Filed under: Twitter

What should you tweet when the tsunami hits?

What do you think? Should brands continue pushing regular content on their social channels during a natural disaster or crisis? Well, I took some examples of what brands on Twitter were sharing when the tsunami hit Japan on Friday, March 11. While many brands continued on their day-to-day cadence of editorial content, some were quick to realize the trending topic and shift their focus accordingly. Keen to hear your thoughts or other examples you've seen.

(download)

 

*disclaimer: HP and Microsoft are Edelman clients

Twitter stats [Sept 14]

Media_http2bpblogspot_cwcvp


From the new Twitter.com launch

  • Twitter has 160 million users worldwide
  • There are on average 370,000 new sign ups a day 
  • 16% of new users are starting on mobile
  • 90% of the information on Twitter is public
  • Twitter receives 90 million tweets a day
  • About 25% of tweets contain links
  • 78% of active users have used Twitter.com in the last 30 days

 

Media_http4bpblogspot_tzzxh

Twitter's rockin' Asia #DBI

The most glaring result from the recent Edelman Asia Pacific Digital Brand Index (DBI) is how fast Twitter has grown in Asia. In most of the markets surveyed, Twitter was the buzziest channel, including Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. In China, where Twitter is not available, Sina Weibo (the local microblogging platform) topped the charts.

This is consistent with many of the other studies on twitter's growth. One by Semiocast, done in July 2010, found that "Asia is now the first and fastest growing region" for Twitter with Japan, Indonesia and South Korea leading the way. 

For brands this presents an opportunity and a challenge. While Twitter allows brands another platform to engage with stakeholders, the conversation needs to be very local. Community managers will require deep knowledge in local trends, understanding in how to trigger local buzz and the ability to communicate in local languages to really leverage the opportunity Twitter presents. For some companies, the brand communication has to be done consistently, while differently, across multiple markets.

Australia

China

India

Malaysia

Singapore

Other links:

Third installment of "What The F**ck Is Social Media?"

If you're unfamiliar with this slideshow series, view the rest here.

 
 
Facts that stuck:
  • 500 BILLION minutes spent on Facebook per month.
  • 25 BILLION web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc. shared on Facebook each month
  • 2 BILLION YouTube videos viewed per day
  • 4 BILLION images hosted on Flickr - 13 times more than the U.S. Library of Congress
  • ONE-THIRD of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up - even before going to the bathroom (!!)
  • 1 in 6 marriages last year occurred between people who met through social media. That's twice more than the number of people who met at bats, clubs, and other social events combined (!!)
  • 27 MILLION average “tweets” per day on Twitter
  • 16,000 followers for BP's official Twitter account; @bpglobalpr, the satirical BP Twitter account, has 180,000 followers

Finally, some numbers from Twitter: oh how the whale has grown

Twitter_gang

  • More than 105 million registered users (not active users, the metric Facebook uses)
  • Twitter.com gets 180 unique visitors per month
  • Twitters says it's adding 300,000 users per day (most from outside the United States)
  • 75% of Twitter's traffic comes from third-party clients and applications
  • It's getting 600 million search queries per day; 19 billion per month (That's massive! Only Google gets more at 90 billion per month)
  • 55 million Twitter post created every day (1.7 percent come through the BlackBerry application)
  • Developers are making 3 billion request per day through APIs
  • Twitter has 175 employees now, up from 25 a year back

What's missing? Number of active users. Registered accounts includes dormant accounts, people with multiple accounts, corporate/brand accounts. Active users gives a more authentic account of how active the platform is. Also, Twitter's drop-out rate has been known to be higher than other social networks - so a growth rate would be nice; although Biz Stone did mention that Twitter's growth since three years ago (the incorporated of Twiter Inc.) is about 1500%.

But, this is a great start.

Sources:
 
*Oh, did anyone notice how far off comScore was?
 

Obama's Social Media Policy

Click here to download:
SocialMediaGuidance_04072010.pdf (83 KB)
(download)

The Obama administration's push toward open government, including the use of web-based and social media is truly inspiring. The latest initiative from Capital Hill is a memorandum, titled: Social Media, Web-Based Interactive Technologies, and the Paperwork Reduction Act, that regulates federal government use of web tools like Twitter, blogs and wikis. 

The documents can be found here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open

The memorandum facilitates the use of web tools for the purposes of engagement and interaction with the public, by informing federal agencies what they can do with these tools without triggering bureaucratic review. These include using wikis to engage with the public, hosting webinars, as well as the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. 


*The PRA is mentioned a lot in the memo. It stands for The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980, which limits the ability of federal agencies to collect information from the public. According to the PRA, agencies must get permission to requests information of the public.This memo clarifies what social media activities falls under the PRA and which are excluded. 

Pastor John Piper's wisdom on why he's on social media. Very inspiring

John Piper has this to say about why and how he tweets

 

I see two kinds of response to social Internet media like blogging, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others.

One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.

The other response says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.

Now what about Twitter? I find Twitter to be a kind of taunt: “Okay, truth-lover, see what you can do with 140 characters! You say your mission is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things! Well, this is one of those ‘all things.’ Can you magnify Christ with this thimble-full of letters?”

To which I respond: "The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky, puts camels through a needle’s eye; and if his wisdom see it mete, He will put worlds inside a tweet."

 

Read full article here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2009/3951_Why_and_How_I_Am_Tweeting/

Also, Rick Warren on why he joined Twitter: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/rick.warren.joins.twitter/23850.htm

 

 

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