Silicon Beach Training Blog » Twitter

Will Twitter finally sink the idea of a new luxury ship fit for a Queen?

Guest Author — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:30:42 +0000

In this guest post, James Christie of Social Media agency No Pork Pies looks at how Twitter has become so influential in today’s society, even having a say into the planning of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The Royal Yacht Britannia: now permanently moored in Edinburgh. Picture by Ian Mackay

In April 2009, it was announced that the British public would now be allowed to follow the Royal Family on Twitter at @BritishMonarchy (it now has 280,790 followers).

Commenting on the development, a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: “The Queen has been advised that it’s up and running but there won’t be any members of the Royal Family tweeting.”

A year later, the Queen ‘joined’ Facebook. “The Queen has approved the decision – she knows all about Facebook,” an aide assured us.

With this supposed knowledge of social media and micro-blogging sites, our sovereign is sure to be aware of how social network communities have reacted to the idea that a new royal yacht should be built to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The idea was first floated by the Daily Mail; the newspaper launched a campaign to build a luxurious new yacht in October 2011. The Mail backed the campaign with several lengthy articles and an impressive artist’s impression of what the yacht might look like (complete with a theatre and a deep sea submersible). However, the campaign sank without trace until 16^th January 2012 when The Guardian published a leaked letter from Education Secretary from Michael Gove.

Gove’s letter suggested that: “in spite, and perhaps because of the austere times” it would be an “excellent” idea to investigate the idea of a new royal yacht.

Much of the reaction to Gove’s suggestion has been covered by the Guardian and the Mail. But could it be that the real barometer of public opinion to the issue can be found in cyberspace? While Gove’s letter was a lengthy affair, many voters have given their reaction to it in far-more succinct 140-word tweets.

Brandwatch history of mentions of ‘Royal Yacht’

By using social media monitoring tool Brandwatch it is possible to see that the number of mentions of the phrase ‘Royal Yacht’ on the internet spiked dramatically on January 16^th when Gove’s letter was first published.

There were 8,720 mentions of ‘Royal Yacht during the period 11^th January to 24^th January 2012. Brandwatch’s sentiment-monitoring software identified that:

13 per cent of mentions were positive
22 per cent were negative
65 per cent were neutral

Tellingly, Twitter hosted the most number of mentions (84 per cent) with Facebook hosting 12 per cent and ‘other’ (online newspapers, forums and blogs) accounting for five per cent.

Twitter-users tended to be more negative than people expressing their opinion on other platforms; 43 per cent of tweets were negative, compared to 22 per cent of all tweets.

The pro-yacht argument was represented on Twitter by re-tweets of supportive articles such as a Daily Telegraph piece by Graeme Archer which insisted that “the monarch is a defining landmark of the country and should be treated as such”.

Some typical negative tweets included re-tweets of a spoof article entitled “Royal yacht plans scrapped in favour of Diamond Jubilee pedalo” and a comment which asked the government:

“Will you be using this year’s cohort of unemployed school leavers to help build the royal yacht?”

Sentiment about the Diamond Jubilee

Adverse reaction to the yacht seems to have caused a slight rise in negative sentiment regarding the Diamond Jubilee (the red line on the chart above). However positive sentiment (the green line) also increased on January 16^th and both levels have now reverted to the level which existed before Gove’s letter was leaked.

Sentiment surrounding Michael Gove

Which brings us to Michael Gove; Gove had the highest ratio of negative sentiment of all three topics (the other two being ‘Royal Yacht’ and ‘Diamond Jubilee’) but perhaps unpopularity is just the normal lot of a coalition government minister.

The Guardian – rather than the Daily Mail which launched the original pro-yacht campaign – hosted more mentions (2.4 per cent) of the topics than any other sites bar Twitter and Facebook.

While the Brandwatch monitoring tool does give a neat breakdown of where and when conversations surrounding the yacht are taking place, it can’t answer one mystery relating to the idea of a ‘Diamond’ boat.

How would such a ship be built in time for the start of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June?

James Christie is an Editor at Social Media Agency No Pork Pies.

Twitter – How does a loss making company get valued at $10 billion?

