Danny Whatmough.com

Last Friday, Vodafone UK joined the likes of Habitat, Motrin, Walmart and Eurostar in the list of social media fails.

If you missed the story, a slightly inappropriate message appeared on the company’s Twitter account on Friday afternoon:

“VodafoneUK is fed up of dealing with dirty homo’s (sic) and is going after beaver”

The initial reaction from the twittersphere was that the message was the result of someone hacking the account. However, a few minutes later, another tweet confirmed the real cause of the offending article:

“A severe breach of rules by staff in our building, dealing with that internally. We’re very sorry”

The company then set about a mammoth task of apologising individually to all its followers that complained about or mentioned the sorry affair.

It transpires that the tweet in question had been composed and issued by one of the company’s call centre operatives in Stoke. The agent in question has now been suspended.

Here are my random thoughts about this whole incident:

• The customer service problem – I think the issue of ‘how to deal with customer service on social media is a really interesting one and is yet to be dealt with really effectively by many brands. I’ve actually often thought that Vodafone does a pretty good job on Twitter, they reply quickly and informatively to those that tweet. But to do this, you need a big team and this does pose problems
• Putting social media in the hands of your employees – this is always going to be a risk for a brand, but it is impossible for big companies to manage this in any other way. Just make sure the right policies are in place
• Does it really matter? – Yes, a mistake has been made, but it’s not really the end of the world is it? All of the social media analyst crowd (and I include myself here) were delighted by the ‘new case study’ material, but for your average Twitter user, this whole incident is probably of little interest.
• If things go wrong, deal with it and deal with it quickly – Vodafone rectified the issue pretty well. The responded quickly and very transparently. The constant tweeting of the same message looked a bit odd, but as Mark says, probably worked very well in terms of reaching out directly to those that were concerned enough to complain or mention it.

The Twittersphere has been awash with users trying desperately to follow former Microsoft supremo Bill Gates, who joined the microblogging platform this week. So far he has about a quarter of a million followers – not bad for a few days.

He hasn’t really said anything particular interesting, though did manage a few words to Ashton Kutcher!

Part of me wonders how you can be who he is in technology without having tried Twitter before now. The other, more sceptical side of my being remembers that this is the week he launches his new blog for his foundation…

Far be it for me to utter the words “publicity stunt” or “ghost-tweeting”!

If this is all just PR, then it has to be commended as it is doing the job…

Sometimes I’m still amazed by the power of social media. I spotted the tweet above picture posted by RadioKate on Sunday evening.

The next day I was at a conference and already, it was cited as an example of how social media can be a very powerful. It’s a great picture and so far has been viewed 57,169 times in only four days.

What does this tell us? Great content will be shared.

Reports are suggesting that Twitter Premium (read: paid for) accounts, might be appearing before the end of the year.

So, in handing over our hard-earned cash, what features might we expect in return?

Here are my thoughts on what I would and would not like to see in a two tiered Twitter world…

GOOD

1. Analytics – This one seems like a dead-cert. Whilst there are numerous analytical tools that have cropped up using the Twitter API, they still all depend on the data that Twitter does or doesn’t not allow them to access. Giving premium accounts access to more data (especially historical data) would have obvious benefits to brands and super-users and would certainly persuade a vast number of these to invest. The ability to track follower behaviour and ROI, for example, would be worth paying for.

2. Verification – It is pretty much guaranteed that there will be some sort of ‘verification’ of premium accounts, so that you know the person/company you are dealing with is who they say they are. This will obviously inspire trust in the account holder(s) and will give brand peace of mind. I can see the benefit of verified accounts and it would certainly persuade some to sign up I’d imagine.

3. Commercial APIs – The data access that clients like Tweetdeck, Seesmic and CoTweet rely on to give users access is limited by Twitter. If advanced analytics are available to premium accounts, then expect this to be fed into these clients also, giving us a new breed of super-charged business-focused tools.

4. Enhanced profiles – This makes a lot of sense. Providing premium users with additional profile real estate, perhaps with more links or even the ability to display images or adverts. This wouldn’t really affect the experience of normal users, but would certainly add further value for businesses.

5. Support – It is highly likely that premium users will get a hotline to the big T, allowing them to get support, help and possibly even advice on how they could improve their use of the service.

BAD

6. More than 140 characters - anything that messes with the fundamental principles of Twitter is bad in my eyes. The idea that premium accounts would have more than 140 characters to play with, strikes me as changing the very fabric of what Twitter is and why we love it.

7. Multiple users – I’m torn on this one. It is possible that premium accounts would permit access by more than one person – a bit like the way companies like Ford tags company tweets written by certain individuals. I fear though that this again plays too much with the fabric of Twitter. This is a tool designed for individual communication (whether brand or person etc.).

What about you? What would you like to see in a Twitter Premium offering?

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Last week I wrote about Twitter’s controversial changes to native retweet functionality. And, today, I’m wondering if there is a better way…

In my blog post on retweets, I suggested that the RT can be used to flag up interesting comments, posts or links. It does this in a very simple way: by putting the tweet in question into the stream of your followers (this happens in both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ forms of the RT).

