Photo Credit: TechCrunch via flickr
The Wall Street Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman published this great article: Facebook Takes Aim at Search Again. Take time to read Deepa’s article because she delivers important insight on Mark Zuckerberg’s unrelenting competitiveness and strategic genius.
Photo Credit: via flickr by Average Jane
Here are 37 reasons I believe Twitter should keep the 140-character count constraint. Please help me get this list to 140.
Please abide by one (1) rule. Your reason(s) must be 140 characters or less (including the number). For example, Reason #1 equals 11 characters. Here’s the link to The Twitter Character Counter Tool I used to help me write this post.
Please share your ideas in the comments with your Twitter handle (mine is @tonyfaustino).
I’ll do my part to share your ideas with my following as we collectively work to reach 140 reasons.
Go. (more…)
Photo Credit: Anton Diaz
Please indulge me until Friday, July 31st 12:00 AM Midnight Central Time as I use the introductory paragraph of Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention to promote my nephew’s Kickstarter Campaign for his company, QuadshoX LLC.
I wrote about Johnny Morris’ spinal cord injury and remarkable story in this blog post: America’s Gutsiest CEO and His Kickstarter Project Need Your Support.
Here’s the link to QuadshoX’s inspiring YouTube video to promote its Kickstarter Campaign:
Photo Credit: Anton Diaz
I’m a former jock marveling at how LeBron James is leading the Cleveland Cavaliers through a sheer act of personal will throughout the NBA Playoffs. An NBA Championship for the city of Cleveland and King James means one word: Redemption.
Game 5 is today at 7 PM Central Time. If you have the cash, $12,000 gets you two (2) courtside seats via StubHub.
Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: “How Wash U Is Changing The World.” Publishing this finding embarrasses me. My alma mater, Washington University in St. Louis, is using this catchphrase in their LinkedIn Advertising campaign to Washington University Alumni.
I loathe this Silicon Valley, self-proclaimed / self-referential bullshit. Sad how this attitude infects a midwestern academic institution. Makes me want to hurl. (more…)
Photo Credit: iabuk
April 28th was not Dick Costolo’s (Twitter CEO) and Twitter’s Investor Relations Team best day.
The Wall Street Journal’s Yoree Koh published this article, Twitter Shares Tumble After Nasdaq Leaks Results Early, after Twitter’s 2015 Q1 Earnings Conference Call. Her story describes important challenges Twitter is confronting the company:
Real-Time Havoc Breaks Loose on April 28th Around 3:07 PM Eastern Time. Addressing these difficult issues was the least of Twitter’s problems. Selerity, a self-described real-time analytics and media company, stole the show by live tweeting Twitter’s 2015 Q1 unreleased financials BEFORE the Twitter’s earnings call. (more…)
Photo Credit: Matt From London
Earning Twitter followers for new users can be challenging. Are there best practices for organically increasing Twitter followers? Yes! (more…)
Photo Credit: Gerard Stolk (vers Noël)
Thank YOU. Publishing and writing for Social Media ReInvention Community Members brings me immense joy and fulfillment. I can’t thank you enough for your amazing support and generosity to read and share my content. Thank you of sticking with me for five and half years! Time’s flown by.
If you missed some of these, you can check them out here:
1. Lesson 2 of 6: Reinventing You After Age 50 Case Study — Michael Ovitz and Shifting Your Behavior
2. Mark Zuckerberg’s 5 Point Plan for Facebook’s Future Growth and Mobile Domination
4. 3 Career Management Lessons for a Social Media Age I Learned From My Dad
5. Lesson 3A of 6: Reinventing You After Age 50 Case Study — Michael Ovitz and Developing Validators
6. Book Review: The New Rules of Sales and Service by David Meerman Scott
7. #FAIL: #AppleLive Debacle Exposes Apple’s Real-Time Marketing Weaknesses
8. 4 More Gifts to Support Others That Power Your After Age 50 Reinvention
9. 3 Tips on Writing and Storytelling from Twitter’s Investor Relations Team
10. Tim Cook’s Killer Innovation Hack: Diversity in Thought in Apple’s Ecosystem (with a Capital D)
That’s Kind of a Big Deal. I’m grateful because I reached that achievement through your support:
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. Please share my work with your friends.
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To say today’s #AppleLive stream event went poorly is an understatement. I tried to watch from my iPhone, but the audio glitches with simultaneous translation and poor video quality made it unwatchable. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in my frustration:
Instead, I monitored the Twitter streams of the Wall Street Journal’s Johanna Stern, Geoffrey Fowler, Daisuke Wakabayashi, Brian Fitzgerald, and Wilson Rothman. Kudos to them for providing the real-time support and updates #AppleLive failed to deliver.
Apple acquired Topsy in December 2013. It was a brilliant move to bolster their real-time and mobile capabilities in their products and services because consumers live in a one-screen world. So with all this rich Twitter data, why isn’t real-time Twitter communications with its rabid fanbase a strategic priority among senior leadership?
Let’s examine how Apple’s Senior’s Leadership used Twitter during the biggest and most important live event in the company’s history in five (5) years:
It shocks me Apple’s top digital talent posted a total of four (4) tweets during the live event. 4. That’s it. Why was he silent during the #AppleLive stream meltdown? Why wasn’t he communicating with fans during this crisis?
The media hype teed up this event as an unprecendented public relations coup for Apple. Didn’t Apple remember the negative criticism it and other Silicon Valley royalty received in recent months about gender imbalance and lack of diversity?
Therefore, why wasn’t Angela Ahrendts a visible part of the whole damn event and the introduction of Apple’s most important product in recent memory? She transformed Burberry into one of the most coveted and successful global luxury brands. The Apple Watch pricing is clearly positioned for the luxury demographic.
