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Great Example of Small Business Utilising Twitter

January 29, 2009 //
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In a great example of utilising twitter to drive business a coffee shop in Houston, Texas claims to have doubled its clientele through the use of the micro blogging platform.

The Operations Manager, J.R. Cohen, of CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) became a user of twitter on a personal level.  When one of his followers decided to tweet at him requesting to place an order Cohen spotted a business opportunity.  CoffeeGroundz now regularly receives pre-orders through twitter and is using the platform to grow their business and gain new customers.

This is a great example of business use of twitter and also the innovation and flexibility of small businesses.  There is obviously a scale issue here and I can’t foresee McDonalds adopting a similar strategy in the future as it just wouldn’t work for them, but hats off the Cohen and CoffeeGroundz for finding a way to utilise the latest social media phenomenon.

More and more companies are going to be looking to harness the growing popularity of twitter over the coming weeks and months and examples like this show it can be done.  It won’t work for everyone, just as Facebook and blogging don’t, but with an innovative mind and willingness to trial new channels some companies will undoubtedly find a way to make it work for them.

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Categories Social Media

Twitter – success of failure in 2009?

January 26, 2009 //
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Much has been said about 2009 being the year for twitter.  After receiving mainstream coverage very early in the year through the Daily Mail and an appearance on the Jonathon “@wossy” Ross show this week many are predicting massive growth for the micro blogging platform in 2009.  In order to look at both sides of the story I thought I would put some thoughts into the arguments for and against twitter becoming the next big social media phenomenon.

Why twitter might be the next big thing?

•    It helps like-minded people connect - Connecting with people who share the same interests of you can be fun, but finding these people is not always easy.  Twitter helps bring together people from all over the world who have shared interests and lets them engage with one another.
•    It is easy to get involved - Pick a username, populate your profile, choose some people to follow, and you’re away.  The simplicity of twitter is part of its beauty.
•    It’s easily accessible on the move - Despite major advances in mobile internet, complex sites still struggle from a usability perspective.  Twitter is as easy on a mobile handset as it is on a computer screen.
•    It becomes addictive - Updating your twitter can become addictive, as can following others.  This could keep people coming back for more and take it past the “fad” stage.
•    You can customise twitter - Many MySpacer’s prefer MySpace to Facebook as it allows personalisation of your page to give it character.  The same can be done with twitter skins.
•  It allows people to share – People like to share information both about their own life and about the world in general.  Twitter allows the same photo sharing opportunities as Facebook (through twitpic) as well as the ability to post links to external sources of information for your followers to see.
•    People like to be nosy - Being able to take a peak into other people’s lives brings out the voyeur in us all.  Some people spend hours looking through other peoples photographs on Facebook and enjoying reading their status updates, twitter has the same appeal.
•    It is not as time consuming as blogging - Maintaining a blog is time consuming but twitter allows you to post industry or personal news without any maintenance at all.
•    It provides instant access to news and articles - We have seen recently the success of twitter in bringing breaking news to the masses in the case of the Mumbai attacks and the Hudson River plane crash.  By following a broad spectrum of tweeters it is possible to get the news, as it happens, rather than after the event.

Why twitter might not succeed

•    People won’t get it – many people I speak to who are aware of twitter don’t get the attraction, and a lot of these people are already involved in digital marketing.  So what are the chances of the average Joe picking it up as part of his everyday life?
•    Who wants to connect with people they don’t know? – people away from business and the world of “networking” prefer to connect with people they know, and have met on more than one occasion.
•    Safety/privacy worries? – Whilst it might be a pessimistic and cynical view on the world, is there safety/privacy worry about allowing people you don’t know to follow your daily life?  I’m sure there is many a parent out there who wouldn’t be too pleased if their child had people keeping an eye on their life, potentially with sinister motives.
•    Twitter’s creaking infrastructure! – in recent weeks twitter has experienced regular periods of downtime as its user numbers increase and put mounting pressure on their infrastructure.  If their growth is going to continue, some investment is needed in their infrastructure, which may mean external funding to raise the cash.  Without this, people will become frustrated and potential give up on twitter.
•    It needs monetising – As we have seen with Facebook and YouTube, large user numbers are great, but if you can’t effectively monetise this traffic it isn’t worth much.  Initially CPM advertising will probably suffice, but twitter will need to move past that if they are going to effectively monetise their user base.
•    Businesses will struggle to find ways to utilise it – although it is easy to see how twitter can be used by news sources for additional distribution and traffic generation, other businesses may struggle to see a use for it.  If twitter can find a way of accommodating businesses away from standard accounts this could be key for its success, as it is these businesses that will be willing to pay to reach twitter’s user base.

