Trust in Twitter takes a knock

Posted on January 4, 2012 at 3:08 pm UK

If Twitter says a Twitter account is authentic, you trust it, don’t you? That little tick on a blue background you often see alongside accounts of prominent politicians, celebs and others is your symbol of confidence that the account belongs to the person whose name appears on it, and not someone else.

After all, Twitter has verified that it is so. Indeed, Twitter says of its verification:

Verification is currently used to establish authenticity of identities on Twitter. The goal of this program is to limit user confusion by making it easier to identify authentic accounts on Twitter.

The bold emphasis is Twitter’s own.

The trouble is, no one is sure how Twitter verifies the identity of an account nor how verification as a whole actually work, something that assumes some importance when a verified Twitter account turns out to be a fake. Such an eventuality challenges your assumption of trust.

That’s what happened this week with Rupert Murdoch’s wife Wendi Deng Murdoch and the spoof Twitter account set up in her name during the Christmas holiday period by a still-unknown prankster.

Among the many reports and opinions about it, Mathew Ingram‘s assessment for GigaOm on why Twitter’s “verified account” failure matters is a credible one.

[...] Twitter has refused to speak publicly about what happened with the Deng account, or to explain why it was verified and then suddenly un-verified – and the company has also repeatedly refused to talk on the record about how the verification process as a whole works, and why some accounts are chosen for verification and others aren’t. Even if the Deng verification was a simple screw-up due to reduced staffing levels over the holidays, Twitter’s radio silence on the issue makes it even harder to trust the entire process, and that could have ramifications that go beyond just the Murdoch case.

Writing today in CorpComms Magazine, Clare Harrison asks how reliable is Twitter verification?

[...] Sadly, like so many implausibly good tales, [the Wendi Deng Twitter account] turned out to be false. And The Guardian wasn’t alone in falling for the ruse. The account appeared even to fool News Corp. A spokeswoman confirmed to reporters at both the BBC and The Guardian that the Deng account was real on Sunday, only to change her mind the following day.

People don’t like to be made fools of.

Alongside some good opinions from Stuart Bruce and Danny Whatmough, Clare’s analysis includes this quote from me:

[...] In an age of increasing transparency, it seems bizarre to see one of the key services that shores up the social web acting so opaquely about a matter that’s part of the fabric of the social web.

If you can understand more about how something works, you are in a better position to assign your trust to it. Or not.

Until that happens, caveat lector.

[Update Jan 5] “The Case of the Unfortunate Underscore: How Twitter Verified the Fake Wendi Over the Real Wendi” – some light on how it happened, from Kara Swisher.

Make of Twitter what you will

Posted on December 11, 2011 at 5:00 pm UK

A few days ago, on December 7, I began my sixth year on Twitter. As with many things on the social web, there’s a free service that told me of the anniversary, and another one that sent me a ‘birthday card’.

Over 47,000 tweets later, what have I learned about this short-form thought-sharing medium? Well, the over-riding feeling I have is a simple one – there is no single way to use Twitter.

You’re a marketer? Then Twitter can be a marketing channel. A student? A chat tool for your friends. A politician? A medium for your sound bites. Selling something? A notification method of good deals. An activist? Quick connections. And so on.

I don’t fit any of those labels, yet I often use Twitter in ways such as those I mentioned along with others like tweet chats and live-tweeting events. Overall, though, I regard Twitter more as an informal communication method – much as the sentiment describing it when it first appeared – that complements other methods such as blogs (and indeed, can serve a valuable purpose of alerting your community to news and events), and I tend to use it as such: connecting with people as the moment presents itself, thinking out loud, note-taking, whatever suits. I write my own tweets and use the service manually, ie, no automated tweeting method nor any pseudo-scientific approach of alarm-clock tweeting.

Luckily, we’re all different and the Twitterverse is enriched – largely – by the myriad different ways people think about Twitter, what it is to them and their communities and how they use it, wherever they are in the world.

