At the end of 2011, I hit 10,000 tweets. 10,000 times I musta decided I had something to say or share with the world.
If it took 10 seconds to write each tweet—and many take longer while I dig around for a special character, edit a photo, or head down the street to report breaking news, for Pete’s sake—then I spent a good 27 hours, 46 minutes & 40 seconds tweeting.
I saw the big 10k coming for a few days and planned to use it for something great, but my phone updates differently than the web & I missed it. My 10,000th tweet was this book cover. Perhaps a 2012 fortune cookie?
To make up for missing the big tweet, I used 10,001 to mark the occasion.
To celebrate my 10,000th tweet, I donated $10 to Care Canada (@CARE_CAN) for their work in the Congo. Peace on earth. ☮
Is spending more than a day of my life microblogging worth it?
Sure. Twitter feels critical. Twitter answers questions. Twitter serves news faster than any other channel.
Twitter lets me talk to everyone when I need to get my message to the most people, and to anyone when I want to share a thought with people I can’t reach any other way.
Twitter is media. It’s a global consciousness. It taught me to write short (not because you have to, but because it respects your audience & forces you to clarify your point) and to bastardize English forever with ampersands & emdashes.
It shows me different dimensions of the same friends & what it means to live in public.
Facebook scams usually rely on minor greed, like “insert big box store is giving away $1000 gift cards to every slob who can muster the effort to click like” (but no such lavish reward for their actual, in-store customers for some reason. Realistic, right?)
Scams aren’t just annoying proof of your *friend’s lack of critical thinking skills ; sometimes they’re dangerous likejacking attempts (where you can’t see the thing you’re actually liking/sharing—potentially a virus.) They work because we trust our friends.
Which brings us to this stomach-churning hoax, “Little boy needs 100 shares for a free heart transplant”.
I mean, this scam doesn’t even make sense.How would shares benefit the hospital or donor who would pay for the supposed heart transplant? Do I need to point out they’d only get horrific PR from tying a kid’s life to “Facebook engagement”?
So, I mean, Google is your friend. Check if something’s fake. Was it Confucius, Jesus, or Elvis who said “All that glitters is not gold…?”
* I don’t blame my super kind-hearted friends for sharing this. I’ve retweeted fake amber alerts for missing kids before, because even though you know they’re probably fake, what if they aren’t? We all just wanna help.
They’re anticipating the backlash & trying to gently implant the meme that “selling your private information is just the cost of using Facebook”.
It all sounds very reasonable. What exactly’s going to happen?
Your likes, posts, check-ins etc will become little ads for the brands you’re interacting with.
Facebook’s reality checking us in advance because they know people may react especially poorly to being featured in ads for businesses they don’t necessarily want to promote. And…
If people are angry the first thing they may do is unlike the brands that are using them. Besides removing the permission marketing channel created by likedom, this will no doubt create acrimony (or “a bad brand experience”) between people & the brands they formerly trusted.
But that’s Facebook’s problem. On to the evil idea.
Privacy Activists could jack sponsored stories
Here’s how I think it could work:
Activist likes a brand & ‘publicly’ posts culture-jamming content on their wall or
Activist @-mentions brand in a ‘public’ status update without liking
Activist collective and/or friends of the activist ‘like’ the post a lot, to drive up its credibility
The robots that select sponsored stories notice & repost as an ad
Possible? It relies on mighty slack non-human CRM between Facebook & its customers, the advertisers—that is, nobody actually checking the content of the stories that algorithms think are relevant & popular. And it relies on non-anonymous collective action. But people have been in the mood to occupy lately, don’t you think?
Not that I’m obsessed with it, but this isn’t the first “wash your hands” PSA poster I’ve created. I worked with Velocity to illustrate the one you see behind these two humping Spidermen. It’s greeted me in the washrooms of CBC, Red River College & many doctor’s offices, and it always makes me…wash my hands.
Creating content for your brand that provides actual, physical value to your fans is one way to guarantee getting shared.
With the holidays come a bunch of gift-wrapping-related freebies that solve one of my constant problems—running out of wrapping supplies! Here’s a few that crossed my path.
Gentleman Jack by Jack Daniels ran an ad in Wired with a gift-wrap download—a nice finishing touch for the Jack brand fanatic in your life (and they do exist, judging by Gentleman Jack’s Facebook wall), but not without its technical difficulties. If you choose QR code delivery, you have to visit the web version of Facebook (logging in to which deters me off the bat), and then transfer the gift paper to your laptop to print it.
