Has Twitter become a weapon?

August 10, 2009 By 11 Comments

The recent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on popular social networks was mainly felt by Twitter, which seemed to either be more susceptible or hit harder by the action, resulting in it going offline entirely for a short period.

The concept of Governments using the internet for spreading information or cyberwarfare is not a new one – but the question is how prevalent it is becoming on social networks, and how many users are aware of it happening?

Twitter seems the most likely place for this question to play out – combine a design which lends itself to the fast spread of information, and an average user age which is more likely, as a percentage of users, to be interested in news and events (particularly political), than most social networks.

Examples of the fast spread of news are commonplace, particularly when it comes to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, or human disasters, such as terrorism or fire. And increasingly these pieces of breaking information are being repeated and picked up by unquestioning users seeking to capitalise on the interest, major news organisations, and even shops using it for spam purposes.

Usage of the media by both Governments and unofficial organisations has long existed, but the internet removes the need to engage with ‘official’ media sources to reach a large audience.

And now we’re seeing the potential for Governments or organisations to co-ordinate attacks against popular services. That’s something that print distribution has somewhat protected us against – you might be able to control or attack a printing press in your own country, but it’s harder to exert pressure on foreign media platforms (although not impossible).

But the internet is accessible from any location, meaning that those who don’t believe in freedom of speech or information are able to co-ordinate their attacks on whichever target they deem suitable – and when it comes to media and social networks, we’re relying on the efforts of private companies to respond. And whilst, for example, the UK Government might interject as best it could to preserve a media institution such as the BBC for the good of the country (being a mechanism to effectively reach the population in times of emergency), do we expect – or indeed do we want, Governments to be increasingly involved in attempts to protect social networks and microblogging?

 

What do you think?

Filed Under: twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

When numbers become meaningless and dangerous

August 5, 2009 By 3 Comments

I’ve just been looking at the latest stats from comScore (Via Techcrunch), and the statistics for Facebook‘s arrival as the fourth biggest site in the world illustrated for me why site stats can become both meaningless and rather dangerous.

For starters, the numbers of the top sites are so big that we don’t really have any way of guaging them – as Eddie Izzard explains using the examples of mass murder (some NSFW swearing).

But the big problem with numbers like these is that they can become very dangerous, due to the tendency for people to quote them as law, and rely on them:

Venus Blindfolded by Gastev on Flickr (CC Licence)

Venus Blindfolded by Gastev on Flickr (CC Licence)

Reasons to worry:

  • Monitoring services like comScore and Compete can only track online traffic to domains – no clients and no apps. A particular problem at the moment for Twitter, but growing for all sites.
  • A certain percentage of users are always unquantifiable thanks to cookie deletion etc, or end up showing up different times on different computers
  • In the comScore example, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sites are bundled up into their respective companies, so you can’t tell what comes from Google Search and what comes from Orkut or Google Maps.
  • No accounting for OpenID, Facebook Connect etc.

But essentially, the big risk is:

  • Unless you’re one of the top 20 or so sites, the total number of users of Facebook, Myspace, Bebo etc won’t matter much – you’ll still be able to get 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 fans/friends. What really matters is what you want to achieve, the relevancy of the network, and how you work at building valuable relationships rather than numbers.
  • And rather than numbers, look at the interactions, or for the business minded, how many people actually buy something…

But on the bright side:

Besides the fact we can accept social networking reaches almost as far as the internet with Facebook getting 340 million uniques per year, the fact that Wikimedia Foundations sites clock in right behidn it at 303 million uniques also shows the undeniable value of crowdsourcing user generated input if it’s done relatively well.

And maybe the combination of my three blogs will crack the top 10 next year!

Filed Under: Analytics, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

7 reasons why companies need social media managers

June 8, 2009 By 4 Comments

There has been a lot of debate recently about the need for companies and organisations to employ social media managers and specialists in a dedicated role – the main criticism appears to be that the role isn’t needed because employees already use social media.

That might be the case in a limited number of small organisations, but someone will end up as an unofficial social media expert. And as someone who performed the role for a large organisation, I know there are a number of good reasons for having one person as the focal point – even if every employee is actively representing the group or company.

1. Justification: Are employees going to use social media effectively when they have senior managers questioning whether it’s worthwhile?

2. Guidelines: Most people have a reasonable amount of common sense, but if you haven’t got clear guidelines for employees to refer to if needed, you’ve got no excuse when they get things wrong. And all it can take is one personal attack for even the most responsible employee to make a mistake. That’s assuming they even keep up to date with the latest legalities of using social media in addition to their day job.

3. Analysis: Do you know what’s working? And is a social network referring the most traffic because of scale, or because other social networks are being ignored or done badly?

4. Co-ordination: Do you trust independant employees to know where exclusive news should be revealed first? Or could a status message or tweet destroy your carefully planned campaign? Is the right content going online at the right time, to coincide with the right development work?

5. Research and Development: Is Facebook more relevant to your company than Bebo? Will you reach the right people on Twitter? And should you be improving the forum on your site, or developing a widget for social networks? The answers are different for every organisation, and indeed, every campaign

6. Coordinating external resources: Do you know enough to decide between a good and bad external agency when it comes to social media? And in a large company, are you sure other departments aren’t hiring other agencies at the same time?

7. Crisis management: When something does go wrong, you need a plan in place, and someone who can manage an effective response.

Whether or not social media is a specialist role, or part of a wider remit, there needs to be someone with the authority and accountability to ensure that the work feeds into the wider business effectively, with an effect on product development, customer service, SEO, and business strategy.

Filed Under: social media marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The democratisation of old school networks

May 26, 2009 By 1 Comment

A chance conversation with @farhan about social networking and social media reminded me of something I’d been considering for a while, but hadn’t got round to posting.

Which is the fact that ‘social networking’ has always existed in a very formal sense – in the networking that took place on the golf course, or amongst graduates of certain university colleges or public schools (In the UK, a ‘public’ school is, in fact a private school). You’d network with people wearing the right tie and blazer, and you’d either be born into, or pay your way into that network. A rare few tended to work their way into it by some good fortune.

And I’m not for a moment going to suggest that the ‘old school tie’ networks have been replaced by Facebook or Twitter. Or that there aren’t cliques already formed by social media ‘experts’, marketing people or tech geeks.

But the barrier to entry has become a lot lower. By investing time and effort into researching the right topics, adding value, or tieing together individuals, it’s entirely possible to become the lynchpin or a significant member of an online community – and whilst it’s not always a measure of skill or knowledge, the barrier is your natural skill in interacting via your keyboard or mobile, rather than anything else – unless you’ve reached a certain stage of internet celebrity, your looks, elocution, or ease in the presence of others won’t be tested, and your online social footprint will go some way to preparing, mitigating or even celebrating your possible shortcomings.

Which can only be a good thing – although the question is whether the new networking will evolve to better recognise the people truly providing value, and those who talk (blog) a good game. And how well those truly working at what they do are able to invest the additional time in marketing themselves in the age of the *ahem* personal brand.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »