If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know I’m prone to the occasional rant. And one of my more frequent musings is the conservatism of Australian businesses towards social media. But rather than cracking that old chestnut open again, today I’m going to tell a happy tale of social media excellence. Because we can’t always be grumpy can we? It’s a story of an Australian organisation applying social media to their industry in a killer manner. And would you believe it… it’s a footy club! Yes. A footy club. While the industry is often portrayed as neanderthal like, the Essendon Football Club is putting most Aussie businesses to shame in their application of social technologies. No wonder I love them so much…

It’s clear that the Essendon Football Club has a strong committment to the web as a marketing channel. Indeed, they are the only club in the AFL to maintain a stand alone site beyond the AFL’s official hub, thereby sacrificing financial compensation from the AFL. But by maintaining complete control over their web presence, they have been able to innovate at a higher level than any other club. And as it turns out, they’re innovating at a superior level to most Australian businesses. Let’s take a look at how they’re applying social technologies to their industry:

Twitter

The Essendon Football club’s use of Twitter is impressive. While other businesses fumble for practical uses, Essendon obviously recognise the strengths of Twitter and tailor their usage accordingly. And with almost 3,000 followers, the punters seem to agree. Three particular uses of Twitter have impressed me:

• Breaking News: Rather than utilising Twitter as a broadcast channel to distribute news, Essendon FC uses the immediate nature of Twitter to break it. Indeed, the club’s Twitter feed was used to break one of the biggest stories of the year – the shock recruitment of their new CEO from rival club Hawthorn. Mainstream media later reported the news, citing the Twitter feed as the news source. The club also used Twitter to break the news that star player Jobe Watson would make his comeback from injury.



• Live event coverage: Twitter and sports are a match made in heaven, particularly when a game isn’t covered on free-to-air television. Live Tweeting provides an alternative form of coverage for fans who are unable to attend/watch the game. The Essendon Twitter account is used on gameday to give blow by blow descriptions of how the game is unfolding.



• Player profiles: The club also seems to be strongly involved in establishing a player presence on Twitter, which is a brilliant move. AFL players are idolised across the country, and Twitter allows fans to ‘connect’ with their heroes, opening a small window of insight into their everyday life. Sports hero gazing holds just as much appeal as celebrity gazing, as illustrated by the popular accounts held by Lance Armstrong & Shaquille O’Neal. Jobe Watson and Angus Monfries are the two Essendon players currently on Twitter, with the club actively promoting a rivalry between the two over who can attract the most followers.

Live player chat

Aside from Twitter, Essendon also utilises a custom built live chat service on its’ own web site dedicated to live match coverage. The most recent match coverage can be viewed here with around 300 entries from supporters. The master stroke of the internal live chat service is that each week a different player participates in the chat session with fans during the match, providing their thoughts and commentary on the game.

It’s worth noting that the players participating are not fringe players or outcasts. In most cases the players are regular first team players who are injured or suspended including Andrew Welsh, Adam McPhee and Angus Monfries. I believe captain Matthew Lloyd has also hosted a session. Much like Twitter, the initiative is clearly aimed at bringing fans closer to their heroes. And while the player’s participation and interaction with fans is very much limited, it is the perception that fans can connect with players that creates value. Given players match day committments (even injured players), it’s unlikely a higher level of engagement during the game can be realistically achieved.

Blogs and open commenting

A club blog has been established as part of Essendon’s web infrastructure, although as an internally built tool, it lacks the functionality of WordPress blog. Most contributions come from the coaching staff and players themselves, albeit at a rate of about 1-3 posts a month. The posts provide some level of insight into the inner-sanctum of the club, discussing issues such as finals prospects, the challenge of interstate travel and dealing with long-term injuries.

While the blog component of the site is perhaps underutilised, it is the blog-like commenting function on all news items that adds a real level of audience engagement to the site. It is not uncommon for match reports to attract 100+ comments from passionate fans (including myself). The open and unfiltered fan commentary has built a vibrant community that reflects the true pulse of the punters. Fans aggregate each week to rejoice in victories over arch rivals, and to bemoan dismal losses against lowly ranked opponents. Admirably, the club is brave enough to allow the most ardent of trolls to post incessant drivel week after week in the knowledge that others will jump in to defend the club/players/coach.

As a result of the unbiased commentary, the Essendon FC match report is now one of my first stops after a game. I come back to the site regularly with the specific intent of reading fan commentary. I’m keenly interested in seeing how others have perceived the team’s performance, as well as contributing my own thoughts. By simply allowing open fan discussion, they have made me a far more engaged and loyal user of their web site.

Video

Bomber TV is Essendon’s subscription based online video service, to which Bomber fans can subscribe for a cost of $10 per year. All the standard content is there that you’d expect from a footy club including game highlights and press conferences. However, the club produces a raft of unique video based content to ensure fans get value for their money (all $10 of it). The wide range of video content includes:

• Panel Shows: Two panel shows are produced each week with the involvement of Essendon’s assistant coaches. One show analyses the performance of the team in their most recent match, and the other previews the game for the upcoming weekend.



• Interviews: Player interviews are a staple of Bomber TV with club legends and current players giving insights into their careers and lives.



• Behind the scenes footage: Fans are given a taste of the inner workings of the club with footage from club functions, training sessions, interstate trips, sponsors events & more.

