Twitter

Curing data hoarding: an update

by Jason on October 3, 2011 · 2 comments

rehab

It’s been a month since I recognized that I was a hard code data hoarder, so here’s a quick update on some tricks I’ve developed to cure my data hoarding “condition”:

Flipboard is a fantastic iPad app that lets you consume your Google Reader stuff along with curated content and social media feeds in a magazine-like format that puts the articles on a page in a really attractive layout that also lets you get the gist of most of them without having to click (tap) through.

This has tamed my Google Reader obsession in a few ways (to be clear, I’m still using Reader, but as a data store, not as an interface.)  For starters, there’s no unread count staring at me.  The summaries I mentioned earlier make it easier to just scan the intro to each story without feeling the urge to skim the whole thing.

And finally, a surprise I didn’t think I was able to handle: I now read new stuff first.  In the past I’d start way back at the beginning so I wouldn’t miss the context of updates to evolving stories.  This was seriously holding me back, because I couldn’t read the “news” without starting where I left off, when the most valuable, gotta act now stuff is at the other end of the pipe.  It turns out I’m pretty good at deducing what’s new from the latest stuff.  Huh.

For Twitter data hoarding, three techniques have been helping. My original plan to follow more users to overwhelm the stream is kind of working, but to be honest I haven’t built that list up very much, because I’ve been spending less time on Twitter as a whole (I’ve been tempted to try one of those autofollow automation systems, but it still feels weird to me.)

Spending less time on Twitter is mostly a result of being really really busy, which requires focus, which requires less attention to the social streams outside of allocated times.  Now I know I only have 10 minutes to spare out of a given chunk of time, so I tend to just read what’s happened in the past hour or so, and interact from there.

Lastly, I’ve started using HootSuite for scheduled tweets, so I can batch-submit my non-conversational “timeless gems” and spread them out over a few days.  This lets me spend my active time on Twitter in a more conversational mode, and removes the danger of ducking in to post something and getting sucked into reading everything that’s happened since I last checked (my HootSuite dashboard doesn’t show a stream, just an input box.)

And in the other area of data hoarding where I download everything compulsively to read, listen to or watch later, the solution got pretty simple: my hard disk got full.  Adding scarcity to the equation has forced me to think a little more before I grab things for “later,” so I think I’ll hold off on hardware upgrades for a little while longer.

Photo by tedmurphy

Tagging photos with Facebook pages: the next next hurdle?

by Jason on May 16, 2011 · 0 comments

Ike button

I know, this post has nothing to do with Eisenhower, but I was searching for Like Button pictures and couldn't resist

Fast Company sends word that Facebook users can now tab company pages in their photos in addition to users, and how it’s the next evolution of Like As they put it:

Social media experts have begun to look askance at the Like system. It’s so easy for someone to “Like” something. What does it really signify? If you “Like” a kind of soda, for example, does that actually mean that you’re buying the item? Or just that you like the idea of the item? How do you really know how engaged with the product any particular Liker actually is?

Now think about tags in photos. If you’ve tagged a photo in which you’re wearing that cute pair of jeans, you don’t simply like the idea of the designer. You’ve actually gone out and put down some of your hard-earned cash for their duds. Photo tags, then, become a much stronger signal of engagement.

I don’t disagree that it’s a stronger sign of engagement; after all, it takes more work than just clicking a button, but I don’t think a tag in a photo means you’re necessarily a customer.  It could just be a sign that you’re more obsessive-compulsve than the average Facebook user.  It could also be a sign that you’re pissed at the company, which means Facebook just opened the door to Twitter-style brand management issues on a platform that possibly has more influence (fun fact: 8% of Americans who use the internet are on Twitter, while more than 41% of Americans have Facebook accounts, apparently – different research methodologies there, but the gap is still significant.)

Anyway, the article goes on to suggest some interesting advertising opportunities, which Facebook hasn’t enabled yet, but could be compelling – if I could put an ad in front of people who took the time to tag my company in their photos, that might be a win, whether the tag was positive (and my brand gets built further) or negative (can’t hurt, really.)

We’re talking much smaller numbers than standard media buys though, given the orders-of-magnitude smaller (yet arguably much more targeted) audience, so unless it can be folded into an existing social media campaign where the daily work is already being done, this might not make sense for many organizations.  I’m a little skeptical of mixing ad buys with social media management in general though; if your team is big enough to have separate content and analytics people, then maybe there’s a fit, but I think the person who does your comment replies isn’t necessarily the person who should be buying your ads – consult him or her regarding them, sure, but it’s a left brain/right brain kind of thing.

Hat tip: Guin. Photo by Kevin.

Tasti D-Lite extends social media to the point of sale

by Jason on February 26, 2010 · 5 comments

It doesn’t appear to be available online yet, but the latest issue of Inc has a piece on how to get people on Twitter to follow your business.  One of the companies profiled was Tasti D-Lite, which sells, I don’t know, desserts or something.  OK, I do know.  In the course of writing this post I’ve learned nearly everything there is to know about the company, because fact checking is awesome. But that doesn’t matter right now.

What matters is that they spent $10K to upgrade their point-of-sale system to incorporate Twitter and other social networks into their loyalty program.

Based on the article, this was going to be a different kind of post.  See if you can guess why:

“To get points for tweeting, a customer submits his Twitter username and password. Then every time he buys something at a store, he swipes a loyalty card at the register.  Tasti D-Lite’s point-of-sale system automatically logs in to his Twitter account and sends a tweet informing his followers of the purchase.”

Thankfully, it looks (from the description anyway) that they’re using Twitter’s OAuth integration instead of actually collecting usernames and passwords, so I don’t have to write an article called something like “security schmecurity – people will do anything for ice cream.”

Instead, we’re starting to see early examples of physical/virtual integration, and it’s kind of exciting, if not early (a Twitter search today for Tasti D-Lite suggests that well under a dozen people participated in the past week.)

Lately I’m of a mind that Facebook got people online, Twitter got them more comfortable with telling the whole world a little bit about themselves, and FourSquare made it OK to track their every movement.  The interesting part is that people new to these services find themselves mentally blocked for updates, so the ability to automatically say they’ve bought ice cream is actually a potential value-add as opposed to a minor sellout of their individual identities – it’s really no different from “I’m at Starbucks.”

At the moment, of course, the Facebook – Twitter – FourSquare – Tasti D-Lite (et. al.) funnel is pretty narrow.  For it to grow there’s going to have to be large scale investment in point-of-sale systems, and I can only hope that someone will step in and make something that’s open and extensible to make room for the next generation of players instead of yet another exclusivity play.  Credit card terminal makers, are you paying attention?