySpace. Almost one-half of respondents (48%) reported belonging to four or more social networks—the most common response.

Professional networking and staying up-to-date with friends were the most compelling reasons to visit social networks, according to the respondents. Substantial majorities also considered researching products and services (79%) and finding deals and discounts (64%) important. “Privacy” was their primary concern.

What does this mean? Advertisers should strive for engaging and useful communications on the site so that it is viewed as an enhancement to the community rather than a mandatory requirement. While users understand the need for revenues, networking, self-promotion, keeping in touch and privacy remain their top priority.

Artificially Inflating Twitter Follower Counts

August 17th, 2009 • Measurement, Social Networks
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According to Mashable, Twitter has moved to shut down marketers promoting ways to artificially inflate Twitter follower counts.

According a press release issued by uSocial, who markets products like a “$1,000 Twitter followers for $87” package, “Twitter has recently moved to [shut us down], by claiming [we're] ’spamming.’” uSocial takes issue with this claim, saying, “the definition of spam is using electronic messaging to send unsolicited communication and as we don’t use Twitter for this, the claims are false.”

Last week, Mashable received press release from uSocial that not only claimed that the company “sold” Twitter followers, it also highlighted the fact that they ignored a “Cease and Desist” order from social news site Digg for selling votes. Twitter moved swiftly to prevent this company from unethically inflating followers.

While it’s good to know that Twitter is cracking down on shady marketing companies, this also opens up another issue: How far will marketers go to inflate their metrics within the social media space? While those of us who work within social media channels understand that measurement/metrics differ from advertising (e.g., the quality of interactions, engaging with key influencers, sustained conversations over time), many traditional marketers adhere to the antiquated notion that “more is more” when it comes to the number of users. It’s not the number of followers/friends/fans; it’s the meaningful relationships built over time. Social media is a long-term strategy, not a quick fix.

The challenge is to educate traditional marketers to inform them that it’s not quantity that’s important within social media; it’s the quality — that is, communicating with audiences in an authentic, relevant and engaging way over time.

Is Twitter Pointless Babble or A Legitimate Communications Tool?

August 17th, 2009 • Behaviors, Social Networks, Studies & Research
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With Twitter being the shiny new penny of the social media world, many are eager to find out how people are actually using the microblogging platform.

Pear Analytics, a data analytics company, studied the content of tweets to find out how people are really using Twitter. The Pear Analytics group took 2,000 tweets in English from the public timeline over a time span of two weeks, with 200 tweets captured each half-hour from 11am – 5pm CST daily. They then categorized tweets into six different types: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversation, and pass-along value.

The winner? Pointless babble tweets, with over one-third of all studied tweets fitting into the “I’m clipping my toenails” category. Conversational tweets came in a very close second with 37.55 percent. Pass-along value — or RTs — captured third-place with only 8.7 percent, but, interesting enough, spam only accounted for 3.75 percent of all tweets studied.

Other key findings:
- News tweets are heaviest at 2:00pm CST on Tuesdays
- Pass-along value tweets are most frequently seen at 11:30am CST on Mondays
- Spam tweets flow consistently all day, everyday
- Conversational tweets are heaviest on Tuesdays

Gizmodo recently published a blog post “If Only 100 People Were on Twitter”, with data visualization by Dave McCandless. What’s significant is that there are“5 loud mouths” per 100, or 5 percent of the folks who contribute 75 precent of the tweets. What does this mean? A handful of narcissistic people are contributing a significant amount of pointess babble to the Twitterverse.

As Twitter continues to develop, not only as a brand but as a communications platform, it’s likely that the usage trends will also evolve. Hopefully, the largest violaters of pointless babble will stick to Twitter’s inherent 140-character philosophy: Less is more.

What’s Your Social Media Mojo?

August 14th, 2009 • Fun, Industry News, Tools & Resources
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To launch their new home page, Yahoo! has created a fun word of mouth promotion called “Know Your Mojo” that uses Yahoo uses an algorithm to analyze your tweeting behavior. Once you’ve received the result, you can tweet your result, update your FB status and also receive ideas for new content to add to your personalized Yahoo! homepage.

Ranging from “Name Dropper” to “Wallflower,” the app makes conclusions about your tweeting behavior. So, what about my (lynneastep) social mojo? According to the result, my social mojo is “BFF”: “Your volume of @replies makes you everybody’s best bud.” Accurate? Well, I am pretty friendly if I do say so myself.

Though the “secret algorithm” is facetious (it’s about as scientific as a Cosmo quiz), it’s a fun way to spark word of mouth about their new homepage.

Social Media Dictionary: Tweet-Up

February 19th, 2009 • Tools & Resources
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What is a Tweet-up?

Events organized and promoted through Twitter where users meet in person to network, discuss hot topics, fundraise or socialize. Tweet-ups have sometimes been compared to a flash mob because of the short time frame from the conception to execution of an event and the huge number of people who attend. Often attendees of tweet-ups have never met face-to-face, but may have developed strong relationships online.

An interesting example of a tweet-up on a much larger scale is Twestival, which took place in 180 cities including Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, New York, and Los Angeles. On February 12th 2009, Twitter users and their friends gathered to raise money for Charity Water, a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Twestival attendees met up with their local Twitter community to fundraise, network with other “tweeters” and participate in the live global “twestival” conversation happening online (and in some cases were able to see the Twitter conversation on large screens at the venue). The event promotion and conversations about the event were communicated primarily through Twitter.

We’ve seen other examples of successful Twitter meet-ups dedicated to coming together for a cause. In December, #HOHOTO, a sold out 600-person Toronto Twitter event, raised $25,000 for the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank.

Key learning:
The Twitter community is very active online but also in person. The strength of twitter is in the large number of frequent, short updates from users. The public’s text based messages allows information about an event, a breaking news story, or a call-to-action to spring up quickly and generate buzz sometimes in a matter of minutes.

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What is com.motion?

com.municate + com.mit + com.pel = com.motion

com.motion [kuh-moh-shuhn] is a full-service, integrated social media and word of mouth (WOM) agency. We use social media channels and traditional marketing tools to drive bottom-line results. com.motion helps businesses and brands amplify their marketing messages through the effective use of online communications channels in the U.S. and Canada.

To learn more about how we can help your brand or organization, contact us.

Leadership Team

Lynn Eastep
Senior Vice-President, com.motion North America

With more than 15 years of digital communications experience, I've delivered award-winning and sophisticated marketing solutions for Fortune 500 corporations, major government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and household-name consumer brands. I ensure the successful execution of digital and social media business strategies to build profitability and grow market share on behalf of our clients. I stay abreast of relevant new technologies in the Web 2.0/social media space in order to contribute a point of view while remaining focused on ROI to drive the right message to the right people at the right time.

I'm connected to the industry and trends, intuitive about people, a strategic thinker with intense curiosity, an eclectic user of information, and an engaging storyteller with strong interpersonal skills. I’m a team player who is passionate, curious, positive, and courageous. I have provided senior-level strategic counsel for clients such as Nestle, Bayer, AT&T and Visa.

eastep [at] causeacommotion.com


Ed Lee
Managing Director, com.motion Canada

I’ve been working in or around the social media revolution since 2005 and I am grateful to be exploring this new media landscape with com.motion’s clients. As managing director, my role is to guide our clients through the use of new technologies and to provide innovative ways to engage their stakeholders online. Shiny new Web 2.0 toys are great to play with but our recommendations are always strategic and focused on reaching the right people, with the right message across the right channels.

lee [at] causeacommotion.com

I was interviewed with Bob Pearson on BNN about the importance of social media for business. Watch the video here:


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