RedCross Twitter Disaster and Recovery.

A few days ago, @RedCross sent out a rogue tweet accidentally, and the American Red Cross has to do its own disaster recovery to disarm a potentially embarrassing Tweet.

Gloria Huang blamed the gaffe on her lack of facility with Hootsuite — the message was meant for her private account.

Red Cross took the tweet down. While some blogs picked up the initial tweet, the Red Cross averted a PR crisis with the following good-humored tweet which acknowledged the mistake:

Dogfish Head, has also acknowledged the incident by asking fans to donate to the Red Cross.

The whole crisis which may have blown into a bigger crisis was acted on quickly, and done so with a tad of humor. It was a pretty good recovery, and Red Cross recovered nicely.

-- Robin Low

View a Twitter conversation on a single page

This is what I have always wanted to do on Twitter which even the New Twitter is not doing so well -- Conversations, and I've found a great tool doing it.

Bettween:

This was a pretty nifty tool to monitor the conversation!

-- Robin Low

LinkedIn vs Facebook / Twitter for Events management

Recently, I've done a survey on my 500+ connections in LinkedIn on "Is LinkedIn a better platform to promote Industry Events?"

Thanks to my network and their replies, I have some good feedback. (The answer was basically -- YES, but...)

1) LinkedIn will allow you to target your audience and industry. There is a higher chance of response when you ask questions or promote your events in LinkedIn groups.

2) Most users on LinkedIn do not check it daily. Do not expect a lot of discussions from a lot of people. Some LinkedIn users login once a week, and check their groups maybe once a month. Facebook however has a lot of traffic, and a lot of people check it daily.

3) LinkedIn allows you to looks at the credential of your audience. When someone asks a question, you get to see his job description. You can also tailor your response depending on your audience.

4) A Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn Hybrid is great. Facebook and Twitter is used to drive traffic to the LinkedIn Group Discussion by posting interesting articles or questions to entice people in the relevant Facebook groups to participate.

As LinkedIn is not used daily, event promotion must be done early, and even after the event, Facebook can be used to upload photos of the events, to keep groups active and engaged till your next event.

Thanks for your great responses.

-- Robin Low

Twitter 2010 (Singapore)

Many companies that previously overlooked Twitter have to relook at it again. Since 2008, there is simply an increase in the number of users on Twitter, In a recent research done in April 2010, there are 105,779,710 users on Twitter and the numbers are definitely growing, especially in Asia.

From the report, in Singapore, there are 930,861 users, and with a population of 4.6 million people, this is easily 20% of your population. However, the majority of this number of users are Gen Y, and with growing affluence, this market segment does have significant buying power.

A research done by Michael Netzley on the behavior of Singaporeans online, conducted by students on their friends and family yield the following results.

His findings are as follows:

1. The results from 2010 are extremely similar to 2009. I am reading this consistency as corroborating evidence of our 2009 survey. Gen Y demonstrates that it is very different from Gen X (a generational shift here comparable which, in my mind, is comparable to the U.S.'s generational shift between Gen X and Baby Boomers). Internet users in Singapore continue to consume content and observe while showing comparatively little desire to post original content (UGC). In other words, remaining in the shadows appears to be common behavior. And as we have seen in other commercial reports, social networking and watching online videos are popular online activities.
2. Twitter grew 308.5% in 2010 as compared to 2009. Still, only 47% of netizens are using Twitter each week, so the impressive uptake must be kept in a proper perspective since slightly fewer than 1 out of 2 netizens here are using Twitter.


Still Singapore enjoyed moments of popularity when Orchard Road flooded on 16 June 2010. There were many blogs talking about the flood, and "Orchard Road" became a trending topic at 9:30am.

When there was a suicide at Bedok MRT Station a few weeks back, Twitter was also flooded with Singapore Tweets about Bedok MRT.

I do believe that there is incredible potential for Twitter in Singapore and leveraging on Twitter to spread word of mouth. If your target demographics is Gen Y, and you have snazzy interesting tweets, spreading the news using Twitter in Singapore may prove to be a breeze!

