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April 16, 2010 | Steve Chitwood

Finally, a chirp worth tweeting about.

Though Twitter, the popular microblogging service is ubiquitous in the online world, headlines for the company have been fleeting for much of the last year. Moreover, in the discussions I’ve been privy to at various industry events, the consensus seemed to be building that Twitter had reached its zenith and had begun its slow glide to obscurity. Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and location-aware social applications like Gowalla and Foursquare have been growing and seem to better answer users’ desires to stay instantly connected to the social grid. The lack of a strategy to monetize the service has kept advertisers and major brand marketers at bay along with their budgets and ability to facilitate innovation and consumer adoption.

Alas, an early spring chirp was finally heard this week signaling a possible resurgence. At the Chirp Conference Twitter execs announced a series of significant changes that address much of what the industry has been crowing about:

• The really big news is promoted tweets, a new advertising platform where advertisers can buy access into a topical Twitter stream. With some similarities to Google’s AdWords platform, this might just start building a justification for the billion-dollar valuation the revenue-neutral service has earned thus far.

• User Streams, a new data service provided by Twitter to desktop applications. This allows developers access to real-time data directly from Twitter. Look for a flock of new Twitter-enabled applications in the near future.

• A developer roadmap to calm the fears of developers and marketers about the service and where it is going. Look for increased functionality around location awareness, annotations, and other features.

• A new home page to address the high abandonment rate of new subscribers. Early tests show a 20% increase in retention.

Along with the technical discussions, Twitter management also shared data about the service that has long been speculated and rarely confirmed. It turns out that Twitter is bigger than we all expected. According to cofounder Biz Stone, Twitter has nearly 106 million registered users and 180 million unique visitors a month—far above many previous industry expectations. To date, the service has been tight-lipped about this type of information. Even more impressive, Twitter is growing at a rate of 300,000 new users a day, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Twitter still has a rough flight ahead. Archenemy Facebook is gearing up for the annual F8 Conference, which promises the unveiling of new features and direction for the 400 million user–strong social network. But for now, Twitter can enjoy the warm glow of springtime optimism.

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April 15, 2010 | Lisa Wieting

Crisis Communication Rules for Social Media – Open to Interpretation

If you looked at 20 resources offering guidance for dealing with negative feedback on business-focused social media sites, you will find very similar rules:

Respond quickly
Address the situation
Stay positive

In theory, this advice makes perfect sense. In reality, it doesn’t always work. Take one of our experiences for example.

Round 1: A young, vocal detractor posted a negative review on a client’s Facebook page. I would categorize it as a somewhat merited attack expressed in a very vengeful manner. When the post was discovered, we proceeded with the customary strategy:

Responded promptly.
Addressed the concern of the detractor, thanked him for bringing it to our attention, and provided some insight into what steps were being taken to resolve the perceived problem.
Invited the detractor to contact the company (provided a name and number) to discuss any questions or concerns in person.

Textbook fix, right?

Result: Apparently, this particular book was a “choose your own adventure” volume—and the detractor chose an alternate ending. Within minutes of our client’s posted response, the detractor began a full-scale attack campaign, recruiting friends and family to join forces in harassing the company through Facebook. One negative comment turned into eight, which then turned into a photo album, leading to the grand finale—an “I Hate” Facebook page. Why did this happen, when we’d done everything “right”?

Round 2: We responded, again inviting the detractor to an in-person meeting to discuss concerns. Each direct response actually seemed to motivate the detractor to step up his smear campaign, leading to an increase in negative postings. We obviously needed a new strategy:

Against all common advice, we did not post immediate responses to the continued negative comments. The attention only encouraged the detractor.
Since each personal response fueled the fire, we addressed the perceived problem globally through status updates and addressed it to the entire Facebook community instead of responding personally to the detractor.
We invited everyone in the Facebook community to contact the company if they had any questions or concerns regarding the perceived problem.
We began proactively posting status updates about any and all steps or programs in place addressing the perceived issue.

Result: Brand ambassadors began speaking up, complimenting the company and posting positive reviews. The attack campaign fizzled. Since we became more proactive with our posts regarding the perceived problem, it has left little room for negative feedback. We continue to monitor the “I Hate” page, and activity there has significantly decreased.

In Conclusion: I have every confidence that the detractor will come back, but we are prepared. The standard steps for handling negative feedback on social media sites are a good starting point, but that is all they are … a starting point. The response an unhappy consumer may take to those steps is unpredictable. If things take a sharp turn toward the unexpected, you may have to take the time to re-evaluate your steps and pursue an unexplored path—one that is customized to your unique crisis. As we all know, the exceptions make the rules.

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March 26, 2010 | Karen Johnson

My Theory on Social Media Sentimentality

Before I launch into my theory on how the success of Facebook is heavily linked to its stronghold on sentimentality and nostalgia, let me first establish my credentials on matters relating to sentimentality.

My paternal great-grandfather presented a unique engagement ring to my great-grandmother. Small by today’s standards, the ring featured a half-carat, semi-rare yellow diamond set in gold with etchings consistent with the period. Stunning. This ring was passed down to my grandmother, then to my mother, and now sits comfortably in my jewelry drawer. Or at least it rested there until two weeks ago. At 3:38 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, my phone rang. On the other end? The mom of the second-grader for whom my son Luke has a deep crush. Seems Quinn came home from school and sheepishly revealed to her mom that Luke had asked her to be his girlfriend and, upon seeing her nod, presented her with a small gift. Yes, you guessed it … my precious, sentimentally charged ring.

