Conversations, they are a changing

October 23, 2008 | 3 comments | Tweet This

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Let’s face it, those who have been on Twitter for over a year or so would have seen that it has changed dramatically.  I started to recognise this shift when I no longer felt I should openly voice my opinion on someones stupidity, or comment on the brand who will never in a million years actually care what I am saying about them.  I used to think of it as my club; a place where I felt safe and could play with my little community.  As the year has progressed I have found myself having to mind my p’s and q’s, something that I can barely muster the energy for on the annual trip to my see my parents (”Hi Dad”, I know you read this).

I’m not complaining about this shift but what’s changed?  Firstly, the advertising world have started to recognise that there are actually some pretty influential people here, and these people could be used to start talking about a new produce or service (”Hello, and thank you for acting like humans on Twitter”).  Secondly, the clever PR people have realised that this is a new medium where people can actually influence opinion and so, they have come to join the party (”chin chin, and could some of you please try to keep the self promotion down a bit, we’re trying to concentrate”).  Lastly though and by far my favourite of the changes, the brands themselves have joined in the party.  Now, some of them have embraced the experience like Lastminute.com, who after falling to initial criticism from the Twitter community for being faceless, admitted the service is being manned by people within their marketing department, and that personal profiles were being created as we speak.  Nice, I like your approach and haven’t you got some wonderful product development suggestions from the community?  From the best practice post you would have seen my distaste for the brands who have read about Twitter and have ploughed their way into the service before actually observing how the community use the service.  Anyone who observes Twitter, will see that it is built around community.  A community who shares, inspires and befriends one another based on similar industries or interests through 140 character conversations.  I would really like to see more brands take note of Lastminute’s approach and actually engage with their audience.

Posted by Jamie Coomber | Filed Under Blog, Community, Social Interaction, Thought pieces  | 3 comments | Tweet This

Comments

3 Responses to “Conversations, they are a changing”

  1. Will on October 23rd, 2008 14:24

    I’m loving lastminute on twitter. Agree with this; it’s gotten very PR-ey. I’ve had a lot of people/brands add me who I wouldn’t otherwise have ’spoken’ to.

    Not always a bad thing though..

  2. RobNonsense on October 23rd, 2008 15:31

    The self-promotion thing is funny. On a small scale, I’ve found myself guilty of spamming everyone with Nonsense’s stuff, purely because it provides a way for me to say the same thing to a good amount of people in one go. Must try harder!

    Even Hugh Macleod uses @gapingvoid as a broadcast device, resulting in me ignoring him.

    Some people are nailing it though. @stephenfry is doing an awesome job for his forthcoming series by being himself.

  3. Jamie Coomber on October 23rd, 2008 15:49

    I totally agree with you Rob, there is indeed a very good place for self promotion on Twitter. How did you see this post? Oh yeah, I Tweeted it! ;-)

    The Twitter community is very forgiving when their contacts self promote as the content is usually fairly targeted to their audience so why not indeed however, self promotion must be backed up through a human being at the other end willing to join in the conversation at times when they haven’t got a campaign to promote a la Stephen Fry :)

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