Heather Buckley — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:28:18 +0000

Facebook and Google in talks about Twitter takeover.

Apparently Twitter is currently talking to potential buyers Facebook and Google about a possible takeover bid. With the industry giants history of battles over Internet supremacy this could get quite interesting. Last year it had estimated revenues of $45m (real figures not available as it is a privately owned company)but ended the year making a loss, however this year revenues are expected to more than double to between $100-110m.

Silicon Beach Training provide SEO training, Google Analytics Training and Social Media Training. We also provide everything a web developer needs in his toolbox including Ajax Training, jQuery Training and JavaScript training in Brighton Sussex.

It’s not the first time that Facebook has showed interest in a takeover. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is believed to have offered Twitter’s founders $500m in Facebook stock for the company in 2008, but the takeover bid collapsed. Also Twitter co-founder Evan Williams and Dick Costolo, the current chief executive, has previously sold companies to Google on behalf of Twitter.

So what makes these networking platforms worth so much? – Your personal data.

It’s the beginning of a new era as these companies are all beginning to think about the value of the mind-blowing amount of data about millions of people (read consumers) that these data centers are collecting, and that we the consumers are offering for free in on a daily basis. We are on the brink of an explosion in the development of targeted online advertisements

Investment experts around the world are discussing, debating and looking on in awe as valuations rocket skywards for companies that on paper would previously be valued at a fraction of what they are now deemed to be worth. Its about potential, and right now we are only just beginning to grasp what the potential value of personal data is worth and how marketers and advertisers will use this information.

Ethan Kurzweil of venture capital firm Bessemer Venture Partners stated, “Are these prices justifiable based on financial multiples? No.”…. “But these start-ups are building social services and have lots of data about their users and the market is valuing that mightily right now”.

Social Media – How to Connect with Influencers who will sell your Brand for You

Heather Buckley — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:17:04 +0000

by webtreats on flickr

Your customers are not longer simply the consumers of products, consumers themselves are becoming potential marketers for your product, or on a bad day potential saboteurs. Through the social web people’s ideas and thoughts about your service or product can have a significant impact on the success or failure of your business.

Silicon Beach Training offer great Social Media Training, in Brighton, Sussex, but if you would like to learn something different then try our InDesign Training, Leadership Training or Assertiveness Training.

Businesses are no longer in complete control of their products, brands and messages. End-users are taking control. Heading this shift of power are users of the social web – bloggers, micro-bloggers, forum posters, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter users are spreading messages, influencing people, driving or diminishing demand.

Businesses need to identify the online influencers and acknowledge, respect and develop relationships with them in order for their products and brands to thrive. To stay competitive in this ever-changing environment, businesses must learn how to harness these forces to their advantage. Here are five tips for small companies seeking to leverage the power of social media to increase brand awareness and to drive demand for their product or service.

Identify who the key online influencers are.
Do some market research and identify the key online influencers for your product, brand, business or industry. For twitter use Twitalyzer or Klout. Find people who are interested in your products, brand and business and are likely to talk about you in their online conversations. Make a list of these influencers in Twitter and/or Facebook and LinkedIn. Look at their blogs and see if you can find forums and networks where these people are active online.
Engage with them.
Join the conversations that are happening on those sites and online destinations. Persevere, it will take time to get noticed, see what hash tags they use on twitter and use them too. Comment on their blogs, ask them questions, join their groups. Be consistent and participate often, offer information and insights that add value to the conversation.
Develop relationships with your influencers.
It is not enough to simply join the conversation. Meaningful relationships take time to develop particularly with key influencers as there will be many more out there competing for their attention. By interacting with them in a meaningful way by providing useful information and add a little bit of flattery maybe, you may begin to join the inner circle! Building relationships is an important part of social media marketing. The indirect marketing power that influencers are capable of igniting through their own online relationships and discussions can be huge.
Get your influencers to talk about you.
Avoid self-promotion or direct marketing your business and products to influencers. Think of ways of putting your name, product, or services in front of them that show them how your business can benefit them or others. If you have already established a relationship with them and you don’t try to sell to them, but rather offer information and insight, they’re more likely to value what you give to them and share it, particularly if they believe your product or business can benefit their audiences. The objective is to encourage them to take control of the conversation to let it spread for maximum exposure.
Make sure conversations lead back to you.
You should have already established branded destinations across the social web using tools such as a blog, YouTube channel, Twitter profile, Facebook group or page, LinkedIn group, podcast and so on. Make sure all of your social web participation links back to your business blog or website where conversations can get more information or make a purchase.