Think about it. Within a 24-hour period, that ring went from its warm nest in my drawer, to my 7-year-old’s grubby fingers, into the goldfish-cracker-lined zipper compartment of his backpack, all the way to school, then into his tiny pocket, out to recess, through a few rounds on the jungle gym and, when the time was right … onto Quinn’s tiny finger, which, as you can imagine, was way too small to adequately keep the ring securely in place. I can only surmise that Quinn, upon returning from recess, tucked the ring “safely” into her pink backpack’s goldfish-cracker-lined zipper compartment, before boarding her bus to go home.

Phew! Thank goodness Luke is drawn to smart women. Instead of secretly placing the ring in a random special box, Quinn decided to divulge this news to her mom. Obviously, this story has a happy ending. No need to rehash the events that followed, only to say Quinn now has a different token, and my great-grandmom’s ring is back where it belongs, nestled comfortably between an heirloom gold bracelet and my favorite Tiffany tear-drop earrings. Life is good.

But I digress. The subject at hand (or, should I say, ring finger?) is sentimentality as it relates to Facebook. If your high school years are a distant memory and you’re juggling home/job demands while raising a family, there’s a strong likelihood that you are a fan of Facebook for reasons that have more to do with the past than with the future.

Call it sentimentality, nostalgia or basic curiosity, but there’s just something intriguing about reconnecting with peripheral friends and hearing the nuances of their lives. Granted, some details we can do without (“Just took the dog out for a walk,” or “Heading to John’s soccer game.”) But more often than not, we get a fascinating glimpse into the lives of people we’ve always cared about but simply don’t have the time to catch up with this easily via any other form of technology.

Case in point. Jennifer, whom I haven’t seen in 20 years but spent my K-12 school years with, is now a Facebook friend. She recently posted about a dilemma she was facing involving her young son, birthday-party invitations and a bully. She needed help and turned to “us.” What ensued was a delightfully entertaining stream of motherly advice, pearls of wisdom and a ton of “been there, done that.” The exchange was both humorous and educational. Jennifer, who once trusted us with silly teenage secrets and turned to us for fashion advice when she bought her first pair of Jordache jeans, was turning to us once again — only the subject matter has changed. It seems we’re all wading through the same life-stage stream, and Facebook provides the comfort factor of having a familiar face to the name when we seek advice online.

When polled, most of my Facebook friends site: “reconnecting with old friends” as the primary reason they enjoy Facebook and stay active on it. One of my more feisty friends commented, “I love that Facebook offers me the opportunity to peruse through the photos of people I haven’t seen in 20 years and occasionally marvel about how they’ve let themselves go. … I know I’m going to h*ll for that one.”

Few would dispute that Facebook has the capacity to evoke sentimental feelings, by the sheer nature of its design and functionality. And sentimentality can be a strong marketing tool.

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February 12, 2010 | Steve Chitwood

Google all a buzz over social media

Surprised? Of course not. Google has been dipping its elephant-size toes in the social media pond for some time. Remember Orkut? However, it appears the testing-the-water phase is far behind us. Today’s announcement of the acquisition of Aardvark, a social search service founded by ex-Googlers, is the latest in a series of steps that illustrate the dominance of social media in our online culture today and, more definitively, Google’s commitment to remaining at the convergence of maturing online trends.

While the Aardvark addition pales in comparison with other acquisitions in recent years, such as the $1.6 billion paid for YouTube (now the second-largest search engine, masquerading as a social video-sharing site), it continues to extend Mountain View’s reach into the social web while taking another competitive swipe at perennial runner-up Yahoo! – this time targeting the popular Yahoo! Answers service with which Aardvark competes using a decidedly social media flair. The upstart leverages your own social network connections to provide answers to a user’s questions.

Earlier this week, Google Buzz came thundering onto the social scene offering much the same functionality as Facebook. With Buzz, users can create profiles; embed media from sharing sites such as Picassa, Flicker and YouTube; share information; create groups of friends; post status updates, etc. ¬– all from the comfort of a couple hundred million existing Gmail accounts. While disrupting Facebook’s momentum seems unlikely, the heft of Google’s offering, its reputation for solid technology and its immediate availability to the vast Gmail user base make it a social networking contender worth watching. While I was writing this post, this tweet came across my screen: “Google Buzz makes Facebook look like some college kids’ computer science project.”

One could catch the buzz about Buzz by following the very popular trending topic on Twitter. You could also point your browser to Google and take advantage of Google Social Search. For the last couple months, real-time content from Facebook, MySpace.com and Twitter has been integrated into traditional search results, blending in wall posts, blog entries, tweets and video tags and bringing real-time relevance to users’ queries.

Few dispute that social media is here to stay, that the rise of social networking has truly changed online behavior and that new technologies and evolving trends promise to maintain the dizzying momentum we have seen over recent years. Even fewer should dispute that, however social media matures, Google will be an ever-strengthening force.

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