Visiting the web version of Jack’s Facebook page, the gift wrap is unfortunately buried in the left menu under the dreaded “MORE” link, & I speculate most users wouldn’t be able to dig it up. This is a good reason to edit through your Facebook tab/extras links to make sure there’s nothing superfluous taking up space, and to give your content a very searchable title so no one misses it.
And Telus direct-mailed me high-quality (in terms of stickiness, not graphic design, but sometimes you’re desperate) gift tags that absolutely got used. It beat writing on the presents with a marker.
Creating this kind of free, topical, useful mini-product around your brand inserts your logo (or skills, or whatever you need to be known for) into people’s holidays nicely, and positions you as appreciative of their business (in turn making them appreciate you appreciating them. Marketing circle!). Serving up a time-saving (or so cool it doesn’t matter that it cost time) freebie makes your brand just a bit of a holiday hero.
I saw friends posting the o.b. tampon “Sorry” videos on Facebook, but ignored them. Sure, the ads are probably 65% hilarious or whatever, but I have other stuff I need to do. Vaguely, I wondered why O.B. was sorry, but, like I said. Stuff I need to do.
My attention was finally ensnared by a Facebook ad that spilled the beans about the motive for apologizing—some sort of distribution issue.
Hello, who cares?
Marketers often grossly overestimate the extent to which their customer notices/cares/understands their back end issues. So it can be a little confusing to base a campaign on a problem not everyone knows about. And yet, the disappearance of o.b. from Canadian shelves was apparently some sort of massive big deal.
I’m not the target market (I don’t care), but I could be the target market (if I’m convinced to buy the product in the crossfire). Marketing intrigue!
For the audience who does care, the brand makes a glorious apology, with technomagical incorporation of your name into a song and video visuals sung by a fantasy-obsequious boyfriend. Everyblogger I saw covering the campaign took the exact same screenshots I did: ye olde name in rose petals.
Buttons, consider yourselves pushed.
For people who aren’t into the brand, they still enjoyed a positive brand experience with the magic video and have an impetus to go on a second date with the free-lovin’ coupon attached to the end of the ad. Ladies who were actually inconvenienced by the retail glitch get an absolutely satisfactory apology.
And here I am sharing their story without even liking this product (though now I’m a fan of the brand). That’s dreamy marketing.
Ok, it’s not not Tesco’s QR-code delivered virtual store, but it appears the Superstores in the, um, fancier part of town have digital displays instead of paper price tags!
Are these puppies RFID-enabled? Imagining checking yourself out before you hit the checkout by tapping your phone on each tag as you go!
“The checkout” would disappear, because you’d have a running total (scanning coupons along the way) and do a 1-click ‘debit’ from your bank or Visa when you’re ready to split.
It totally wasn’t! I wanted to link to it at the end of this article, just in case you’re not a paranoid social media professional, and it wasn’t there!
So I submitted it. It’s not quite writing a Wikipedia entry, but I’m feeling pretty smart. Here’s my defintion:
Wrong-piping: Accidentally using the wrong social media account to utter personal, offensive, or otherwise noticeably off-brand statements.
The wrong pipe may be used either by software glitch or user error (forgetting to switch accounts); the former holds slightly more water with an angry employer.
And my example:
After wrong-piping about her boozy weekend shenanigans one time too many, Heather was fired from her corporate social media job.
I named my fictional wrong-piper “Heather” for Heather “Dooce” Armstrong—not technically a wrong-piper, but in her honour as the generally-acknowledged first person to get fired in spectacular fashion for personal social media.
Among all the nitpicking & general confusion around the new Twitter UI, it’s comforting to see our old friend, the ‘Twitter Go Mobile’ ad still greeting us inanely upon signout.
This drives me nuts because I access Twitter about 150,000 times/day from mobile. How can they not know that?
I have a better idea for this space: “Hey, we noticed you’ve signed out more than once today. Got several accounts? Here’s how to easily switch between them* without enduring the godforsaken clusterdance that is Twitter’s password autofill.”
And then present me with that helpful ability instead of the ultimate in rage-inducing untargeted advertising.
