Highway to Hale

Photo Credit: Derek Baird

Before you get too excited, I should tell you that I am not giving anything away.

Now that the Moonfruit Twitter hashtag giveaway has ended and the Squarespace contest has reached a finale, it is time to start discussing whether this was good or bad for the integrity of Twitter, trending topics, and social media in general.

Without discussing what each of the previously mentioned companies actually do/offer, I commend them on offering very high quality prizes with some relevance to their own product. Unfortunately for both companies, giving away their own product would not have made nearly the same splash in the Twitterverse as giving away products from Apple.

Understandably, Squarespace gave away iPhones because they had just launched a new iPhone app that makes mobile usage of Squarespace easier. Slightly less relevant was the prize of MacBook Pros from Moonfruit – yes, they do offer a web-based product, but there is no way they would have received as many entries or as much attention if they weren’t giving away Apple products.

Let’s be honest, Apple was the big winner in this situation. Nobody Very few people wanted to promote Squarespace or Moonfruit, they wanted an Apple product for free. To this day, the majority of ‘opt-in contestants’ do not have a clue what either company does. On the other hand, it is pretty obvious what you will be giving away if you want to get noticed.

Combined, Squarespace and Moonfruit topped Twitter’s trending topics for the better part of 30 days. Iran and Michael Jackson are the only notable topics that were able to push the contest entries down the list for any significant period of time.

Did Squarespace and Moonfruit spam Twitter? Or did they offer value to Twitter users and get rewarded by those thankful for the value? Twitter seems to have considered Moonfruit’s Trending Topic Takeover as spam because they apparently removed the term from the list in favor of less popular subjects (according to Moonfruit).

In the future, look for more of these contests, because this obviously got some publicity. For companies planning on trying this type of campaign, consider giving something away tied to your product or service. Yes, people start flooding in the door if you give away popular consumer goods, but they won’t stay inside once the party is over.

Twitter may begin systematically censoring trending topics that do not come about organically if these type of campaigns diminish the value of real-time monitoring of the public. I believe Twitter should use that power if necessary, but I do not believe it will be necessary. As we saw with Iran and MJ, contests cannot overtake organically driven news that deeply interests the public.

This post comes in response, and with a big thanks, to @DavidSpinks and his post called “Are You Good At Social Media?”

Don't be this kind of tool.

So, you can create a Facebook page? You’ve @replied somebody on Twitter? You read your friend’s LiveJournal?

Would you hire a graphic designer based on their ability to tell you what Adobe Creative Suite is? I hope the answer is no (if you answered yes, call me Scott Hale: Graphic Designer). The same goes for social media – Knowing what Twitter, Facebook, and blogs are does not give you the skills to effectively design a social media strategy. Building a community and cultivating conversation takes more than a username and password on the most mainstream social tools the web has to offer. At this point, knowledge and proficient use of social media tools is more like using your right arm and less like using a tool.

So, what is the most important tool in social media? YOU.

You must have background knowledge in marketing, PR, customer service, human interaction, technology, writing, sociology, and psychology. To this point, education has been concerned with nice neat little packages so everybody can succeed. Social media has reached a point where customization is necessary. Cookie-cutter automation will not work in social media. Nobody can stand in front of a class of students or marketing professionals (or CEOs) and give them the magic bullet to interacting correctly.

The overriding theme of social media is interactivity. When interacting with others, the only tools you have come from yourself. Your ability to read the situation and connect with ideas are central to maintaining conversations and constructing a community. The term “relationship marketing” has been showing up a lot lately, and I believe it describes the goal of social media quite well. Relationships demand loyalty from both sides and the way to engage consumers will be different in every strategy.

Individuals create successful social media strategy. Social media strategies need to be unique. It is not only necessary that campaigns have the ability to be customizable, it is necessary that every campaign be customized. Great customized plans are run by people with a great knowledge of interaction, idea connection, sociological patterns, and flexible strategy.

Are you a tool? I believe I am. If you (or anybody you know) are looking for a social media tool, feel free to contact me.

D[space][username][space] (no comma).

That’s what a DM looks like on Twitter. I’ve screwed it up, you’ve probably done it too. Is it a big deal? It might not have been big news last week, but I did notice Chris Brogan failing a DM and shooting his cell phone number to his 70,000+ followers. That’s all for now on that subject.

The big news this past week was the change in how Twitter users will experience @ replies. To be more accurate, it has to do with how approximately 3% of Twitter users will experience @ replies (according to the Twitter Blog). As I earn my Social Media MBA (look to @arikhanson and his blog for that reference), the change in replies makes it difficult to connect with important influencers, but what does it mean for brands and companies on Twitter?

It may have only been 3% of users capitalizing on the ability to creep in on the conversations of others, but those 3% were passionate about the subject and using Twitter intelligently. Evan Williams was forced to respond within hours of the change because the hashtag #fixreplies became the top trending topic on Twitter. I understand the rationale that the users, in general, might not want to see partial conversations of those they follow, but I disagree that the option should be removed. Rather than promote running away from partial conversations, the option should have been roled out the other way. Force people to see half-conversations and let them choose whether they want to jump in and follow the other side or simply ignore the few tweets pertaining to a specific superfluous topic.

The most powerful words in social media marketing are engage and empower. The option to see one side of the conversation promotes both engagement and empowerment. Take @mnChevy for example: a car lover and follower asks when Chevy’s newest addition will hit the streets. This car lover has a bunch of followers that aren’t yet aware of the mnChevy account, so they miss the tweet and Chevy misses out on the chance to engage and empower their target market. On the other side, mnChevy answers the question, replying to the car lover. Many of mnChevy’s followers are interested in the release of a new product, but rather than ask, they assume they will look it up online somewhere later…and forget about it. Those followers also miss the tweet about the release; another missed opportunity. Just because a user did not ask the question, you cannot assume they were not interested in the answer.

That would be an isolated case, but an important example. Whether you scale the example up or down, the idea does not promote community. How many networking events have you attended where you join a conversation in which you only know one side? You build your network by meeting the other side and gaining a contact. Your community expands – empowerment through engagement.

How can you remedy the situation as a brand on Twitter? Fairly easy actually. If you want to simultaneously reply to a follower and broadcast the message to all followers (whether they are following the subject of the reply or not), simply do not put the @ reply at the beginning of the tweet. Either put the name later in the tweet, or add a character (such as a period) before the @ reply and Twitter will not recognize the tweet as an @ reply. This way, all of your followers see your reply and have the opportunity to engage the subject of the reply and build a community around a common brand (your brand). Information reaches a larger audience, communities reach higher levels, everybody wins.

What do you think about the changes? Were you part of the 3% that noticed? Does your position on the topic change as you consider personal use of Twitter vs brand use? Do you run a corporate account that was impacted by the change?