Totally Twitter

Last week Twitter scored a mega funding deal--said to be 100 mil. It got me thinking how pervasive Twitter talk seems to be these days and social media in general.

Many radio folks are trying to figure out how to use social networking to their best advantage....aaaaa.....make money from it. That seems to remain allusive thus far. There may not be a home run money play anytime soon. Of course that doesn't mean it should be kicked to the curb. Done right, there may not be any better way to connect with your station's fans. Done wrong, and risk pushing fans in a different direction.

Companies of all types are also wrestling with how to allow their employees interact with social networking sites during the work day. Many are concerned of too much time wasted, inappropriate comments, and of course liabilities and trade secrets. Some workplaces have banned social networking activity all together. If you are working through these issues there's a website that provides links to companies who already have a social networking policy in place.

More on the subject...Ad Age had this story--Six Reasons Companies Are Still Scared of Social Media.

And finally...a chuckle. The latest craze: Twitteleh

Twitter 101

When it comes to social networking I am an advocate of "fishing where the fish are;" meaning making use of the public social networking sites to connect with listeners. As relationships are built, then, give listeners good reason to visit and partake in proprietary station digital platforms. I believe this strategy enables radio stations to connect and build relationships with many more people in a much shorter time span.

To many, Twitter is still a bit mysterious--it's use, it's value, and it's benefits. Today I read this from post on WebNewser. As you will read Twitter has launched Twitter 101--a guide to how businesses can effectively use the service. It will be basic for some, but for others it will provide a wealth of information.

Twitter 101: Twitter for Businesses

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced the launch of the Twitter 101 initiative during an interview with Fortune editor at large Adam Lashinsky during the magazine's Fortune Brainstorm: Tech summit in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday.

Lashinsky asked when Twitter will implement plans to begin making money, and Stone replied, "The plan is to do that this year—to show some signs of life for a revenue approach," adding that Twitter 101 was the "first step."

On the Twitter blog, Stone wrote:

Many are seeing a wide variety of businesses using Twitter in interesting ways to create value for customers and consumers. As a result, we're often invited by businesses and organizations to talk about Twitter and how it can be used to better engage with customers. Twitter is still a small team, so it made more sense to do some research and make it widely available rather than personally visit businesses big and small.

We coordinated with business students and writers to surface some interesting findings, best practices, steps for getting started and case studies. The results demonstrate how customers are getting value out of Twitter and suggest techniques businesses can employ to enhance that value. While this work was envisioned for businesses, it's also useful for anyone using Twitter, so have a look if you like.

Twitter 101, as the name indicates, starts off with the basics, with sections on the home page entitled "So what does Twitter do for businesses?," "So how does it work?" and "So how do businesses use Twitter?." The home page also includes basic introductory sections like "A brief history of Twitter," "What's up with the name?" and "Why 140 characters?"

The secondary pages on Twitter 101 are: "Getting started," "Learn the lingo," "Best practices," "Case studies" and "Other resources."

Teens and Twitter...And Other Misconseptions

Consulting firm, The Hartman Group has a new podcast discussing the misconceptions of teen tech behavior. Some interesting findings and some simple common sense.

Click here to listen to the podcast

Breaking News or Pre-Recorded Programming?

This past weekend amidst the social unrest taking place in Iran two interesting media related things took place.

Both CNN and Fox News provided extensive live coverage all weekend, nearly 24/7, while MSNBC provided infomercials and re-runs of NBCUniversal produced Investigation series programming practically 24/7. What was MSNBC thinking? I guess big events can only happen Monday through Friday. Weak. Are the resources of NBC News not deep enough anymore? Both FNC and CNN had their big gun news people in the house and both had a fairly deep bench of people trying to uncover information worldwide.

It seems to me that the competitive battle here dictates you throw the budgets and egos away and do what needs to be done to be competitive. A good reminder for us radio folk.

Secondly, this weekends news events are yet another seminal moment in the development of social networking and video enabled smartphones (worldwide) and the power that Twitter possess. In fact, much of the information (that Fox and CNN is using) coming out of Iran was through mobile handheld video and Tweets. Powerful.

Fox was using a Twitter aggregator I had not heard of before. You can check out Monitter here. Simply type in key words in each of the three provided headers and watch the worldwide Tweets start displaying. BTW--wouldn't it be interesting to monitor the activities of your competition this way? Hmmmm.

The Friday Follies

Today, a few different topics.

• Seems like Twitter has been a hot topic here and it has. Hey, if its good enough for Oprah... Wired has a good article on how to discover and share music on Twitter. If you play new music on your station, I see a couple good reasons to use Twitter as a new music tool. 1-Tweet your new music discoveries (new and potential future adds) to your followers. 2-Search your followers for the music they are hyping. Community baby! Check out the article here.

• 4G/WiMax will be a game-changer and forever change the mobile connectivity playing field. In a few places it's already here. We've written about this before, but here's a video taking you inside Intel and their WiMax work.
  

• Even Clear Channel owned INSIDE RADIO has to admit that HD Radio is in [big, big]
  trouble: HD Radio awareness stagnates.
  