User comments are also open for video content, although far less utilised than the comments function for the general news.

Social network

The fifth bow to Essendon’s social media armory is a niche social network for Bombers supporters called ‘The Hangar’. It operates in the manner of a very simplified version of Facebook. Fans can create their own profile page and connect with other Bomber fans. In theory the concept is solid. Football fans have a common interest and offline social clubs thrive. Indeed, I’d appreciate being able to meet more Essendon fans as sometimes my regular group of friends can’t make it to the game. However, the execution of the social network is poor (but I’ll give them a break… they can’t get everything right).

The greatest problem for The Hangar is that it is extremely difficult to actually connect with other fans. The only way to search for people is by surname (which is a very cumbersome listing process rather than a keyword search). But what if I don’t know who I’m searching for? Isn’t the point of social networks to connect with new people? So how do I know who to connect with? I’d much rather run a search based on interests or geography (perhaps we could hitch a ride to the game together). It seems other people encounter the same problem, because I have only ever received 2 friendship requests from fellow fans. Even when I do connect with others, there is little scope for real interaction. We can leave comments on each other’s walls, but that’s about it. No email or alternative form of communication exist.

Despite its limitations, The Hangar has seems to have thousands of members (as demonstrated when searching by surname). So the concept has some potential. However, until it is more functional, it is unlikely to be utilised to its full potential.

Mobile

While not strictly a social initiative, Essendon’s mobile site is further evidence that the club is committed to innovating in emerging channels. The mobile site allows me to access key pieces of club information including game results and reviews, club news, the ladder, a fixture & more. The mobile interface is greatly simplified to allow convenient browsing from my iPhone.

Australian businesses – watch & learn!

There’s no question that sporting clubs have a head start over most businesses when it comes to applying social tools & technologies. The sheer passion of the average sports fan means that they are for more likely to be drawn to social technologies the club creates. Most businesses simply can’t replicate that level of passion or interest.

However, it is still up to the club to devise smart tactics for each channel to engage fans. And it is here that Essendon excels. While many businesses approach social tools with a traditional marketing mindset, Essendon has identified the strengths of each channel (social network adise) and delivered an experience that creates true value for fans.

Now… there’s no question that my judgment in the matter may be biased based on my affinity with Essendon Football Club, but I can’t think of an Australian organisation doing a better job of implementing social technologies. If you can, feel free to drop their name in the comments…

I must admit, I hate the way people add ‘Tw’ to the start of an existing word to describe it in context of Twitter (Eg Tweeple). But I think I may have just helped to popularise the term ‘twanker’, also known as a Twitter wanker. I’ve just written a post for my good pal Dave Harry at Huomah that analyses the recent Twitter scandal surrounding Kyle & Jackie O (who were famously dubbed Twitter wankers). In particular, I tackle the issue of the mass media mindset that most people bring to social environments, and the challenge it presents social media marketers.

Check out Avoiding the curse of the Twitter wanker now

After slacking off in May, I’ve taken back my regular spot on SEO Scoop in June. My post this month provides a beginner’s guide to marketing on Twitter (with help from my pal Matt Edge). The post provides guidance and case studies to those marketers unsure of how they can intergrate Twitter into their business. Six core marketing applications are outlined including customer support, research, informing, promoting, building word of mouth & branding.

Check out ‘A beginner’s guide to Twitter marketing‘ now

The time has come for me to do my thing over at SEO Scoop again. I avoided the temptation to publish a lame April Fool’s Day prank like everyone else and stayed focused on the task at hand. This time round I’ve contributed a case study on niche SEO targeting. More specifically, I’ve provided a summary of how my list of Aussie brands on Twitter shot straight to a top two position in Google within a matter of weeks, and immediately became the number one organic search term for my blog.

Check out ‘Carving out instant niche rankings‘ at SEO Scoop

My transformation from anti-Twitter activist to total Twitter whore is now officially complete with my recent guest post at TwiTip. Ironically enough, not that long ago I was contemplating co-writing a guest post for TwiTip arguing the pointlessness of Twitter. And now I’m contributing to TwiTip singing it’s praises. How quick things change! Anywhoo… my post provides a case study on my recent Twitter whoring post, looking at how a single Tweet snowballed into a tornado of traffic. Or as I like to call it – a real life butterfly effect.

Read ‘Twitter and The Butterfly Effect’ at TwiTip.

Last week I wrote a fairly controversial post about John Mayer whoring his Twitter account by selling ad space in his Tweets. The piece split the Twitter community with strong opinions on both sides of the fence. Many agreed with my position of maintaining a community free of paid product placements. Others were less sensitive and saw paid Tweets as a commercial reality for the service moving forwards. Having made my opinion abundantly clear on how I believe Twitter shouldn’t be used to market, it’s only fair that I provide some input on the type of positive contributions I believe marketers can make within Twitter. So without further adieu, here’s my guide on how marketers can avoid becoming dirty Twitter whores…

It’s all about the (unpaid) referrals!

First things first, I should clarify that I do believe referrals present the greatest marketing opportunity for businesses on Twitter. Why? Because Twitter is a conversational medium. Twitter is little more than word of mouth brought into an electronic environment. The only real difference is that the conversations are no longer private. Everyday on Twitter, thousands of people ask for and receive reviews of specific products and services. Just like they do in real life. It’s one of the most common uses of the service.

