Tag Archives: twitter

Christina Khoury

Twitter University Night Classes

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Senior man sitting on a chair and using a laptop Model Release: Yes Property Release: NAEver notice how Twitter chats are a lot like night classes in college?  Night classes happen once a week and often begin with small talk.  We even show up early to catch each other up on the current events since last week.  Twitter chats are very similar.  We tune in once a week and make introductions detailing where we work, and perhaps a random fact just for fun.  For example, “Hey #chat, I’m Stina from NYC and work as a travel publicist.  Oh, and I’ve kissed Ricky Martin!”  Okay sure I may not use that fact (yes, it is true, take a look at my bio) but you get the point.  It’s meant to be fun.  Chats are meant to be informative and laid back.  But what happens when having fun simply becomes noise?

I’ve noticed in a lot of chats the witty banter, especially in the beginning, “Hey John, haven’t seen you in a while.  How ya been? How are the kids? #chat”.

Please explain to me why the chat hashtag is used?  Does this benefit anyone trying to participate in the chat?  I’m all for making small talk Continue reading →

Nathan "PRCog" Burgess

Dreaded Auto-DM #Fails

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Two people balancing on envelopes; letters flying between themWe’ve all gotten them – those dreaded auto direct messages – Those automatically generated messages that you get as soon as you follow a new person on Twitter.  I am guilty of having used them for about a week around 18 months ago, until I realized it was a pretty crappy way to interact and didn’t actually save me any time or anything else.

Yet, no matter how much we all complain about them they seem inescapable.  Hoping to cast a spotlight on this wretched behaviour I’ve compiled, with the help of some friends, some of the most rude, bizarre, and simply unexplainable auto-dms we’ve received — all neatly categorized for your reading pleasure…with the occasional editorial comment from me… Continue reading →

Danielle Cyr

Are you a shadow of your Twitter self?

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Shadows of two men talking, (Low angle view)A recent post by Alexandra Samuel on The Conversation, 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life, contends that IRL is a lie and sign that we are in denial about reality (and life) in the 21st century.  While I agree with many of the points Samuel made, it got me thinking about people who, pardon the term, IRL are polar opposite to who you meet when the relationship moves offline.

We’ve all been there. Hit it off on Twitter and decided to meet for coffee. Been twit-matched by another tweep because we seem like a perfect virtual match, but sat in an awkward silence face-to-face. Wondered if we had the right Twitter handle show up to make our IRL acquaintance. On the flip side, we’ve all gotten what we thought we were getting when taking a relationship from virtual to face-to-face terms.  (Although, I’m sure one could contend that Skype gives us a virtual face-to-face relationship, but, alas, I digress.) The question is: how and why does it happen? Continue reading →

Kate Ottavio

Twitter is one big, fat inside joke between 100 million people

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Golfers laughingIf you don’t get this post, then you don’t spend enough time on Twitter. I however, have spent too much of my time on Twitter since I joined in March 2009…and for that I lead a sad, sad life. #kidding

Ok, so we’ve all had the “why are you on Twitter?” discussions with friends and family who are not on Twitter. “What’s the point?” Or my favorite from my boyfriend as we’re in his car: I’m giggling looking at my BlackBerry screen and he says “what’s going on in the Twitterverse?” How did he know I was on UberTwitter and not that someone just sent me a funny text or e-mail? Easy answer: he knows me. Continue reading →

Jeff Esposito, Kate Ottavio

Corporate Twitter Use – Our 2 (well, 4) cents

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The following is a point/counterpoint article written by PRBC-ers Jeff Esposito and Kate Ottavio with their thoughts on Tom Humbarger’s Best Practices for Corporate Twittering.

Jeff:

While Tom Humbarger makes some good points for guidelines for corporate Tweeting under getting started and being honest, human, responsive and nice, I do think he misses the boat in his section on getting the message out. Continue reading →

Danielle Cyr

Are You a Social (Media) Matchmaker?

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Woman Shaking Man's HandWe’ve all be on one end of the social media matrix. Be it as a source, resource or the joystick (1985 MS-DOS pc reference, anyone?). In many ways, it is what makes social media work so well. That people who don’t know one another can connect. That people can be sources for complete strangers and that the complete strangers can be resources for the other people. But the connections aren’t always made organically. Oftentimes, they are made by the social media matchmaker. You know, that bubbly, super-social person who thrives on human or digi-human interaction. The one that Has. To Be. Around. People. STAT. Continue reading →

Jeff Esposito, Keith Trivitt

Two Marketing Guys Walk Into a Branding Storm…

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Ice cream vendor s bicycleFor marketers, 2010 has thus far been a tough year – at least on the branding front. We’ve seen the downfall of several of the world’s top brands, including the ongoing BP oil spill debacle and the ensuing fallout for its corporate image and brand, along with Google’s recent privacy concern issues and several other high-profile branding dustups.

A recent Financial Times article (PDF Version) examined the perils of a tarnished brand. After reading the article, we thought it might be interesting to examine the broader issues and implications from a marketer’s perspective, with Jeff Esposito coming from the point of view of a corporate communications guy working for a global brand (Vistaprint), and Keith examining this issue from the perspective of a PR agency exec who works with SMBs, global brands and everything in between. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

A Possible Facebook & Twitter Bubble?

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Girl Blowing BubblesIn business, when is too much of a good thing just that: too much? More precisely, when it comes to online marketing for small businesses, when does too much reliance on the powers of Facebook and Twitter start to become a detriment to the long-term success of your business? Or even a bubble you should watch out for?

I’ve been giving this some considerable thought over the past few weeks. It always starts with a brief realization that despite the numerous marketing benefits of both platforms, each seems to be a bit overleveraged and oversaturated in terms of their true marketing benefits for small-business owners. In a world of 50 millions tweets per day and 100-plus million global users (only a fraction of whom are actually active), are we, as marketers, overemphasizing the benefits of Facebook and Twitter to the detriment of small businesses we represent? Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

What John Wooden Taught Us About Marketing

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Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden waves before the start of the NCAA national championship game in Seattle, in this April 3, 1995 file photo. Wooden, the peerless U.S. college basketball coach who became known as the Wizard of Westwood while winning a record 10 national championships at UCLA, died on June 4, 2010, at age 99, a spokesman for the UCLA Medical Center said. REUTERS/Jeff Vinnick/Files (UNITED STATES - Tags: SPORT BASKETBALL OBITUARY)

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.” – Coach John Wooden

John Wooden’s death over the weekend, at the age of 99, got me thinking about the man they called “The Wizard of Westwood.” As someone who spent the early years of his career working in sports marketing, I thought about Wooden’s NCAA-record 10 national championships while coaching the legendary UCLA Bruins of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and Bill Walton and many others. I also remembered the man’s great humility and sense of humor, as well as his uncanny ability to get the best out of his players without overtly trying to put his ego or his own highly-respected reputation ahead of the game, his team or his employer (UCLA). Continue reading →

Christina Khoury

Twitter: Creating Social Media Clones

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Genetic cloning montageFinally, the ability to be two places at once! For a while, Hootsuite users have loved the ability to schedule tweets and now the new Tweetdeck is taking it one step further by including scheduled tweets and Foursquare check-ins. Correct me if I’m wrong, but how can we check-in via Foursquare if we’re not physically there? How do we engage conversation without being around to respond? Tweetdeck has given us the opportunity to have a social media clone ensuring our presence is still in our community without physically doing the work.

Last week during the #u30pro chat, hosted by Lauren Fernandez, David Spinks, and Scott Hale, the group discussed pros/cons to scheduled tweets and many users chimed in. Here are some reasons members dislike the feature: Continue reading →