-- Robin Low

Traditional Twitter via phone

I saw on Twitter Trending Topic,
Bedok MRT

I was a little surprised and read the news on Twitter, "Suicide at Bedok MRT." in Singapore. As I search Twitter, the information was a little garbled, some say 2 girls, and others 1 guy. But all came with the words "Stuck under the train" and "Gore". After doing a little more work, I later got more confirmation and eventually this was about 3 hours after the incident, "Man trapped under MRT train" which did not say much in the story at all.

"TRAINS running eastbound from Eunos to Tanah Merah stations on the East-West Line were disrupted on Friday afternoon after a man was trapped under a train at the Bedok MRT station.

How the incident, which occurred at 1.42pm, happened is still being investigated.

SMRT said that it immediately deployed buses to help stranded passengers at the two stations after the incident.

It is also assisting the Police with investigations into the incident."

I mean it was either an accident, murder or suicide. When people describe it with words, "gore" and "under the train" I don't think the guy survived.

But anyway, I told my mom this and she did her own search by calling her friends and her friends calling other friends. Within minutes, she got a story from a friend. "I was on the train, then I heard a crack sound and screams outside train. we were then ushered out."
-- She actually did a search among her friends and got the result!

She then called some of her friends and others called her about the incident as well.
-- Her network actually RTs

They referenced the incident as #BedokMRT
-- They have Hashtags!

I realized that all the principles you use on twitter is the same as your normal day to day communications. She just showed me that she could do similar viral messages via her house phone.

-- Robin Low

10 Reasons to be on Social Media

After giving several talks and lectures on social media in Singapore and the region, I realize that social media seemed to be still very new in Singapore, especially amongst the Gen-X and baby boomers.

In Singapore, there are more than 1 million Facebook users, and there is a growing importance bloggers and other social media influencers play in our daily lives.

With twitter gaining popularity, the number of users greatly increased after celebrities start to use this social media platform. Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.

With the gaining popularity of mobile social media applications and devices in Singapore, users who were previously using sms-es are starting to get on social media in a big way, participating in Foursquare, updating their Facebook and Twitter Statuses, or viewing videos on YouTube.

Many people want to know why are there so many people getting on social media, and here are some reasons that I can think of.

1) Networking - You can find all sorts of people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Web 2.0 allows you to build up a strong network of people that share similar interests which you can find in groups. You can sometimes rely on the expertise of these people and as they come from varied backgrounds, having these people in your network is definitely great if you need to seek advice on a topic you do not understand.

2) Updated news - I could not believe how fast some of these news show up on twitter. Being on twitter, the news show up real time and unlike certain newspapers of news source, the current events you get from twitter is varied and may give you a very balanced or skewed new on a certain topic. I found out the winner of the recent F1 race even before the race ends on my live TV - talk about real time report!

3) Friendship - Updating your status or what you are doing can allow you to stay connected with your friends and family. Reading about your friend's tweets and status updates about their newborn lets you stay in touch with them, even when you cannot be there. You can also make new friends, and people with similar interests.

4) Information - You definitely get a lot of information about your industry or interests. You can find almost everything on the web, thanks to search engines, and search engines today are even trying to keep up with the real time content of social media networks. What's even better, you can post a question to your followers and sometimes they will reply you with a link of what you need!

5) Entertainment - There are tons of quotes, jokes and funny picture or video links. Endless entertainment on Facebook and Twitter. You can also follow celebrities and know what they are doing or are planning to do. Its fun!

6) Events and meet ups - Tweetups are getting more and more common, and it is quite funny that many people who are usually not social butterflies, fell more comfortable to come to a "TweetUp" or a twitter event to meet their fellow friends whom they have never met in real life on these events. It is a great way to go out and meet new people. Local events are also getting common on Facebook, and you can search for open events in your area to participate to gt to know more people.

7) Job Search - In this financial crisis, any new source where you can find a job would be a bonus isn't it? Just do a #Jobs or #Job search with #location for more specific jobs on Twitter. There are a few groups on LinkedIn just dedicated for job searches and job openings as well. It is a great place to meet others and possibly, land a new job.