However… paid referrals simply aren’t the answer. They hold no credibility. Marketers have never been able to manufacture word of mouth with cash. Just ask John Laws. The cash for comments debacle remains one of the Australian media industry’s most infamous scandals. Consumers trust each other. They don’t trust corporations and they don’t trust John Mayer on his choice of soup.

The best way to organically influence genuine word of mouth has always been to deliver great customer experiences. Plain and simple. The same principle applies to the online environment and Twitter. If you create great experiences people will talk about them. They will recommend your company. And that’s where the real marketing opportunity lies. In generating referrals. Referrals are the currency of the Internet. After all, isn’t Google little more than an automated referral system? Twitter provides an alternative to Google’s algorithm by using people power to generate the referrals. And unlike Google, people are far easier to influence. All you need to do is take the time to connect with them.

Smart marketers have realised that Twitter is actually about people. They’ve realised it’s about creating great experiences now so that when the time comes, customers volunteer positive referrals on your behalf. It’s about paying it forward. Comcast are probably the most famous example with their proactive customer outreach program. And Telstra are following in their footsteps by pioneering the customer support approach in Australia.

These businesses are successful because they embrace the strength of the medium – personal contact and real conversations. Unfortunately, Dell are giving people reason to think the same old marketing tactics can succeed within Twitter.

The broadcast approach

Dell aren’t bad when it comes to corporate social media implementation. They lead the field in many ways. But when it comes to Twitter, they’ve reverted back to broadcast. Dell uses Twitter in much the same way as email. They blast out offers and discounts en mass. The problem is it seems to be working to some extent, with claims they’ve made over $1 million via Twitter. This apparent success makes it easy for marketers to stick with what they know best – broadcast.

The problem is that Dell is the exception rather than the rule. You don’t have as many customers as Dell. And your product probably isn’t as good either. A direct response strategy is only going to work for companies with a highly engaged database that really want their products. If that’s not you, forget about a Dell style Twitter broadcast approach… because people simply won’t care. Many have tried, but few have truly succeeded. Jetstar and Virgin Blue are two Australian brands with large customer databases and a sought after product (discount travel). If neither of them has been able to effectively leverage Twitter (albeit with pretty lame attempts) do you think you’ll do much better…?

Going back to the future

So what does this mean for businesses? Rather than trying apply broadcast techniques, marketers need to recognise the nature of the medium and adapt their strategies accordingly. A lot of people asked me why I was so offended by John Mayer’s “paid Tweets”. It’s not that ads offend me. I am a marketer after all. It’s that the marketers are ignoring the nature of the channel. It’s lazy marketing. Just like the principles of effective print advertising don’t translate to television, the core principles of broadcast marketing don’t translate into Twitter.

Marketers that want to succeed in Twitter need to go back to the future and embrace one-to-one customer communication. It’s what Twitter is all about. Only real interaction will generate great customer experiences. And only great experiences will foster genuine referrals. It’s time to start talking to your customers again…

Darren Rowse is a pretty visionary sort of guy. As the driving force behind Problogger and TwiTip, he’s been at the forefront of social media monetisation. So I guess the writing was well and truly on the wall when he posted an April Fool’s prank last year promoting a new pay-per-tweet service. Of course, Darren was only joking. However, it was only a matter of time until Twitter whoring became a reality. Yesterday seems to be the day it officially went mainstream, with popular singer John Mayer openly introducing paid ads into his Twitter stream. Ugh…

For those who missed out on all the fun, it began with this Tweet from the popular crooner:

Yuck! Surely a contender for worst Tweet of the year. Until it was followed up with this…

Personally, I think it would have been far more appropriate if he had of cut a Twitter deal with these guys…

Because that’s what he’s serving up to his followers. It seems I’m not the only one. Here’s what some of his followers had to say about the Tweets:

Ouch! It may seem strange that I’m also critical of Mayer’s advertising within Twitter, particularly after I published a list of Australian brands on Twitter two weeks ago. But there is a big difference between advertising and marketing. I have absolutely no problem with companies utilising Twitter as a communications tool to connect with customers. Indeed, I think a proactive outreach program via Twitter is an excellent customer support and retention strategy. Frank Eliason from Comcast has proven it works, and it’s great to see Telstra giving it a crack in Australia as well.  In fact, I’m currently advocating a similar customer outreach program for a major client within an established online community (not Twitter).

However, this style of participation is based on the marketing objectives of customer support and retention. It aims to connect with customers at a relevant moment when they’re already talking about a brand. It takes advantage of the transparency of Twitter as a communications tool to deliver superior customer service. A little Big Brother like perhaps, but if a positive outcome is delivered everyone’s happy. Blatant advertising is a different story altogether…

Twitter is an opt-in communications channel. People who follow John Mayer do so because they are interested in him or his music. If they were interested in Campbell’s Soup, they would have subscribed to a Campbell’s feed (if they actually have one). The message from Campbell’s was commercial in nature and unsolicited. And that equals spam.

Now… I’m not naive enough to believe that popular Tweeters aren’t already integrating the odd paid product placement into their stream. Heck… I’m certain I’ve seen a few examples from marketing leaders that I follow. But the difference is that they’re smart enough to keep the endorsements on topic. They make recommendations in their field of expertise. The Tweet remains relevant even if they are sponsored. And they know their reputations are on the line if they endorse a sh*t product. So I’d still trust their judgment.

