Social Media is constantly touted as the 'biggest thing on the net' by marketers everywhere. There are whole conferences to discuss it and many agencies placed to help you get into it. With all this publicity - coupled with the fact that you and almost everyone you know uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or blogs - your business may well think they need to get on the Social Media bandwagon quick smart.

But before you jump in,please consider these points, and remember, once it's posted, its usually there for life...

1. Your Industry: While it is fine, perhaps ideal, for you to be the first business in your industry to undertake social media, first eliminate the possibility that this is because social media might not be suitable for your industry. If your business services only a few, very large clients, social media might not be suitable. If your business is concerned with security or privacy, then social media might not be for you. If you work in a politically sensitive environment, again, you might want to think hard about it first.

None of these things mean you shouldn't go into Social Media, but just that you should think long and hard about the realities of what could happen if you do. You should research all the companies in your field who are doing social media now, and find out what you should emulate, and what you should avoid. Look across the internet at the Social Media disasters and try and put in place measures to avoid this.

2. Define what you want out of social media, and how you envisage getting it.  Don't just say feedback, communication or brand awareness, think about how social media would meet those goals. For example, how is Facebook going to engage you with your customers? Could it be by letting users comment on upcoming products, research, photo's from corporate events or memos? Could you do surveys and offer prizes? Do you want to offer internships or discounts?

If you want to go on Twitter - what do you have to say for yourself? Who do you want following you? What value can you give them? Could you still be bothered tweeting this time next year?

3.Worst case scenario. Imagine you were Southwest Airlines or Nestle, whose PR nightmares came true in the public arena of Facebook and Twitter. To avoid such a storm, you need to ensure that your staff are trained by social media and PR experts.  The youngest guy in your team might use Twitter all day, every day, but that doesn't mean he is qualified to lead your corporate campaign.

4. Sustainability - Do you have staff to manage this for you? Will they be able to continue into the future? Social Media is a long term strategy where you need to become engaged, and stay engaged, with customers. You can't just fly in and out, because there will be no trust, and therefore, no benefit for you. Can you be bothered being in Social Media for the long run?

Playing the devils advocate on this one, I could also say that it doesn't matter if you're not. Social Media is a relatively low investment thing to set up, so if it doesn't work out, you can just stop doing it. But I reiterate - Social Media is a longer term strategy, and to make it work well, you need commitment.

5. Is your brand strong enough? Think hard about the current attitudes towards your brand - are they strong enough to withstand some bad feedback? Are there people out there who would want the opportunity to attack your brand publicly? If so, you might want to think about more low profile or even one-way communication strategies to help improve your brand image before you move on to social media.

This isn't meant to be a list of reasons not to undertake social media, only some things to consider before you do. Social Media is a risky business, it is out there in the public eye and could be up on the net forever. Take the time to plan it well, know what you want from it, and be ready with a contingency plan.

Yesterday I got the Fail Whale, and today I get this;



Can Twitter not handle it's 50 million Tweets per day?

A blog post from Twitter today stated that there are 50 million tweets worldwide per day. If you think this number is staggering, check out the graph they posted with it, which shows an almost exponential increase in Tweets since Twitter's inception


If Twitter is 50 million tweets a day, that means 600 per second. According to SearchEngineLand the Facebook comparator is 700 status updates per second.

If Facebook is considered a social media 'establishment', then it is fair to say that with 600 tweets per second compared to 700 status updates per second, it wouldn't be unfair for Twitter to consider itself part of the establishment as well.

(Meanwhile, according to the same article in SearchEngineLand, there are only 55 Buzzes (that's Google speak for status update/tweet) per second...which to be honest is a lot more than I would expect from Google Buzz. )

Facebook is benefiting from it's huge following through a good smattering of advertisements down the right sidebar, Google Buzz has the Google search network, why is Twitter still not monetising it's huge audience?

It's not like there is no way to, they could do it in a number of ways;

1. Display advertising, like Google and Facebook
2. New paid services (I doubt making existing service paid would go down well)
3. Selling off of data to businesses

Surely their venture capitalist supporters are getting a bit antsy?

