step. away. from. the. computer

1114566_snowflake_tree_1Five sure fire signs you need to take a break from social media this holiday:

– You couldn’t send your Moo Christmas cards because your iPhone lost your contacts
– You had no carols or Christmas songs because last.fm was down
– You burnt the turkey because you were twittering “I am burning the turkey”
– Your photos were up on flickr/facebook before the fat fella had got back up the chimney
– You tried to describe what you do for a job (including your use of social media) to elderly family members and were met by several blank and bemused faces (but *hopefully* resisted the urge to give a twitter demo)

Any more?

my Twitter essentials

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Three things I am finding very useful for monitoring topics and clients within the realm of lovely Twitter:

Twist — Real time tracking of trends in Twitter – compare 2 trends graphically over a 7 or 30 day period.  Great for showing clients how they are fairing against competitors or comparing one brand vs another for the same client. Can also embed the dynamic or static charts into your site for ongoing tracking.

Twilert — Email alerts when stuff you want to keep track of is mentioned on Twitter. Daily, weekly, monthly options available. Useful for longer term research and analysis.

Twitter search — oldie but goodie great for real time monitoring e.g. this morning for keeping on top of N97 news. Like the detail and the flow of tweets this provides.

Twitter’s role in the media process #2

I posted a while ago about social media tool, Twitter, and its role in disrupting the media process.  Charles Arthur rightly pointed out:

Except… this is only accurate about “disrupting the flow of the news process” where “news” means “news about technology stuff”.

We in technology PR and media are living in a bubble to a certain extent and mainstream media in other industries are yet to use the tool widely. Rory Cellan-Jones, tech correspondent at the BBC posted this morning about his recent experience using Twitter:

When I said in a “Tweet” last week that I was looking into addiction to online games I immediately got useful replies, including one which sent me to a psychiatrist at the Tavistock who became the key figure in my story. Then, minutes after I did the story on Today, I got more Twitter messages attacking me for being unfair to gamers. I was then able to point them at a blog post I’d written with more detail and that became a forum for a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of online games.

Yes it is a technology topic but it is slightly more mainstream in reach and provides a great case study of how journalists are using Twitter these days.

Yesterday at the Future of Mobile event in London, Guardian writer and lover of Twitter, Jemima Kiss said Twitter is one of the most important tools of her job.

I hope PR folks are listening and taking note…

Courtesy of Paul Walsh via Twinkle

Courtesy of Paul Walsh via Twinkle

Cross-posted on Ruder Finn Uk’s blog

UK blogging trends

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Interesting piece by Chris Lee in New Media Knowledge today about the UK blogging market, based on a  survey by ComScore issued last week.

ComScore claims that blogs are increasingly displacing traditional media usage and recent statistics appear to back that up. During August, less people read newspapers than read blogs, with 11.25 million Brits buying a paper compared to 14.5 million visiting blogs.

Worth a read and I am in it 🙂