So what do you think?  Will twitter be the big success story of 2009?  Have I missed anything from this list?  Let me know what you think.

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Categories Social Media

Social Media – Making us all a bit less sociable

January 14, 2009 //
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I read a worrying post on the BBC the other day which discussed the evolution of social media and how it spanned the age demographics.  The author described a scene in his house on Christmas day in the living room.  With the TV showing the Christmas special of choice, for the family you had dad (the author) sat on an arm chair laptop on lap, twittering and blogging away.  Mum, similarly adding comments to her forum of choice whilst checking her news feeds for updates and the two children, iPod Touch in hand, using Facebook and messenger to chat with friends and engage with their own private networks.

Now I’m as big a geek as the next man.  I love finding the latest social tool to have a play around with.  I Twitter, use messenger, have a Facebook and a MySpace account (although the latter as been redundant for a long time).  But the thought of a family sat around on Christmas day silently tapping away on iPods and laptops depressed me slightly.

I don’t think I’m being too old fashioned when I say that Christmas should involve spending time with the family and actually engaging in some form of non-digital communication!  And it is not just in this scenario I see this happening, the workplace is just the same.  People emailing and messaging colleagues a question when they are sitting on desks less than 5 yards apart.

It seems strange that the ability to engage and communicate with people thousands of miles away means we communicate less with those closest to home.  Is this the way of the future?  Digital chat and social media replacing old fashioned speech and face to face engagement?

I sincerely hope not.  As much as I love using online social media tools I’m also rather fond of meeting and speaking to people face to face.  I have technophobe friends who refuse to have a Facebook account or personal email address giving the response, “If I want to speak to someone Ill just ring them.”  Whilst I am not going to go to that level of extreme as I see the benefits of social media tools away from connecting with friends, I hope for all our sake that the picture painted by the BBC reporter is not a sign of things to come.

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Categories Social Media

Make or Break Time for Twitter

January 8, 2009 //
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The next few months is potentially the make or break period for micro blogging social media application Twitter.  Users of the tool have increased significantly in recent weeks as publicity has grown and awareness of the tool has increased accordingly.

Reports of Twitters use during the Mumbai terror attacks and a recent derogatory article by the mail online caused a major spike in Google searches for twitter and today its infrastructure creaked and crumbled under the strain as its users experienced down due to technical difficulties at twitter HQ.  Twitter doesn’t make any money so there is minimal investment in infrastructure from its founder Evan Williams (creator of blogger which was sold to Google in 2003).

twitter-searches-spike-after-mail-online-article

Twitter is due for even more increased exposure and coming weeks as it is set to be discussed by Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry on the return of The Jonathan Ross Show on Jan 23rd.  Fry and Ross are users of the social application and are set to discuss other celebrity users.

This is likely to increase Twitter’s users and website traffic significantly in a short period of time and considering they are having issues with current levels I hope they are investing in new servers as we speak!

I current trends continue and further awareness can be gained Williams and his fellow board must be hoping for a quick sale to one of the big players with the ability to harness and monetise the Twitter traffic effectively or potentially tie Twitter in with existing social media tools.

But in order to do so Twitter will need to prove its stability over the next 1-3 months or it could be game over and a party like Google may just decide to build its own solution to take its place.

Its going to be a very interesting and important for Twitter and as a fan, I hope it survives and finds its buyer.

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The Digital Community Shows it Charitable Side

January 7, 2009 //
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The blogging and digital community has shown its charitable side and raised over $10,000 to help an Abused wife and her children.

Blogger David Armano started the appeal on his blog, Logic + Emotion, for Romanian immigrant, Daniela and her 3 children who are struggling financially since Daniela filed for divorce against her abusive spouse.  At present Daniela, Brandon, Daniela and youngest Evelyn are staying with David as they try to get back on their feet and he appealed to the blogging and digital community to help raise $5000 dollars to support them.  At last check they had raised $12,663.60 and rising well in excess of its target.

David used the popularity of his blog and also his connections on social media tool twitter to raise awareness of the appeal and it has spread like wildfire around the social media community.  I found out about it through a tweet by someone I follow on twitter and the amount of retweets I have seen already is obscene.  The twitter community has taken hol of this story and is showing that even in the hardest economic times people are willing to show their charitable side and help the needy.

The Digital Lookout has made its donation, if you would like to contribute follow the link below.  Do your bit, and pass the message on.

Daniella’s Apartment Fund

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