Enough is enough. We’re starting the campaign against Twitter Litter.
Over the last six months or so, more and more third party services are popping up that integrate with Twitter that force the user to tweet when they use them. This leaves users with a decision; use the service and tweet, or don’t use it at all.
What this means for the community is that it is sometimes bombarded with irritating posts about what piercing, Harry Potter character or M&M colour you are.
Most people use Twitter to have conversations with others about things they’re mutually interested in. They don’t use it to see the results of inane quizzes or games, similar to those that have littered Facebook since the advent of applications. Unfortunately, unlike in Facebook, there is no overarching policy towards these services and no option to block them.
The lack of a third option (to use the service but not be forced to tweet) on some of these services is a situation that needs to be redressed. Allow users to use these services without forcing them to spam their followers.
From an advertising point of view, brands should not Litter Twitter in this way. The key for successful social communications is understanding the space and adding value, not devaluing the service by creating spam. And good practice is to always make sure any interaction is opt-in, rather than opt-out.
If you think people and services shouldn’t Litter Twitter, sign our petition; also let us know your thoughts and feelings in the comment section of this blog post. If you would like to help spread the word of the campaign then we have created a badge for your blog. Whatever you do though, don’t Litter Twitter.
My favorite online music providers at it again, in 9 days Spotify will be holding their invisible festival. Put simply by using play lists you can have all your friends round and listen to the same tunes others are listening to across the country.
Importantly all the proceeds go towards charity. A lovely example of social media going off line and doing something wonderful.
My only concern is that if i asked my friends to join me for a festival in my flat listening to my computer play music i would have very few takers. My prediction for the outcome of invisible festival is lots of very lonely people listening to the same play lists imagining each other having a better time. Hope i am wrong.
ProvoCraft, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of paper cutting tools, has developed a breakthrough in the paper cutting world. Their newly invented gadget, called the Gypsy, lets you design your scrapbook crafts anywhere you go (finally!).
To spread the word on Social Media platforms of this magical invention, ProvoCraft has hired the Salt Lake City based agency Struck Creative. Online – through the website, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flicker – we get to follow the macho bounty hunter Donny K, who loves T-bone steaks and Energy Drinks, in his pursuit of ten scrapbookers who has stolen the ProvoCraft Gypsy. Each episode is about the pursuit of a new scrapbooker and how Donny K goes about catching these felons. However, Donny K isn’t the most professional bounty hunter, so even the task of catching a 50 year-old lady usually ends in failure.
The campaign is very creative, with an execution filled with a lot of wit. Struck has made sure that the audience has the ability to follow the pursuit of the rogue gypsies through a broad range of channels, with the possibility to create a very large reach. However, what bugs me with this quite clever execution is the target audience: Are there enough scrapbookers out there to actually respond to this campaign? And are they in this media space? People creating physical photo albums must be a niche market, as most photos are taken digitally. And if this campaign is supposed to target businesses, isn’t this a completely wrong way to go about it?
Or am I completely wrong? Is creating scrapbooks a hobby that the general public is still engaging in? I know that my mother is, but she would never respond to this campaign…
Alongside David Cameron’s Twitter Twat moment in the trending topic today were three seemingly disparate entries; M&Ms, Harry Potter and “What Piercing Are”.
On closer inspection, these turn out to be caused by automated messages from the service fun140. They’re generated by quizzes with themes like “what colour M&M are you?”, “what piercing are you?” and “which Harry Potter character are you?”.
As with several other twitter services, you sign up, do your thing (in this case the quiz), and all your followers get a message about it. Which, providing it’s opt-in, is alright for directory services (such as WeFollow) where you’re likely to do this only a few times (or even once) and the service may be of interest to your followers.
However, what colour M&M or kind of piercing you are might not be that interesting. It also might get a bit irritating after a few people you’re following have tweeted it. In fact, you might be contributing to the Twitter Litter.
As Sam’s mentioned before, Twitter Litter is created by canny people creating a meme that spreads, but doesn’t have a value for the community. For me, this is what fun140 is creating and unfortunately, it’s making Twitter a little bit more like Facebook.
Now, I like Facebook, but it’s full of spammy applications that tell me which of the Sex and the City girls my friends are like. Is this the future for Twitter, and will users put up with it?
