Twitering

As marketers and brands are still looking for ways to effectively utilize Facebook, another social network is taking hold in a big way. It’s Twitter. You’ve seen it in the newspapers, you’ve heard people talking about it and even the evening news is feeding parts of their discussions by utilizing Twitter.

For a brand it can be a bit overwhelming, Twittering, tweeple, tweets, what is a brand to do? It’s intriguing though; there is a lure here for many marketers and brands alike. Think about how amazing is it for a brand to have all these followers that hang on every word said? How could you go wrong?

Well, the answer is not that black and white. The big question you face is, does your brand need an active and daily dialogue with customers? Does it have enough to say on a regular basis? Can your brand even support that sort of dialogue and is it in your brands nature to do so? Twitter is not the equivalent of a dry corporate website it is VERY different. Twitter has the potential to be a lot more personal if used correctly.

Brands that have spent a lot of time successfully developing their brand personality certainly may have an easier time at it. Look at Jet Blue with 240,000+ followers. This brand dialogue didn’t start on Twitter, Jet blue simply uses Twitter as another natural extension of their brand and customers are eating it up. For the right brand under the right circumstances Twitter is a low cost way to communicate effectively. Indeed, there is massive potential to build brand equity and to keep fans and followers informed, but choose wisely and understand the hills and valleys before you start tweeting.

it's about time

Finally, Facebook will be undergoing "drastic" changes in the next month or so. To quote this article, "Profile pages are getting a total makeover." It looks like the clutter is being put where it belongs: in FOUR separate tabs. The idea is to clean up and simplify users' profiles, allowing for more control (something of which Facebookers were likely fearing loss).

And we all know what this means: those not-relevant-to-life, malfunctioning, annoying applications will become...LESS visible! (They will reside in their own tab.) It's believed that the more "meaningful" applications will shine brighter under the spotlight (ala the new-and-improved mini-feed feature).

I truly hope these changes bring about nothing but success. The clutter, similar to many tacky (to say the least) MySpace profiles, is soon to incur the wrath of...organization? What a concept!

And as a reminder, MySpace is precisely what I moved AWAY from.

MySpace Humiliated Me

To quote from HHH's entry on Monday, "I've been violated." I never did work up the courage to share my experience with you all. In a rage of boredom (can boredom really be raging?), I joined MySpace a year ago. I had already been a member of Facebook for three years, starting back in the day when it was exclusively for college students. Somehow, it just wasn't enough. I wanted more. Knowing full well I'd feel creepy and full of regret, I joined MySpace.

MySpace was tolerable for the few months I had it, but I got bored quickly. Bulletins were abused by certain friends of mine who solicited useless junk, friend requests from swingers in Idaho kept flying in (it felt dirty), top friends got jealous if they got demoted in rank. My lunch hours would consist of filling out useless survey bulletin posts with no relevance to life. At one point, I threw my hands up and purged my top friends' list. Among my top four friends were politicians, singers and maybe a few bigots just to show how ridiculous the notion was. I couldn't take it.

Over the course of my membership, my account got "phished" three times. The first two times, it was harmless but annoying, nonetheless. The third time, I had to find out through a group of people at work. I quote, "WHAT was that naked video you posted on my comment space?" WHAT!? OH MY GOD. I was mortified. And THAT...was when my scandalous, unwilling affair with MySpace ENDED. There's no looking back; we're done.

While Facebook's security has become a little looser these days in the vast social orb, I can still say that it's 100 times safer than MySpace.

So, without further adieu, I close with some MySpace etiquette.

Twitter and visualizing your social networks

Ok, most of us have fun with twitter, but this makes it that much cooler. Twittervision 3d let's you experience a globe with random twitters from people around the world. It's really interesting in that it really shows you the vastness of both twitter and also the web in general. If you like that, then there is also a Facebook app that seems pretty sweet too, it's basically a mash-up between twitter and google maps. It's all about visualizing your social network

Then there is the site called ... Twitter Browser. If you want to visualize your network in more of a site map view, this the place to go (actually even if you don't you should still check this out.)

New Facebook Chat: A Blessing or Annoyance?

There's AIM, MSN, iChat, Adium, Google Chat, and now...Facebook Chat? (Oh, I guess I should include MySpace chat, too.) The world's largest social networking site will stop at nothing! Conveniently, no buddy list is needed since users already have friends' lists from which to pick and choose who they'll converse with. Another difference: the mini-feeds will display in the chat windows so users can see who's been up to what and where and when!

A grad student seems to think, ""[Facebook Chat] looks like it's going to be an interesting and useful feature...My bet is that this will surpass [Google's] GChat as No. 2 behind AIM, because it's so universally used and logged into."

While that may be true, it can also pose as an annoyance. Yet another window to keep open! According to a computer programmer, "Not only do I need to keep each of the IM programs open now, but I also need to keep a copy of Gmail open in my browser, and now a copy of Facebook open in my browser...It's not like I need five different e-mail programs open to e-mail five different people."

Personally, I'm a fan of the clean, Google approach to chatting. I think I'll stick to it. My beloved Facebook has become such a smorgasbord of "impressive" eye candy over the past several months. Thus, yet another feature doesn't seem so appealing anymore.

No Brand Can Ignore The Social World

Forrester reports, "Mazda And Honda Have The Most Active Customers; GMC And Mercury The Least". Here's the topline executive summary.

"Car owners have widely different affinities for social applications. Mazda, Honda, Pontiac, Hyundai, and Jeep have the most active customers; Ford, Nissan, Chevrolet, GMC, and Mercury have the least. Car brands should use these tendencies to plan strategy. For example, Honda owners are the most likely to react to online content, which the company could exploit with consumer ratings. No brand can ignore the social world; even among Mercury owners, the least active, half are connecting with social media."