  Even though millions of dollars have been spent promoting HD Radio, less than one-third of Americans are aware of what it is. A new study concludes 29% of consumers say they’re familiar with HD Radio. The rate's grown little over the last three years
  
  

Twitter Heart Oprah

Or at least they should. In an age of on-demand, you tube, and self directed content Oprah moves the needle like few others could. To follow up on my recent Oprah debuts on Twitter post--courtesy of Mediabistro-Webnewser.

Oprah Winfrey posted her first Tweet last Friday during her show. US Internet visits to twitter.com increased 24% on that day. And when compared to visits from the previous Friday, the site was up 43%. The following chart, with data from Hitwise, shows daily visits to twitter.com from January 1 - April 18.

Hitwise Clickstream data reveals that on April 17, 37% of visits to Twitter.com were new visitors (as opposed to returning). Additionally, the search term "oprah twitter" was the 35th highest search term with the word "twitter" and the 7th with "oprah" last week. Considering that Hitwise data is weekly and that the show only aired last Friday, this is pretty impressive.

Big Day For Twitter

Oprah has signed on.

Just today Ms. Winfrey signed up and tweeted 6 times during here show.

Now that Oprah, Ashton, and Larry King on board....and me of course...all they need now is a revenue model.

Seriously, Webnewser had this:

Yes, it's happened. This morning Oprah Winfrey joined Twitter (@Oprah) during her show. Her first Tweet: "ASHTON IS NEXT!" was very anti-climactic. Instead of hitting Update, Nate Berkus hit Refresh. So it went to Twitter purgatory. Her first successful Tweet:

HI TWITTERS . THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY .

Oprah sent six successful updates during the show (9amCT) and none since. She'd already had about 75,000 followers at the beginning of the show. As of 4:30pmET (when Oprah airs in New York), she has 144,000 followers. Many social net-watchers think now that Oprah Winfrey is on Twitter, the platform has officially gone mainstream.

But, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Towers and Transmitters

Is the writing on the wall?

Will towers and transmitters, those that transmit traditional AM and FM radio, eventually fade away like a spring-loaded Victrola?

I think so.

Despite the fact that simply turning on a traditional radio and selecting a station is ridiculously simple, easy, and works very well the mobile streaming train has left the station and accelerating to bullet train speeds.

While out and about this past weekend I brought a pair of ear buds with me and "dialed" up a few different platforms on my 2G/EDGE Blackberry Curve and flawlessly listened to a number of different radio stations. It could not have been easier. I can't remember the last time I listened to a radio on a "Walkman" type device outside of a business application.

Transmitters? Transmitters? We don't need no stinkin' transmitters!

When will this take place? I don't know. But the next five years will make even the traditional radio person wonder how much time is left for the tried and true. That I do know.

Think about this, a recent report identified the largest group of Twitter users are people OVER 35! Wait, over 35? Yup.

The mobile device is the most tranformative piece of electronic gadgetry of our time. Not sure any of us thought that would be the case when we first started carrying around those early Motorola brick [in size and weight] cell phones in the early 90's.

Remember, IBM in the early days of the PC thought nobody would want one and passed on being a part of that revolution.

My Network or Yours?

Many ambitious companies and radio stations have a social network vision. Excellent! Many will conceive and launch their own proprietary social network and bypass My Space, Facebook, and Twitter. Mistake!

Use "mass appeal" social networking to your full advantage.

Have a virtual place in which listeners and fans can interact with other listeners and fans, and directly with the radio station and its personalities. Additionally, through the "networking " piece of social networking, expand your friend/fan base by your (station) friends recommending YOUR space on My Space, etc. to their friends and so on.

Use the public social networking sites to stimulate interest and traffic to your content rich website. Go where the people are. Think of Twitter, Facebook, and the others as we used to think of the TV networks--and their ability to drive CUME. Your stations cume and the cume of your website.

If you are thinking this strategy is just for the kids. Think again. Time will show, they are for everyone.

Of course your website should be a community. Just don't forget that there are excellent options to help that community grow.

EZ Widget-making

Got good content on your website? Share it. Have your listeners include your station widget on their My Space, Twitter, or Facebook page. It's easy. I set up an account at Widgetbox, designed my widget, and the software produced the code in short order. There also a ton of already-created widgets that can be customized and placed on your website.



Here's a promotion idea:

Have a listener widget page on your site. Creativity counts. The more creative the better. Maybe encourage listeners to share their favorite songs, favorite club, new movie, or summer activity. Whatever. Put your listeners front and center and make them a part of your community. You could even run a contest to see who can create the best and most creative widget.

Do you already do this? Share it with me and I will feature your website here on this blog. Got a better idea? I will be glad to give you props in this space too.

Where The Twitter Watch Never Stops

Do you Twitter? People are Twittering right now--down the street and around the world and you can watch it all take place in real time.

Take a journey with me to Twittervison 3D. Watch the globe spin to locations around the world and see what people have to say and what they look like (if they posted their photos).



Maybe you're in Las Vegas...see what your neighbors are Twittering with a street level map.


A few things came to mind as I was looking at this on my computer screen.

Wow, now everyone can be "big brother."

Don't write anything you wouldn't want someone/anyone to see.

And to bring it into the radio world...if we can get real-time Twitter reports down to your neighborhood; why can't we get accurate radio ratings? Maybe the future of radio ratings is just a widget away?