The key objective is to connect with influencers and to get them talking about and advocating your brand, products and business. You can achieve this by delivering content that adds value and by taking the time to build meaningful relationships with them. If you practise the above successfully you will probably become a key influencer yourself.

RockMelt Beta Released – The Social Web Browser

Aaron Charlie — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 12:23:18 +0000

If you are in to your social media and love keeping up to date with Twitter and Facebook, then this is the browser for you! RockMelt has been created to make the web browser more complete and is based on what people are using the Internet mainly for – Social media.

Did you know Silicon Beach Training offer great Social Media Training, in Brighton, Sussex, as well as that we also offer other training courses, such as – Excel Training, PRINCE2 Training and Assertiveness Training.

Do you want to try out the New RockMelt Browser?

Earlier today RockMelt Beta was released here and you just need to sign in with your Facebook account and wait for an email with an invitation to use RockMelt.

RockMelt Features

If you use Google Chrome then you will be able to switch over very easily as RockMelt is build on Chronium, the only differences are that there are columns running down the side of the browser. On the left side of your RockMelt browser you have your Facebook contacts and on the right you have your bookmarks. With your Facebook contacts on the left you can add your favourite contacts, share links with them, chat with them and do most of the normal things you do with Facebook without actually heading to the site.

RockMelt isn’t just a browser for Facebook, you can update both your Facebook and Twitter accounts, plus with the built in Share button, you can Tweet about various sites, videos, photos and things you find on the Internet. On the right of the browser, where your Twitter and various other bookmarks are placed, RockMelt will soon be rolling out further social media add-ons, expect YouTube, Flickr, Stumble etc. in the near future.

RockMelt is the first browser to be fully backed by the Cloud, so this allows you to access your preferences anywhere; all you have to do is log in through your Facebook account. If you use a certain website often then RockMelt will log that site and then alert you when the site has been updated.

Below is the promo video showing all of RockMelts features in action -

Why Businesses Need Social Media

Aaron Charlie — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:03:04 +0000

by webtreats on flickr

Social Media has become near-essential for businesses the most important, of course, is to increase sales but there are also many other benefits. Potential customers are out there and they are talking about what they like and what they don’t like, you need to be listening to and talking with them to really reap the benefits of social media.

If you would like to learn how to use social media for your business then try our Social Media Training, in Brighton, Sussex, or perhaps Blogging Training and WordPress Training would be more suitable for you. To monitor how you are performing you may need Google Analytics Training.

Here are some reasons as to why you need to get your business out there and be more active in the online social media world -

Increase Website Visibility –

On every social media website there will be an about you section, this is where you fill it up with as much information about you, your business and links back to your website, this will drive more traffic to your site and also help your business ranking in the search engines.

Businesses that fail to realise what impact social media has on search engine rankings will be left behind. To compete you will need not only great content, which includes your updated blog, but also be using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Technorati, Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon and other types of social media. You only need to look at the partnerships that are springing up all the time between search engines and social media companies to realise the impact that one has on the other.

If you regularly update your social media outlets with good content then people will read it and then go to your site for more information. Also be aware of people talking about the products that you sell, if someone asks on Twitter- ‘Where can I get some good Business Training in Brighton?’ I would then respond saying- ‘@SBTTraining offer great Business Training, ring or email them if you want anymore information.’

See what people are saying about you or your product -

To find out what people are saying, whether it’s good or bad, you can set up a few things to monitor what is going on online, try the following –

Google Alerts – You enter your own search terms and then Google will send you an email with information on where your search terms have appeared in news, other websites and people blogs.

Social Mention – You can use Social Mention to monitor over 100 different social media platforms, these include; Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Digg etc. Plus you can have updates directly sent to your email once a day.