*Just realized this may be a feature & not a bug. Wrong-piping would surely spike if I was merrily flipping between accounts all day. Wouldn’t want to end up on next year’s 21 Most Horrific Social Media Facepalms.
People searching for me finally supplanted “Mark Zuckerberg’s girlfriend” and “Facebook is the Antichrist” as the main traffic drivers to my site! Other shining moments:
I didn’t realize a blog could be kind of like..a log on the web that reminds you of all the amazing stuff that happened. Hugs to everyone who was a part of it. Now I’m getting all sentimental ❤
It’s glorious that society is post-physical alarm clock, with its unsightly power cords and demanding digital display, glowing up your darkness and inexorably marking the passage of precious sleep time with its anxiety-provoking accuracy.
None of that was very relaxing.
But now that we all have iPhones under our pillows, fumbling and buzzing our way through 6 snoozes is pretty obnoxious to any habitual sleep partners.
How can we be the least irritating with our iPhone alarms?
How much you disbturb others depends on your alarm sound and how much vibrating is going on.
If you’re phone’s set to vibrate with notifications as a rule, you’re going to vibe the heck out of people.
I kinda thought going ‘silent’ would fix that—it doesn’t. You still get full-on vibe & tone (it is intended to be an alarm, after all.) If you have headphones in the jack, the tone only goes through the headphones, but your bed is still rocking with the vibe.
The one thing you can do to make this setting contain less shock and awe is to turn down the external volume on your phone. You probably don’t need it full blast to wake yourself up, what with the vibrational earthquake in effect.
Think about if you really need that vibration in the supposed silence.
When is this beneficial? To announce your general importance in meetings?
Turning off ‘vibrate’ like this (Settings > Sounds) will give you a more peaceful wakeup and you’ll still get an attention-grabbing vibrate in meetings should a vital tweet come through (if the phone is not set to ‘silent’). Good compromise.
The reverse of this setting, btw, will wake you up sans vibe, but is up to you for meetings—you’ll get a tone for messages if volume is on, a buzz if volume is off.
Liking your newfound seismic stability? Go on ahead & shut of the other totally-not confusingly name ‘vibrate’ setting, and notice peace multiply.
One last kindess you can enact to keep your wakeup minimal for your partner is to either turn snooze off (Clock > Alarm > Individual Alarm settings)—too ambitious for me—or set yourself several alarms & pick the one that’s actually realistic.
I’m going to try this whole ‘no-vibe-at-all’ thing for a few days & see if I miss anything critical. Next stop in my quest for mental health: turning off push notifications! (Just kidding).
Your alarm options
Alarm on, phone on buzz, ‘vibrate’ on – tone and buzz
Alarm on, volume on, ‘vibrate’ on – tone and buzz
Headphones in – tone only in headphones, buzz
Individual Alarm Sound ‘none’ – seriously nothing, no buzz, whether volume is on or off
Phone on Sounds > Silent > Vibrate – Off – tone only, no buzz
Phone on Sounds > Ringer & Alert > Vibrate off - tone & buzz
Phone with both ‘vibrate’ settings off – blissful buzzlessness
But my star-studded life aside, what I want to tell you is the trick I discovered for better brand journalism where speed isn’t the be all.
Just-slightly-after-live-livetweeting
What I was showing the Premier was the video I’d shot of him at the press conference. It was a short event—he spoke for 1:59ish, according to my iPhone—so the usual live journalism tactics of posting live photos, quotes, etc would take too long (think uploads & phone-typing). I’d miss the soundbites.
Instead, I got in the way of the press pool & shot a low-fi vid of the speeches, ran back to my desk, slapped on my headphones & transcribed the key comments on Twitter.
Accompanied by a few establishing photos & liberal retweeting of the mainstream media (MSM) coverage after, I was able to convey all the key messages, the calls to action & the personality of the speakers, and give fans a few soundbites of my own for retweeting.
[I'm usually torn whether to shoot video or photos if I don't have ancillary shooter staff. In this case there were videojournalists shooting, no professional photogs, not much action visually, and little chance of being scooped by the MSM.]
Overall, this method achieves better, more thorough brand journalism if your event isn’t being livestreamed & gives the reporter time for accuracy with details like the spelling of names. Having all that video to draw on is awesome. Try it.
Twitter introduces us to people who can change our lives and shows us the connections between them, but proper introductions are hard to make in 140 characters.
