Tag Archive for ‘Twitter’
Several years ago, people would say that word of mouth is no longer a powerful advertising tool. With mass media in its growth the most successful advertisements were often the ones with the most air time on television, the largest billboards, the most posters and the widest streamers.
People could still give out recommendations to friends and family, but word of mouth can only travel so far. Unless you were a journalist or elsewhere in the media, a personal opinion and recommendation is not going to change the future of your favorite corner book store.
Today, a single Tweeted opinion can be as powerful as the most expensive commercial air time during a major sports event.
This is the world that we live in today, highly influenced by three major factors: better smart phone technology, the growth of social networking and the improvement of mobile wireless technology. Information can be sent, received and share instantly, not just among small circles of friends, but across hundreds and thousands of linked acquaintances, colleagues, peers, co-workers and other contacts.
In a portion of the findings from research firm Gartner’s study, it was revealed that may people rely heavily on what people in their social network say regarding products and services. The study covered the influence of social networking in the purchasing habits of over 4000 consumers from all over the world.
According to Gartner, the realm of social networking is a highly underutilized tool for marketing that many commercial companies are failing to tap to into. Despite the already large number of ads that appear all over sites such as Facebook and sponsored Tweets there are still plenty of avenues left unexplored, and many brands still without an online presence.
One could say that smart phone technology and the internet have turned the concept of marketing into a full circle –giving the power of influence back to the consumers. From what we are seeing, it looks like the progress has pushed marketing beyond its’ original scope.
Tags: Facebook, Internet, smartphones, social-networking, technology, Twitter
Now here is a big claim. At the Nielsen 360 Consumer Conference, Sheryl Sandberg is saying that Email will eventually go away, despite the fact that even she finds it hard to imagine a future without it.
The silly thing here is that prior to this statement, Sheryl also declares that it is the current web usage patterns of teens today that determines the trends of the future. It sounds logical, but it also completely ignores what teenagers are actually doing. Her example covers the concept that teenagers would not send emails to each other; they would message each other privately using Facebook’s message features.
The only reason this happens is that accessing the ‘send a message’ button is far easier than logging into a web server. But if all email did was send personal messages among people in a one’s friends’ list, then the technology would have been phased out by now.
Emails do more than help people communicate. Email also works as a personal identification tool on the web –Facebook is trying to do the same, but the need for privacy alone is enough to stop the effort.
And the reason why people trust email accounts to identify them and not their Facebook accounts is due to the fact that emails, as personal as they are, are also anonymous. Of course, barring the use of one’s own name as an email address, anonymity is a key factor that Facebook cannot provide.
Despite the fact that the highest amount of traffic that mobile internet sees is with social networking site Facebook, search engine Google and microblogging Twitter, accessing emails is also an important part of the day for many people. Access to emails is one of the main reasons why smart phones were developed. And while social networking may be pushing the distribution of smart phone technology, it would never be able to replace or phase out emails.
Tags: email, Facebook, Google, Internet, social-networking, Twitter
We all want positive change, which is why the phrase “change the world” often alludes to wonderful things, but in reality, there are plenty of world-changing things that are not so great; the atomic bomb, global warming, AIDS, and now Twitter.
Like all things of tech, the micro blogging tool Twitter is just that, a tool. But as a potential bearer of updates, news and information, Twitter can prove to be an extremely powerful tool.
As shown with societies striving hard in order to bring awareness to the world of their plight, Twitter is a blessing enabling everyone to know about major tragedies, accidents, disasters and more. Relief efforts to help out victims of two major earthquakes were spread about and partially conducted through Twitter with surprising success.
At the same time, Twitter can be used as a tool for bringing misfortune –intentionally or unintentionally. This is mostly due to a simple misunderstanding; all it takes is for a few people to misinterpret a joke or opinion as a fact before they spread it to other people as truth.
This is the case for French President Sarkozy who has become the target to a rumor involving him and his wife. The shameful news reports have even leapt from the internet to tabloids –proof of how much trouble misinformation can cause.
This is not a sole case, many famous individuals have been reported dead, missing, in trouble and in other fictional states that has caused a degree of concern and worry –often with drastic results; the Egyptian stock market lost plenty of money when it was rumored that the president had died in a gall bladder operation. In truth, President Mubarak had a successful operation and the man is alive and kicking. The stock market loss however, was unrecoverable.
Get to know more about the various troubles that Twitter and misinformation can cause at Times Online UK.
Tags: Twitter
Friday afternoon was pretty amusing for some folks subscribing to the Vodafone UK Twitter posts.
It turns out that a little prank got a little out of hand that ended up with a very offensive post getting out in public and an employee being suspended. Amid worries and concerns about the account having been accessed by hackers, employees of the mobile network operator acted promptly and swiftly to fix the mess and have everything back in order by the end of the day.
With the smoke now cleared and the matter settled internally, Vodafone UK’s head of web relations Jakub Hrabovsky now speaks to explain what happened on that afternoon:
“Since the inappropriate tweet that was published through @VodafoneUK on Friday there have been many questions and theories (some slightly wild) about what actually happened. Therefore, we can now share what actually took place”.
“On Friday one of the members of the Web Relations team who was moderating the company Twitter account left his computer for a minute to ask a colleague some advice. Another member of staff who is unconnected with the Web Relations team saw his colleagues screen open and assuming it was his colleague’s personal Twitter account and posted the inappropriate tweet”.
“Within minutes we realized what had happened and issued an apology. The individual who posted the tweet was suspended with immediate effect and an internal investigation is now underway. We have strict guidelines with respect to all the social media we use and we are naturally upset that a rogue incidence like this could happen”.
For those who missed the Tweet, it said
“@Vodafone UK: is fed up of dirty homos and is going after beaver.”
Ah yes, never a boring moment in the mobile phone industry.
Read more about last Friday’s incident at Pocket Lint.
Tags: Twitter, Vodafone
If you are currently on Orange Mobile UK and are a big user of Twitter, then you have probably heard of the new connectivity feature. If not, go to Orange World and sign up your account for this useful feature.
Orange World is a unique social network consolidation feature on Orange Mobile. They will connect various Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other supported network accounts to a mobile phone. This will allow users to view updates on all accounts into a single easily viewable feed. This makes it easier for users to stay on top of updates and new posts online without having to log in to each site manually.
The big Twitter add on feature focuses on being able to send and receive Tweets on your mobile phone -through text! This nice little feature is delivered exclusively (for now) by Orange Mobile to their Orange World users. Orange subscribers can easily sign up for this free service to avail of the text-based Tweeting.
For many, this is a nice little feature; but for some people, being able to receive tweets as text messages on the phone can be daunting –particularly if you receive hundreds of Tweet in a single day. Fortunately, Orange has their backs covered too. Active Twitterfolk can set to receive Tweets only from specific contacts, and can also set at which time they will be receive the new Tweets. This will help control the incoming flow of Tweets on a user’s device.
Another additional feature of this Twitter add-on is the ability to upload images to Twitter from your mobile phone via MMS. Though this feature will cost you a little more as each image Tweet will be charged as MMS or be credited from your allotted MMS on your plan. Expect many Orange users to take advantage of this new feature.
Tags: Orange, Twitter