I think this might be a broken feature however. There are problems with the old RT function – for example, a popular link can crop up time and time again in your feed and some tweeters who RT too often can become irksome.

The new method has its flaws too, with random tweets assigned to people you don’t follow cropping up out of the blue.

What about the favourite feature?

With these questions in mind, I was interested to read a post by Keith from Knowthenetwork.com, flagged to me by Courtney Engle examining the ‘favourite’ feature in Twitter.

I hardly ever favourite tweets. That’s not to say that I don’t have favouite tweets, I just don’t really see the need to ‘favourite’ them – where’s the gain or the value?

If I want to share a tweet, I’ll RT it. If I want to praise a fellow tweeter, rather than favouriting their tweet, I’ll probably just send them a reply or a DM. The only time I really use this feature is to flag something that I want to remember or possibly explore or catch up on at a later date – not how it was intended to be used.

Tagging tweets

Keith’s post looks at the inability to ‘tag’ content in Twitter. He points out that the ‘favourite’ feature is really the only way to do this and mentions how Robert Scoble is now using this feature, which is giving it more prominence.

But for me, the problem with the favourite feature is that it doesn’t allow me to see the favourites from those I follow very easily. If I want to check out Robert’s favourite tweets, I need to visit his page on a regular basis, or subscribe to an RSS feed – but with so many tweets being flagged, this could quickly become overwhelming.

Is following favourites the answer?

Wouldn’t it be useful to have the ability to subscribe or ‘follow’ favourites? Then, when Robert or anyone else you respected favourited a tweet, it would then show up in your feed.

With so much content out there, the problem we all face is keeping on top of it all in a manageable way. Tagging is certainly one way to do this, but the tags themselves have to be accessible in order to be useful.

So what about it Twitter…?

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Phil Sheard has written a post examining the impact to brands of the changes to retweets that Twitter is gradually introducing (there is no need for me to repeat what he says here as he puts it very eloquently).

I’m a big retweeter. And I use the ‘traditional’ RT for a variety of different reasons:

• To show my ’support’ or agreement with a tweet/idea/post or cause
• To flag up interesting ideas/links to my followers
• To credit the original author (or RTer) of the tweet

As I’ve suggested in the comments on Phil’s post, I think Twitter may be about to experience some backlash with this change. And to my mind, much of this comes down to the ‘if it’s not broken…’ argument. Personally, I don’t see a problem with the system as it exists at the moment.

Perhaps I am just afflicted by that very human condition, whereby we automatically shy away from ‘change’ – the ‘Facebook effect’. When something (like a social network) that we have a close attachment to undergoes a change, our automatic inclination is to resist it.

There is precedent here. In May 2009, Twitter made a subtle change to the way replies show up in your Twitter stream. There was a huge backlash initially to the move, but this soon abated and today, we still quite happily use Twitter.

It remains to be seen whether Twitter will experience the same backlash with the RT change, as it will fly under the radar for many users.

But, I do think Twitter has to be careful.

I love the fact that Twitter is a very simple, open platform that allows users to communicate and interact in whatever way they please. Yes, there are certain ‘conventions’ that crop up, but these aren’t really imposed from on high, rather, they are moderated by the community as a whole.

This is in stark contrast to other networks like Facebook, where the way you use the service is dictated by the network itself.

Is Twitter potentially in danger of pushing its agenda too much on its users? Or is a bit of organisation and order important and useful as popularity in the network continues to grow and user numbers increase?

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Twitter Lists are the latest Twitterati obsession. [If you don't know what they are, then this might help.]

Lists have obvious benefits. They give users another metric by which to measure their relative popularity and are (in all seriousness) a good way to discover new recommendations by trusted peers (or celebrities…).

But, I don’t think we are yet to see the full power of lists. In a widely unreported move a few days after the official roll-out, Twitter announced the introduction of a Twitter Lists widget (see above), allowing you to embed (on a website or blog) tweets from people on a particular Twitter List – this strikes me as nice additional functionality.

So what else could Twitter Lists bring? Here are my top five crystal-ball-gazing predictions:

1. Yammer-like closed loop messaging – Lists are a great way to create subsections of followers. This has been possible for a while on Twitter clients like Tweetdeck and Seesmic, but lists could take this mainstream.
2. Better conference backchannels – Using Twitter at conferences is a lot of fun. With lists, it would be possible to have a separate group of all conference delegates, making the feedback more focused. Maybe you would also be able to create lists based on GPS location to narrow it to particular conference rooms or even football stadiums for example.
3. Segmenting of personal v. business tweeters – For the two years or so I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve used it 99% of the time for business. This has been mainly because my non-business friends weren’t using the service. That is starting to change dramatically and it would actually be quite useful to segment the two – both in terms of who I follow, but also in terms of what I say to different segments.
4. Personalised news channels – Media organisations have been flocking to Twitter since it launched. But finding and following different outlets can be tedious and is not always perfectly suited to your interests or needs. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use Twitter Lists to create a tailored feed for particular subject areas – e.g. PR or the environment – taking sources from around the Twittersphere.
5. Advanced eCRM – This would, like most of these ideas, clearly require extra functionality, but it would be great for companies to use lists (or allow their customers to use lists) to segment different user bases and send certain messages to different segments of people rather than using different Twitter accounts. Obviously to do this, you would need to be able to send to a list, rather than just using it to view tweets from certain people.

