Posts Tagged Twitter
Around the world in “Tweety” days
We like it when a neat idea, some good will and a little Twitter get together:
Paul Smith, a 34-year-old freelancer, returned from his honeymoon with the travel blues.
Yearning for another trip, he decided to try to get from the UK to Campbell Island, 200 miles off the coast of New Zealand in less than 30 days.
He posted his goal on Twitter and was eventually picked up by Stephen Fry (of Jeeves and Wooster & A Bit of Fry and Laurie fame), who tweeted it to his 1,646,433 followers.
Paul made it all the way to Stewart Island, off New Zealand, before getting stuck. (Stewart Island’s slogan, by the way, is “Island of Tranquility,” so it is actually not a bad place to be stranded…)
A recent Telegraph article explains how Paul did it:
- Ferry ticket from Newcastle to Amsterdam (tweeter named Leanne)
- Train to Paris (two French tweeters)
- Free bed at a hostel
- Train to Saarbrucken
- Lift in car to Frankfurt (German tweeter Andrea Juchem)
- One-way flight from Frankfurt to New York (tweeter called Owen, using Air Miles)
- Spare bed in hotel room (tweeter from Yorkshire named Mark)
- Then travel to and stays in Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco by plane, train and car (US tweeters)
- Flight to San Francisco (Zurich-based tweeter)
- Car to Los Angeles
- Free flight from LA to Auckland (Air New Zealand)
- Ferry to South Island
- Lift to tip of South Island (tweeter named Smiley)
- Sailed to Stewart Island.
Sweet.
Jess
Add comment August 2, 2010
First Ever Digital Election Debate
In the run up to the 9th June parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, the first ever election debates took place through Hyves and Twitter – on the same day. Hyves for breakfast and Twitter for dinner. The 30 minute debate on the Dutch social network Hyves (see earlier blog post on Dutch social media) was considered quite ‘relaxed’ and friendly, whereas its Twitter counterpart was perceived as rather stressed and direct. On Hyves the 50,000 viewers could not actively participate in the debate. Twitter did allow this in its 90 minute session, which subsequently led to mass chaos.
The jury is still out on both digital debates. On the one hand, the large interest of the public to participate in or follow the debate demonstrates an increasing interest of the people in politics in general. On the other hand, the efficacy and legitimacy of these communication channels for this specific purpose are, ironically, up for debate themselves.
As there were no webcams involved, how does one know whether the candidates are actually behind the computer and typing themselves? It may well be that the entire campaign team is gathered behind the keyboard. Some argue that these online platforms can only result in superficial debates as succinctness and speed are of the essence. Furthermore, while the perception was created that the public would truly be able to interact with the politicians it actually turned out to be a one-on-one between the candidates. On Twitter, the responses of the public sort of got lost in the crowd, whereas the candidates maintained visibility. People also complained about the limited time available for the debates.
Therefore, this first digital exercise should teach Dutch politicians to be careful in considering social media as merely a marketing tool. It is not a one-way street. Particularly, as its constituents increasingly consider it part of their right to democratic participation.
As to the effectiveness of these Dutch debates, I can only say: have a look at the number and length of responses shown in the Dutch news bulletin and see whether you find this dazzling. If so, it could mean several things; either these platforms are just not suitable for such debates, or the debate was not set up properly. Another possibility could be that maybe you are not as accustomed yet to these high speed digital channels as you thought you were. Or maybe, just maybe, your Dutch needs some work…
Esther
1 comment June 4, 2010
You don’t ‘get’ social media? Just open your ears and listen…
It is very easy to tell how many followers we have on Twitter but have you ever wondered why people are using social media? Why people are reading your blog? What kind of information they are looking for? If the answer is “no”, you should definitely start listening to the users, their answers will give meaning to the numbers.
A social media user is a treasure of information, you just have to try to understand them. Once you do, you will come out with great ideas on how to interact with them even better than you do now and on their side, they will feel satisfied by the ear you give them by listening to them… and the circle is closed.
Check out the very interesting blog post from Mack Collier on ‘Experiencing Social Media vs Monitoring It’.
Lucie
1 comment May 12, 2010
Belgian Government Crisis: Once more, but this time on Twitter
Yesterday it became clear that the Belgian federal government is yet again mired in a deep crisis. What is perhaps even more remarkable than the fact that the Belgian government is in crisis, is that the first reports of the crisis appeared on Twitter, by the politicians involved.
Of particular interest was Belgian Telecoms Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne’s Twitterfeed, who was perhaps the first politician in history to announce a government collapse on Twitter.
So here is a recommendation for the Belgian EU Presidency: Keep an eye on Twitter!
Add comment April 23, 2010
Twitterers cast first vote in UK elections
This year’s UK election is full of landmarks and firsts. Not only did we witness the first ever televised debate with the top candidates but this year’s election has also attracted a growing number of digitally savvy citizens. This was made no more apparent than during last week’s debate between top candidates for Downing 10 – the most-tweeted ever. The 90 minute debate was followed by 38,000 twitterers who busily wrote over 180,000 tweets.