What I don’t trust is John Mayer’s opinion on canned soup. What does he know about soup? What is his endorsement based upon? Cullinary abilities? Nutritional information? Of course not. His endorsement is based purely upon the cheque he received for pimping it. Here’s a piece of advice John… If you’re intent on monetising your Twitter feed (although I’m pretty sure you don’t need the cash…), try limiting your endorsements to fields in which you actually have some credibility. If you endorse a new band I might trust your opinion. If you recommend a specific guitar I’d expect you’d know better than most. But beyond that, please don’t insult our intelligence…

As for Campbell’s, nor should they escape the heat. If they have decided in their wisdom that Twitter is an environment worth investing in, why not actually use the channel for its intended purpose… communication. Sure… soup ain’t the most exciting product in the world, but if H&R Block can find an angle of participation and develop a Twitter following, I’m sure Campbell’s can too. Lazy is probably the most complimentary word I can think of to describe their approach.

And on that note I’ll get off my soap box. Let’s just hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for Twitter. Otherwise, future interactions could have about as much substance and authenticity as Lisa Nova’s Twitter conversations…

For those who haven’t quite caught up with the news, I begrudgingly renounced my anti-Twitter stance recently.  It was a difficult move, particularly after I very publicly stated my disdain for the service. But ignore it as I may, I had to swallow my pride after the damn thing just kept growing at an exponential rate. Eventually contempt had to make way for professional necessity. So I joined. You can find me here. Connecting with people has been easy with lists like this. However,  trying to find Australian businesses on Twitter was infinitely harder. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a centralised resource listing Australian businesses on Twitter. So I decided to create one… because everyone loves a good list!

First off… I expect this list is far from exhaustive. Ultimately, I’d like it to be a collaborative effort, so if you know of a business I haven’t listed, drop me a comment and I’ll include it. My investigation has focused on bigger business as I am particularly interested in how large organisations attempt to leverage the new medium. But I’m sure adoption amongst nimbler small businesses is likely to be significant. Unfortunately, they’re just a little harder to track… so hit me up if you’re a small biz on Twitter. Also note that I’ve also excluded media organisations who are in the broadcast business as Twitter is simply another broadcast medium for them (newspapers, magazines, radio, blogs, tv).

Let’s take a look at the results (listed alphabetically):

Amnesty Australia

• Date Joined: November 2nd, 2008
• Traction: High. The Amnesty team have generated well over 500 followers in less than 6 months of usage. Amnesty does tend to follow a high proportion of Tweeters as compared to many other brands, so an element of re-follow is likely.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. But like many charities/movements on Twitter, no-one is going to hold that against them. Tweets are dedicated to spreading messages of human rights, with recent Tweets focusing on topics such as violence against women, capital punishment & racism. Amnesty are relatively frequent Re-Tweeters of messages that fit their mission.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. Amnesty does not engage at all with other Tweeters, which is a missed opportunities as human rights issues are bound to be discussed frequently within Twitter’s walls.

Atlassian

• Date Joined: December 11th, 2008
• Hat Tip: Matt
• Traction: Moderate. Atlassian has generated over 250 followers in a few months of activity.
• Participation Style: Promotional broadcast. The Twitter account is used almost exclusively to promote new posts on the Atlassian blog. However, it does seem that the Atlassian team maintain separate personal accounts with the purpose of roaming Twitter to proactively connect with customer to provide support.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. None of the most recent 20 posts were active conversations with fellow Tweeters.

Becks

• Date Joined: February 8th, 2009
• Hat Tip: Mike
• Traction: High. The Becks account has generated almost 500 followers in a short space of time. Admittedly, that probably has a whole lot to do with the product (beer) and an aggressive strategy of following other Tweeters.
• Participation Style: High frequency broadcast. To be honest I’m not quite sure exactly what Becks is trying to achieve with the Uberselektor concept. Seems to be a branding initiative to appeal to the cool kids via music. On the micro site it states “searching out city life with a difference“. The Twitter feed is used to push out events notifications, most of which are DJ sets. Gen Y targeting methinks…
• Audience Engagement Rate: Very low. Just one out of Becks’ last 20 Tweets was a response to a follower.

Boardshop

• Date Joined: October 6th, 2008.
• Traction: Amazing. This is a win for the little guys. Boardshop has over 1,500 followers, which is remarkable given the size of the business and the low participation level (less than 50 Tweets at the time of publishing). Clearly at some point these guys have effectively marketed their Twitter account. I guess it helps when you’ve got a hardcore & passionate customer base.
• Participation Style: Promotional. Despite their heavy following, the Boardshop aren’t really leveraging Twitter to it’s potential. Tweeting rarely extends beyond product promotion. With a truly passionate customer base there has to be opportunities to connect with skaters, understand customer needs, build real loyalty and offer tickets to VIP events.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. None of the most recent 20 Tweets were active conversations with customers. Big opportunity missed. There must be tonnes of skaters out there Tweeting!

