1. http://www.google.com/profiles/playboyp
Just the good stuff
Musician Kanye West performs onstage during the 2010 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on June 27, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.
Kanye West doesn't like his new rug. The rapper appears to be redecorating his house — buying gold-encrusted goblets, coveting 19th century artwork, and turning his home "real Kingish," as he puts it. But the rugs are all wrong. "I specifically ordered Persian rugs with cherub imagery!!!" He wrote on Twitter on July 28. "What do I have to do to get a simple Persian rug with cherub imagery uuuuugh."
Oh, Kanye. We've missed you.
Hip-hop's most ridiculous rapper has been relatively quiet in recent months — ever since that 2009 MTV Music Video Awards outburst about Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video being better than Taylor Swift's (which, by the way, it was) and someone on his PR team told him to shut it until the backlash died down. Well, time's up. Kanye has a new album out in September — formerly called Good Ass Job, it's currently without a name — and the promotional firestorm is kicking into gear. Kanye has already performed at the BET Awards and appeared at the khaki-clad offices of Facebook and Twitter. Then, on July 28, he opened a Twitter account. And here's what we discovered: Kanye is funny.
His blog, Kanyeuniversecity.com, has made us laugh for years, but it was sometimes hard to tell if we were laughing with Kanye or at him. The all-caps rants — such as the January 2009 post that began with the phrase, YOOOO WHY WON'T YOU LET ME BE GREAT!!! and ended with the request that we all "LOOK HOW FRESH MY SUIT IS" — seemed to be accidentally hilarious. And when fans complained that he showed up two hours late for a 2008 Bonaroo performance, Kanye didn't apologize, he blogged an obscenity-laced rant and called everyone at Bonaroo "squid brains." Basically, Kanye seemed like a diva. But on Twitter, he's different. He's more sarcastic, even tongue-in-cheek. Maybe we've had Kanye all wrong.
According to Twitter, here are some things Kanye West has done in the past two days:
• Flown on a private jet
• Complained that the private jet he flew on was too small.
• Called himself king and then posted a photo of one of Napoleon's thrones
• Drank wine out of a gold goblet
• Bemoaned the lack of cherubs
• Listened to the "William Tell Overture" ("Classical music is tight, yo")
• Listened to Leonard Bernstein. ("[His] flute player is snapping write now!!! Are those Christmas bells?")
• Put fresh flowers in his house
• Explained what it was like to date a model: "I had to learn to like small dogs and cigarettes"
• Asked for decorating advice: "Is the Versace sofa too hood? Might need to cover it in plastic!!!"
• Ordered his salmon cooked medium instead of medium well ("I didn't want to ruin the magic")
• Posted photos of Louis XIV's credenza
• Asked someone to give him this horse
Close to 300,000 people are now following his Twitter account and looking at his pictures of furniture. The number of people Kanye is following? Zero.
It seems that Kanye West is doing a tour of the Silicon Valley’s nerd hubs. After freestyling over at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, the other day — and subsequently joining Twitter yesterday — he jammed on over to Twitter Central and treated Biz Stone and Co. to a performance as well.
As pointed out yesterday, Kanye West has an almost embattled relationship with the micoblogging service. Last year, he busted out with the following rant on his blog — which now only yields an “Error 404″ when you try to locate it. Regardless, here it is:
“I DON’T HAVE A F*CKING TWITTER… WHY WOULD I USE TWITTER??? I ONLY BLOG 5 PERCENT OF WHAT I’M UP TO IN THE FIRST PLACE. I’M ACTUALLY SLOW DELIVERING CONTENT BECAUSE I’M TOO BUSY ACTUALLY BUSY BEING CREATIVE MOST OF THE TIME AND IF I’M NOT AND I’M JUST LAYING ON A BEACH I WOULDN’T TELL THE WORLD. EVERYTHING THAT TWITTER OFFERS I NEED LESS OF. THE PEOPLE AT TWITTER KNOW I DON’T HAVE A F*CKING TWITTER SO FOR THEM TO ALLOW SOMEONE TO POSE AS ME AND ACCUMULATE OVER A MILLION NAMES IS IRRESPONSIBLE AND DECEITFUL TO THERE FAITHFUL USERS. REPEAT… THE HEADS OF TWITTER KNEW I DIDN’T HAVE A TWITTER AND THEY HAVE TO KNOW WHICH ACCOUNTS HAVE HIGH ACTIVITY ON THEM. IT’S A F*CKING FARCE AND IT MAKES ME QUESTION WHAT OTHER SO CALLED CELEBRITY TWITTERS ARE ACTUALLY REAL OR FAKE. HEY TWITTER, TAKE THE SO CALLED KANYE WEST TWITTER DOWN NOW …. WHY? … BECAUSE MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS LOUD!!!!!!!!!”