Twitter Search – For instant access to what people are talking about then I suggest you download and use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite for your twitter accounts. You can use either of these programs to set up a search for certain keywords or phrases, you’ll then be able to see what people are saying and it is constantly updated.

Constant Industry/ World Updates –

If something major is going on in your industry then you need to know about and then react accordingly. You can use your blog to tell your customers what they need to know.You should be aware of the local/ national/ worldwide news and current events as these things can change your strategy or even affect your business. For example if a news story comes out explaining that the last toy is spontaneously combusting, then you can reassure customers that your product is safe or, if its true, apologise and recall the product and ask your customers to send it to a certain address.

Answer questions and answer customer feedback –

Having a Facebook Page can encourage people to ask questions, you can then respond and maybe start a conversation with someone. The same applies to someone giving feedback on your product, you can say thank you if it’s positive, or help rectify anything that has gone wrong for them. It is very important you handle yourself fittingly and professionally here as others can read what you are saying and can also comment. It also shows that you’re are active within the community and easily available to contact people’s queries or questions.

Updates in an Emergency –

With Twitter being so instant you can almost guarantee that if something has gone wrong for you, it will have gone wrong for lots of other people and they will all be talking about. For example, this Monday morning, after the clocks had gone back, my iPhone alarm didn’t go off until an hour later. I was then late for work, and I certainly wasn’t the only one judging by the amount of twitter updates proclaiming the same thing! Apple is now desperately trying to rectify this before the Americans clocks go back next weekend.

Worldwide Reach –

When has there been an easier way to reach people all over the world within seconds? This is the easiest way to get you and your product out there to the masses. You are no longer restricted to advertising locally or even nationally, social media allows you to publicize your products and news to the world, and the best thing is that the world can talk back to you. You can still advertise locally, but you can now tie it in with your online presence. If you made a short advert for local TV, you can now upload it to YouTube for the rest of the world to see too.

The best thing about Social Media; Its FREE! –

You can sign up to any number of these sites completely for free and get going on you own social media adventure. You obviously need to invest a lot of time and effort to learn the ropes and find out what you can do with it, but there are many tutorials and others who can help you with that. Once you find your target and start to carve out a niche for yourself, your return on investment will be fantastic!

How are your Tweets Ranked by Google?

Aaron Charlie — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 09:18:47 +0000

by Bjarne Panduro Tveskov on Flickr

According to a leading Google engineer, Google has adapted and developed new filters in their algorithms so that real time updates, like twitter, can all be logged and then shown in your relevant search results.

If you would like to learn more about Search Engine Optmisation then you should take our Search Engine Optimisation Training course or perhaps try our Social Media Training and Email Marketing Training courses in Brighton, Sussex.

Last month Google released real-time technology for its search engine, it allows searchers the ability to search and find up to date blogs posts and current news almost instantly. It used to take Google between 5 and 15 minutes to find and log new news, and with this human need to know everything as soon as it happens, that just wasn’t quick enough.

Twitter and Google have completed a major deal to now get immediate access to all their tweets, Bing have also done the same but Google claim to offer the best search results. Google also has a broader range of results, they also search and scan through headlines of the news, Facebook feeds, MySpace updates and other sources.

Back in March when the project was in Beta Google announced:

“The Search team is working on a beta project that returns the most popular tweets for a query, rather than only the most recent tweets.”

Similar to Google’s PageRank technology, its tweet searches help find relevant web pages using its standard web search. With Google’s PageRank, Google decides how important a page is, depending on set words or phrases, by looking at the website’s link-structure. The higher the links to that page and the more pages linking to the people linking to you, the more significant the original page is.

Googles reference to ranking according to popularity suggests that the number of Retweets could be a factor. When you are using the case study of Twitter, then its all about following and followers. You obviously want to be followed by as many people as you can get, but it’s also about the quality of the people you follow. By following people with fewer followers than you, you are giving them your reputation. The fact that you have a lot of followers means that if you follow someone with less followers, you deem them to be interesting and worth following. It’s certainly more than just a popularity contest.

“It is more than a popularity contest”, said Google’s Amit Singhal. ”One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation.

