Do you ever wonder how people react when they see your Twitter updates? Odds are, most would fall under the category of “meh,” according to a new study.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Georgia Tech joined forces to get a sense of how most tweets go over. They created a website called Who Gives a Tweet? that was sort of like a Hot or Not for tweets: Users were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets for people they already follow.
Over 19 days in December and January, 1,443 visitors to the site rated 43,738 tweets from 2,014 accounts.
The verdict? Respondents liked 36% of the tweets, disliked 25% and ranked their reaction to the remaining 39% as neutral. “A well-received tweet is not all that common,” Michael Bernstein, a doctoral student at MIT who worked on the project, wrote in a blog post. “A significant amount of content is considered not worth reading, for a variety of reasons.”
Tweets that were part of a semi-private conversation were among the most reviled. Also unpopular: Tweets relating to a mood (“So tired today”) or activity (“Just ate a sandwich.”) On the other hand, sharing information, asking questions of followers and self-promotion, like linking to a story you just wrote (if you’re a journalist) were more likable.
The study’s authors offered a few suggestions for producing better tweets:
1. Don't Tweet Old Links.
Nobody cares about old news. Twitter is best for sharing breaking news.
Activity Ratios are some of the best tools in your arsenal to quantify and improve your business. Here are three quick scenarios how.
“How many calls do I need to hit quota?”
It could be calls, or demos, or any other activity type. A salesperson wants to translate their quota into a number of actions they need to do in a given period of time. The answer: track your activity ratio of X-to-Deal, probably over a trailing 90-day or 12-month range.
In the example to the right, this customer is a staffing firm and has chosen activities specific to their sales funnel: Job Orders, Internal Submissions, Sendouts, Interviews, and finally Placements. The JO:Placement ratio tells them that they need on average 3.7 new job orders to close a deal (placement). In fact this customer’s last five months have been better than average with a ratio in the 2.0 – 3.0 range.
You can also define “intermediate” ratios for activities in the middle of your sales funnel. For example, how many trials does it take to get a demo? As you can see, this customer needs on average 2.0 sendouts to get an interview, and they are getting better (the ratio is trending downwards) over time.
“What do my veterans do differently from my rookies?”
Rookies often take a “shotgun” approach to winning deals: do as much activity as possible, in order to make up for quality through sheer volume. As they become more experienced you often see a shift to a “rifle” approach, doing fewer but higher-quality activities to achieve the same result.
If you break out your ratios by employee, differences in how each employee approaches their sales funnel quickly become clear. Examples to the right:
William Howard Taft is a veteran with 45 deals (placements) won. His overall ratio is 2.6 Job Orders to each Placement. He also needs only 7.2 submissions for each placement — he is a “rifle” shooter.
James Madison is a relative rookie with 15 placements. His overall ratio is significantly worse at 3.5 job orders per placement, and it’s easy to see why. He needs 118 submissions to get each done, more than 16x the effort done by Taft.
These differences help you quantitatively troubleshoot and help your employees improve their process efficiency.
“Why does this client seem so difficult?”
Often a client will be difficult to work with, but it can be hard to put a finger on exactly how they’re different from the norm.
If you break out your ratios by client, differences between them will quickly jump out:
CHS, Computer Sciences, and Arrow Electronics are all relatively minor clients (1-2 placements each) but require 20 – 30 job orders for each win, indicating they are quite difficult to work with. If you look at their Submission to Placement ratio, they also require a lot of submissions — another indicator that they are very picky.
Verizon, Citigroup, Union and Medco are all heavy buyers with 14 – 20 placements each. They’re also much easier to work with, as seen by their 5:1 JO-to-Placement ratio which is 4-6x better than the clients above.
Knowing which clients have a higher bang for the buck will inform your business of where to place its effort and priorities.
Know your ratios, know your business
These activity types will vary by industry and customer. You’ll need to choose the activity types that match your business, and we encourage business to figure out what the most meaningful activities and ratios are. Once you do, ratio analysis can help you more accurately project your sales funnel and improve both your employee as well as client efficiency.
When people watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, they may notice something different about the ads — many of them will be touting a new way to interact with the advertised brands. Shazam, an app that allows people to connect with extra TV content by listening to a few seconds of audio, says it has big plans for Sunday, and IntoNow, a Yahoo-acquired app offering similar capabilities, is announcing a big partnership, too.
Shazam is better-known as an app for identifying music, but it recently brought its technology to TV, where the experience is less about identifying a song and more about creating an easy way for TV shows and advertisers to spur viewers to action. The company has been ramping up its advertising efforts over the past year, and it sounds like the SuperBowl should give those efforts a huge boost — Shazam already announced in January that it signed deals to include Shazam capabilities with nearly one-third of Super Bowl ads.
Now the company says the number has risen to almost half of the ads, and it’s revealing a few key partners: Viewers of the Toyota ad will be able to use Shazam to enter a contest to win two free Camrys. When viewers tag the Cars.com ad, Cars.com will donate $1.00 to one of seven charities. Pepsi’s ad will feature X-Factor winner Melanie Amaro, and using Shazam on the ad will unlock an extra video. Viewers who tag the Teleflora ad will receive a special offer. And not only is Best Buy using Shazam to offer a $50 gift card to customers who buy and activate a mobile phone in 2012 — it’s actually featuring two of Shazam’s founders in its commercial.
Beyond the success of any specific campaign, this year’s Super Bowl will probably serve as an introduction to Shazam’s TV capabilities for many millions of viewers. After all, they’re going to be seeing a Shazam logo, or some other mention of the app, on-screen throughout the day. (Oh, and Shazam users will be able to tag the game and the halftime show, too.)
“There are going to be a hundred-plus million people watching,” says Evan Krauss, Shazam’s executive vice president of advertising sales. “We’re excited for that many people to see it, and for them to see that many commercials in one day.”
IntoNow, meanwhile, hasn’t been as aggressive about signing up advertisers — or at least, in naming them for the press. Instead, it shared plans for one specific campaign Pepsi. After viewers tag the Super Bowl on IntoNow, the app will automatically sync up when the Pepsi MAX commercial airs, giving them an opportunity to enter a contest to receive Pesi MAX for life.
Aside from watching Tom Brady tear it up on the field, the best part of Super Bowl will undoubtedly be the commercials. So far, we’re obsessed with two killer car commercials for Super Bowl XVLI that have already leaked, an Acura ad featuring Jerry Seinfeld and a Ferris Bueller themed Honda CR-V commercial with Matthew Broderick. We just got a sneak peek into yet another ad set to air on Sunday, featuring Boston’s very own Mayor Menino and New York’s Mayor Bloomberg.
Yesterday, Menino and Bloomberg sent out the following tweets:
The mayoral ad is set to premiere Sunday during the most coveted airspace in television, in which most ads cost a hefty $3.5 million for just 30 seconds of on-screen time. The Mayors’ ad promotes Mayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition, of which Menino and Bloomberg are co-chairs, uniting 600 mayors across the country under the premonition that the Second Amendment is effective only if citizens abide by the laws of gun ownership.
While I support their mission to get illegal guns off the street as much as the next person, I can’t imagine a more boring Super Bowl ad than theirs. The tweeted photos look incredibly awkward, and Menino in a Tom Brady jersey is about the most contradictory thing I’ve ever seen. Honestly, I think I’d rather see a Madonna “wardrobe malfunction” a la 2004 than this commercial.
The 2012 International CES was the largest in the event's 44 year history, with a record number of more than 3,100 exhibitors across the largest show floor in CES history.
A chubby dog gets in shape to chase a Beetle in Volkswagen’s long-awaited sequel to its “The Force” Super Bowl ad from last year. And don’t worry, there’s a shout out to Star Wars as well.
Mark Hunter, CCO of Deutsch LA, which created “The Force” and the new ad, “The Dog Strikes Back,” acknowledges that the former ad was a tough act to follow. “The pressure is on because we did that great ad,” he says. “We don’t mind. That’s what we’re in this business for.”
Hunter jokes that the Deutsch team went to work on the new ad shortly after the whistle blew in the 2011 Super Bowl. Actually, work began in earnest about six months ago. Over that time, the agency went through many, many concepts. “I would be surprised if the raw number of script ideas was less than 200,” he says.
One of the challenges was to somehow work in a Star Wars reference. Hunter says the online Star Wars community is one of the reasons that last year’s ad caught on. One major difference is that most advertisers are dropping their complete ads before the big game. Last year, VW was among a more select group.
The timing, however, is the same: The Wednesday before the big game. Within a day, the video had received more than 150,000 views. However, VW’s teaser for this latest ad, “The Bark Side,” already has racked up 10 million views since hitting YouTube Jan. 18.
