If You So Much As Twitter This
Posted on 20. Aug, 2008 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Trends
I’ve been reflecting on the phenomenal interest in Twitter of late. From Dell’s 40+ Twitter team to a Social Brand Index that lists the brands on the microblogging service du jour, it seems like there’s no escaping the Twitter addiction. And this despite a recent decision to axe outgoing SMS updates to Twitter users in the UK.
It’s incredible how much groundswell is gathering around a service that is barely two years old.
Twitter’s main devotees in the UK are early adopters and PR types. Very smart PR types I must add.
If any of those are reading this, cast your eye over this brilliant article on the 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future by John Bell of OgilvyPR. Thanks for the credit, John!
Whilst delivering a recent workshop to the smart planners at Publicis QMP, I found that a single mention of the service sent us off on a merry distraction on the pros and cons of Twitter with more mentions of its uses (student twitters himself out of Egyptian jail, the beady but spooky Twitter-service of SouthWest Airlines etc) than I thought possible in ten minutes!
There were very few UK specific mentions though. And there’s my point. As New Media Knowledge recently pointed out, UK marketers are hesitant to use social media because of a lack of case studies to compare successes from.
Completely independent of NMK’s article, I recently tweeted about this, asking whether folk would be interested in a blog series covering UK social media case studies. I was very quickly met with a couple of positive responses.
So, to that end I have started a Twine covering that very topic.
Twine? Twine is a social bookmarking service that is powered by semantic web technology. The idea is that it learns from your bookmarks and suggests new topics.
The service includes a very neat group feature in which you glean from the collective wisdom of many who have bookmarked interesting topics on say… Web Future Trends, for example. Thanks to @annmargaret, uber-savvy digital strategy type at Mediaedge:cia for the heads up on Twine.
I recently received a beta invite and have been using the service ever since.
My Twine on Social Media Case Studies in the UK includes BT’s Web 2.0 adoption case study and will eventually include coverage of Barclaycard’s World Freerun Championship.
I will be adding to my Twine over the next few days in preparation for a whole new blog series on UK Social Media Case Studies.
And yes, I’m working on the next instalment of the ever popular study of social media usage amongst FTSE 100 brands…
Stay tuned.
Anyone else found any unusual uses of Twitter amongst UK brands? Please share in the comments.
Image Credit: CarrotCreative on Flickr
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