So here’s a Winnipeg circle I’d like to introduce, if they haven’t met:
Ryan McMahon, comedian, podcaster, one of the first ever Aboriginal graduates of the Second City Conservatory, and passionate First Nations activist, who (while, I assure you, very not dumb) thinks he needs a little guidance bringing together Winnipeg Aboriginal thinkers.
Many ppl responded & emailed abt the "Indigenous TED" styled conference. I'm WAY TOO DUMB to lead this. All agree - it'd be groundbreaking.
There are certain realities in social media interaction for serious, trusted brands, such as news organizations, political parties and nonprofits, where sophisticated layers of branding—including sensitivities surrounding appearance of bias—are concerned.
Every decision to follow, retweet, reply, list, #FF and smiley face other users can be deconstructed for bias.
This isn’t helpful where journalistic integrity is required.
Social interactions—for instance, “supporting” someone by retweeting them; following—actually muddy transparency, because they imply relationships where potentially only information gathering or “listening” occur.
This appearance sometimes can’t be made balanced by following “both sides”, as not everyone’s on Twitter.
When news orgs don’t tweet you back, don’t take it personally.
Some news organizations policy is noninteraction—basically treating twitter as an RSS feed & not participating in the social aspects. You’ll see many more followers than followed, and no retweets/@ replies. Why might they do this?
They’re letting the quality, speed & accuracy of reported news be the product, as opposed to ancillary conversations built around it.
They’re building up their reporters as trustworthy touchpoints.
They’re preventing unconfirmed reports from being lent the weight of their brand.
They’re conscious of the appearance of bias.
They won’t benefit from nor have the capacity to engage in becoming mired in endless opinion-based arguments.
They don’t want to demonstrate editorial bias towards the most sensational (ie, most talked-about or retweetable) content.
Twitter knows it’s branding bread is buttered on the “realtime news network” side.
People are pondering Pulitzers for Twitter reporting. Twitter’s pitch is that you’ll have instant news based on your interests, not social interactions.
Pew Research Centre for People & the Press reported in in December 2010 that 55% of Twitter users post links to news. Personal currency on Twitter is largely linked to sharing news, either “first” or curated for niche relevance.
Can news orgs increase followership with social media chit chat?
Sure. I’ve done it for a major news outlet. But the above reasons/risks outline why it may not be worth the effort for already strong brands. Training reporters to engage, investigate & report in real time is often a better use of the new media budget.
News orgs have a privileged place on Twitter—they have what people want. They’re the “media” in “social media”, you know? Their job is to provide information to the public, not chat about it.
Ever notice that when you tag someone in a photo, you’re forced to allow their friends access to the image? Not enormously private if either tagger or taggee was trying to keep a low profile relationship with regards to the taggee’s friends.
See—so you’re choosing your friends to see your photo there—basically the most private setting without getting all specific.
But right underneath, in palest #808080, it’s noted that friends of the tagged person—not just your friends, as selected in the drop-down—will also be able to see this photo, your caption, and just generally take note of your existence. It’s not clear if they can comment on the photo or, god forbid, share it.
Optimistic investigation of the audience drop-down only reveals less privacy—the dreaded, unvetted FoFs—or specific people/lists.
Unless you make a list of all your (preapproved) friends, you can’t limit the photo to the people you’ve friended (which includes the person you’re just tryna tag). You have to broadcast your existence to the tagee’s network.
That’s unnecessarily public, don’t you think? What if you’re a minor, a mom, a lurker, or otherwise Nymmed-out individual? Facebook hobbles tagging functionality if you don’t feel like exposing yourself to FoFs. That’s a prettyspecious commitment to granular privacy—technically possible but disengenously user-unfriendly.
Want a free download to review? Hit me up! As my IRL and totally pregnant friend says:
It really is amazing. It’s exactly what I was looking for and I didn’t even know it!
So there! And Tactica’s been doing so much kid-oriented interactive work recently, we’ve launched a Twitter stream devoted to kids & technology. We’ve got a few preschooler iPad apps in development, so follow if you’re a fellow techno parent
At the end of 2011, I hit 10,000 tweets. 10,000 times I musta decided I had something to say or share with the world.
I saw the big 10k coming for a few days and planned to use it for something great, but my phone updates differently than the web & I missed it. My 10,000th tweet was this book cover. Perhaps a 2012 fortune cookie?
; 
And 
