Pandora Adds Ads

While listening to my Beatles station today on Pandora, a short commercial for "Lie To Me," a new FOX show premiering tomorrow, popped up in between songs.

This was the first time I had seen this kind of advertising on Pandora. It was only about 10 seconds long, clean, and didn't really annoy me at all. I think this format works and it has been suggested that it would work with Twitter. In between every 15 Tweets, Twitter could insert small clean ads that relate to what your profile is about or the keywords within your Tweets. What do you think?

Tweets… For a limited time

Brand cereal special shapes...items on the fast food menu...and then there's Twitter accounts.

As microblogging platforms continue to explode, so do internal marketing/PR tactics on how to get the most bang (or should I say no bang) for your buck on Twitter. The most popular strategy: supplying lots of tweets, but providing the means to an end in building a brand.

Observe the constant Twitter banter between @GOPmccainwin and @BarackObama. Both candidates were in high stakes competition over maximizing one another’s political influence through quality tweets. After November 5, it all came to an end. The question is: should it have stopped? For McCain – perhaps… President-elect Barack Obama – a big hearty “no.” Since the tweeting did cease and myself and many others continue to get Mr. Plouffe’s e-mails, what are followers thinking of Mr. Obama now? Too busy? He's not Tweeting!

Then there’s another side to this: seasonal tweets. How many companies have asked you to jump on their bandwagon – to buy this laptop for this great value, or in general, just providing you tweets on what they are doing for the holidays? So far I’ve met up with @HPHolidayCheer. What are they going to do post-holiday? I’m dying to find out.

What do you think? Will brands receive backlash for limited time tweets if Twitter is at the bare essence a way to reach your consumers direct and with haste?

One last thing- Happy Thanksgiving!

Social Media is Not Free

I was so excited, completely ready to boast the conveniences of social media platforms in the midst of dwindling ad market value to those companies knocking at Axiom’s door. And then it hit me—almost to the point of regurgitation. Social media is not free? What?! It may seem like a priceless avenue, but it takes A LOT out of you.

Consider those who are “Twitter whores" (not my words, Twitter’s) and how much time it takes them to become an elusive Twitter whore. Yes, the account set-up was free, but now they find themselves tweeting incessantly and not getting any work done (or are they?). I have Twitterberry and seldom use it for fear that I will have two ball and chains, integrated at best.

Not surprising at all but many companies are now searching out the most influential Twitter users—and perhaps they might hire them to “tweet” with a “twosse” on a freelance basis. Anyone know Pierre who sits for four hours at the local Starbucks and tweets about fashion sense on behalf of clothing retail clients? I do. He lives in New York City and gets paid handsomely.

One platform of the many platforms out there, Twitter is a free device that has a future; optimism touted among the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of society, and a glass-half-empty mentality donned by PR peeps looking for real value.

Correct me if I’m wrong and if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read a lengthy dissertation on why businesses should be on Twitter by GeekPreneur.

Terrorists on Twitter?

That is what the US Army is worried about based on a new intelligence report.

From the report:

"Twitter has also become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences,"

"Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,"

"Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool," it said. "However, it is unclear whether that same theoretical tool would be available to terrorists in other countries and to what extent."

Pretty interesting stuff. Twitter allows for instant mass communication so it is understandable why they would be concerned. One thing that most marketers know on Twitter, is that conversation can be easily tracked. While it could definitely pose a threat, it is also an opportunity to monitor chatter.

Twittertise

Twittertise is a neat application that lets you send out scheduled "tweets." Check out the video below. Anyone plan on using this?


Twittertise Overview from whalewisdom on Vimeo.

A Twitter Experiment

A blogger enlisted a few Twitterers to post a link to one of his blog posts and see how traffic improved. The results of his experiment are here.

This is an idea Ive always wanted to try. I figured that it would work, but it is hard to tell to what degree. The problem with this blogger's experiment is that he simply said that the hits on his website doubled. Did they double from 5-10 people or 5k to 10k? It is a vague term. I wish he would have clarified that, but it is an interesting experiment never the less.

When is Twittering Inappropriate?

This is a question that is being asked since last Wednesday when a reporter Tweeted updates of a young boys funeral.

The Tweets can still be read here. The last Tweet reads "family members shovel earth into grave." Understandably, the twittering of the funeral has unleashed a firestorm of backlash. It raises the question of: what is appropriate, and what should you not Tweet?

My thoughts:
This is something that should not have been included on Twitter. While many Tweets are pointless, (posts about what you had for lunch or the weather, for example) this mixes pointless and offensive. Common sense should tell you that if the online community is interested in this story, they will want to read an article about it that can give the topic some depth and understanding. Simple Twitter posts, like this, come off as it is just a casual tech convention. This is a time for family and friends to grieve. It is not a time give the play-by-play on how they are reacting in 140 characters or less.

Sensitive topics should be dealt with sensitively. Twitter isn't the platform for funeral updates. This may be narcissistic, but I don't believe anyone wants to read a Tweet like this one: "the father is sobbing over the casket. 'I loved him,' he says. others are sobbing." Use common sense when Twittering.

Twitter: This tweet is personal

Today's social media breakfast offered a vast array of insight into how companies use Twitter to reach their consumers... and spectators. A variety of personalities hovered over opened laptops readily attuned to Twitter (and some were on Facebook and Crackberries). Is anyone out there really listening? They are, and I have to say it's personal.

There is absolutely nothing professional (purely semantics) about Twitter, because when a string of comments is made in response to a company's brand, new product or service-- it's absolutely personal. One attendee quipped about the percentage of value in a forum full of Twitterers tweeting about someone's hot dog being delicious, someone commenting on the Chinese gymnasts' fair-and-square gold medal count, and then back to another matter: "company tweets are spam."

A number of disagreements ensued and one participant in this discussion concluded, "If you don't like what I'm tweeting about, then don't follow me." Sounds pretty selfish in my opinion; others agreed with my sentiment stating that Twitter is, well, selfish.

I thoroughly enjoyed the one attendee who kept bringing up the idea of value in using Twitter, his tone warranting a response from not only the attendees but the presenters too.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata, technology (TechDrive) reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, was the keynote for this event and he talked about his new Twitter book-- which I will be the first one to buy, as it highlights 36 companies whose fates were sealed by legitimate tweets and a strong group of followers. The other speaker, Phil Wilson presented his new Web application, a spin-off of Twitter called Comictwit. A pretty fantastic idea to give online users something to do during whatever break minutes your boss allows, though I could see jokes becoming rather distasteful. Nevertheless, laughter is great medicine so bring on the jokes!

In closing, you're vulnerable online, everything is personal and rather risky if you don't have Comcastcares-like moderators.