Cascade Brewery

• Date Joined: October 15th, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. Cascade Brewery has accumulated over 200 followers. However, I tend to think the beer factor is at play again rather than truly engaging Tweeting.
• Participation Style: Spasmodic and irregular. I’m not sure Cascade have figured out how they want to use Twitter. Participation to this point has focused on the occasional news release and delivery of the ‘drink responsibly’ message. But one thing is for sure, with a passionate customer base, they could be doing plenty more!
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Just under half of Cascade’s Tweets were responses to followers. But with only 15 Tweets it’s probably too early to identify a trend.

CustomWare

• Date Joined: May 18th, 2008
• Hat Tip: Laurel
• Traction: Low. The CustomWare account has less than 100 followers.
• Participation Style: A mixture of self promotion and cross promotion. Most of CustomWare’s Tweets direct followers to new content items on their web site. However, CustomWare also semi regularly promote events and products of industry partners such as Atlassian.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. None of the last 20 Tweets were direct responses to fellow Tweeters. However, niche brands have lesser scope for interaction as independent brand chatter is greatly reduced.

Domino’s Pizza

• Date Joined: January 14th, 2009
• Traction: Moderate. Domino’s have accrued a couple of hundred followers; but I suspect most are via reciprocal follows, as Domino’s follow a lot more people than most other companies.
• Participation Style: Random. Like Cascade I doubt Domino’s have figured out exactly how they can use Twitter within their business. Here’s a suggestion – how about Tweeting me when the delivery guy has just left the store. Then I can have a good idea of when to expect the pizza?
• Audience Engagement Rate: Low. Just over a quarter of Domino’s Tweets have been @ responses, but they do seem to reply when questions/comments are directed their way.

EMI Music

• Date Joined: February 10th, 2009
• Traction: High. EMI will surpass 500 followers soon after just a month of Twitter usage. Take note fellow Gen Y marketers.
• Participation Style: Resourceful. EMI seems to be aiming to establish themselves as an information resource for music junkies. Participation focuses on linking to new artists, blogs and music videos for both Australian and international artists. EMI also semi regularly Retweets the work of other industry participants including Triple J.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Five of the most recent 20 Tweets were responses to fellow members.

Fairfax Digital

• Date Joined: March 4th, 2009
• Hat Tip: Laurel
• Traction: Moderate. Fairfax has generated over 300 followers in less than a month. However, it’s likely that many are employees, journalists and social media enthusiasts.
• Participation Style: 100% promotional. Fairfax’s Tweets all serve a promotional purpose of some nature. Many of the Tweets point followers to a story published on one of their publications. Alternatively, a number of Tweets promote Fairfax journalists or properties.
  
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. Fairfax has not engaged in a single conversation with a fellow Tweeter. It is early days in their usage however. Shall we give them the benefit of the doubt…? Nah!

iiNet

• Date Joined: September 30th, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. iiNet has attracted over 250 followers.
• Participation Style: Not quite broadcast, yet not quite customer support. Indeed, a recent Tweet confirmed that iiNet don’t intend to offer support via Twitter – “140 character limit + privacy issues mean we aren’t offering support over Twitter but try our experts on 13 22 58“. While proactive outreach isn’t the nature of participation, it does seem iiNet are happy to answer questions sent directly to them. The account has also been used to broadcast news related to service downtime.
  
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Over half of the most recent 20 Tweets were direct responses to fellow Tweeters.

individuum

• Date Joined: August 31st, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. Individuum has managed to accumulate over 100 followers, which isn’t half bad for a niche financial company I hadn’t heard of before today.
• Participation Style: Promotional. Individuum implements a number of marketing tactics via Twitter. Firstly, they promote new posts on their corporate blog. And secondly, they run competitions via Twitter. Thus far, they are the only Australian business I have seen execute promotions via Twitter. Despite the skew towards marketing activity, their participation doesn’t come across as solely self serving.
  
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Almost half of their most recent 20 Tweets were @ responses.

JetStar

• Date Joined: January 20th, 2009
• Traction: Low. The airline has less than 100 followers, but seems to be in the experimental phase of participation with less than 10 Tweets.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. To this point Tweets have focused solely on fares/sales which is not likely to win them many fans in Twitter… unless they can provide unique offers to their followers in the style of Dell. Here’s an idea though… how unbelievably useful would real time flight information be via Twitter? If users could opt-in to Twitter updates for a single flight, after which their subscription expires, JetStar would suddenly have an extremely high value service for customers (Hat tip to @ianlyons for helping extend my thoughts in this area). Likewise, Connex could provide Twitter updates on train delays and cancellations for specific train lines. It may not improve their ridiculously bad service, but it may help me plan my day just a little bit better.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. JetStar have not engaged in a single conversation via Twitter.

Melbourne IT

• Date Joined: December 2nd, 2008
• Traction: Moderate considering participation to this stage. Melbourne IT have generated almost 100 followers without any real form of action, which shows the potential of the medium with a tech savvy audience.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. Tweets to this point have spruiked offers, press releases and new services. Surely there’s an opportunity to create a help desk environment and aid customers with their technical problems via Twitter.
  
• Audience Engagement Rate: Low. Just one Tweet has been a direct response to a conversation started by another Tweeter.

