Tagged: spam

SPAM-A-LOT: It's going to get worse…

… before it gets better. We are talking about social spam on Twitter.  Other social networks suffer from this problem as well, however recent changes to Twitter this last month has made the issue worse. We feel the worst is yet to come.

This last month, Twitter launched its new front page / logon screen. This gave us insight into their revenue model, which includes trending data and analytics. Many companies  understand that their brands need to be in this space, but they don’t understand how to use social networks.

The proven models are about volume and numbers, not about engagement or advocacy on the social web. Therefore are many semantic bots that have been created and are now spaming the Twitterverse with hashtags and links. Volume, not authenticity, is the focus.

Businesses understand Pay-Per-Clicks and numbers more than they understand brand equity, authentic fellowship and brand advocates on the social web. We at Activating Word of Mouth use a metric that measures a brand’s Social Web Impact. This measures how influential your following is and how authentic.

The reality is, that brands still focus on volume and not engagement. Thus, new strategies like pay-per-tweet and celebrity endorsements are moving forward. This type of marketing will inevitably trend high on the twitter feeds and consequently land on the front page.

Is this good? Continue reading →

Advertisers Kill Tradition

Tonight in a Tweet, I realized how true this statement really is; advertisers who approach the social web as a communication vehicle, kill cultural norms within a given space. Case in point…Twitter. Twitter is not just a vehicle to communicate. It is not a tool. It is a culture.

Here at Activating Word of Mouth we focus on authentic word of mouth. This begins with relationships, not spam. We take the advertising out of marketing. Other marketing firms approach social networks as a new vehicle to get their products/services out in volume. They are about noise. Last night I noticed a new trending topic “Chris Brown.” My first thought was, did I miss the news? Did he do something to Rhianna again? I clicked on the search for “Chris Brown” in Twitter and saw this: Continue reading →

Respect Culture Within the Social Web

In the offline world, respecting cultures is just common sense. Different ethnicities, different geographic locations, heritages, traditions, etc. are all around us.  People come from different backgrounds; in my opinion, cultural diversity is what makes the human race a beautiful thing.

Similarly, the online world is full of different cultures; however most assume online cultures consist of the same  factors that define culture offline. Sure social web users have diverse backgrounds that include religion, traditions, regional understandings, etc., but beyond these distinguishing elements lie cultures of each social network.

What does that mean?

People interact and consume information within a specific social network differently then they would others.  For example, if you are on Twitter and link your Facebook status to your Tweets, do you often get people within Facebook telling you to stop spamming their feed with all your status updates?  They might not even be involved with the same social networks as you and not understand that Twitter is about microblogging short posts.

In the case of Twitter and Facebook, these are two very different worlds. Facebook’s main landing page is a social stream of your network. Where folks can see photos, links, comments, events, etc from friends, family, and colleagues. This tends to be a more intimate interaction as posts are not limited to 140 characters like Twitter.

The point being, if one evolved within a given social network, they understand many social norms within that space that might not carry over to another space. If you tweet a lot, and carry that over to Facebook status updates, some might consider that spam. Or at the very least, see it as a social faux pas with that social space.

Social networks develop social norms within their space; be mindful and respect the given culture within that space.

Many large corporations hire anthropologists to understand the business etiquette of various nations in order to minimize the cultural gap.  Here at Activating Word of Mouth, consider us your cultural consultant to the online world.

There are many spaces that have different cultures. Make sure you don’t take that fact for granted.

Viralocity Friend or Foe

You can trend your brand on Twitter fairly easy. But with that comes accountability. Two latest campaigns have showcased this well.

Brands on Twitter follow “hashtags” and topics that are trended in an attempt to be apart of the Tweeting action. Hashtags are # signs combined with terms that denote a conversation. Example, conferences use #BWE09 or #140conf to tag conversations about their conferences. #BWE09 = BlogWorld 2009 in Las Vegas and #140conf = the 140 Conference in New York City.

Hashtags create a vehicle to track and trend conversations about specific subjects. When the Iran Election protest blew up on twitter a hashtag became a trend using #iranelections. Brands use hastags for their own campaigns. Recently two similar companies (one US based the other UK based) have created and trended their own hashtags. One was a big fail in the Twitter universe and the other has hit in the community to the pont that the viral buzz around it has caught the eyes of main stream media.

