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Spring is here and everyone is Tweeting...

Charlie Grant, New Media Executive

Twitter still seems to be the word on everybody’s lips as a new survey by O2 has revealed that over 6000 UK small businesses are now signing up to the site every day.

As the social networking phenomenon continues to flourish Twitter is fast becoming a mainstream media outlet with consumers, celebrities, global companies and politicians all regularly ‘tweeting’.

Twitter can be an invaluable networking tool as well as a place to publish stories, exchange ideas and track news. The fact that it’s becoming so widely accessible, for example from mobile devices, means that potential audiences and opportunities are endless.

O2 is a fantastic example of a company that is utilising Twitter to really engage with customers. An O2 representative seems to be constantly on hand to answer customer queries ranging from problems with mobile phones, to complaints about stores. In this way Twitter can make companies more ‘human’.

But although Twitter is being branded as a cost-effective way for small businesses to communicate with target audiences, using it wrongly could alienate potential customers.

So what are the do’s and don’ts’ of micro-blogging?

In order to maintain a strong business identity on Twitter, it’s important to regularly post interesting links to relevant news and websites as well as your own website in order to show you as experts. If people comment on any of your tweets, follow and write back whenever you can. This way you are able to have a direct conversation with potential customers and can demonstrate that their opinions do matter. Also, the fact that so many businesses are now using Twitter means that you can monitor your competitors’ online activity.

To ensure your followers don’t tune out, make sure your tweets are regular, interesting and worth reading, but at the same time don’t bombard your audience. Purely pushing your own business via your tweets will also put people off, no one will follow you if all your links are just to your own website.

Sticking to these simple guidelines should will make your Twittering all the more worthwhile, even if it is a passing fad.

I’m off now to Tweet confidently if you want to follow us click http://twitter.com/OCommunications.

New Media Revolution gives US Presidents celebrity status

Charlie Grant, New Media Executive





With election fever gripping the world, it seems that everyone and his uncle know the names Barack Obama and John McCain. Even the British youth, most of whom wouldn’t know the leaders of our very own major political parties, seem to know not only where Sarah Palin hails from, but how much she spends on clothes and her penchant for high heels.

It seems that one of the major contributing factors for this world-wide know-all of the American election can be put down to the one thing that unites us all - the internet.

Never before has the World Wide Web been used to such effect; with blog, videos, podcasts and websites popping up all over, dedicated to what has been the most costly US presidential campaign in history. Not only has YouTube become a tool for passionate voters to express their opinions to the masses, but even the two sparring political parties have adopted the video revolution.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have issued videos for the Google-owned website. Obama has even managed to secure a video of his ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech in the ranks of the highest-watched videos of all time.

YouTube was once a place where like-minded individuals (all possessing very fast internet connections of course) went to upload their latest vodcast, or to mime along to the Backstreet Boys. Now it’s become an incredibly strong political tool. With over a billion internet users in the world, and over 100 million YouTube videos watched every day, it’s easy to understand why the spin doctors are using the internet to reach the voting public.

They did their job so well, in fact, that many non-Americans now feel passionate enough to show loyal support to a favoured candidate. And even this ‘across-the-pond’ support isn’t wasted. Eager Britons have posted their written and spoken opinions in droves. It would only take a few undecided US voters to happen across a convincing argument written by a British blogger to change the course of history.

The internet is a powerful tool. It can turn politicians into superstars and ‘nobodies’ into celebrities. The jury is still out on whether our own politicians should go the digital way and embrace the new media popularity contest, but who knows? In a few years, we could be watching Gordon Brown dancing around his room to some ‘90s Euro-pop in a fantastic attempt to attract the youth vote…

Charlie Grant