Netregistry

• Date Joined: September 2nd, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. NetRegistry has accumulated over 100 followers, although I suspect they’re piggy backing off the awareness of Jonathon Crossfield (@Kimota), one of Australia’s higher profile marketing bloggers, and chief Tweeter for Netregistry.
• Participation Style: Balanced self promotion. Jonathon implements a range of participation tactics within Twitter. The primary objective is the promotion of new articles on the Netregistry blog, which are shared via Twitter. However, this broadcast approach is balanced by sharing quality resources from third party sites. This tactic is often employed by marketing and social media experts within Twitter to ensure accusations of excessive self promotion do not eventuate.
  
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Jonathon is an experienced Tweeter, and therefore knows the importance of engaging with the community. Although recent activity has been closer to a broadcast style, historical behaviour is far closer to a 50/50 split between broadcast and real conversations.

Oxfam

• Date Joined: April 13th, 2008
• Traction: Very High. The Oxfam account is approaching the landmark of 1,000 followers. Charities continue to be popular on Twitter.
• Participation Style: Primarily broadcast. Most Tweets are aimed at building awareness for the various causes Oxfam is promoting including sweatshop abolishment, ecosystem protection & Aboriginal affairs. Links point both to the Oxfam site and any other web properties hosting appropriate information.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Low. None of the most recent 20 Tweets were active conversations with members. However, historical behaviour does show minor levels of interaction with the community.

Rio Tinto

• Date Joined: April 22nd, 2008
• Hat Tip: Eric
• Traction: Moderate. Rio Tinto has accumulated over 250 followers, which is relatively high in comparison to other brands. However, the result is modest given the significant advantage in brand awareness that Rio Tinto experience over many other organisations on the list.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. Rio Tinto utilise Twitter as little more than a press room for their media releases. Indeed, almost all Tweets are link drops to content from the media release section of their corporate web site. The dry nature of their media releases means the only people likely to follow their Tweets are journalists and industry pundits.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Very low. Of the most recent 20 Tweets, just 1 was a direct response to a fellow Tweeter.

RMIT

• Date Joined: June 1st, 2008
• Traction: High. RMIT has generated more followers than many mainstream businesses, which is impressive for an educational institution.
• Participation Style: Broadcast/Interactive. RMIT regularly broadcast university news via Twitter, as well as promoting events such as expo’s and festivals. Aside from the news broadcast, they also proactively monitor and respond to anyone mentioning RMIT in the Twitter-sphere. Is it a worry that RMIT manage Twitter better than most Australian businesses…?
• Audience Engagement Rate: High. With proactive monitoring of the RMIT brand name, almost half of the 20 most recent Tweets were responses to fellow Tweeters.

RSPCA

• Date Joined: February 11th, 2009
• Traction: Moderate. In less than a month, the RSPCA has managed to attract almost a hundred followers. I’m sure this will grow over time as awareness spreads.
• Participation Style: Random. Participation hasn’t seemed to serve any real purpose aside from advertising a couple of job vacancies within the organisation. Which is a shame because the aftermath of the recent Victorian bushfires has left many animals in need of care. Twitter could have been used to post pics of individual animals requiring adoption, thereby leveraging the massive wave of goodwill cascading through Twitter.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Over a third of the RSPCA’s Tweets have been to fellow members, although most are simply thank you messages for following. The RSPCA is yet to utilise Twitter  for real conversations.

STA Travel

• Date Joined: December 18th, 2008
• Traction: Very High. The STA Travel account is closing in on 1,000 followers. Although admittedly, targeting the student demographic means Twitter penetration rates are far higher in their target audience.
• Participation Style: Balanced self promotion. Other players in the travel industry take note! STA Travel does broadcast offer based Tweets regularly. But this promotional behaviour is balanced with other constructive participation styles, including linking to interesting third party content, posting photos & engaging with customers. See what acting like a human can achieve…
• Audience Engagement Rate: Low. Of the most recent 20 Tweets, only two were actual conversations with fellow Tweeters. However, the historical rate does tend to be a little higher than this.

Telstra

• Date Joined: September 24th, 2008
• Traction: High. The BigPond Team has accumulated over 500 followers within 6 months of creating the account. However, I do suspect a fair proportion of those followers are social enthusiasts such as myself (keenly watching how a major corporate adopts the medium) rather than actual customers.
• Participation Style: Customer support is clearly the name of the game, ala ComCast. The Telstra team seem to have Twitter alerts established for keywords such as ‘Telstra’ and ‘BigPond’. BigPond’s Twitter team then proactively contact customer’s complaining about the service. The short-term objective is problem resolution. The long-term objective is customer retention.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Very high. Of the most recent 20 Tweets, 16 were directly addressed to fellows Tweeters.

Tourism NSW

• Date Joined: November 8th, 2008
• Traction: Very High. The Tourism NSW account has accumulated almost 1,000 followers.
• Participation Style: Broadcast & Interactive. The Tourism NSW team regularly use Twitter to send out links to new content on their site. However, participation is not limited to broadcast. It seems they have set up an impressive proactive monitoring processes. From what I can see they have monitoring set up on popular locations (Eg. Byron Bay) and are proactively connecting with people mentioning the destination, and providing content when relevant. Great work!
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Of the last 20 Tweets, 10 were direct responses to other Tweeters, which is indicative of an organisation actively reaching out to members.