As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well.”

As well as follower reputation Google also uses the following to rank tweets:

Hashtags - Hashtags are symbols that start with a # followed by a popular topic, for example #pmot. If a hashtag is included in a tweet, the tweet will show up in the real-time results when other Twitter users click the hashtag’s topic word elsewhere on the site.
Spam - Hashtags, however, are also often abused for spamming. The wrong hashtags can serve as a red flag that triggers Google’s spam filters.Amit Singhal didn’t go into the details but he said that Google modeled the hashtagging behavior in ways that tend to reduce the exposure of low-quality tweets.
Signal in the noise - There are thousands of tweets containing popular words such as “Obama”. To sort out the relevant tweets, Google looks for “signals in the noise” such as an increasing number of tweets that mention other words near mentions of “Obama”, for example “Cambridge police”. The tweets with the signals will be chosen for the real-time results.

New Twitter – Why it really Matters?

Heather Buckley — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:40:09 +0000

The big tweet off

Twitter has had a massive impact on business and social networking, relationship management and marketing, however the platform itself with all its chunkiness and awkwardness has fallen short of capturing the public heart. Enter Tweetdeck, Seesmic and Hootsuite who were all quick to improve the user experience for browsers and mobile devices. #Newtwitter changes everything! Now twitter is an application providing rich information and ease of use. The new design encourages a deeper exploration of data within Twitter has only been exposed in bits and pieces by third-party applications before now. Browsing with #Newtwitter is now as rewarding as communicating with it.

To learn more about using twitter for your business you could attend our social media training course in Brighton, Sussex. Email Marketing training, SEO training and Ajax Training is also provided.

Not to go unnoticed is the new design allows more room for advertisements and promotions so expect to see Twitter capitalising more on its substantial network.

Third party applications

Newtwitter is not just another design it is a fundamental change in the company from a free communication tool with very open development opportunities rather like email to a business model where API’s are going to be more controlled and opportunities for third party developers that are more user focused than profit focused will dry up or at least be much more controlled.

Previously, developers took Twitter data and reused it in another context within their own applications and services. #Newtwitter does the opposite – it brings rich embedded content into the site from the web. In the past Twitter’s API’s were developed as a means to enable outside developers to accomplish what the company did not. NowTwitter is building the best applications in-house. Inevitably the New Twitter Platform will serve Twitter’s interests, whereas third party applications such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeack and Seismic were developed to serve the needsof both the developer and the user community.

The relationship between twitter and third party developers is now a very different one; developers may be frustrated as they’re forced to rethink their projects and products. Users are able to toggle between #newtwitter and the old design for a few weeks, but for developers, there’s no going back.

New Twitter takes on Tweetdeck and Hootsuite

Aaron Charlie — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:03:12 +0000

New Twitter

The new Twitter is expected to produce a fuller experience with more information available for its users. It has been designed to keep users within the site and stop them from going to other parts of the web for videos, photos etc.

Here at Silicon Beach Training we offer various Social Media Courses in Brighton, Sussex, in Social Media Training, SEO Training as well as Blogging Training.

Find out as soon as your Twitter account has been upgraded to the New Twitter by using this app by @meltingice.

Split Screen layout offers clear and intuitive features

The layout gives users a split-screen with their normal feed down the left and on the right it includes different interactive options depending on the tweet. It also boasts a clearer timeline and infinite scrolling without having to click more.

New Partnership with YouTube, Flickr and TwitPic for better viewing of media

The biggest change is the extended information on the right side of the screen split. Twitter gives the user the option to view photos and videos, thanks to its new partnerships with YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic etc. As well as those partnerships, extra information like replies, @mentions, retweets or any other useful information linked in with that tweet will be displayed.

Twitters goal has never been to increase the amount of time spent on the site, in fact they are trying to execute the complete opposite of that, they want users to get as much information out of the site in as quick a time as possible.

These changes will become available to users over the next couple of weeks, but you will still be able to change between the new and old layout so users can get used to it.

Is this Twitters way of bringing people back to their site, rather than using other external applications like TweetDeck, Seesmic and HootSuite?