Does “Dog Strikes Back” live up to the hype? Sound off in the comments.
1. "The Bark Side" (Vokswagen)
Not surprisingly, the sequel to the most-shared ad of last year's Super Bowl, and of all of 2011 for that matter, is leading the pack this year. Volkswagen released this video last week showing dogs barking to the tune of Star Wars's "The Imperial March." So does that mean there will be dogs in this year's ad? More Star Wars? We'll know soon enough.
The Florida primary is shaping up to be an important battleground in the war for the Republican presidential nomination, and it’s getting plenty of attention on social media.
Mashable asked social media analysis company Fizziology to determine the sentiment around each of the remaining candidates and compare it to recent polling data.
In the latest poll from the American Research Group (ARG), which was carried out by live interviewers from Jan. 29 to 30, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (with 43 percent) leads former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (with 31 percent). Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Texas Congressman Ron Paul are following far behind, with 13 percent and 9 percent respectively.
So, polls are predicting a Romney win with a close showing from Gingrich but little competition from Santorum or Paul. Does the social sentiment data match up?
According to Fizziology’s analysis, Romney created the most overall social chatter (139,886 relevant mentions), followed closely by Gingrich (137,122 mentions). Rick Santorum had a dramatic increase in positive sentiment, but Fizziology also found less overall chatter around him (31,173 mentions) — suggesting a smaller but more focused support base.
Fizziology noted that the volume of social media posts around a particular candidate has closely mirrored that candidate’s performance in a particular election. Therefore, its data predicts a much closer battle between Romney and Gingrich than that predicted by the ARG poll.
Meanwhile, negative sentiment is on the rise for Romney, which Fizziology believes to be a byproduct of the increased scrutiny received by a frontrunner. Fizziology found that he has 48% negative sentiment and 10% positive sentiment (42% of Romney-related posts were neutral).
Check out Fizziology’s graph on the top 3 candidate’s (per the ARG poll) positive sentiment throughout the nomination process thus far:
Fizziology’s methodology works by using humans to analyze and interpret the sentiment of posts on the “big 3:” Twitter, Facebook and blogs.
The company’s process isn’t a scientific poll. However, we’ve found in the past that social media sentiment has lined up with election and caucus results very well.
So is it useful to look at social media sentiment ahead of an election? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Coming from the Online Advertising world to the Social Media Agency world was a bit of a jump, but there are many more similarities than you’d think. The most common thread is that it’s all about relevancy – making sure the most relevant message is placed in front of the most relevant individuals.
Thinking about this theme of relevancy – I couldn’t help but take a moment to pause when I came across an article from Clickz, noting that 31% of display ads go unseen. Let’s do some quick math here… According to eMarketer’s forecasts for 2011 – 2015 the US spent approximately $31.3 billion on online ads in 2011.
$31.3 billion * .31 = $9.7 billion online display advertising dollars down the drain!!!!
The article mentions that one of the main causes why these ads go unseen is that they are placed on parts of websites that are not viewed by the users. We’re talking about “below the fold” ads or ads in locations that someone won’t easily see — not to mention other reasons such as slow loading times, mobile devices/tablets or computer screen resolution (think of the vast difference between 600 x 400 vs. 1280 x 1024).
Now I’m not one to go jumping to conclusions, and yes I may be slightly biased, but it seems to me that $9.7 billion spent on unseen ads might go to better use somewhere else – like social media. It appears however that I’m not alone here, as there are a number of studies coming out in support of social concept advertising.
To further confirm this point, let’s look at a social advertising. You know you have seen countless statistics about individuals considering the product input/recommendations of their friends and family above almost anything else – in fact, more than 3 in 4 (78%) consumers trust peer recommendations, whereas only 14% trust ads. Facebook’s sponsored stories proves that these recommendations make a difference in ad recall, purchase intent and awarenessbased on advertising with a social concept versus those that do not.
Given this data, it seems like a no brainer that social, leveraging relevancy and the power of peer influence, seems to be the most effective place to think about reallocating $9.7 billion. End of day, to really draw a line in the sand here and prove social media ROI we need to take a stab at redefining KPIs and success metrics for Social Media, but that is for another time and blog post.
Bottom line – even if we haven’t figured out the exact ROI formula, you can’t really do any worse than spending money on something that no one will see….