So there you go, some more likely than others. How do you think lists could be used in the future?

You can follow me on Twitter here!

So I’ve been playing around with a great little website called TweepML. The site basically allows you to create and share lists of tweeters that anyone can then follow at the click of a button.

It’s a great way to find new people to follow as recommended by others. Of course I’m sure some people will start complaining about spam, but becuase Twitter is ‘opt-in’, I get a bit confused by this argument (not DM spam of course, I get that). If someone follows you and you don’t want to follow them, it’s simple – don’t!

Anyway – rant over! – to put the service through its paces, I put together a list of the people I find most interesting/useful/entertaining as a tech PR person on Twitter.

You can check out my list here. And please do let me know who I have left off…!

It was really only a matter of time. First we had the copycats, then the APIs and apps followed closely by those looking to monetise. Now, as ever, agency-land is trying to consolidate its position in a Twitter-focused world with the launch last week a “Twitter agency”.

Twitter Partners has launched with a powerful list of potential clients and despite a distancing post from Twitter itself [possibly following comments to NMA suggesting the company is an official 'partner'; it isn't], the new company has been racking up publicity all over the place.

So are Twitter agencies the future? Or just a vehicle for publicity or a band-wagon for big brands looking to display their social media prowess?

The main problem as far as I can see: this approach is far to narrow to be truly effective. And its the same niggling problem I have with any niche agency. If you specialise too much, you are in danger of missing the bigger picture. At its simplest level, Twitter is one of many social networks (and not even the biggest), even if it is currently the network du jour.

Sure, big companies, with big internal comms or marketing teams, can more effectively manage their roster of agencies and ensure uniformity (though many don’t seem capable of this) and consistency of branding and messaging.

But, companies without this internal resource (or skill) would be wise to avoid this route of agency selection.

It is for this reason that I feel that rather than narrowing, agencies (and the clients that appoint them) should be broadening. I want to be able to go to a new client and suggest a strategy suitable for their business needs made up of a range of tactics suited to this strategy. This might include SEO, online PR and micro-blogging, but it might not.

I’m all for using new tools, but let’s use them where they are needed rather than as another feather in a cap.

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It looks as though Twitter will soon announce plans to charge businesses and power-users for additional features. Twitter’s rise in the US and UK has been incredible over the last few months. For me the main marker has been the celebrity influx – seeing Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross catching up with Jason Calacanis and Robert Scoble demonstrates how the user base is evolving.

I’m actually quite surprised that Twitter is making this step already. This surprise is perhaps due to the way other social networks have dragged their feet in the past, relying on VC money to consolidate a user base before experimenting with monetisation. Facebook has perhaps proved that this is a bad strategy. But it was in no way certain that Twitter would buck the trend. It has enough in the coffers to continue growing its legion of fans for some time.

So Twitter’s move is a bold one. The new ‘definition box’ at the top left seems to suggest that some sort of advertising is on its way – even if only experimental. And advertising does seem to be an obvious step at least in some form.

But these latest rumours are for me the most interesting development. I think its a potentially winning formula for a few reasons:

Additive rather than subtractive

What Twitter has done so far is to build a highly simple, but effective network. When something works so well, the obvious next step is to add more and more functionality. Twitter has stuck to simplicity. The other common trend is to bring in ‘premium’ layers that restrict certain existing functionality behind a pay-wall. Restricting what users currently get for free is a very dangerous approach. It is good to see that Twitter seems to be planning to offer additional business-focused features at a price on top of existing functionality. This will improve experience for these users rather than restrict it for all.

Reduced reliance on advertising

We all know that advertising is suffering and online ad spend, whilst continuing to rise, will reach saturation soon. As advertising pounds are stretched further and further it will become more important for sites like Twitter and Facebook (and news portals) to find other options. Twitter’s reluctance to merely slap advertising all over the site is, in my mind, refreshing.

Adds value to Twitter.com

One of Twitter’s key strengths is its API. By allowing other platforms, software and devices to access its, the popularity of Twitter has grown. This is again in opposition to Facebook’s closed approach. However, the API does reduce the importance of Twitter.com as a destination. And this reduces the effect of on-site advertising too, although including adverts in the API would be an option (with a potential for revenue sharing with application developers), but one that would significantly impact user experience.  By adding more value to Twitter.com (i.e. the new features) you give power-users a reason to return to the site.

It will be interesting to see further details when these are made available, but in theory, this is a bold step that has the potential to be very successful. It also seems to give a degree of credibility to the use of Twitter as a promotional/marketing channel (if this were needed).