BlogHer Study Shows the Continued Slide of Twitter Influence, Facebook Makes Gains

 

All of the talk around Klout Twitter influence is missing the point.

 

When Twitter was in its infancy in 2006/7, it was a heady platform. One could ask questions and get answers in record time. Don’t know what kind of laptop is best? Ask “Twitter” or your friends on Twitter, anyway.

 

Today, if you ask a question, it is likely to get ReTweeted, but less likely to get answered. It has increasingly become a broadcast channel vs. a relational one. A Pew study late last year underscored this problem. It showed that just under 1/2 of users were not checking the Twitter status of other people.

 

In a BlogHer Study released this week, they asked a sample of the U.S. population how they used various platforms. As you can see by the slide below, they preferred blogs and Facebook in bigger percentages in every category. Even with Twitter having much fewer users, this slide shows the uphill battle for the service that has dazzled celebrities and is the jewel of online influencers.

 

 

 

BlogHer cofounder Elisa Camhort Page commented on the problem with Twitter in a series of two Tweets that I have put together (and added all the letters, the benefit of the long form blog):

 

There's big article in Fortune about what I've been saying for two years now: Twitter still niche as far as *active* use because of 2 things:

1. Doesn't serve compelling purpose and
2. Doesn't help regular people figure out how to use it well...they suggest following celebs!

So Why Is It So Popular?

 

With so many challenges, why is Twitter a media marketing and “influencer’ darling?

 

It’s probably the ease of access and the ability for marketers, and anyone else, to bend the service to almost any purpose. It is the democratized social network.

 

It also allows a hierarchical approach. Who has the most followers? Who is trending? Who or what is the flavor of the day? @charliesheen anyone? It’s built-in influence gaming makes it a powerful driver for those who have had success with the service and its potential reach makes it attractive to brands and marketers as well.

 

Facebook is a different story, it is much more controlled by both Facebook itself and by the users as well. The “Fortune Magazine” article mentioned by Elisa, the “Trouble @ Twitter,” points out:

 

“This is one area in which [Twitter] has the upper hand over Facebook. Facebook communications are private unless a user chooses to make them public; all tweets are public, which gives marketers a potentially richer pool of content for targeted ads.”

 

One can protect their tweets, but the vast majority of people and organizations don’t.

 

So, how are you using Twitter these days? When do you turn to it over Facebook? On the other side, how are you using Facebook and Blogs? How does the slide apply to you?

 

While RTs are welcome, please comment, I really want to know.

The Game Layer: The Next Big Thing in Social Media

 

People are competitive.

 

In the workplace we “climb the corporate ladder.” In our playtime we compete in sports, video games, cooking contests, and every other kind of competition you can name. Some games are cooperative and some games are not and there are game theories developing for almost every discipline, especially economics.

 

“Oh, the games people play….” 

Check out this list of games and SCVNGR’s Game Mechanics Playdeck for ideas

 

Influence as is Game

 

So, why would it be surprising that social media would be ripe for gaming? Twitter was devised as a simple group messaging service, but over time, people made it into a status symbol, and thus Klout and its competitors were born to measure status.

 

Before Twitter, blogs were King, and Technorati ranking was as popular as Klout is today. Plenty of people are talking about measures like Klout, its problems, its purpose, how to increase it (all the while telling you it doesn’t matter), and why you have to spot influential people before they become influential. Beth Harte even recently talked about the problem of the slide from Influence to propaganda. Before blogging there were bulletin boards, forums and many other venues. Gaming in this way transcends technology.

 

Gaming on Location with the Social Web

 

Social networking applications such as Yelp, Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl, and now SCVNGR are pioneering location-based gaming, with other competitors like Facebook Places (which has no gaming elements yet) starting to pop up everywhere.

 

SCVNGR’s Seth Priebatsch argued at SxSWi this year that the social layer of the web has already been built, and now the gaming layer is the next logical step. You can see him in a TEDx presentation last year making the similar, and somewhat persuasive, claims. Funi Gabe Zichermann, author of “Game-Based Marketing” and “Funware in Action,” predicts that, “Within the next 10 years, almost every consumer interaction will have game mechanics built into it.”

 

Gaming for Good

 

What if we could harness all of this energy to reach higher status, and channel it toward solving huge societal problems? What could we accomplish together in a big, cooperative game?