8) Find someone to chat - It is easy to go to a trending topic of interest, find who is talking about it and start a chat. You can always find a friend online on your Facebook page and start a chat if you are bored or just need someone to talk to.

9) Develop Weak Ties - Weak ties can be powerful, but challenging to build across cultures, languages, and preferred sites. Weak ties are powerful because they can give you what close friends and community often cannot (e.g., different ideas, connections, resources, models, etc)

10) Personal Branding - As the information on social media is searchable and for public consumption, your ideas and your values can be shared and you can become a thought leader in your field if you share your thoughts and opinion professionally. Giving your opinion on current topics, sharing your knowledge about your industry can provide good information for people searching for it. Being open to discuss these topics can allow people to discover your passion and brand yourself as an expert, as well as create more awareness for your company and its services.

-- Robin Low

Facebook vs. Twitter comparison

Some statistics:

Facebook US and Global traffic ranking: 2
7 day Average daily time on Site by Users: 32.2 minutes
# of users 400 million

Twitter US and Global traffic ranking: 12
7 day Average daily time on Site by Users: 7.8 minutes
# of users 75 million

It is hard to say which is better as the uses of these 2 social networking sites are different.

Facebook Strengths:
Organize events
Sheer number of active users
Include photos, videos and other information in feed.
Direct communication (instant messaging)


Twitter Strengths:
Market research
Viral messages (RT function)
Great Internet reach. (Can follow others without them reciprocating)
Real Time information. (trending topics)


There is not really a question when it comes to which one to use for a corporation. The best practices from successful companies show that as the number of channels increase, overall engagement increases at a faster rate. So why not use both?

There are many tools that allow you to have your accounts linked, but I would recommend just "cut and paste" relevant status updates for the other platform as not all information are relevant, especially RTs.

-- Robin Low

8 tips to build more followers on Twitter

Many people have asked me: How do I get more followers for my Twitter account.

I basically ask the following question:

1) What do you generally use twitter for?
2) Why do you want/need more followers?

To use twitter as a tool to keep in contact with online friends, and follow the latest news and get industry information, you do not need a lot of followers. I really depends on who do you want to read and respond to messages you post on Twitter.

For most of the time, conversational tweets are not helpful to others, and updates on your life may not be relevant to people unless you are a noteworthy public figure.



However, if you own a company and would like to talk about your products and engage your customers, getting people to follow you and spreading awareness is important to you. If you want to brand yourself as an expert in the industry and you would like to share knowledge and information in your industry, then getting more followers is great for that.

For Twitter, I feel that a few things work for me to get to more than 10,000 followers on @robin_low. To get followers, firstly think of your target audience, who do you think will be reading your tweets? I have tested with a few different accounts on Twitter, and for @robin_low, it is my personal twitter account. I use it to tweet the happenings that I experience around me. I tweet the most updated blogs I have, and news about the industry and my company. The followers I have are friends, Entrepreneurs and people I meet at Social Media meetups.

I feel that if you have a niche you want to target, a very focused account would be good. @dmediaacademy is my other twitter account that I use to have discussions on Social Media. I re-tweet (RT) other interesting Social Media tweets and interesting articles and I post my blog updates on this twitter account. From time to time, I will discuss with people about their blog posts or respond to comments when they ask me a question on my twitter account. It works, and I have a targeted followers who I could say are interested in Social Media.


Basically to get followers, you have to do the following:

Ask yourself this question: Why would I follow someone on Twitter?
Why do people want to follow me on Twitter?


1) Tweet value:

Most of the time, the answer is: "I would follow people who provide good information" I follow people who tweet things that interest me. If I am interested in the Red Sox, I would search Red Sox on Twitter and find the relevant people who tweet about it and see who is tweeting the right information I want to read about. Of course, a lot of them would be conversational, I just have to find the ones who tweet things I would like to know about and I may follow them.

The reason why @mashable and @guykawasaki are so popular is because they have a lot of good information on Social Media to share.

Constantly sharing good consistent information (of an industry) is a good way to get focused followers of that industry.