Tourism Queensland

• Date Joined: October 25th, 2008
• Traction: Amazing! The Tourism Queensland account has almost 3,000 followers. This is undoubtedly due to the roaring global success of their best job in the world campaign, which is clearly one of the best viral campaigns ever run from Australia. It will be interesting to see if the account continues to build momentum once the campaign concludes.
• Participation Style: Interactive. Activity within Twitter focuses solely on the progress of the promotion. Many of the Tweets are dedicated to encouraging voting behaviour from their followers base. However, a healthy proportion of Tweets are also responses to people chatting about the promotion. Whoever is running the Tourism Queensland Twitter account certainly knows what they are doing.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Exactly half of Tourism Queensland’s most recent 20 Tweets were responses to fellow Tweeters.

Tourism Western Australia

• Date Joined: January 20th, 2009
• Traction: High. Tourism Western Australia have attracted over 500 followers in a handful of months.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. Tourism WA are not as progressive in their application of Twitter as their cohorts in Queensland & NSW. The account is predominantly used to promote offers and attractions within the State. On a positive note, they do seem to be involved in aiding @twitchhiker as he travels Australia to raise money for charity.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Low. Whilst they have engaged with twitchhiker, there is little other evidence of audience engagement.

Virgin Blue

• Date Joined: July 30th, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. Despite a fleeting attempt at using Twitter, Virgin Blue has attracted over 200 followers. Not bad given they only ever contributed 4 Tweets.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. The few Tweets ever published were advertisements for sales/fares.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. While it’s hard to tell from such a limited implementation, it didn’t seem as if Virgin Blue were interested in interacting with fellow Tweeters.

Vodafone

• Date Joined: December 17th, 2008
• Traction: Moderate. Vodafone has attracted over 100 subscribers in a couple of months since creating the account.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. Vodafone is using Twitter solely as a distribution channel for press releases, often linking directly to PDF media releases. Ugh. The type of news reported via Twitter includes Vodafone’s merger with Hutchison and quarterly sales results. It makes me wonder how many of their followers are employees, because I doubt many others would be interested in their Tweets.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. Vodafone has never entered into a two-way discussion with a fellow Tweeter.

Vogue

• Date Joined: March 18th, 2009
• Traction: Moderate. At the time of publishing the account was just a week old, yet Vogue has already accumulated over 200 followers. Clearly, Vogue has done some form of promotion of their Twitter account already.
• Participation Style: It’s far too early to tell with just two Tweets. Both Tweets related to a fashion festival, with one linking to a video hosted on the Vogue web site.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Again, far too early to tell how Vogue will engage with their customers & audience.

Westpac

• Date Joined: January 24th, 2009
• Traction: Non existent. The Westpac account has just a handful of followers, which is unsurprising given they’ve only made a handful of Tweets. The most recent Tweet gives the impression that Westpac will begin actively using the account soon – “just working through a couple of things before getting this going“.
• Participation Style: The name of the account (Westpac_help) indicates that Westpac will be taking the customer support route.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Too early to tell.

WWF

• Date Joined: December 17th, 2008
• Traction: Amazing. WWF has amassed almost 2,000 followers. See what a good cause can do.
• Participation Style: Predominantly self promotional. But I guess that’s ok when we’re talking about global conservation. Twitter activity focuses on the promotion of current conservation issues. For example, almost all WWF’s recent Tweets are dedicated to the spreading the word on Earth Hour.
• Audience Engagement Rate: Moderate. Of the most recent 20 Tweets, 5 were active conversations with a fellow Tweeter.

Zuji

• Date Joined: October 11th, 2008
• Hat Tip: Laurel
• Traction: Low. Zuji has less than 100 followers.
• Participation Style: Broadcast. Like JetStar & Virgin Blue, Zuji has used Twitter solely to blast their small follower base with offers. Yawn. Doesn’t seem as if anyone within the travel industry looks at their competitor’s activity to see what isn’t working… Perhaps even worse, all offers point users to Zuji’s home page rather than deep linking them to a specific offer page. Eek!
• Audience Engagement Rate: Non existent. Like their travel industry partners, it seems Zuji has little interest in actually talking to customers.

And one final piece of insight that amused me. I noticed that both the AFL and NRL are on Twitter. However, I excluded both brands from the list as they are only ever likely to use the service to broadcast news. Interestingly, the AFL had almost 700 followers. The NRL had less than 50 followers. Which is proof once and for all that NRL supporters are unsophisticated neanderthals when compared to the average AFL fan…!

Let’s get one thing straight… I hate Twitter. I know it’s hard to hate something you’ve never used, but the concept just seems completely lame to me. Anyone who’s seen my blogging diary would know that my free time is very limited. So why on earth would I want to enter the Twitter-verse? Do I really need to endure constant interruptions of inane small talk…? Certainly not! Indeed, while Twitter mania reached a frenzy over the last 12 months, I have remained the epitome of an anti-micro blogger. That is, until now…

Ironically, it isn’t the adoption of Twitter that has me reconsidering my stance. I have spread my anti-Twitter message to just enough people that adoption would result in endless ridicule and torment. It is the emergence of Plurk, Twitter’s latest competitor that has me rethinking my attitude towards micro blogging. You see, despite my hardcore anti-Twitter sentiments, I couldn’t help but be curious as to what all the fuss was about. So when Plurk started to gain popularity, I saw the opportunity to check out this whole micro blogging craze for myself (minus the ridicule).