Okay, the debate was tweeted. So what!? I hear you say… Today people tweet about pretty much everything and nothing at all. However the BBC asked Lexalytics, an American firm to put its clever “sentiment-analysis” service to work on the twitter community. What Lexalytics essentially did was to feel the pulse of the twitterers to develop a type of sentiment barometer based on the language and tone of the 180,000 tweets. The end result makes a fascinating read, as it maps out how the twitterers reacted to the different answers given by the candidates.
Polling the social media community is most probably not truly reflective of the general public opinion but shouldn’t be entirely disregarded either. There are some great sentiment analysis applications out there. Take tweetminster, which is a constant real time sentiment tracker that not only tracks what potential voters are tweeting about the elections but also gives a geographic breakdown of the tweets. It also follows all the tweets from MPs and PPCs (Prospective Parliamentary Candidates).
It looks like this year’s election is going to be a tweeted one. UK politics seems to be firmly in the hands of Britain’s digital natives.
Philip
Add comment April 21, 2010
Twitter: Social media for social good
There’s lots of chat about how trivial Twitter is. Who’s interested in the minutiae of all these daily lives? How can you say anything sensible in 140 characters? How can anything emerge from this huge, constant, global clamour? And then something comes along that reminds us that actually any medium can be a force for good if used properly.
This campaign was started in the Netherlands to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence. One in four Dutch women (apparently) will suffer from domestic violence in their lifetime and I cannot imagine that the statistics are any different elsewhere. As a man, I find this deeply shameful and very disturbing. As a human being, I find the fact that so often people who know do nothing even more troubling. This campaign highlights this through the medium of Twitter. Have a look and consider, honestly, if you had been following this feed, what would you have done?
Nick
4 comments April 20, 2010
Twongressions to lose Democrats seats? Study on Twitter in Congress
- Image via Wikipedia
Our colleague Mark Senak’s study on the use of Twitter by members of the US Congress has been making some waves in the media across the Atlantic in recent days. The main headline being that the Republicans are beating the Democrats in their use of the tool. We shall have to see what this means when it comes to the mid-terms.
James
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Add comment January 15, 2010
To Twitter or not to Twitter: use of digital tools in public affairs
Last week saw Fleishman-Hillard host a panel debate on the use of digital tools in public affairs and politics at the European Public Affairs Action Day. The videos of the contribution of our three speakers (Alexander Alvaro MEP, Pat Cleary of FH DC and Mark Redgrove of Orgalime) are now available on our YouTube channel here.
Here is the contribution of Alexander Alvaro MEP in two parts. The Q&A session of the panel discussion will be uploaded in coming days.
James
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3 comments December 9, 2009
21% of MEPs use twitter – according to us and someone else
- Image via Wikipedia
Counting the number of MEPs that use online tools to communicate is not a bad way to start your company’s blog and attract traffic. We should know as our post that claimed that 11% of MEPs blog is still one of our most visited posts to this day. E-marketing newcomers Digimahti have followed our lead and list 115 157 tweeting MEPs. Not an insignificant number I am sure you’ll agree.
At 21% of the total members of Parliament, it’s exactly the same percentage that our MEP digital survey suggested used Twitter when we polled them in May this year! Digimahti of course notes that ‘using’ Twitter and having a Twitter account are very different. Our digital survey suggested that only 13% use it ‘regularly’, while 8% use it ‘occasionally’.
We’ll be looking to run our digital survey again next year with the new Parliament to see if that number improves.
James
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4 comments November 3, 2009
Public Affairs Action Day – 30 November
Conference season is upon us once again. And boy does our workshop at last year’s Public Affairs Agenda two day extravaganza seem like an age ago. This year we’re partnering with the good folks at Dods on their European Public Affairs Action Day to be held on the 30 November at the Renaissance Hotel (it is a day rather than a summit this year, but the hotel remains the same).
We shall be hosting one of the workshop sessions, which will be structured in the form of a panel discussion complete with Q&A. Our panel is entitled “To Twitter or not to Twitter: the use of digital tools in public affairs” and will run in the second morning slot from approximately 11.30 until lunch. Appearing on our panel will be:
- Alexander Alvaro MEP talking about the use of the internet by Members of the European Parliament in and after the election campaign earlier this year.
- Pat Cleary our SVP of digital public affairs from our Washington DC office talking about the use of twitter in advocacy campaigns on the basis of a recent piece of work he did for the Fix Housing First coalition.
- Mark Redgrove. Mark heads up communication at manufacturing industry association Orgalime. He shall speak about how his organisation is using the internet to support advocacy in a Brussels based context
Registrations are not yet open, but should be soon here. We hope you can join us.
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James1 comment October 20, 2009