Instead, we get this. One (1) tweet. Are you kidding me????? Why was one of the world’s greatest marketers silently sitting on the sideline????
The #AppleLive stream disaster exposed the consequences of Apple deciding not to participate in real-time communications during the Steve Jobs era. Sadly, they’re continuing on the same path with Tim Cook.
Smart competitors will capitalize on this opening. If you can’t compete on size and brute force, compete on speed and agility. That’s how David beat Goliath.
Bonus #1: Check out Dan Munro‘s LinkedIn post: Apple’s Colossal Marketing Mix
Bonus #2: Read Emmanuel Kolade‘s LinkedIn post: Apple Pay – Why Apple is Giving 500 Million People a U2 Album for Free
Bonus #3: See Georgia Wells‘ Wall Street Journal article: ‘Songs of Innocence’ Giving You Vertigo? Remove U2′s Free Album From iTunes
Bonus #4: Go to this Apple Support page to remove U2’s “Songs of Innocence” album from your iTunes Music Library and Purchases:
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Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
Earlier this week, Twitter released its 2014 Q2 Earnings Report. Here are highlights as reported by The Wall Street Journal’s Yoree Koh:
How Twitter’s Investor Relations Team (@TwitterIR) framed these positive results is worth studying. Their critical and judgmental audience includes (but is not limited to):
Writing and storytelling skills are important in the financial and investment community. Investor Relations Teams are tasked with building credibility, trust, and transparency. The ability to convey confidence with a compelling and memorable story (particularly when financial performance suffers) makes or breaks organizations.
Real-time, Internet speed and scope, play a crucial role in addressing public scrutiny. Here are three (3) writing and storytelling tips I learned from the Twitter Investor Relations Team.
Twitter recognized before any social media network the competitive advantages and implications of real-time communications. It knew consumers were moving towards a mobile, one-screen world.
And, it maximized this competitive advantage during the July 29th earnings call. Topsy analysis shows @TwitterIR‘s (Twitter’s Investor Relations Team) published 23 real-time tweets supporting the earnings presentation.
Communicating financial analyses (or other complex information) into simple, bite-size messages isn’t easy. Twitter’s Investor Relations Team addresses this challenge head-on knowing they have to frame a memorable, compelling story in “pulses” of 140 characters or less. I’m sure their rehearsals resulted in multiple iterations of tweets to constantly refine and simplify the gameday message.
According to Topsy, here’s the top tweet during the July 29th call …
… and it clocks in at 136 characters (with spaces).
As an individual Twitter investor, I appreciate and respect the Investor Relations Team sharing key metrics like quarterly revenue, EBITDA, and net income. But, the tweet has too much math for my simple brain.
The hyperlink and chart are vital. They impart two (2) positive impressions:
The high “retweets” and “favorites” by the conference call attendees indicates this important information was share-worthy and memorable:
Leverage your strengths. Be brief. Draw pictures. Define your story’s outcome from the beginning. Structure the argument.
That’s hard. But, your audience will love you for it.
If yes, please share it with your friends and subscribe to my blog. Many Thanks!
Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He thinks and writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy in his personal blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.
"The mandate is different on Twitter; you have to be interesting. You need to develop a voice, which is something Facebook doesn't ask of you." – Sherry Turkle, a clinical psychologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor
That direct quote from Yoree Koh's informative Wall Street Journal article: Twitter's Big Battle Is Indifference – Social Network Leaves Many Individual Users Cold, summarizes a 1st-time Twitter user's two-part learning curve:
Twitter's learning curve is one of many reasons why technology journalists and investment analysts lambasted its 2013 Q4 financials and future growth prospects.
Learning How to Be Different on Twitter is Now a Liability. Hard to believe what made Twitter cool is now considered a curse. Taking time to find valuable content, sharing it with people who specifically choose us, and challenging ourselves to continue growing and retaining that audience's earned attention — that's now bad?
That's no longer called opportunity?
Are We Really That Lazy? Defaulting to the path of least intellectual resistance — that's now the key to sustainable, long term growth?
Creating Content that Earns Attention. Learning to create and package interesting content takes time, practice, and effort (especially in 140 characters or less). After 3,100+ tweets, I'm still learning.
What Happened to the Joy and Challenge in Learning? The joy and challenge in learning to communicate on Twitter comes from other people choosing to follow your tweets. It comes from other people sharing your content with their followers (when they have hundreds of millions of other options). It's seeing how you can build direct relationships with people in another part of the world. It's the thrill in earning someone's attention and permission (versus interrupting it).
The Investment Analysts' View: Make Twitter a Mainstream Product. Why? So brands can cram the channel with as much advertising as possible. Investment analysts believe Twitter's sole key to long term growth is a traditional advertising model.
So interrupting users with unwanted, crappy ads (and pissing us off in the process) that's a terrific strategy?
#Not.
Improving a First Time User's Twitter Experience — That's the Right Direction. After registering with the service in 2009, I remember feeling overwhelmed and bewildered. I was clueless on what to tweet. That's why it's refreshing to read Twitter is running experiments to improve the user experience without changing the core platform.
Focusing On What's Important. A better user experience means rookie and veteran tweeters can focus on creating and sharing helpful, and valuable content. The challenge in a one-screen, digital-first world is don't suck.
Because if our tweets increase in educational, entertaining, or news-breaking value, they will earn our attention. Twitter's user growth will return.
Everyone wins.
Note: I invest in Twitter (and also tweet). The impact of my investment actions and holdings in this company (and others) are equivalent to a dog shaking off its fleas — inconsequential.
Photo Credit by topgold via flickr
Please let me know if you agree or disagree with my thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you. I’m here to read, listen, and learn from YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Comments are open. So let’er rip!
Ideas that spread win. Please share my work with your friends.
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