A few months ago, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said the service has 100 million monthly active users worldwide; out of that group, 50 million people log in every day. And the latest metric a couple of weeks ago – English, Japanese and Portuguese may be the top three languages for tweeting, but the fastest-growing language is Arabic by a factor of over 2,000 percent. Social upheaval in the Arab world this year is undoubtedly a driving force for that.

Twitter’s growth over the past five years has been spectacular. It’s a poster child for the social web and something that captures imaginations to become an icon of popular culture.

Today, Twitter undoubtedly is mainstream in terms of public consciousness if not universal use.

And the latest moves during the past week involve a new look and some new functionality for the Twitter website, updated apps for the desktop and mobile devices, as well as business-focused features like brand pages.

Yes, there are plenty of different ways to to think about and use Twitter no matter how you approach it.

Useful information:

Don’t ignore your customers who tweet

Posted on October 12, 2011 at 12:43 pm UK

If you’ve ever vented some feelings on Twitter about your negative experience with a company, and felt you were ignored, a survey from the US will probably resonate with you.

It suggests that over 70 percent of consumer complaints made on Twitter are ignored by the companies concerned.

Research firm Maritz Research carried out the research in September when it surveyed an online panel of 1,298 US consumers who had pre-identified themselves as Twitter users who frequently tweet, had complained via Twitter about a company with whom they do business, and who were at least 18 years old.

The survey shows some interesting results:

Of those who received follow-up:

83% said they liked or loved hearing from the company

Only 4% didn’t like or hated hearing from the company

Nearly three in four were very or somewhat satisfied with the company’s response

Of those who did not receive follow-up:

86% would have liked or loved hearing from the company regarding their complaint tweet

Only 1% would have not liked it or hated it if they were contacted by the company regarding their complaint tweet

63% would not like it or hate it if the company contacted them about something other than their complaint tweet

No surprises here:

Of the people who received outreach, 83% said they liked or loved hearing from the company
Of those who didn’t, 86% would have liked or loved hearing from the company regarding their complaint tweet

I publicly posted about this on Google+ earlier today. Two comments to that post stand out:

Sean Carlos – A bigger concern, IMHO, is that twitter is too often used as a crutch to make up for inadequate “standard” support channels. By bringing their complaint into the public domain, consumers are often able to get redress otherwise denied them. That probably isn’t the most effective solution for businesses nor consumers.
Marco Barra – I think business still don’t realise that dealing with these very public complains does not mean that they have to be dealt with publicly! – Often a message such as “I’m really sorry you’re unhappy with XYZ, please DM me your telephone number and I will get one of my guys to call you right back to resolve this issue” is more than enough to move the conversation to a more private channel and defuse the situation altogether.

Consider Twitter as a valuable channel for feedback from your customers that complements your other CRM activity. It doesn’t really matter whether you actively use Twitter or not, as long as you listen to what others say there (which means you need to be paying attention: monitoring and then analysing what you find via such channels).

Good or bad, what tweeters say about you provides you with unfiltered opinion upon which you can act.

Download Maritz Research and evolve24 Twitter Study (PDF).

(Via Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert)

The beauty of TweetCamp

Posted on October 9, 2011 at 11:08 am UK

Two of the overriding impressions I formed after taking part in yesterday’s TweetCamp in London is that Twitter is whatever people want it to be; and there’s no right or wrong way to use it, only effective and ineffective.

This was the second TweetCamp in London, the first being in 2009. TweetCamp is described as:

[...] a free-to-attend, participatory “unconference” for both new and experienced users of Twitter. It aims to bring digital practitioners together face to face in order to:

Accelerate conversations that happen via social media channels, such as Twitter

Deepen established online networks, and create new connections

Inspire fresh thinking, new collaborations, and innovation.