2) Re-Tweet (RT)

Dan Zarrella, an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist and author of “The Social Media Marketing Book“ and "The Science of Retweets" has a lot of great information on how to get followers and how to get RT by your followers.

As one of the main purpose of having a lot of followers and getting your message virally spread amongst the Twitter community is the main goal, you probably also need to RT. If you have come across some interesting Tweets on the people you follow, feel free to RT if you think it is relevant to your followers. The author would definitely appreciate your RT, and if you also tweet value, the author may also follow you.

Since it is very time consuming to write blogs all day and tweet about them, the easier way to provide value is by filtering good tweets and RT them to your followers. This is a great mechanism in Twitter that makes Twitter so powerful.

To help in RT, it would be optimal for your message to be "@yourusername_" shorter than 140 characters so your message does not get truncated during the RT.


3) Stop Tweeting about your life.

Most of the people use Twitter to update their friends about their life, however, when you want to get more followers, get more RT, reduce the number of "self-relevant" tweets. If it is a tweet that is only relevant to yourself or your friends, you may want to post it on your Facebook Update. For most of twitter, (I call them nodes) users tend to simply update their personal status, which is fine for connecting with friends, but not relevant to the followers who follow you for industry news and information.


4) Tweet constantly but not excessively

If you want people to follow you, you must have something to say. There is no hard and fast number on the optimum number of tweets you should tweet a day, but I usually find I can get followers after my tweets. (I think some followers find me through Twitter Search on certain keywords) So if you want to gain more followers, you need to tweet more often. I usually have about 5 - 20 tweets a day. Do not tweet out in a blast of tweets. It is fine to respond to messages in short bursts as Twitter uses a filter and when your messages begin with an "@" symbol, only the user you are messaging to and those who follow both of you will get the tweet. Sending too many tweets in a short burst may make you feel like a "spammer"


5) Plan before you tweet

Like an email, when you send a tweet, it goes off instantly. Although there is a delete function, a wrong tweet will often stay in the system for some time, and may show up in someone's new feed until the next refresh. Make sure your message does not exceed 140 characters. you can use bit.ly and other URL shorteners to shorten URLs, and if you have a lot to say, write it in your blog and tweet about it.


6) Follow relevant people in your industry

To get more tweets to RT, it is a good idea to follow the relevant people on Twitter. I use wefollow.com (and other twitter directories) to search for people in the different industry to see what they tweet about. Simply type in the relevant keywords that describe your industry and you can follow the right people. You can also add yourself in the Twitter directory.

A note on following: When you follow, there is also a chance of people following back. So it is always a good idea to follow people, and your followers as long as they are not spammers or bots, but you need to know more about your following to follower ratio. See following article:
Twitter : Followers and Following


7) Participate in #Followfriday

#followfriday or #ff is an international event that happens every Friday to promote people you follow to your followers. The idea is to think of interesting people you already follow and recommend them to others.

On the first FollowFriday, there were almost two #followfriday tweets per second at its peak.

It is common for people to reciprocate. When you recommend someone on #Followfriday, there is a high chance the user will do so, otherwise you will get their attention and they may follow you.

FollowFriday is successful because of three main factors:

1. It’s easy. It takes little effort to send a tweet, something people do dozens of times a day.

2. It’s participatory. You don’t need to be part of the “Twitterati” to participate. You can suggest one person or 100 people. You can get endorsements from one person or a hundred people.

3. It’s karmic and it feels good. It’s a great feeling to simply say, “I think this person is great. You should follow them.”


How to do a #Followfriday.

There are 2 ways.

1) A very common way is to list a list of interesting Tweeps to follow and add #Followfriday or #FF hashtag

E.g. #FollowFriday Follow these interesting tweeps @greenyarnllc @sgbrands @sgtweetup @8gen @reviewsguru @robin_low @dmediaacademy

2) You can do a personal #Followfriday, and it adds more impact and you will get attention from the user you recommend.

E.g. #Followfriday @oliverschmid - He is a great user, full of humorous tweets and information on Social Media.