Now it seems that West has full-on embraced the service, even noting once — in the midst of a torrent of tweets — “awwwww man this is addictive I might get in trouble on here!!!!” So much for only blogging “5%” of what he’s up to.
When it was written about his entrance on to Twitter yesterday, West had around 20,000 followers — now he has 228,862.
What do you think of the rapper’s reversal of his previous opinion? Do you think his embracing social media can save his tarnished image? Let us know.
“140-character status updates to a network of followers.” That makes Twitter sound simple. But in fact, the social information platform has grown to be much more complex than its 140 character-limit suggests. The site not only connects people, but has also become an intricate information resource for everything from news to shopping deals.
Yet in many ways, the site’s actual functionality hasn’t exactly kept up with user interactions. Twitter’s interface has remained simple, which is why a lot of tweets take place through third-party sites and applications that make the experience more useful.
We’ve compiled a list of the top 20 third-party websites for making your Twitter experience more useful and easier to manage. Although this does not include the many desktop or mobile applications that are available for Twitter, we hope that it will make your browsing experience more enjoyable as you dive into the Twittersphere. Also, as a one-stop shop for Twitter apps, check out OneForty. We’d love to hear what’s missing from this list, including sites that you find useful in the comments.
With its recent update and HTML5 support, social media dashboard HootSuite has become one of the most useful Twitter web applications not only for individual users, but teams managing several accounts. In some ways, HootSuite has the look and feel of TweetDeck with the big differentiator of it being a web-based application, not requiring any downloads.
HootSuite enables you to update to multiple accounts at once, and supports Twitter, Facebook profiles and pages, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace and Foursquare. Similar to TweetDeck, these features make the application useful for maintaining your overall social presence. Moreover, you can allow other users to jointly update an account, integrate Google Analytics for your stats and schedule tweets and updates ahead of time.
The HTML5 interface enables you to easily include an image or file with your update by simply dragging it from the desktop into the message box, which will automatically upload the file with an “Ow.ly” shortener for sharing. The fast loading of the dashboard is perhaps one of the most notable improvements, making the site more usable for users who manage dozens of accounts. If you don’t like Hootsuite, you should also check out Seesmic, which has a lot of similar features, but a different interface.
Brizzly has a different functionality from Hootsuite, but may be more appealing because of its simple interface. Brizzly is specifically focused on Twitter and no other networks, which makes the experience somewhat less distracting. It also includes subtle, but worthy features like automatically expanded URLs, which shows you exactly where you are going if you click, and displays replies and direct messages in a threaded form, making it easier to follow the conversation.
After you log in with your Twitter username, The Twitter Tim.es creates a page that displays stories by filtering through what the people you follow have tweeted the most in a more presentable stream that is updated regularly. Though the design of the interface isn’t the best, The Twitter Times is effective in showing you who has tweeted the story along with the story headline and blurb to give you an idea of what it’s about. In some cases, the site shows you the full text of the post. It also gives you options to view popular stories on Twitter from media sources and Twitter Lists.
The site helps you filter through the noise and keep up with what is trending among the people you follow. If you’ve been off the grid for a couple hours, you can get a sense of what people are sharing and the news that is important among your Twitter community at any given moment.
Paper.li has similar functions but a different presentation. Users can create their own “newspaper” based on who they follow. Users can also create newspapers based on a Twitter hash tag or a Twitter list. Instead of a stream, Paper.li presents content by creating a custom homepage that separates content based on popularity and topics. The site does a great job of making the content visually appealing by including thumbnails, YouTube videos and blurbs.
TweetMeme is best recognized for its bright green buttons on websites (like this one), enabling users to easily tweet the article they’re reading. All of the information is collected at TweetMeme from across the web, giving a good sense as to what is trending on Twitter. The site enables you to filter by categories and topics (entertainment, gaming, etc.) and to showcase the most retweeted links. You also get a brief blurb from the link being shared and are able to filter by news articles, images and videos.