Now… I’m still far from a complete micro blogging advocate. I can see both positives and negatives to usage. But with all the Twitter & Plurk love-posts out there, I thought it’d be interesting to share the thoughts of a pessimist. And on that note, I’ll start with the negatives…

Micro Blogging Negatives

Karma

For some reason, Plurk has decided to allocate a ‘score’ to each user. This score is also known as karma, and is calculated based on a person’s usage of the service. The more a person Plurks, the higher their karma score. Undoubtedly, the objective is to keep people engaged with the service.

Karma sucks! It promotes pointless and inane usage in order to maintain or increase karma. It fosters endless discussion, not meaningful discussion. To Plurks credit, they’ve responded quickly to criticisms of the algorithm with more equitable improvements. But the fact is that as long as a karma score is maintained, people will abuse the system with the objective of reaching the ‘Top Plurkers’ list. Why exactly do we need to know who the top Plurkers are anyway…?

Clutter

The reason I hate karma is because it causes clutter. The majority of people I have befriended are digital marketing professionals. I have the utmost respect for all of them. Yet to my surprise, even some of them are getting caught up in the karma chasing shenanigans. Most of their Plurks remain semi-relevant, but there is still an element of pointless drivel to sort through…

Furtermore, Plurk’s timeline interface isn’t particularly user friendly or scalable, especially once you’ve got 70+ active friends. Clutter is a real issue. And for that reason I’m hesitant to continue to grow my friendship network. More friends means more clutter. And as I add friends I know less and less about, the likelihood of the drivel factor increasing is significant.

Time wasting

Plurk is addictive. Far more addictive than I ever imagined. Which means the site can be sticky. For some reason I find myself returning regularly to monitor conversations I’ve created or contributed to. I often wonder why… At 140 characters per response, how important or insightful can they be?

On a number of occasions I’ve visited Plurk with the intention of taking a quick look at the current conversations. Yet an hour later I’m still mucking around in there. Don’t get me wrong, Plurk offers some great networking potential (which I’ll talk about in the positives), but it should not suck up hours of your time. Of the time I’ve spent in Plurk I suspect about 40% has been productive and 60% has been pointless. And that is time that I could have spent working on my blog. Plurk is good in moderation, but usage must be controlled.

ROI for newbies

Ultimately, I believe micro blogging platforms offer the greatest potential to experienced bloggers with established audiences. Renowned bloggers can use Plurk to drive traffic, solicit immediate input and find new readers. But that potential is severely limited when you don’t have a sizable audience. If a newbie Plurks in the woods but nobody’s around… does it make a sound…? Probably not.

And while ongoing commitment to usage will be likely to leverage some benefits for newbies, there are far better ways to make your voice heard. Like writing great content for your own blog. Or if networking is your objective, start commenting on other industry blogs. Fellow bloggers are far more likely to take notice of someone that adds intelligent and insightful thoughts to their blog discussions than a Plurker leaving 140 characters of wisdom. Plurk should be part of your networking strategy, not your entire strategy.

Micro Blogging Positives

By now it probably seems like I’m a walking/talking contradiction… singing Plurk’s praises at the start of this article, only to rip into the negatives. But there have been a range of positives. Let’s have a look at what I’ve liked about Plurk:

Extending relationships

As I stated earlier, I don’t think Plurk is the best place to start your networking initiatives. I prefer a more targeted networking process. But I do believe Plurk is a great place to deepen established relationships. Once a connection has been created, Plurk can be the perfect place to learn more about a person. Most micro bloggers reveal more about themselves within this format than they would via their blog. Simply watching a person’s Plurks will often tell you what their interests are and what they do in their spare time. I’ve found myself chatting about sports, insomnia & other random topics with my Plurk friends. And I think it’s helped to deepen some friendships I’ve formed.

Research

I often find myself wondering whether the processes I implement in maintaining my blog are normal. I’ve always wondered how other bloggers manage their tasks/life. Plurk gives me the opportunity to throw random questions about blogging out there, and gather some insight into the topic. So far I’ve learned a little more about:

• How people deal with writer’s block
• How long people take to prepare and write a new post
• Which social media applications people use
• How people turn their brains off at night

With Plurk I no longer need to wonder what other people do. I simply ask…

Access to industry stars

To this point, Plurk has not reached critical mass in the way Twitter has. It’s still predominantly for the early adopters. As a result, the superstars of the world are have far fewer followers than in other mediums. Which means they’re far more accessible. I’ve never had any sort of contact with Maki from Dosh Dosh or Darren Rowse from Problogger, yet both have responded to questions I’ve thrown out into Plurk-overse. Which almost floored me when it happened! Indeed, one of the highlights of Plurk for me was trading Australian Rules footy banter with Darren (a fellow Melbournian). Undoubtedly, this level of accessibility won’t last forever, so now is a good time to get in early if you want to attempt to connect with some A listers.

The verdict

I’m a little hesitant to admit it after developing my strong anti micro-blogging stance, but I do think I’m going to continue to use Plurk regularly. The positives are outweighing the negatives for now and I can see real benefits in extending deeper relationships with fellow Sphinners in particular. The key will be to moderate my participation so that my time Plurking is productive.

So, if anyone has some humble pie baking, I’m willing to swallow my pride and eat a large slice. But I’m still not joining Twitter…