Digital Influence Mapping Project: Why Brands Love Twitter (and. The love affair with Twitter just keeps growing and growing.
The fundamental benefits of Twitter for brands has not changed much since we published our workshop, Twitter for Business. We have seen a lot more brands experimenting and, of course, celebrities jumping on board. Last week, when @Oprah jumped in, I coudl feel the collective groan as the servers coped with the onslaught. And, of course, there was Ashton Kushter's 'million-follower-goal.' (see his Tweedeck demo here)
The end of news websites? The question is no longer just a hypothetical one.
With increasing convergence between social media and traditional content, what is known as a traditional news website might not exist in the coming years. Perhaps a revealing example is the creation of Facebook applications by a Seattle-based aggregator, NewsCloud, which received a grant from the Knight Foundation to study how young people receive their news through social networks. With developer Jeff Reifman leading the way, NewsCloud has developed three applications (Hot Dish, Minnesota Daily and Seattle In:Site) that engage users in news content through linking to stories by providing a headline, photo and blurb. The applications also allow them to blog, post links themselves and much more – all while getting points for completing “challenges” that can be redeemed for prizes, which works as an incentive to stay engaged.
Brand Yourself/Your Business Not Facebook. So the big news this week is that Facebook plans on opening their version of a .com auction for names this Friday night. I can just imagine the call that went out from editors at CrunchAbleBeatReadInsiderGigaNet to their writers to cancel all plans and be ready for the launch and the potential for breakage.
I am sure somewhere a designer is creating the Facebook version of a whale. I like Anil’s future look at how the night will go. My take is (and has always been) that you should brand yourself and/or your business and never brand another company in an attempt to backdoor your brand. Whether it’s Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Pages, Geocities, GoDaddy or now Facebook, you need to always do what you can to control the flow.