8) Use of #Hashtags

A #Hashtag is a word with a preceding "#" Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. It can be used to display locality, e.g. #Boston or #NewYork or it can be used for an event, e.g. #TCon2010

#Hashtags can also be used as part of the sentence for context. e.g. The #RedSox must win the last 2 games to become the ALCS Champions again!

As #Hashtags are searchable tag that is used in Twitter to search on a topic. Any tweet with the #hashtag will be returned when the #hashtag is clicked on.

E.g. A #bumfondle is a mark of love, respect, friendship and brotherhood. Give one today!

When you click on the tag #Bumfondle, all other tweets with the #hashtag is displayed.

So when you tweet with a #hashtag, you may also gain visibility as people may come across your tweet through the #hashtag used.

-- Robin Low


Related Blog: Twitter Tips (Use of CAPS)

Boston Police Twitter makes Department look "Human"

Many companies started to use twitter, and so did Government Agencies. Many fail to use Social Media Properly, and often use it as "Just another broadcast Channel".

Though it can be set up that way, companies and agencies who set up Social Media as a form of broadcast channel, I feel, are missing the main point of Social Media -- It is a 2 way communication channel.

I've sent questions and tried to communicate with many companies and Government Departments, and often, I just get a complete silence. From reporting a broken link they have tweeted or asking a question about some vague policies they have, many of these companies hide behind a "cold veil" of silence and just fail to communicate.

However for Boston Police, this was not the case.

The Boston Police use Twitter (@boston_police) to keep the public informed and also respond to questions and replies. They use it to post breaking police-type information that's useful to the public, such as roads closed due to car accidents, crime data, big arrests, etc.







I felt that this response on Twitter is Great. It was professional, and handled very well. Boston Police being on Twitter, gives the department a human angle when such a response is received, reminding us that the police after all, are human beings too.

-- Robin Low

Training of Social Media at Aitken Spence.

Aitken Spence in Sri Lanka was very much into Social Media and giving great customer service, converting customers into agents to spread word of mouth. And to do this effectively, they have contacted Digital Media Academy to provide training at their premises.

They have a very informative Facebook Fan Page (http://www.facebook.com/ASHSriLanka)

I was very impressed in their eagerness to help in spreading the information on the interesting travelling locations and tips for Sri Lanka and other places where their hotels are located, and I find their passion in the travel industry and their willingness to share information on travelling, to help the travel industry very encouraging,

Aitken Spence Social Media team is trained on leveraging Facebook, Twitter and Blogs to provide their company as a thought leader and create more awareness on their products and services. By leveraging on their satisfied customers, Aitken Spence hopes to better engage their customers with their accessible channels on Social Media to stay in touch with their customers and provide a more engaging relationship, and hopefully leveraging them for word of mouth.

This strategy has been proven very successful by many leading brands and companies, and being the first to enter fully into the Digital Media Space to engage their customers in a large scale is seldom seen in Asia. I would say that they are probably leaders in the Social Media for the traveling industry, and it would take some time for other companies to catch up with the system.

I'm sure the progress they make in Social Media realm would become a success story and used as a case study for many to follow, and I would love to learn from them their stories of customer satisfaction and engagement which is not seen in any other Hotels in South Asia.

The training was completed and there are many strategies in place to enhance the company's image and branding through the use of Social Media. Though they lost the Cake Challenge in class, for getting less fans than Singapore's favorite cat, they progress a lot since the start of the class and I wish them all the best for their Social Media Endeavors.

Class of Oct 09, at Aitken Spence Hotels in Sri Lanka.

-- Robin Low

Elements of a successful twitter account

Everyone and their cat are now on twitter. This makes twitter a very affective tool for communication, networking, broadcasting and marketing.

Be Yourself. People don’t do business with business cards, they do business with people. This is your chance to put your personality in front of an audience, and create a lasting and positive first impression.

Relationship. If you are following people, start chat, reply to them if they are asking for information you know. Great way to be noticed is to chat and build relationships. If people follow you, follow them back.

Value. Give people value, let people learn things from your tweet relevant to them. Having clear themes can help getting focused messages out and having targeted followers promotes re-tweets.

