eric whelan

In the third of what appears to be an ongoing series, yet another organisations has proved how  oblivious it is of what Twitter is used for. A few months ago, I wrote about how a Twitter account for an in-production BBC 3 TV show was spamming anyone and everyone on Twitter to try and find people to take part. Not surprisingly, it ended up that The Year of Making Love was a disaster, with only 300 out of 1000 contestants turning up for recording and a good number of those that did eventually walking out.

Now a production company, again producing a show for BBC 3, have taken the same approach to finding subjects, spamming accounts looking for retweets to help find people to take part. The only difference this time is that the company seemed to be approaching other companies as opposed to going directly to potential subjects, but that’s a very minor difference.

While @YearofMakingLuv got away with it, Twitter were having none of it from @BoomTownTVShow, whose account was quickly suspended. What’s the lesson? Twitter’s a place for conversation, not for spamming. It’s good to see that Twitter themselves have started to crack down on accounts that don’t understand that.

A few weeks back, I tweeted about Timeline coming to brand pages on Facebook. A friend who works for a digital agency had just come from a meeting at Facebook during which they were told that Timeline would roll out to brand pages in late February or early March.

Exciting info directly from FB on #Timeline for brands - They’ll roll out soon, announcement from FB at end of Feb. Won’t name source! #sm

— Eric Whelan (@ericwhelan) February 2, 2012

Mashable are now reporting the same story so with the roll out looking more likely, I wanted to point out why Timeline will make such a big difference to marketers.

The most obvious addition to Timeline is the large cover photo which can be added to the top of the profile. This is one of the features that has been heavily reported since Timeline was originally unveiled in September and its merits are fairly obvious; Heavy branding and a more personalised feel to the page.

But there are two other additions to the Timeline that have generally been overlooked. It’s these tools that got me interested in what was displayed on my Facebook page again as I was finally able to paint a proper picture of myself on the social network. For brands, they offer a way to highlight important stories and events in addition to their day-to-day updates. The first one of these additions is the event adder.

This option allows you to add significant events or dates to your Timeline. It’s a way of displaying important stories that otherwise may not make their way onto Facebook - for brands, this can be awards, major product launches etc. One brand that I work with was recently awarded a Blue Plaque, and an award like this is a perfect example of one that could be highlighted using the event adder. These events are highlighted differently than standard updates or statuses, with their own icon depending on what kind of event it is (the above event was sports-related, hence the trophy) and are mentioned in your followers’ news feed. They are also highlighted when visitors scroll backwards through your timeline, grabbing much more attention than, say, a status update.

Secondly, there is the Feature function. Whereas before on Facebook, stories were all given the same priority regardless of their importance and there has been no way of curating what stories are highlighted on your page, this new function allows you to pick and choose which stories get the most screen real estate.

Using this feature allows you to create a hierarchy of stories and ensures that your followers will find the stories you want them to. When used, the story you have chosen to highlight spreads across the page. In the case of an image or video, this is displayed in full size which not only breaks up the page well but gives the Timeline a much more interactive, media-rich feel.

For marketers, these tools are going to be invaluable. Up until now, we have been forced to adopt the reverse chronological display that Facebook has given us. But now, for the first time in Facebook’s 8 year history, we are being given the opportunity to curate how our content is displayed. They’re such simple tools that it’s surprising that they’re only being integrated now. But I guarantee that anyone who uses Facebook professionally will start to rethink what content they’re putting out based on these new tools.

In January, an Israeli anti drug group used the Timeline to brilliantly highlight the difference a year on or off drugs can make. This page may have since disappeared (deleted for breaking Facebook’s ToS, most likely) but it’s a perfect example of what’s possible using the Timeline and I believe that this is just the beginning of a fantastically creative time for brands on Facebook. 

*I’ve used images from my personal Facebook to illustrate this story since there are obviously no brand pages to screengrab just yet.

Some organisations just don’t get how Twitter works. It’s a place for conversation, not a place for spamming and this is why it has grown to level that it has. A few months back, I wrote a very short post on how not to engage your new followers on Twitter, but it’s not just new followers that you will alienate by spamming; it’s any potential followers too.

An account being used to find people to take part in a new BBC 3 dating programme, set up by Fever Media, is a perfect example of how not to engage an audience.

And so it goes on. In the time it’s taken me to write this post (less than 10 minutes) they’ve posted another 13 updates. Spam, spam, spam.

If I were to take over this account, I’d approach the audience in a completely different way. A quick search for “date” or “dating” on twitter comes back with a huge list of people who’re talking about dating. Directly getting in touch with these people means that you’re much more likely to find people interested in taking part in the show, rather than throwing out a really large net in the hope of catching a single fish.

Twitter users don’t react very well to this kind of “conversation”. They’re also well skilled in the art of clicking the Block button, which I’d guess many people have done to @YearofMakingLuv. And that’s before even mentioning their awful username, generic stock photo avatar and horrendous grammar.

As a digital marketer, there’s one thing that you have to always remember; the difference between marketing and spam. It’s not difficult. Simply think “if I was receiving this many updates to my personal account, would I be annoyed by it? Would I feel as though I was getting the hard-sell?” If the answer is yes, then you’re spamming your audience.

If this is the conclusion you come to, then it’s easy to stop huge numbers of people unsubscribing to your updates. You simply don’t send as many updates! Specifically here, I’m talking about direct marketing - emails, newsletters, digital updates. Social media is an entirely other ball game.

Since the start of December, I’ve received no less than eight emails from language organisation Rosetta Stone. On Dec 13th, I received two emails, and on Dec 19th, three. 

I wasn’t the only one that noticed either. Callum Raines had made a complaint about it on Twitter. Our comments got the attention of Rosetta Stone who pledged to reduce the number of mails they were sending out.

But for myself, and I’m sure a lot of other people on their mailing list, it’s too late. I have unsubscribed despite being interested in what the company have to offer. Their messages were complete overkill and while I’m sure their direct mail outs got them some good Christmas business, I’d bet that it is negated by the number of unsubscribes.

The lesson? Keep your updates regular but don’t over do it. Fortnightly or monthly is plenty and only update when you have a story to tell. Otherwise, your audience will feel like you’re only interested in their money rather than their support.

Changes are afoot. After over three years I’ve made the decision to move on from the lovely SoundDelivery and have joined the team at Mind Unit. From now on, I’ll be working with arts organisations and helping them get heard and get noticed online through various mediums. It’s an exciting change.

But I couldn’t leave SoundDelivery without a swan song. I created this audio slideshow for SoundInnovation, SoundDelivery’s charitable arm which, who in June of this year, brought 25 carers on an all expense paid, two night trip to London to give them a break from their caring roles. It’s been four months since the trip and at a recent reunion it was obvious just how much the break helped the carers.

The project was a work of passion from Jude, who had begun planning the project several years ago. I hope this slideshow does it some type of justice.

I love this infographic from AddThis on how sharing through the web has increased over the past five years. It’s astonishing to think that sharing on Twitter has grown by over 35 thousand percent.

This video was created by Foursquare to help visualise it’s progress towards one billion check-ins, which it reached last week. What’s interesting is that this video gives us an insight into how widely used Foursquare is and at what times it peaks around the world.

Obviously, cultural differences and timezones mean that certain types of locations peak at different times during the day, but it’s fascinating to watch to get an idea as to what kind of places people are checking in around the world.

A Week of Check-ins on the Path to One Billion from foursquare on Vimeo.