kullin – Page 54 – Media Culpa

Using Twitter for real-time search

I’m not a search expert, but working in communications requires at least basic knowledge about online search. Search is such a vital part of the way we find information about brands these days. A recent Swedish study (pdf) showed that among those who used the internet to search for information about products and services, 91 percent used a search engine.

We can also use data from search ingines to track the latest buzz online. A good tool to see trends in search behaviour is to use Google Insight For Search which shows how often different search terms have been used over time. It also tells you what terms have increased the most during the last few days.

If we use Google Insight For Search to see how often people search for the term Facebook, we can’t find anything unusual related to Facebook that happens right now.

But as most of you know, Facebook launched vanity URLs today on a first-come, first-served basis. So members who wanted to grab a specific name had to be alert this morning to secure the desired URL. Obviously the has been a lot of buzz about this on Twitter this morning, so a quick search for “Facebook” on Twist, a tool for trend search on Twitter, we discover that there was a big peak in mentions of Facebook on Twitter this morning.

It might not be the perfect tool, but I think the difference illustrates how Twitter and Twitter-related applications are becoming very useful in finding out what happens in close to real-time on the web. Other tools that analyze Twitter to bring you the latest buzz are MicroBlogBuzz (no 1 topic: Facebook Username) and Retweetradar (Facebook is one of the most retweeted phrases right now).

Google knows this, of course. This article states that Google is working on solutions for real-time search but I haven’t managed to find out how that works.

Tags: twitter, facebook, sociala medier, google, facebook, twitter. Ping.

Facebook vanity URLs doesn’t work via mobile

This morning many people are logging on to Facebook to claim their vanity URL, a personalized web address that makes it easier to share the link to your profile page. My profile page can now be accessed at http://www.facebook.com/kullin instead of facebook.com followed by a series of numbers and signs. But the new vanity URLs are not accessible via mobile phone. If you type http://m.facebook.com/kullin you get an error message that the page is not valid.

Facebook has more than 20 million monthly users that access the social networking site via mobile platforms so the problem with the profile pages must be solved quickly.

Hat tip: Albert Cuesta.

Tags: vanity url, facebook, sociala medier, facebook, url. Ping.

75,000 Twitter users in Sweden

The social media analytics company Sysomos has released an in-depth report (pdf) about Twitter users – “Inside Twitter, An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World”. According to the report, about 0.54 percent of all members on Twitter are Swedish. With an estimated 14 million members (as of April 2009), that would mean that there are at least 75,000 Swedes on Twitter. That makes Sweden the 15th most active country on Twitter. The exact number is of course hard to determine, but for the first time we at least have a ball park figure to relate to. I think that the number is pretty accurate, given how respondents answered my fourth annual Swedish blog survey earlier this year.

But as the report says, a large percentage of the members on Twitter are not very active.
– 50.4% of Twitter users haven’t updated their status in the last seven days.
– 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
– 5% of users account for 75% of all activity, 10% account for 86% of
activity, and the top 30% account for 97.4%

Other interesting findings in the report are for example that “of people who identify themselves as PR professionals, 65.5% have never posted an update”. If that is correct, that is quite astonishing numbers. PR pros are lurkers on Twitter.

Go check the report, it is quite intersting reading.

Tags: users, twitter, twitter, sociala medier, twitter, sverige. Ping.

Twitter launches Verified Accounts to put an end to Twitter-jacking

Now and again we hear about celebrities and brands that have found their names hijacked on Twitter. Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, recently threatened to take Twitter to court over a person who portrayed himself as La Russa on Twitter. Another example of a fake account is the Swedish writer and journalist Jan Guillou who’s Twitter account has been hijacked (although he doesn’t seem to mind).

But now Twitter may have found a solution to the problems with identity theft on the microblogging site. Twitter is launching Verified Accounts which means that celebrities and users with a large following may apply to get their accounts approved to show that it is in fact the real person behind the tweets.

“With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)”

An example of a verified account is http://twitter.com/iamdiddy

Tags: verified accounts, twitter, twitter, sociala medier, twitter, eu-valet. Ping.

Flight 447 discussed in social media

Airlines are probably among the businesses that are best prepared to communicate in crisis situations. If something should happen to a plane for example, there is a very high risk that the lives of passengers and crew are in danger. A worst case scenario for an airline is much more devastating than for most other businesses, so they need to be well prepared.

The tragic events today with the missing Air France Flight 447 highlights how airlines communicate in a crisis. When a plane goes missing there is a great need for information and people flock online to find out as much as possible. Among the first places we look for information are in traditional media. We also go to the company web site and in this case Air France has put up brief statements on the top of the site. People also turn to Google to find information and the very first hit on Google.se is a press release from Air France informing us about which flight is missing and where to turn for more info.

However, today we also turn to social media in times of crisis. Yesterday there was a power outage in the north of Stockholm and although the two events are not comparable in any way, it was interesting to see how the discussion started immediately on Twitter. I tweeted as soon as the lights went out and got responses from others in the neighbourhood. Soon someone came up with the hashtag #sthlmblackout and we quickly got a better understanding of the geographic scope of the blackout. Traditional media reported much later about the event that left 100,000 households without electricity for several hours.

In the same way people turn to Twitter to find information about flight 447 and to discuss the catastrophic indicent. Earlier today, “Atlantic” was one of the most discussed topics on Twitter and then “Air France” has been top five for most of the day. Thousands of tweets have also been tagged #AF447. A dedicated Wikipedia page for flight 447 has also been established and is continuously updated throughout the day.

I noticed the story first on Twitter when a person I follow retweeted the news from the account Breaking News which has more than 470,000 followers. Breaking News describes itself as “Your most credible Twitter news source. First in online breaking news!”. As more and more people join Twitter it will become an increasingly important channel for businesses in crisis situations. Air France doesn’t use the account http://twitter.com/airfrance and it is not even clear if the company is in possesion of the account. In the near future, Twitter will have to become an integral part of any company crisis plan because that is where many discuss current topics.

Related story in Swedish about Com hem and Twitter.

Update: Air France is a subsidiary of Air France-KLM Group, which many people may not be aware of. KLM has a Twitter account at www.twitter.com/KLM with four tweets about the tragedy. If I was responsible for this account, I would definitely change the background image which currently includes an image of a smiling young woman.

Tags: air+france, twitter, af447, twitter, sociala medier, air france, twitter, digital pr. Ping.

Track tweets about the EU election on TweetElect09.eu

With less than two weeks left until the election to the EU Parliament, Burson-Marsteller (where I work) launched TweetElect09.eu, a website that tracks and analyses discussions about the upcoming European Elections on Twitter in 14 languages.

Tweets are filtered by country, political party and by number of times different candidates are mentioned. News will also be streamed on election night by for example France24, alongside the Twitter stream.

TweetElect09 has already analyzed more than 11,000 tweets referring to the election and France is the most active country followed by Sweden in second place and Germany in third. Anyone can join the discussion and have tweets appear on TweetElect09 by using the #eu09 hashtag when tweeting. The site also tracks tweets with the tag #euval which is frequently used in Sweden.

More information in English and in Swedish.

Tags: eu, twitter, election, twitter, sociala medier, eu, twitter, eu-valet. Ping.