Trendistic also works well, but specifically for bigger Twitter trends and how they have performed over time. The site gives you an idea of current trends and presents them in a graphic format, showing you the percentage that the trends account for at any give time. For example, on July 8, “heat” accounted for 1.8% of all tweets at 9 p.m. during LeBron James’ big announcement that he would be joining the Miami Heat. You can also sort the trend based on timeframe, and get a code to embed the chart on your site.
Tlists is a Twitter Lists directory where you can search by list topic, view popular lists, and create your own lists. Users can also apply to join a list, and the creator is then notified and can approve them to join the list depending on whether they are a good fit. Lists are a great curating tool in rounding up like-minded tweeters in one place. It functions not only as a directory, but also as a stream of useful information around a specific subject. But after you have that list, how can you make it more presentable?
PubliTweet takes your Twitter Lists and makes them a lot more useful. It does this by providing a nice embed code that presents the lists in a handy stream that includes the text of the tweet, headline, thumbnail and blurb of the article they are sharing. You can take the code and plant the list anywhere on your site. Not only does PubliTweet make your Twitter Lists more useful visually, the tweets are also more shareable through convenient Twitter, Facebook and e-mail share buttons.
TwapperKeeper and Trendistic are great tools for getting some basic stats on how much a specific hashtag on Twitter is performing. Though there are several other sites that give you more options (often for a price), these two sites are simple to use in getting a general overview. TwapperKeeper lets you create an archive for tracking a specific hashtag, keyword, or username and collects the data and the number of mentions. If you’re interested in getting a sense for how many times a specific hashtag was tweeted, it gives you a total number, along with the ability to search precisely through the archive that you created, listing the recent tweets that have been tracked. The beautiful part is that you can also export the data and analyze it to your liking.
Though Twitter released a script that allows interactive tweet embedding, the code has had some issues and isn’t always ideal. QuoteURL seems to be the best option for creating embedable tweets. The app enables you to add multiple tweet URLs and embed them into a post. You can also embed an individual one, but if you want to get a stream of tweets to embed, this is the tool to use.
The application gives you a nice, clean embed such that users can see the text of the tweet, but it also preserves the interactivity of being able to reply, click on the username, or any links within the tweet. Essentially, it mirrors the experience a user has engaging with individual tweets on Twitter. This makes your tweets a bit more useful than just a screenshot, however, many sites and blogs have yet to adopt it because the embed doesn’t show up in blogger’s RSS feeds.
Though Twitter has launched its own location feature with Twitter Places, which will likely be expanded in the future, there are several other sites that showcase location-based tweets. Local Twitter Trends displays trends in major cities and allows you to click on the keywords to see what people are talking about. It’s very simple and to the point, giving you an easy way to track the conversation in a specific place.
However, if you want to track news on specific topics, monitter might be the better choice. This site allows you to not only search for a specific location, it also lets you track three specific searches within that area — in real time — and displays the results in an easy-to-view, three-column format. You can also adjust the radius of the area that you’re searching.
WeFollow is a Twitter directory from Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, that emphasizes topics that users associate themselves with. Anyone can easily add themselves to the directory by simply tweeting out the hashtags that will make their usernames searchable in the directory. The site is great for discovering new users that you might share common interests with. It also enables you to view the top users in each category.
Twellow’s tagline is the “Twitter Yellow Pages,” and aims to be the directory to search for Twitter users based on industries and topics like biotechnology, food, home and garden, etc. In a lot of ways it is the ultimate directory for Twitter, also enabling you to search for users based on area. It also offers a very useful search engine.
Type a username into Klout and you can get a sense for how influential that user is on Twitter and their behavior. Klout gives you a score out of 100 based on reach, amplification and network after being compiled from numbers like the total retweets, message reach, unique mentions, retweeters, and more. The cool feature is the influence matrix, which defines the user and gives you a brief description of their behavior on Twitter. Klout also tells you who the user influences and is influenced by, as well as a topic summary of their tweets.
TwitterCounter tracks the top accounts and lists on Twitter based on how many followers they have and gives you some more basic numbers of influence based on growth and rank of the user’s account. The site provides some basic graphs tracking the number of the follower, following, and tweet growth over time, even setting a predicting number for where you will be in the future based on your average growth. It also enables you to easily compare several accounts at once, and build a handy widget for your site that tracks and displays recent Twitter visitors to your site.
Among the first sites to make sharing photos on Twitter easy and popular, Twitpic is still one of the best. It’s also useful to browse through the public timeline of photos uploaded, and now you can even tie location to the photos you upload. It also lets you group photos into events, which is great for organization.
