I’m not a couch potato. I engage in social broadcasting.

How do you make the act of sitting on your sofa every night of the week, with your eyes glued to a box streaming colourful moving images, a social activity? Well you set up a second box nearby which streams comments from people all over the country, indeed, from across the globe and you stare at this box as well as the cathode ray/plasma/LED screen in the corner.

OK, so perhaps I paint a poor image of what is emerging as social broadcasting and honestly speaking I didn’t get it to start with. Why would you want to watch two screens and miss half the programme whilst you tweet you comments and views? That was until Eurovision.

Eurovision changed everything. Or perhaps Twitter changed Eurovision? Either way, this year, Eurovision became an exciting rollercoaster of musicality, costumes and hashtags. Finally I had a group, a very large group at that, of EuroTrash enthusiasts with whom I could chat about the competition.

And it’s not programmes that for years have been cringe worthy or you really should be ashamed to enjoy that have evolved due to social networking and Twitter. Channel 4’s “experiment” of televising live surgery has had people flooding to Twitter, not just to follow what other people think but to directly ask the studio, presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy @krishgm and surgeons their questions. And when Channel 4 can’t cope with the influx of questions, Tweeters are helping each other out.

Roo Reynolds has blogged often about social broadcasting with his unique insight working for the BBC, and shows how The Apprentice has fans login on and voting each week for who they think will be on the receiving end of the shows iconic catchphrase from Sir Alan in the Board Room.

Instead of sitting every night like a couch potato staring at the TV, I now like to stare at the TV and Twitterfon on my iPod and debate the finer points of international singing competitions (#eurovision), talent shows (#bgt) and open heart surgery (#slive). It is certainly more exciting watching TV with "friends".

Doomsday - really?

I’ve been hearing a lot of cynicism, excitement and concern over the direction in which Twitter is taking recently in regards to marketing and advertising. It’s true that in the last 6 months the marketing profession as a whole has really hopped in to the Twitter nest and is exploring all the possible ways they can exploit, monitize and convert to sales. Naturally, the “Originals”, the established Tweeters who relished in this new, geeky, media are now foretelling that the end of Twitter is neigh. But is it?

Twitter is evolving. Just like Facebook which evolved from a bunch of college mates to social groups worldwide, Twitter is evolving from a micro-blogging platform for the geek elite to a mainstream social media platform. Where Facebook app developers paved the way, Twitter is now giving birth to the next generation of social applications and plugins. By its very nature, Twitter is being moulded and shaped by the very community that uses it. And when the Original geek elite move on to the next shiny toy, Twitter will continue its evolution.

Check out Twitter - the Beginning of the End, or the End of the Beginning? For an interesting insight.

Is evolution real that bad?

The TuesdayTweetUp

Last night a flock of tweeters gathered in a basement bar in central Southamtpon to meet, share ideas and generally have a good night. As media, marketeers, developers, students, educators and entrepreneurs mingled and networked, the first Tuesday Tweet Up was born.

The Southampton Tuesday Tweet Up was the brain child of @tuesdaytweetup (real name Lisa) who, with the help of partner @spindrwoody, spent a month working the Twitter machine to raise interest in a local networking event. Many of us assumed @tuesdaytweetup had a background in PR/Marketing or Event Management, but as a project manager from a large insurance firm “Tuesday” (as Lisa became affectionately termed around the TweetUp) had only started on Twitter as a personal hobby. Speaking to me at the event, Lisa seemed pleasantly surprised at the power Twitter had, that over a month she was able gather 125 followers and arrange a meeting where at least 50 unique Twitter users showed up (95% of whom where total strangers to her).

For myself, I had a great time at the TweetUp. I had the chance to meet with users I had been following for almost a year as well as re-connect with an old uni friend from halls (@cminion). The TweetUp gave everyone a forum to not only discuss Twitter but also their businesses, interests, and aspirations. This is what social networking is about, making connections online that carry through to the “real world”.

The night really was varied, from about 7pm to when I left at 10.20pm the following topics were amongst those discussed at the TweetUp (there were more I am sure):

Twitter – Ok that’s a given but people discussed its use as a personal medium, news aggregator, within business, and for PR and marketing

Ghost tweeters

3D printing

Solent Uni vs Southampton Uni

Virtual worlds

The ultimate set top box

Owl cakes – not made of owls but looking like an owl

Unique business cards – best of the night was from @RAndyVee. Each card had a different photograph on the back which had a story to it. First time I’ve been given a business card with a padded cell on the back!

Children using social networks and internet safety

Healthcare on Twitter (and chickenpox)

I didn’t get a chance to meet everyone in the room and I really wish I had, which is why I am excited that @tuesdaytweetup is planning on making this a regular event. As Lisa explained, there are a lot of events/tweetups/conferences/un-conferences happening in London but nothing locally. A regular networking event for likeminded people is just what Southampton is after. Check out www.tuesdaytweetup.com for more pictures, video footage and information about the TweetUp and to vote on how often you think they should run. @TheRoryJackson and @mynameisbainsy also knidly interviewed attendees and recorded footage of the event which will be available on www.tuesdaytweetup.com and YouTube shortly. I'll blog and tweet when it's available.