Among the millions of stories going on on Twitter over the last week, one of the most popular was regarding Kevin Smith and Southwest Airlines. Kevin Smith (the director of Clerks, etc.) used a combination of Twitter and podcasts (through SModcast)  to rant and spread the news about his bad treatment at the hands of Southwest Airlines flight policy.

This is an obvious nightmare for the unlucky PR and customer service people at Southwest Airlines, and they responded in a variety of ways, including a voucher to him, a carefully crafted post on their corporate blog (wittily named 'Not So Silent Bob') and, of course, Twitter.

The person manning the Twitter account for SWA should get a medal - she must have felt like the whole internet hated her.

What could SouthWest Airlines have done to prevent the Twitter-wrath of Kevin Smith?

Nothing. They have a policy in place which is highly contentious, and it has been in place (apparently) for a long time.

What they did right.

They have a Twitter account, which is fairly cutting edge of them, and the fact that they were monitoring it even better. Lots of  companies don't do this.

After a public apology, they tried to move the conversation off Twitter and into a private sphere, which Kevin Smith took against, but that is the professional way to go, and if Kevin wanted to continue in public, then so be it.

They wrote an apology on their blog so they could explain the matter in more than 140 character chunks.

I think their blog posts and Twitter replies were fair enough. They were unemotional, professional and attempted to state the facts.

What could they have done better?

However, they should have stuck more firmly to their one story. They should have reiterated their rules and directed people to a permanent information source they have which outlines the rules and the reasons behind them.

They could be a bit more responsive to the large amount of people against this policy - this doesn't mean changing their policies, but perhaps just being a bit more considerate in the way they are communicated.  Social media is about listening and responding, whereas SWA was a bit more about using social media to send out their press releases.

So what?

The good thing for individuals - perhaps service will improve as companies have no idea who has a giant online following behind them!

The bad thing for companies - perhaps a person with a giant online following might be the recipient of a slip up of your company, and you will have to deal with the fall out.  Learn from SWA and never think it couldn't happen to you.

Unfortunately, I didn't, so I don't.

Yesterday there were a few stories circulating the web hinting that today Google would release a new feature for Gmail which was touted as being either a Twitter-killer, or a Facebook-killer, depending on which one you read.

I held off writing a piece about that, because until an official press release comes out you never know who to trust, and there were no reliable sources discussing it anyway.

Today, the Gmail blog (and Google blog) both published an article announcing Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail, which is being rolled out over the next couple of days.

Yesterday I was sceptical, because to be honest, I don't like Gmail all that much. Other Google products in the social sphere have also been disappointing, like Orkut (only big in Brazil) and Wave (which is not yet out of beta, and which I also dislike anyway).

The big obstacle in the way of Buzz being a Twitter killer is that it is integrated into Gmail, which puts it behind the 8ball because gmail is such a user-unfriendly interface, whereas Twitter is so simple.  I suspect it would have been better to introduce a new, simple product with a nice interface rather than try to staple something on to Gmail.

What is Buzz?
Buzz, which you can kind of get from the name, is Google's next attempt at entering the social media sphere. It uses your current social network (i.e. your Gmail contacts) with new functionality to help you ' talk with them about things that are interesting you at the time'. Google is touting it as a new way to organise the social web.

It seems to be using a bit of the Google Wave technology, where you can easily share photo's, video's and links with a group, and any responses to things you post will get sent to your email where they are not 'static emails'  but rather ' live conversations' (like they tried to do with Google Wave).

You can also make things 'available to the whole world' if you want, by opening up your privacy settings.

Like Twitter you can follow people and find out what they are doing and sharing online, and like Twitter it uses @replies.


Why Did Google Do It?
Google is basically built on ad sales, and with more people spending time on non-Google social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, this is reducing their ability to advertise.  With this new tool they hope to get a piece of the addictive-pie that is social media, and therefore be able to sell more ads on Gmail.

It is integratable with Twitter and Flickr already, with other sites likely to be introduced in the future, so basically it is hoping that you will stay on a Google site to view all your other social media information.

Interesting Features
Their mobile version is not just the small screen friendly version of the normal site, but also has an addition to the "what are you doing now"  status update, you can add a ' Where were you when you said that'  kind of thing. That is awesome if you are a Facebook stalker, you can take it to a whole new level.

My prediction
This is not a Twitter or Facebook killer.