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, whose long-standing claims of an Apple television set have been gaining steam in recent months as new rumors have surfaced in support of the idea, issued a research note late yesterday (via AppleInsider) discussing some new developments with Apple's work. Specifically, Munster notes that he had recent discussion with a "major TV component supplier" which disclosed that Apple had contacted the company to inquire about their products. The disclosure adds another data point to rumors from Asian supply chains that Apple has been working on a television set. The relevant portion of Munster's report is quoted by Barron's:
In Jan-12 we spoke with a major TV component supplier who has been contacted by Apple regarding various capabilities of their television display components. We see this as continued evidence that Apple is exploring production of a television. This latest data point follows Jan-11 meetings in Asia that led us to believe Apple was investing in manufacturing facilities for LCD displays ranging from 3.5″ mobile displays to 50″ television displays. In Sept-11 we met with a contact close to an Asian supplier who indicated that prototypes of an Apple Television are in the works. We believe TV hardware could be ready for a late CY12 launch, but the timeline and scope of a revamped content solution is more uncertain.
Observers have been looking for Apple's next major product line even as the iPad and iPhone experience booming sales and the Mac continues its resurgence with long-standing steady growth easily outpacing that of the overall PC industry. The rumor mill clicked into high gear on the topic of an Apple television set with Steve Jobs' disclosure in his authorized biography that he had "finally cracked" how to revolutionize television technology.
Rumors have since focused on an integrated television set involving iTunes and iCloud and controlled via Siri voice technology. One report has claimed that Apple design chief Jony Ive has a 50-inch Apple television set prototype in his design lab, although various sources have at different times claimed a wide range of sizes for Apple's TV set, from 32 inches to over 50 inches.
Sources seems to suggest that Apple is shooting for a launch of its television set later this year or early next year. What remains unknown is whether Apple will be able to make any revolutionary changes on the content side within that timeframe. The company has made several efforts to work with content providers on ideas such as "best of TV" packages that would be made available through iTunes and enable users to in some cases eliminate their cable television subscriptions, but the company has reportedly made little progress in those negotiations. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories
• Apple Hardware Chief Bob Mansfield Cashes in Nearly $12.5 Million in Stock Options
• Dexim Visible Green iPhone Cable Makes Charging More Visible
• Steam Companion iPhone App Now Available to All Users
• Explore Strange New Worlds With Sir Benfro's Brilliant Balloon
• NASA Releases "Sector 33" Air Traffic Control Game
“Twitter is not a media company,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo declared on stage at AllThingsD‘s media conference in Laguna Nigel, CA, Monday evening. The statement was surprising given Twitter’s well-publicized role as a platform for breaking news, entertainment and other communications.
“You [even] sell advertising,” AllThingsD‘s Peter Kafka pointed out.
“We’re in the media business, but we’re not necessarily a media company,” Costolo elaborated. “We don’t create our own content; we’re a distributor of content and traffic. We’re one of the largest drivers of traffic to other media properties, [namely] to other online web properties, even to films.”
Costolo pointed to a Super8 campaign Paramount Pictures ran on Twitter last June. The studio promoted the hashtag #Super8Secret, through which it offered advanced screening tickets to the film. The film performed “50% better” during opening weekend than Paramount expected, Costolo said.
Kafka and Costolo went on to discuss the origins of Twitter’s advertising business. “When you came [to Twitter] in 2009, Twitter’s business model wasn’t clear,” Kafka recalled. “Now it’s solidly an ad business. Did you push the company in that direction?” he asked.
“I was certainly involved in it,” said Costolo. “The honest answer is that i was a key participant in it, certainly advocated for it. By no means was it my idea to create and launch the products we have now.”
Kafka asked Costolo if the company explored any other business models at the time, but Costolo evaded the question. “The notion that there were other ideas we considered and that I disposed of makes it sound too palace intrigue-y,” he complained. “It makes it sound a little too Hamlet. The reality of life is that it’s a lot more Tom Stoppard than Shakespeare,” he said.
Costolo likewise skirted questions about whether Twitter would have its first profitable year in 2012 — “We don’t discuss financials,” he said — but did stress the health of Twitter’s advertising business. In particular, he noted that engagement in several recent Promoted campaigns was above 50%, and that the cost per customer acquisition rate — by which we assume he means the cost per follower acquisition rate — is “fantastic.”
At the moment, Twitter is less interested in developing new products or revenue streams than growing the ones it’s already developed, Costolo suggested. “It’s all about scaling that now, launching these products globally,” he said.