Clear language. Think before you tweet, provide good tweets, labeling your links, use #hashtags and CAPS to emphasize on topics to help readability.

-- Robin Low

Some really cool Twitter Tips (Use of CAPS)

This is very simple but it works.

Simple usage of CAPS can easily improve the quality of your tweets. This is especially IMPORTANT when you only have 140 characters to play with.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a new tip,

When you tweet, use the first word in ALL CAPS to categorize the message or to giving emphasis to the message. In addition consider keywords you can use (only one) that are well used.

Example:

TOOL: great twitter tool at www.xyzurldot.com

Example:

IMPORTANT: mj just passed away

VIDEO: cat loves water: http://bit.ly/ZE5Ul

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Remember, make sure you think and plan before you tweet.

It will help people understand you better and possibly get you more followers!

Twitter -- Following and Followers.

I've researched a few tips on Twitter and I felt that this tips from @Reviewsguru made sense, and I'd like to share them with you.


Twitter Basics -

Twitter is simple. Just 2 things and you're off to go!
Following and Followers

1. Followers listen to your tweets. How do you get anyone to listen?
2. To receive tweets, you need to follow others. Who should you follow?

Step 1:

When you first join twitter, you can let twitter check for your friends through your email lists. Twitter will add all your friends and make you follow them.

Now you can read your friend's updates and check up on them.

Step 2:

Search for the people you want to follow. For a start, follow some popular people on twitter. Most of these tweeps (people on twitter) tweet everyday and about interesting things. (remember, there's a unfollow option if you don't want to ready what they have to say.)

Use find people to search for people or even topics you are interested in. You can search for virtually everything, people tweet about everything from history to current events. Try following some of these folks and see what they have to say.

Use the search function to find thousands of interesting subjects; and millions of people to talk with. Search a particular topic, check out the tweets and the links. If you happen to like what someone is saying or his link, check his profile and what he said before by clicking on his username. If you like him or what he has to say, just follow.

Continue your search, click-thru, find a topic, and follow to befriend people.

Many interesting people and topics out there.

Note: Think of Twitter as a HUGE gossip network, you can find lots of rumors and some facts on things that you are interested to know. You just need to find the right source, following people is finding more sources for what you like to hear.

Step 3:

After some tweets of your own, you may start to get some followers. The following is my advice.

1) If you are using twitter as some form of closed network which you just like friends and family to read about your updates, then this may not be a good platform for you as EVERYONE can ready what you say unless you go private.

2) If you are very particular about what you read and you don't want to be distracted by tweets you are not interested in, check out some of your followers. Some of your followers follow you because they like your tweets and may have common interests and tweets. If you like what they have to say, just follow them.

3) If you want to build up your network, don't just follow everyone. Filter out spammers as some of your followers follow you so that you may follow them, and they will SPAM you with ads.

Note: I feel that as a general rule of thumb, you should follow people who follow you if you wnat to build a network (except spammers -- spammers need no love).

Twitter has the 2,000 and 10%-of-followers limits. If you allow those you follow to NOT return the favor, you're boxed under 2,000 friends.

Celebrities like Oprah, Britney Spears, Tony Robbins and Ashton Kushner unknowingly box their fans. If 200 real or wanna-be celebrities don't return your follows, YOU ARE STUCK under 2,000 friends.

Thus, remember these golden rules:

* Return the follow of fans.
* To jump past 2,000 followers, unfollow those who don't follow you - including iamdiddy. Celebrities like Guy Kawasaki, schwarzenegger, WholeFoods, and zappos do re-follow hundreds of thousands of fans.
* If wanna-be celebrities follow you to entice you to follow, then drops you to make themselves look popular at your expense - block them. It's a stupid pet trick.

If you don't, you're stopped by the 2,000 rule.

Twitter imposed a new, undocumented rule with 1,000 follows per day. This impacts whales (tweeps with 10k followers or more). They can't return every follow.

We agree with the new rule, but Twitter should not count re-follows as part of the 1,000 limit. Social etiquette says we should return the follow without penalties.