Yfrog lets you not only upload photos, but videos as well. The site is also extremely useful and easy to navigate. One simple Yfrog feature that Twitpic fails to include is a site search. Yfrog allows you to sort videos and pictures based on popularity, and showcases top search trends on the site. You can also easily share the photos across platforms and get an embed code for the image. Here’s an example of Glee star Mark Salling’s Yfrog post about a recent big catch:
PollDaddy has an easy integration for creating a quick poll that can be easily distributed on Twitter. The setup is easy. You create a poll question, select the answers (multiple choice, etc.) and the order you want them to appear, enter your username and post it to Twitter. The site sends a nice clean tweet with a link to the poll where users can vote. After setting the poll up, it is also quite easy to embed the poll into a post. It’s also worth mentioning PollDaddy has a great WordPress plugin that enables you to easily create polls within the content management system.
TwtPoll is similar to PollDaddy but has a different interface and allows users to answer questions through different formats, such as text, images or videos, Twitter handles or addresses.
It takes only a quick glance at the most “faved” and retweeted updates to know that tweeters love the funny. A good 140-character quip is a jewel in any Twitter feed, and the network has impacted humor for pros and amateurs alike.
If you tweet with the right crowd, Twitter can be a hilarious non-stop party. And if you follow professional comedians who use Twitter well, you’ve got a free, live, unfiltered stand-up show right in your feed. Many humor pros have used the medium to reignite their careers and reach new fans.
But is Twitter humor different from “traditional” humor? And what happens when the television, publishing, and performance industries are set aside in favor of direct “social” comedy? We spoke with some hilarious tweeters to get their take on these trends, and on what it means to get a laugh in the digital age.
You’ve only got 140 characters to fit the setup, punchline, and some breathing room for retweets. Depending on your comedic style, Twitter might be the perfect medium, or your greatest challenge. In either case, the cap has propagated a culture of “one-liners” or “riffs,” and the funniest of the Twitterati have been hitting them home for some time.
“The people that get a lot of play [on the funniest Twitterers lists] are people who keep it really simple,” said comedian and writer Paul F. Tompkins, who hosted VH1’s Best Week Ever and tweets regularly in between stand-up gigs. “In that arena, it’s so digestible. You get it: This is a joke.”
“Even the longest stories in your act should be succinct,” said stand-up comedian and writer Steve Hofstetter. “Twitter’s focus on the economy of words is a good thing.”
For pros who have been joking in other media, it takes some work to adapt. “I enjoy the challenge of, How can I sound like me in 140 characters?” said Tompkins.
The writers and performers of the 90s cult comedy TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 have found Twitter to be the perfect channel for their brand of one-liner comedy. Their more recent venture, RiffTrax, is their digital way of talking back to bad movies, and their promotion is highly social.
“We have been working in the quip business for quite a while, so [Twitter] works well for us,” said Michael J. Nelson of RiffTrax. “But I think it’s allowed people to find their comedic ‘voices’ in an environment somewhat safer than a bar. Fewer Piña Coladas being blended during your punchlines. Less flying food.”
“It’s amazing how much people love delivering one-liners. It’s like crack,” said Kevin Murphy of RiffTrax. “You could say it’s cultivated a more literary form of one-liner. Hasn’t cut down on the volume of dick jokes, though.”
“It’s not surprising that a big share of riffs we put into a RiffTrax movie are 140 characters or less. WE HAVE BEEN TRAINING ALL OUR LIVES FOR THIS,” Murphy added with capitalized emphasis in an e-mail interview.
The flip side is, there’s no filter. The publishers, editors and producers through which we have traditionally gotten our comedy don’t exist on Twitter. So you get the good with the bad.
“Good: There’s a lot of genuine wit out there, from many different and unexpected quarters,” said Bill Corbett, the third comic brain behind RiffTrax. “Bad: The Tweet-groaners that are trying way too hard, and still seem too long at 140 characters. So it’s a renaissance just like the actual Renaissance: Amazing art, but with occasional outbreaks of bubonic plague.”
Funny, audience-building tweeters, as well as established Twitter-savvy celebs can click a button and send laughs out to hundreds, even thousands of fans. There’s no gig to arrange, book to publish, or episode to shoot. It’s become a very direct and personal form of comedy for many writers.