If you attended the TweetUp please leave a comment below and tell me what you thought, who you met and what you talked about. Better yet, leave a comment or email @tuesdaytweetup!

SEO SPAMMERS - we hate them but can we learn from them?

I received the most informative, helpful and insightful email this morning from Tracey at clearpathtraffic.com, it read:

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We can put your site at the top of a search engines listings. If this is something you might be interested in, send me a reply with the web addresses you want to promote and the best way to contact you with some options.

Sincerely,

Tracy Phillips

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On searching for clearpathtraffic.com I was surprised to see that that the domain was unrecognised. How unfortunate – and stupid – to send out SPAM marketing and not have an operating website.

Please note the hint of sarcasm in this blog post.

Indeed on investigation, the only references on the web to clearpathtraffic.com was the following blog:

“Hey Jason Adams, Mike Lewis, Paula Reynolds of Keyword Placement Inc and Key Placement SEO - Please Stop Sending SPAM” – Jill Olkoski

And this server blacklist:
Legacy Mail


Check out the Cedar Hill Community blog to see the name iterations that Keyword Placement Inc, PowerPoint SEO, Placement Technologies, Placement Auditors have been using.

The thing that really annoys me about this is that, other than being spammed, these people are really really bad at what they are trying to do! But perhaps we can learn from them. Lets count some of their ridiculous mistakes:

1. The email I got had no contact details for clearpathtraffic.com. No registered company name and address and no legal disclaimer.

2. There was no personalization. The email just jumped right in there telling me what they could do, but with no mention of my name as the web administrator or of the company I work for, or even our web address.

3. They had done NO research other than data mining our email addresses. If they had they would have realized that, in fact we rank very well thank you very much within our niche market area.

So, whether you are a large corporation or a small business/one man band, do not get suckered in by these SEO twerps (yes, I used the word "twerp"). If you can’t verify who they are on the web how the heck are they going to “put your site at the top of a search engines listings”. If you want to improve your organic search rankings you can do it yourself, there is plenty of FREE advice out there on blogs and Twitter or you can learn what to do with support on a course like that by Business Marketing Online.

5 reasons for being un-followed

Wondering why you are losing Twitter followers? Ever posted something and seen your followers immediately start to drop off? Below are 5 common reason why people un-follow.

1. Tweet flooding – There are two types of tweet flooding that spring to mind here, number one being those who tweet every second of the day and number two, those who post all their tweets during their daily allotted hour for Twitter. Now, people one and two may be tweeting informative, useful stuff but if it makes it difficult for people to read their tweet stream, you’re high on the decapitation list. Take a break, step away from Twitter for a while if you tweet all the time or, if you only have a short time dedicated to Twitter, leave more time between tweets. It’s as simple as that.

2. Essay tweets – If you can’t say what you want to say in 140 characters you should be writing a blog. Try not to run over into several tweets – it’s called MICRO-blogging for a reason. @HenryFordNews can get away with this when tweeting live surgery but an essay broken into 8 tweets explaining why you shouldn’t have eaten that cookie requires a blog. Try blogspot.com.

3. @ Spam – Spam is a bit of an oxymoron on Twitter however @ Spam messages are those direct, intrusive messages such as “@CatStormont Why don’t you join our team and distribute our new health food? DM me for details.” It’s like junk mail through the letter box, or cold calls from insurance/market research companies. My answer to these? In the bin or hang up.

4. Irrelevancy – Know your community. If you’re posting about things that are irrelevant to your audience they’re going to drop out. It’s the sifting mechanism for most people on Twitter. I have one person I follow who insists on posting about lunch and dinner but because I like his cynical dark humour I haven’t un-followed @jasonfry. This is the only person I follow who tweets about his lunch though, I prefer tweets of substance and that engage me.

5. Playing the numbers game – People who are just concerned about numbers on Twitter and not conversation are no fun. Ever been followed by someone looking to be followed back, and then been un-followed yourself once they have their numbers bumped up? If you’ve been doing this and your starting to lose followers – you’ve been rumbled.

What is it that makes you un-follow someone on Twitter?

No pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Ever since Tuesday March 3rd this subject has been blogged about and discussed effusively. So now it’s my turn to throw my own golden coin into the pot at the end of the rainbow. In a strike of momentary genius, the confectionary giant Skittles switched its homepage to a Twitter search feed for “Skittles” conversations. Genius!

Of course, it was only momentary. For the social media savvy Twitter community quickly realised that there were no Skittles or Mars representative’s behind the Twitter campaign, that Skittles was not contributing to the community conversation, and quite possibly that there were “paid for” Twitter users trying to boost the positive comments rolling into the feed. Negative comments spread like wild fire on Twitter and before they knew what was happening, Skittles found their feed riddled with negative comments, unrelated content and profanity.

It was the confectionary Gods versus the social media Gods, and we all know who won out. Skittles pulled the plug on the Twitter feed and instead the homepage now displays…. the Skittles Wikipeadia entry!

Although the whole exercise went horribly wrong for Skittles with no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they did get A LOT of people talking and A LOT of media buzz. I really hope Skittles learn from their first sour experience of social media, put some crisis management in place, and re-enter the community to rebuild the relationships that may have been damaged at their first outing on Twitter. At best I hope they hold their hands up and admit “Yup, we got it wrong.”