 

People are already trying this to varying degrees of success. One example of an organization benefitting from gaming tendencies is Crisis Commons, which uses a short weekend format to accelerate the development of standardized tools to solve problems. This kind of interaction plays to the gaming theory of coordination, with the “profits” being the successful resolution of the situation. Another example of this is the mapping of Boulder Country homes that had been destroyed by fire using the #crisisdata tag on Twitter that had been formulated at a national coordination event led by the American Red Cross (client).

 

Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken, is evangelizing this idea of gaming for good in a number of presentations and media interviews throughout the country. I have dropped in one of her TEDx talks below.

 

What do you think? Are games just the latest marketing trick, or (as mobile becomes the norm) will they change the way people behave in the real world?

 

April Fools 2011: Using Gags and and Hijinks to Get Attention for Your Brand

 

The first rule of public relations and announcements: peg your announcement to coincide with an associated holiday, event or other news hook.

 

In trying something different, I am going to collect the best April Fools gags by companies throughout the day and add them here.  If you see one that I should cover, leave a comment below. Or you can Tweet it to me @kamichat on Twitter.

 

Here is a starter that I got late last night.

 

 

GreyScale

 

Popular Android App, ShopSavvy, announced the new App GreyScale. In a palyful swipe at the new app Color, which launched last week with $41 million in funding. Greyscale, on the other hand, was launched with $41 from some well-known Angel investors, including Jeff Clavier, Mark Cuban, Dave McClure, David Cohen, Jay Adelson, Gabriella Draney and Aaron Patzer.

 

The app claims to be "a miraculous, free application for iPhone and Android that allows people who spend most of their time alone to capture and have real-time access to monochromatic photos and videos of themselves — created by themselves, for themselves. GreyScale is the best way to experience life’s everyday moments without having to share them with people you barely know and could care less about – or anyone else, for that matter." You can see the press release here.

 

HootSuite

 

Opening your HootSuite Dashboard today, you might be invited to play HappyOwls, a game that can be played "in dashboard." Hootsuite did develop a mini-game to launch owls from a slingshot, but when you click on the link to get the app from the iStore, you get a note that you have been had. A fun gag. Go check it out here.

 

 

Introducing Gmail Motion

 

Brilliant. Eat your heart out Microsoft Kinect. Gmail takes us away from our keyboard and transcends the touchscreen. Totally hysterical. As one commenter said, "I just sneezed and it erased my whole message!!!" (via Ed Truitt)

 

 

In other Google news today, meet Michael, an autocompleter for Google. Google is hiring autocompeters who can type really fast and who are also psychic. (via Jerald Reichstein)

 

LinkedIn People You May Know

 

If you have a LinkedIn account, be sure to check out the "People You May Know" widget on the right hand side of the page. You might find you have some pretty sweet connections. And if you pay for InMail you might even be able to add them as contacts. Someone tell me if it works! (via Marc Nathan)

 

 

Starbucks Mobile Pour

 

And for the ultimate in mobile. Starbucks pairs a mobile app with real-world delivery. From the Starbucks blog:

 

"Inspired by your ideas on MyStarbucksIdea.com we’re proud to introduce the exciting new Starbucks® Mobile Pour service that puts baristas on scooters. In seven of the largest cities around the country, we’re sending out two scooter baristas per every square mile to ensure speedy service."

 

They also provided this handy animation so we can see how it works and you can read more about it on the Starbucks blog. (via Katie Sunstrom)

 

 

 

Farmville Meet Churchyville

 

And proving that the Episcopal Cafe has a sense of humor, they are launching a social game to allow, "anyone, anywhere to create the diocese of their dreams from scratch. Available in beta in the coming weeks, Churchyville has features that allow players to build a cathedral, plant churches, and create governance resolutions with the help of their friends." If you have ever wanted to be a Bishop, this might be the game for you.

 

 

Please leave other April Fools gags you see in the comments and I will add them up here :-) Also, if you can't get enough of this stuff and want to peruse a database of April Fools Jokes, or you want to get a few ideas for next year, check out April Fools Day on the Web. (link is via Kami Miller)

 

Links to Other Gags

 

• Rich Becker Interview with @BonxZoosCobra
• Conquer Club translated their whole website into Swedish chef’s language!
• Food Writer Katharine Leigh Shilcutt introduces a restaurant that is more like the Little House of Horrors