Update: BPGlobalPR

by uwtwtrbook on 25 May 2010

in Examples

There are seve­ral good analy­ses of the BP “brand­jac­king” that folks have kindly poin­ted me to sub­se­quent to this post going live. Here are a few:

And here is a visual com­pa­ri­son of @BPGlo­balPR, @BP_America and @oil_spill_2010, from TwitterCounter:

Comparison Follower Counts

Com­pa­ri­son Of @BPGlobalPR, @BP_America, @oil_spill_2010 Using Twit­ter Counter

Twitter Account Spoofs BP PR Efforts

by uwtwtrbook on 24 May 2010

in Examples

The advice is so old that it is trite: to con­duct an effec­tive cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions cam­paign, com­mu­ni­ca­tors have to be pre­sent and con­ver­sant in the channels/communities/media where they need to talk to peo­ple before disas­ter hits.

And a second piece of advice is also so tired that it seems trite: secure your company’s brand name whe­ne­ver there’s a new tech­no­logy. With web sites, I was advi­sing folks in the mid-90s to secure the .com, .org and .net asso­cia­ted with their names … as well as logi­cal “spoof” names. And that was when it cost bucks to secure names!

But it seems no one at BP had taken either adage to heart before last month’s explo­sion in the Gulf of Mexico.

@BPGlobalPR

@BPGlobalPR, A Spoof Twit­ter Account

In researching Busi­ness Week’s top 100 brands, I lear­ned last year that BP had lost @bp, legi­ti­ma­tely, to Brian Pen­del­ton. The com­pany has owned @BP_America since 12 August 2008, but didn’t really use the account until this month. This week someone began making hay with @BPGlo­balPR (esta­blished 19 May 2010). In fact, although the account is less than a week old, it has three times as many follo­wers as @BP_America.

[con­ti­nue reading…]

Farmers On Twitter?!?

by uwtwtrbook on 18 May 2010

in Examples

This Chi­cago Sun-Times article fea­tu­res Dietz­ler Farms (@Dietz­ler­Farms) from Elkhart, Wisconsin.

Dietz­ler sig­ned up for Twit­ter last year out of curio­sity. Her first tweet was an open invi­ta­tion for a rack of short ribs.

“Within three minu­tes, Phi­llip Foss [the chef at Lock­wood] tex­ted me and said, ‘I’ll take them all,’ ” she says. Her second tweet inc­lu­ded the link to Foss’ blog, the Pic­kled Ton­gue, which had details of the din­ner that would fea­ture those ribs.

This is a great exam­ple of both B2B and B2C twee­ting!

What other farms are using Twitter?

Twitter: Open and By The Numbers

by kegill on 14 April 2010

in Statistics

This mor­ning, @biz (Biz Stone) and @ev (Evan Williams) kic­ked off Twitter’s first offi­cial deve­lo­per con­fe­rence, Chirp, with some facts and data and a stun­ning announ­ce­ment rela­ted to the Library of Congress.

First, the num­bers. There are 105.8 million regis­te­red users but 180 million monthly uni­que visi­tors to the web­site. The deduc­tion: non-registered users read tweets. And we know that regis­te­red users read tweets pri­ma­rily from other devi­ces. Williams noted that Twit­ter is currently hand­ling 3 billion requests a day; this API-driven traf­fic is equi­va­lent to Yahoo, he said, noting that no other major ser­vice is this distributed.

[con­ti­nue reading…]

Get The Scoop: Twitter and Health

by kegill on 11 April 2010

in Events

Pre­sen­ta­tion at UW on how hos­pi­tals are using Twit­ter; Get the Scoop: Media & Health.

:: This post first appea­red at wired­pen
:: Follow Kathy on Twit­ter!
:: Follow UWT­wit­ter­book on Twitter!

WJEA : Twitter For Journalists

by kegill on 13 March 2010

in Events

What’s all the fuss about Twit­ter? In this workshop, we’ll learn how to get star­ted with Twit­ter, how jour­na­lists are using Twit­ter, and some Twit­ter best practices.

:: This post first appea­red at wired­pen
:: Follow Kathy on Twit­ter!
:: Follow UWT­wit­ter­book on Twitter!

140TC : Twitter Tools

by kegill on 8 March 2010

in Events, Twitter Tools

In less than an hour, I’ll be on stage at the Twit­ter Con­fe­rence (#140tc) on a panel to talk about tools. Here’s the list I gave Steve Bro­back in advance, with some examples:

[con­ti­nue reading…]

The act of fishing, accor­ding to Texas State Rep. Aaron Pena, can be desc­ri­bed as “slow, metho­di­cal and patient.” The act of phishing, on the other hand, can be desc­ri­bed as metho­di­cal, patient and unscrupulous.

The first time I saw the word phishing, I did not imme­dia­tely think of phrea­king (hac­king a telephone sys­tem). I thought it was a cle­ver “res­pe­lling” of the word “fishing” since the two verbs share a com­mon theme: to seek to obtain something indi­rectly or by arti­fice. [con­ti­nue reading…]

What’s The Best URL Shortener?

by kegill on 23 February 2010

in Twitter Tools

Danny Sulli­van weighs in on URL shor­te­ners, blas­ting ow.ly for its fra­med con­tent that depri­ves the orga­ni­za­tion that crea­ted the con­tent from page views and, thus, ad reve­nue. Top two: bit.ly and tr.im (I use both). New to me: cli.gs.

Twitter Hits 50 Million Tweets Per Day

by kegill on 23 February 2010

in Statistics

On Mon­day, Twit­ter repor­ted that it is mana­ging 50 million tweets a day (600 tweets per second). In 2007, the ave­rage (?) was 5,000 times a day and by 2009 hit 35 million a day.

Twitter Reports 50 Million Tweets Per Day

Twit­ter Reports 50 Million Tweets Per Day