“I think the ‘publish yourself, whenever you want!’ aspect of Twitter greatly appeals to professional writers and comedians,” said Corbett. “Most of us have the faith, and perhaps the arrogance, to believe that we are almost always worth hearing or reading. Most of us are mistaken, of course,” he added, including himself in this category. “The idea of playing whenever you want to an ever-waiting audience is rather addictive.”
Tompkins views it as a much more social experience than performing via traditional channels. “I end up thinking of it in way more intimate terms because people are talking to me directly when [they] respond to what I’ve written. I don’t think of it as 50,000+ people expectantly looking at me,” he said. “It just feels to me like I’m another person on Twitter. I read other people’s stuff, so it’s like, ‘Here’s my contribution to what everybody’s talking about.’”
The real game-changer for performers seems to be in the dialogue. “One of the things that’s been so great is to find out that my fans are funny. The people that like me are actually funny people themselves,” said Tompkins. “That’s so satisfying and so flattering. It’s like, ‘Wow, smart, funny people like what I do.’”
But Hofstetter has reservations about how much Twitter is impacting traditional comic reach. “Well, most comedians aren’t playing to thousands on [Twitter]. I don’t think it’s changing the industry, as it’s exceedingly rare for someone to get famous [from] Twitter. Typically, the famous people have a big audience and the non-famous people do not.”
Plenty of businesses look for ways to be fun or personal on social networks in order to build a market for their products. For many tweeting comedians, the medium is the message, and snagging “LOLs” on Twitter is both an art and a marketing strategy.
“It’s changed my way of looking at promotion, really,” said Tompkins. “How do I boil down my essence in this very limited amount of space to give people an idea of me and the way that I’m funny to maximum effect? It’s been an enormous boon for my career.”
Tompkins noted that Facebook Groups come in handy as well for organizing attendees at his live performances. When enough fans commit to a show in a particular city, he’ll book it and perform for them. Twitter is a way to drive people back to the Facebook Groups, and get the word out about committed performance dates.
“There’s always conjecture with social networks about ‘how long is it going to last,’ and ‘people are done with that one, now they’re on to this one.’ For people like me, it’s not all one or the other. It’s using all of them in conjunction with one another to cover all your bases. And it’s fairly easy to do,” Tompkins said.
In addition to their in-studio work, the RiffTrax crew also perform “live riffs” on movies which are simulcasted to theaters nationwide. Much of their Twitter engagement — which includes contests, giveaways, etc. — revolves around these events, and the performers tend to get the most play when tweeting with fans from their personal accounts.
“I don’t have huge numbers of followers, but I suspect a large percentage of those I do have actually care, at least a little bit,” said Nelson. “So people are happy to hear when we have events coming up.”
“We announce to our tweeps, and then they spread the word,” Murphy added. “People link up, meet up at events, tell each other about the surprise live events we’ve been known to do. It’s a hell of a lot more fun and exciting for people than looking at an ad.”
Corbett concurred. “I wouldn’t expect people to follow or enjoy a constant commercial, but I think it’s fine to promote your work in the context of a mostly for-fun account. Mike, Kevin and I all seem to follow that pattern, actually, whereas the RiffTrax account is mostly business.”
But the line between performance and promotion can be a delicate one.
“I have people unfollow me, and they’re like, ‘It’s too much self-promotion, I’m just here for the comedy, so I’m unfollowing you,’” said Tompkins. “So what you’re saying to me is, ‘Hey, you’re not giving me enough comedy for free, so I’m bailing on you.’”
“[T]he relative anonymity allows people to heckle you and run,” Nelson added.
For comic tweeters, it’s about finding the right balance. “We never really stay too serious in any of the four accounts. That would be just plain weird, given what we do,” said Corbett.
One trend that has arisen in snarkier Twitter circles is the habit of talking back to popular culture in real-time. Tweeters riff on live television, sports, and the news regularly. And depending on who you follow, the results can be hilarious.
“Oh, I love it,” said Tompkins. “I think of Oscar night for something like that. To see a bunch of funny people all making comments in real-time as this thing’s happening — that’s like a gigantic party with the funniest people you could imagine. It’s great.”
“It has made live television relevant as fodder, I suppose. Though I’ve worked in TV, I’m delighted to see anything that makes it less passive and brain-deadening,” said Corbett. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of a culture where everyone riffs everything all the time. It could get so self-referential that the universe swallows itself. On the more positive side, people seem happy when they’re creative and interacting with each other, especially for some laughs. It’s hard to think of that as all bad.”