Jam favourite Ocado is the first supermarket delivery service to launch an i-phone app. For those of us too busy or disinclined to negotiate the supermarket isles, the Ocado application signs directly into a users delivery account so that you can add groceries to your shopping basket wherever you are and whenever you remember. Allowing access to the full Ocado range, the application doesn’t cut corners and pulls in huge quantities of user data from favourite purchases (red peppers and basil if you must know) or re-ordering a previous weeks lists. Always on top of innovation, the i-phone app perfectly epitomises Ocado’s brand values in delivering excellent customer service with a considered and pioneering execution.
The story of a band from Sheffield that were catapulted to number one based on their MySpace fan base is an often told story. However, as the band ready their third album, social media is again at the forefront of their promotion.
Neatly ticking off the social media ‘Do’s’, the band’s video blog has kept contact with their fans during their time off and given the notoriously press-shy band a ‘face’, in the shape of head correspondent Matt Helders.
But of course, the key to this is extracting what the fans want and giving it to them where they already are… a view into the life of a Rock Star. Sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll? More fresh laundry, cheap haircuts and falling asleep at P. Diddy parties according to the bands ‘A View From’ video diaries.
No Jack White-esque subscription models here, thankyou very much. Just a great example of giving fans what they want, freely and easily.
Saw this article on The Independent that shows what the UK would be like if it was scaled down be a village with 100 inhabitants. It follows a similar model as the book If the World Were a Village by David Smith.
Here are a few of the stats that I found particularly interesting and remember each person represents 1% of the UK population:
Thirty people would have a Facebook account. (had to put a social media one in there)
The villagers would have 118 mobile phones between them (66 of which would be pay-as-you-go). There would be 55 telephone landlines.
The richest 10 people in the village would receive 30 per cent of the total income. Between them, they would earn more than the poorest 50 combined.
I am one of the newbies in Jam, so this is my first blog. I also happen to be the only American on the team, so it’s only fitting that I start off blogging with coffee, even though I much prefer a British cup of tea.
I came across the portrait of Mona Lisa made from 4,000 cups of coffee while perusing random postings on Tumblr.
This gem is the mastermind of The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney, Australia, which you can read more about here.
Why didn’t the Americans think of this? My guess is they were probably too busy drinking coffee.
So here it goes my very first spreading jam post. There have been a few cool things that have caught my attention recently in particular a nice idea from Nike-Live strong for the Tour de France.
What do you get if you have a giant computer printer add a bit of chalk dust and a sprinkle of cancer awareness well “chalk bot” of course. This giant printer was designed to paint messages of hope and support from twitter and your mobile on to the Tour de France route during the races. The support messages could be sent to those who have fought/fighting the hell that is cancer.
A twitter page was set up where you could tweet your message -@chalkbot your 40 character message followed by #livestrong eg. (@chalkbot in our hearts always sarah! #Livestrong)
By printing the messages on roads, the idea is that each inspiring message will be much more effective and meaningful to those involved. I think it’s a great idea as it combines the online with the offline perfectly, and I’m quite excited to see how else it could be used in different ways for other events.
You have never seen any posts made by me in this blog before, as I never had the opportunity. Arriving in London from Stockholm, Sweden and joining the Jam team three days ago I am the greenhorn of the gang. In a few days (weeks?) however, I will hopefully feel right as rain at the far end of the row of Social Media planning geniuses. If you want to know me a bit better, here is a Spotify playlist hastily put together. Its long, its weird…but its me.
There is a lot of change going on around me at the moment. First and foremost, I have once again left my hometown for a new city, a quite different one I might add (except for the weather, the weather in London is almost as bad as in Stockholm). But there are also massive changes going on in marketing industry, of which we are working in. In HP’s newest transformation video about how digital platforms are reshaping communication it is stated that by 2010, 70% of the online content will be created not by corporations but by individuals. This means that the corporations are losing their power and must start listening to their customers and start rethinking their communication. I do not think the old ways have to go completely, not all communication should go online. However, traditional messages has to be tweaked and delivered to where the audience wants to listen to it. I am still waiting for an amazing campaign where online and offline will go hand in hand in perfect synergy. The old must become integrated with the new:
