The post I did on the weekend, How not to use twitter HabitatUK a case study, hit a chord on Social Media Today. It was the most viewed post, and it obviously struck a chord with the Twitter community because of spammers use of hashtags. It was picked up by the Guardian and Sky News. As a consequence, the Habitat press office contacted me this week to apologise for the matter, and asked me to post this on their behalf. Here’s what they said:
Archives for June 2009
iPhone, AFL and social media
Being a big Australian Football League fan, (and Sydney Swans member), I was chuffed when the ultimate AFL application Aussie Rules Live was released. It has pretty much everything you need to follow your team and all the others, including live scores when the games are on.
AFL is a social game, with footy tipping giving you a reason to have a competition between your friends to see who gets through to the top of the ladder. You can extend your network outside of your immediate network to others who are also passionate about sport. It adds another dimension to use a tool such as Twitter to keep in touch with your favourite team for me its @sydneyswans, and your real and online friends live while the game is on.
How not to use Twitter: HabitatUK as a case study
Habitat is a trendy furniture store, set up by Terence Conran in the 1970s, for those who’ve never been to the UK its like a slightly more upmarket version of Ikea. @HabitatUK turned up on Twitter a couple of days ago, and decided to use trending topic #hashtags at the start of their tweets to get noticed. They used ones that had absolutely nothing to do with furniture, decorating, or shopping, but obviously the top hashtags for Thursday evening AEST such as #iPhone #mms #Apple and even Australia’s Masterchef contestant who got voted off #Poh. I found these on Twitter Search:
How iPhone shapes social media
The infographics display from Apple’s WWDC conference has generated a lot of buzz. What’s really interesting is what it represents:
* There are now 50,000 + iPhone (and iPod Touch, so iPhone OS) applications less than a year since release of iPhone 3G.
* The displays are representing 20,000 of the most downloaded applications
* More than 1 billion apps downloaded, the milestone was reached in April 2009, again less than a year since iPhone 3G
* 3,000 apps are downloaded every minute
* New iPhone 3G S is faster, with video capabilities & even edit your video on the phone and share it straight to YouTube
I am an unashamed iPhone champion, I got one the day it was released in Australia. However, there are loads of detractors who keep looking for an iPhone killer, lauding Android, Blackberry and various Palm and Windows OS devices. The figures from Apple are significant enough to keep the competition at bay at least for the moment:
Death of the microsite a casestudy: Bonds Art Attack
The microsite is dying, only most clients and (traditional above-the-line) agencies have not woken up to this yet. Adam Ostrow asks Is Social Media making corporate websites irrelevant? I agree with him and with We Are Social and say microsites are being killed off by social media (and search). Even David Armano just killed his website. Microsites are usually part of the silo’d channel marketing that clients (and some agencies) seem to love. So to have a brand campaign, you put out a TVC, some print ads, outdoor and then online is just the tacked on afterthought – and its usually the “matching baggage” banner advertising, and the microsite. Microsites exist because of a need for a campaign extension: a place to enter a competition, a place to go to when you’ve clicked on a banner to “find out more”, sometimes it’s a story that continues on from a television commercial. Except in most cases there’s not enough story to keep people hanging around to engage at all.
8 reasons to use Twitter in promotions
When I was doing my 10 Twitter Strategies for Australian Brands post, I found a cracker of brand and promotion campaign on Twitter called iSpyLevis. The premise is very simple: the person running the Twitter account goes out to an inner city location every day, posting pictures of where they are. When a Twitter follower recognises her/him, they get free jeans. About 8 pairs of jeans are given away every day, in different styles, men’s and women’s. I notice that its been building followers steadily, and now the Sydney tweeters are noticing and interacting