These two campaigns are focused around website development companies SquareSpace and MoonFruit.

SquareSpace and Moonfruit are “turn key” web development platforms for any type of user who wants to create a web presence. From the pro-webdeveloper to the novice, both these companies offer tools and packages to help build your website.

A few weeks back SquareSpace launched a campaign where they offered 30 new iPhones to 30 twitter users within a one month period. The only catch was that the Twitter user must use the hashtag #squarespace in their tweets. Our good friends over at Mashable wrote about the campaign here: http://mashable.com/2009/06/10/iphone-squarespace/

The issue, as Mashable points out, was the “fine print.”

However, there is one issue with this campaign: they aren’t really giving away a free iPhone. If you visit the site for the promotion, you’ll note that down the page, in light grey text, that the prize is actually a “$199 gift certificate to the Apple store, which may be used toward the purchase of an 8GB iPhone.”

Why is this a big deal? Because the only way to get an iPhone for $199 is if you also sign up for new service with AT&T. Otherwise, your $199 gift card will go towards the purchase of an iPhone at full retail price, which can run as high as $699 for existing AT&T customers, as we reported yesterday.

From Apple’s iPhone page: “For non-qualified customers, including existing AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB).”

In other words, if Squarespace were actually giving away iPhones, they’d be laying out a total of at least $15,000 for the 30-day campaign, versus the $6,000 that 30 $200 gift certificates will cost them.

Folks began Tweeting #squarespace left and right. Congrats… it becomes a rapidly growing trending topic for the $6,000 campaign, but it became more. When people started asking about this hashtag they discovered the fine print and began tweeting about borderline false advertising using SquareSpace’s hashtag. Misleading and deceptive accusations were tweeted about the giveaway using the exact same brand vehicle that was associated with SquareSpace’s campaign.  All of this twittering began to trigger spam filters on Twitter. So now negative and positive tweets began to spread like wire fire. In the social web, it is very hard to recover, if even possible, to such a negative wild fire. Further, when your brand vehicle, in this case #squarespace, becomes a spam phrase on Twitter, you have just spent $6k to opt out of the fastest growing social network on the web. Wise?

This last week Moonfruit, a competitor, learned from these mistakes and capitalized on the lessons learned by the #squarespace campaign. Mashable compares these two campaigns here: http://mashable.com/2009/07/01/moonfruit-macbook/

Like the Squarespace promo, Moonfruit is offering up free Apple products for tweeting their company name as a hashtag: #moonfruit. Specifically, they’re giving away 10 MacBook Pro computers in 10 days, as a celebration of the company’s 10th anniversary. Each day, a random user who includes the hashtag will win one, and Moonfruit makes a point to eliminate confusion and say “if you win we’ll deliver your new baby to your door!” Winners are announced via the company’s @moontweet account.

Not surprisingly, this promotion is working. #moonfruit is Twitter’s top trending topic today, beating out the likes of Michael Jackson, #iranelection, and Wimbledon-related tweets. The lesson is becoming pretty clear: free stuff works as well on Twitter (and perhaps even better thanks to Trending Topics) as on the rest of the Web.

The difference is, be clear and honest with the campaign. Moonfruit’s $15,000 week long campaign has successfully lead to nearly all positive tweets associated with this brand vehicle. Sure, the campaign is more expensive, but they also are getting great user generated content outside of the Twitter universe.

Here is an example of authentic positive blogging from our friend’s PaigeIam blog:

Twitter is where I saw it first.

Twitter is where I hashtag it.

MOONFRUIT is where I can build beautful simple websites.

MOONFRUIT is where I can win a free MacBook pro.

So Im going to nom away on some #moonfruit and out eat everyone hashtagin’ it on Twitter

As well as 100’s more on the blogosphere: http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=moonfruit&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tab=nb

This is proof that trending campaigns do peculate from Twitter to the entire social web.

The most amazing thing about this is that the trend is about how real and honest the campaign is; most twitteres do not have brand loyalty or even really know about Moonfruit.  However, Moonfruit has created marketers who are saying positive things about your it brand by being honest about the campaign specifics.  Who knows these people might actually take the time to click on Moonfruit’s website.