Since whales can no longer follow everyone to see their tweets, you need a new means to reach whales. Type a reply or message like @whalename message. The new Twitter inbox allows whales to see the message.

Don't use DM, which is widely ignored by whales.

Celebrities don't always respond. Social whales frequently do. Note that whales don't provide tech support as a service. Ask favors nicely.

If you have built up a lot of followers, its nice to just post a question and get answers fast!

Please follow @reviewsguru for more information like this.

8 reasons for using Twitter.

After using twitter for some time, I found that it is very interesting and if used properly, it could definitely be a great social media too.

With twitter gaining popularity, the number of users greatly increased after celebrities start to use this social media platform. Some people get tired of twitter after a month and stop using while others continue to use it.

Many people ask, "What are people talking about on Twitter?" or "What's so interesting about micro-blogging?" Well the answers depend on the people you are following.

Enough said, I guess I don't have to explain what micro-blogging is about. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging)

Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

The content of a micro-blog differs from a traditional blog in that it is typically smaller in actual size and aggregate file size. A single entry could consist of a single sentence or fragment or an image or a brief, ten second video. But, still, its purpose is similar to that of a traditional blog. Users micro-blog about particular topics that can range from the simple, such as "what one is doing at a given moment," to the thematic, such as "sports cars," to business topics, such as particular products. Many micro-blogs provide short commentary on a person-to-person level, share news about a company's products and services, or provide logs of the events of one's life.

Twitter defines micro-blogging and since July 2006, more and more people are on it, Twitter become a very powerful social media tool. Let me give you 6 reasons why you should Tweet!

1) Networking - You can find all sorts of people on twitter, and following the right group of people, and allowing people to follow you can allow you to build up a strong network of people that share similar interests. You can sometimes rely on the expertise of these people and as they come from varied backgrounds, having these people in your network is definitely great if you need to seek advice on a topic you do not understand.

2) Updated news - I could not believe how fast some of these news show up on twitter. Being on twitter, the news show up real time and unlike certain newspapers of news source, the current events you get from twitter is varied and may give you a very balanced or skewed new on a certain topic. I now get my news on twitter as some of the people I follow watch sports and tweet as the action is going on, and I get a really - real time report!

3) Friendship - Updating your status or what you are doing can allow you to stay connected with your friends and family. Reading about your friend's tweets about their newborn lets you stay in touch with them, even when you cannot be there. You can also make new friends, and people with similar interests.

4) Information - You definitely get a lot of information on twitter. News on google failing to buy twitter, and apple buying twitter, information on how to pick mangoes, and movie reviews. You can find almost everything on twitter. What's even better, you can post a question to your followers and sometimes they will reply you with a link of what you need!

5) Entertainment - There are tons of quotes, jokes and funny picture or video links. Endless entertainment on twitter. You can also follow celebrities and know what they are doing or are planning to do. Its fun!

6) Events and meet ups - Tweetups are getting more and more common, and it is quite funny that many people who are usually not social butterflies, fell more comfortable to come to a "TweetUp" or a twitter event to meet their fellow friends whom they have never met in real life on these events. It is a great way to go out and meet new people.

7) Job Search - In this financial crisis, any new source where you can find a job would be a bonus isn't it? Just do a #Jobs or #Job search with #location for more specific jobs.

8) Find someone to chat - It is easy to go to a trending topic of interest, find who is talking about it and start a chat. If you are bored or just need someone to talk to, there are always lots of people on twitter all the time.

-- Robin Low

http://www.facebook.com/digitalmediaacademy

Reasons to use Twitter

Networking - You can find all sorts of people – both locally and internationally on twitter, and following the right group of people, and allowing people to follow you, can allow you to build up a strong network of people that share similar interests. On Twitter, you can NETWORK and NETWORK FAST. You can sometimes rely on the expertise of these people and as they come from varied backgrounds, having these people in your network is definitely great if you need to seek advice on a topic you do not understand. Networks – Social media allows networks that share common interests to form and communicate effectively and quickly.