“[I]t gives the audience a voice of their own,” added Murphy. “And that’s really damn cool.”
For the average humor-tweeter who doesn’t have access to a comedy club stage or her own television show, 140-character accolades will have to suffice. But for the current generation of pros who cut their teeth on stage and screen, a retweet or an “LOL” is nice, but not quite the same as the real thing.
“It’s great to hear that people are laughing and retweeting, but a laugh from an audience is something special — sort of a neutron star of delight,” said Murphy.
“Nothing beats a real, live laugh for maximum joy in the moment, unless that laugh is from a mad scientist bent on world domination. Then it’s a little awkward,” Corbett added.
But all the comics we spoke to noted that the retweet has become something special for humorists — something that doesn’t have an exact real-world equivalent.
“What’s really gratifying to me is when people pass on the things that I’ve written,” said Tompkins. “I’m really flattered that people are passing my ‘message of comedy’ along.”
“A retweet is more gratifying than a laugh,” Hofstetter added. “It’s the equivalent of someone re-telling one of your jokes after a show. And not botching it.”
Time will tell if comics who start out in social media (on Twitter, blogs, and the like) will ever be able to reach the mainstream audiences that their predecessors did through television, film and print. We’ve already seen some crossover, and we expect more of it as newer artists use social media as a starting point, rather than a supplementary channel. For the moment though, entertainment, like all industries, straddles the line as it sorts out its digital future.
To wit, Tompkins added, “As much as I love the Internet, nothing beats real life
On March 21st 2006, Twitter’s founders uttered their first tweets. If you look at that moment as a big bang of influence in the ever-expanding Twittersphere, how does Twitter’s cosmos look today? Web design studio Information Architects aims to answer that with an enormous visualization of the Cosmic 140 – the 140 most influential users on Twitter.
The map may look a bit chaotic at first, but it’s not. The founders of Twitter are at the very center of the “galaxy;” long-time Twitter users are closer to the middle, and the two circles for each user (the white one and the transparent one) represent list volume and the number of followers. The users are organized around the circle according to category (indicated on the outer rim of the sphere), such as sports, politics, humor and so forth. Additionally, you can see the first tweet of each user on the map.
As hard as it is to determine the exact level of influence of individual Twitter users, the visualization is an amazing sight to behold. It’s huge, complex, and beautiful. Check the entire version, available as a free PDF, here.
Twitter may be valued at $1.4 billion, but it’s definitely not a smart buy in Suze Orman’s opinion. Well, that is if you’re Mark Z., a 25-year-old degreeless professional with $300 million in liquid assets, $4 billion in Facebook stock, $2,500 in monthly expenses and no debt.
In her latest “Can I Afford It” segment, Orman strongly advises Mark Z. — an obvious reference to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg — against buying Twitter. She exclaims, “You want to spend $1.5 billion on Twitter, do I have that right? … Why do you need to buy it … you know Twitter, you can get it for free.”
Of course, the video is all in jest and first aired at last night’s Shorty Awards in New York. Orman, who happened to be nominated for a Shorty Award in the finance category, agreed to film the spoof video when approached by producers. The end result is a slice of comedic genius at the expense of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and even Chatroulette.
Check out the clever and entertaining mock segment below:
This is part 2 of the "All Things Twitter" book please add url favorite sites and apps in the comments.
Dell is a shining example of a brand that has managed to turn their Twitter presence into both a customer service and sales outlet. Dell may be a big corporation, but the story behind the $6.5 million they’ve raised from their Twitter presence is one that shines a light on a road to success that any company, regardless of size, can learn from and emulate.
I asked Dell’s Senior Manager for Corporate Affairs, Richard Binhammer — otherwise known as RichardatDell — to elaborate on Dell’s Twitter success. The following are principles extracted from that email interview.
If you’re simply motivated to make money from Twitter, your heart is in the wrong place. Dell’s strategy is to turn Twitter into an opportunity to build better relationships with customers, which ultimately leads to stronger sales.
According to Binhammer, Dell didn’t initially approach Twitter with dollar signs in their minds, but instead as a listening outpost. “Dell first heard about Twitter at SXSW a few years back and got excited about the listening aspect of Twitter,” he said.
The businesses side of listening was an unintended but welcome bonus to their effective presence on Twitter.