Simply put, honesty and integrity results in respect and the ability to create marketers for you on the social web.

This is a word of mouth win.

On the Social Web, Respect – Not Numbers, Matter

By Kevin Spidelistock_000003808019xsmall

People often look at the number of followers/fans of others’ online networks as a way to evaluate the network’s influence.  In the beginning…numbers mattered on the social web; however, we have evolved and are now entering a social web Renaissance where the number of engaged followers matter.  Engagement is measured by followers’/fans’ responses to your content.

On social network sites such as YouTube and Flickr, where the content is the central piece of the conversation, view counts are still relevant.  Yet, with networks like Facebook and Twitter (the two largest growing networks) the central content focus is the conversation.

So those of you reading this blog who are not already faithful followers of our writings, we will once again reiterate the importance of authentic conversations on the social web.  Since social networks revolve around conversation, authentic engagement is a must! The culture of Twitter and Facebook is very open and welcoming; however, if you begin even the slightest spam, repeating, mass messaging technique versus real engagement, these networks are very unforgiving. Users can block your content with a click of a button; forever shutting you out of their content stream. You have one chance to capture social network users in a positive manner, so make a positive splash on the social web and engage authentically.

How?

Social network users are real people, real potential customers or fans of you. They are online to connect to like minded folks.  Brands do not engage, people do!  Remember that you are an individual who is talking about a brand.  Be human first.

In the latest blog post from Social Media Marketing UK they talk about the social web replacing corporate CRM software because of the authentic real and accessible value of the social web: (link here.)

What impact will this have on you and your company?

If you approach social web engagement as a numbers game, you will fail.  If you approach it as building your name identification and engaging into a larger community, you will win. Don’t focus on the numbers. Why, you ask?  Here is an example of authentic respect on the social web versus quantity of fans.  Let’s take a look at the ever so popular actor Aston Kutcher’s influence on Twitter.

As of 6/16/2009 he has 2,212,447 followers; one of the largest, if not the largest, following on Twitter.  Is that influential? Possibly…but let’s really look at the numbers.

•    In the last 24 hours Ashton had 300 ReTweets (Fans who replicated what he was saying verbatim) – That is approximately .013% of his network.

•    His last TwitPic (photo posted live from his mobile device to Twitter) received 44,235 views. That is approximately 1.9% of his network.

Sure the numbers are there, but is he an influencer to his network?  We argue no.  He is not engaging in even 3% of his network.  The value of having over 2 million followers is diminished if less than 5% of those followers do not actually engage and respond to your content.

From an athlete’s sponsor or a brand associated with a personality do these numbers (eyes) matter as much as the interactions of those who listen, ReTweet and evangelize content from a strong network? No.

Sponsors, brands, and those who want to really impact the social web care about strength in the network. This is something you can’t fake.  You can’t buy billboards and ask folks to “follow you on Twitter” as Ashton did and expect quality network.  You must engage naturally and earn your network’s respect. We are here to help coach you in that process.

Below is an example of a strong network.  Let’s stay within the celeb world since we picked on Ashton’s network and take a look at actress Alyssa Milano.

Alyssa_Milano has 89,225 followers but is an active Twitterer.

•    She has over 350 ReTweets in the last 24 hours that is approximately .39% of her network.

Although she has significantly less followers then Ashton; she has nearly the same return on ReTweets.

Imagine if her numbers were double and she still actively engaged on Twitter in her naturally authentic way.  Her influence level would be double Ashton’s with far less followship.

Let’s take a look at her last twitpics:

•    One received 5,362 views, which is approximately 6% of her network.
•     The other received 4,782 views, which is approximately 5.35% of her network.

The best part about these two photographs is that they were taken by her fans, of her fans, wearing HER jeans in a place she loves to spend time (a baseball park.) She merely ReTweeted what her fans did and earned them nearly 10 thousand in views. This is true engagement!

Photos here: http://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/2171411248
http://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano/status/2171383587

What is the difference between these two celebs?  Alyssa is actively engaging in conversations with her fans rather then using Twitter as a megaphone.

On the social web, it is about respect and authenticity of your networks… not numbers.