Updated news – Speed of news on twitter almost unbelievable. Being on twitter, the news show up real time and unlike restricted by news source, the current events you get from twitter is varied and may give you a very balanced or skewed views on a certain topic. Real time Connectivity – Social media thrives on connecting people, allowing people to share their experiences on the web and add their comments and links to related topics.


Relationships - Updating your status or what you are doing can allow you to stay connected with your network and friends. Reading about your friend's tweets about their updates allows you to continuously remain in touch with the ground despite your physical presence may not be there. You can also bridge and foster new relationships wirelessly and effortlessly.


Information - You definitely get a lot of information on twitter –even learn something new. News on “Google failing to buy twitter”, and “Apple buying twitter”, information on how to pick mangoes, and movie reviews. You can find almost everything on twitter. What is even better is that you can post a question or poll to your followers and get instant feedback on them. Direct responses makes twitter a very attractive tool for many.


Entertainment – People are attracted to twitter for all kinds of reasons and the most important of them all is… fun. There are tons of quotes, jokes and funny picture or video links. Endless entertainment on twitter. You can also follow celebrities and know what they are doing or are planning to do.


Alerts on Upcoming Events - Twitter acts as a platform for many social groups, organizations and businesses to promote upcoming events in particular seminars and big parties. You might even get to meet your followers at those events.


Talk to someone - If you’re down or need someone to talk to, Twitter might well be what you need. No matter what time it is, there will always be someone, somewhere in the world who is awake and ready to hear you out.


Share emotions or “off your mind thoughts” - Just got a new gadget and can’t wait to show it off? Met the most unreasonable shop assistant and need somewhere to vent your frustrations? Got some sort of enlightenment on the train and just need to share it? In 140 characters each time, you can do all that. Share your “at the moment” emotions and thoughts on Twitter.


Job Search - In this financial crisis, Twitter transform itself into a new source where you can find a job, attracting a new group of previously non-social media savvy users to join the network. Simply do a #Jobs or #Job search with #location for more specific jobs.

Twitter Power

Twitter is growing to be a very powerful business tool. It helps business share, connect and research information on their customers and the current trend. So are you a tweeter yet?

A tweetname or a tweeter user name is preceded by the symbol @, and my my tweeter name is @dmediaacademy.

Leveraging Twitter as a Business Tool
Like the past when presence on the web is important, the presence on Twitter and other Social Networking platforms is very essential. Your presence on Twitter is also part of your brand and choosing the right name for your twitter account now becomes essential as it is your "face" on social networking.

Using Twitter as part of your marketing strategy.
How do you translate your time spent on PR and marketing on Twitter for Market Returns?
--Understanding Twitter.
As far as I can understand, there are a few kinds of followers on Twitter, one which will follow you when you follow them, they are all about the numbers game. And the other kind of follower, one that is really interested in what you have to say.

If you are looking to build broad reach as part of your thought leadership/influencing strategy, then I’m perfectly agreeable to obsessing about the number of followers I have, however if you want have a group of followers who would read your tweets and propagate them, you will need to spend time and know about your followers.

Your activity on twitter is building your brand, (140 words limit) a tweet at a time.
Remember, you are limited by the number of characters, so tweet carefully. It takes a lot of planning to get a successful tweet campaign going. Your activity, tweeting and re-tweeting is literally building your brand. Read and view the links before you re-tweet as it takes more time to troubleshoot a bad tweet.

For the 140 characters limit, fortunately there are url shorteners such as tinyurl and bit.ly to make the long extensions, manageable.

Tweet frequency is hard to manage. If you tweet to frequently, or have too many "ad-like" tweets, some of your followers may not like it and will unfollow. If you tweet too little, you may not be optimizing the opportunity to reach out to potential followers.

It is recommended by Gurus that you tweet at least once a day, retweeting interesting or inspiring stories and share useful information.

Focus on connecting with your followers as this new media is based on networks and it should be used less like a "broadcasting" channel. Follow your genuine followers, connect with them and learn their needs and the trends.

Try twitter out, it fun, its new and its here to stay.

Be patient and wait for results!

-Digital Media Academy