“Dell’s goal has always been to be an online leader and connect with customers wherever they are. It starts with listening and connecting with customers across the Web. This has proven to be invaluable to our business through the years. We see social media connections as a means to further strengthen those direct customer relationships. The added revenue has been a welcome addition to being where our customers are and connecting with them.”
Dell’s Twitter presence isn’t limited to a single account or purpose. Instead Dell takes a multifaceted approach to Twitter and attempts to serve niche customer communities and interests all over the world.
If you’re just looking for deals, they’ve got an account for that (@DellOutlet), if you just want breaking news there’s an account for that too (@Direct2Dell), and the list goes on.
In Binhammer’s own words, this is how Dell approaches Twitter:
- Direct connections between Dell and customers – listen, learn and engage in direct connections with customers (There are ~ 100 Dell employees using Twitter to connect with customers).
- Subscribe to Dell info – customers can subscribe and get Dell news from our blogs/Ideastorm Twitter.
- Dell offers from businesses – some of our businesses, notably Dell Outlet, publish their latest offers on Twitter.
- More about Dell businesses on Twitter: http://www.dell.com/twitter Here you will see various Dell business accounts such as: Small Business, Dell Canada, UK, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Dell Home Sales, Australia, Japan, China, New Zealand, DellOutletIreland and UK and more
If anything, Dell’s all-hands-on-deck approach to Twitter, demonstrates that you need to serve your customers how they want to be served.
For small businesses in particular, Binhammer recommends that you “Make it easy for your customer to talk to you. Do simple things to thank your customers for their business. Ask them for suggestions. Go where your customers congregate, whether it be Facebook or Twitter or elsewhere, and participate in those conversations. Also, listen to your customers in the blogosphere. What they have to say is vitally important to your business.”
This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many small and big businesses alike use Twitter as a one-way marketing channel with overly promotional tweets.
Spamming your customers on Twitter is a surefire way to get unfollowed and immediately ignored. Of course promoting sales and products is encouraged, but do so in a way that your customers can be receptive to. If you need help defining what that looks like, just ask your followers on Twitter for input.
Dell’s approach, as iterated above, is to serve customers’ interests. The dedicated Twitter account for deals means that they can promote Dell deals to only those customers who have opted in to the purely promotional tweets.
Binhammer advises, “Be yourself and avoid spamming. Making genuine, direct connections with your customers in meaningful ways can only help you deliver what customers want at the end of the day.”
Rapper and Haiti native Wyclef Jean discussed the disaster with Anderson Cooper Tuesday night on CNN.
In the aftermath of a severe earthquake in Haiti late Tuesday, Twitter is playing a critical role in collecting donations to help disaster victims.
Fundraising efforts by the American Red Cross and rapper Wyclef Jean were two of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter early Wednesday. Both organizations asked Twitter users to text a number to make a donation that would be added to their cell phone bills.
The International Federation of the Red Cross estimated that 3 million people were affected by the 7.0-magnitude quake, the center of which was located near capital city Port-au-Prince.
Twitter lit up with posts from around the globe, including some tweets from Haitians who had no other way to communicate amid the chaos. Donation efforts on the site mobilized quickly amid the first natural disaster to strike since the social media site took off.
At about 6:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, the American Cross tweeted that it was pledging an initial $200,000 to assist those affected.
Shortly after midnight, @RedCross updated: "You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti." The "hashtags" denote topics, and users can search the Twitterverse for keywords.
Wyclef Jean, a musician formerly of the popular group The Fugees, used his account @Wyclef to post news updates and quickly raise funds.
Jean, who is from Haiti, founded Yéle Haiti in 2005 to build global awareness for the country, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. At about 6:30 p.m. ET, he tweeted: "Please text "Yele" to 501501 to donate $5 to YELE HAITI.Your money will help with relief efforts. They need our help..please help if you can."
About an hour later, it seemed the system had been overwhelmed with people looking to give aid. @Wyclef posted a message: "Our 501501 Yele donation system is down. It will be fixed shortly please standby."
As the day progressed, more celebrities tweeted to urge their followers to donate. Actor Rainn Wilson of "The Office" posted on his Twitter account to support the organization Planting Peace, which works primarily with orphanages in Haiti.
"House" star Olivia Wilde tweeted that she will send personalized videos to those who donate $100 or more if they email her their electronic receipts.
To follow CNN's Twitter feed devoted to breaking news in Haiti, click: http://twitter.com/cnnbrk/haiti
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