I estimate there were about 180 people at the venue in east London yesterday – the Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School, a most excellent venue for this type of informal unconference event – and many of those I met had their own perspectives on what Twitter could help them achieve in how they connect with other people.

There were self-employed business people there. A few from big corporations. Teachers, community managers, video producers, writers, app developers, journalists, students, you name it – the variety in people, what they do and what they think was extraordinary.

Quite unlike TweetCamp 2009, now that I think of it – that was still early-adopter and enthusiast territory to a large extent. Two years on, it was time for the ‘normal’ folks who are liberated by their own notions of what Twitter is and what you can do with it.

That’s the beauty of TweetCamp – an informal gathering of people who see a social tool like Twitter as the means to achieve things on their terms; who want to share their perspectives as well as find out what others think. The conversations and discussions were vibrant and stimulating right from the start.

During the unconference sessions in the afternoon, I led one session with Sue Llewellyn that we entitled ‘Twitter Hits and Misses,’ during which we addressed such thorny matters as Twitter etiquette, cultural differences in how people use Twitter and some tips and tricks for using Twitter effectively. Some really good discussion with and among the 20 or so tweetcampers who took part.

Later I joined in a trenchant discussion about real-time news journalism, led by Sue, in a packed room. That discussion could have continued long beyond the 30-minute allocation for each session. I especially liked the talk on embargoes and is there a future for them, a topic that generated some hearty discussion.

I’m sure plenty will be posted in the coming days by others who were there yesterday, telling their stories and offering their impressions and opinions about the day. There will be lots of photos posted to Flickr and to Facebook. I’m looking forward to seeing all those perspectives that I’m sure will further enrich my own perspectives about Twitter, about people and the many different way people like to connect with others.

Keep track of everything via the hashtag: #tweetcamp. And connect with TweetCamp itself via the Twitter handle @TweetCamp.

A final word must go to the organizers of yesterday’s event. In a word, they are brilliant. Seamless organization – clearly the result of equally-seamless planning and preparation – made for an experience where everyone could focus on the content, as it were, and not whinge about how the wifi wasn’t working (typical of so many events that cost a fortune to go to). The wifi, in fact, was perfect: it worked! And that lets me add another thanks – the sponsors and partners, without whom TweetCamp wouldn’t have happened in the form it took (including free of cost to everyone).

A lot of people were behind the organizing scenes but I can’t find a list of everyone’s names (hopefully, there will be some acknowledgement of everyone on the TweetCamp site), so let me just thank the one individual who I connected with most leading up to the day – Abigail Harrison. Nice work.

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The rise and rise of Sina Weibo

Posted on September 29, 2011 at 7:38 am UK

If you want get an idea of which major brands are doing what in China with Sina Weibo, the front-runner in microblogging in that country, AdAge.com has a compelling feature that highlights what Starbucks and many other consumer brands are doing in tapping into China’s online culture and connecting with people on their terms:

[...] Starbucks is the "clear leader," [digital marketing consultant Eugene Chew] said. "They were one of the first to go into location-based [marketing], one of the first to go into weibo. Not only do they bring out lots of coupons and deals which fans love, but they ask interesting questions, they thank and reward fans, so it’s a genuine two-way relationship and their tone and manner are very much like your friendly neighborhood cafe vs. a brand talking to a mass of consumers."

The AdAge piece is very good indeed in its assessment of the current landscape in China for weibo – which means ‘microblog’ in Chinese – and its highlights of cultural differences in China. I especially like this descriptor:

"Chinese are famously generous to their friends and family, anyone in their social circle, but notoriously unsympathetic to strangers. Weibo is all about the interior. It’s like a massive karaoke room."

If you’re trying to understand the Chinese online marketing landscape, this article will help you. The gold, though, comes in Thoughtful China: Working With Weibo, a 15-minute video that is well worth your time watching. It will give you a clear sense of weibo and Sina Weibo in particular.

(If you don’t see the video embedded above, watch it at YouTube.)

If you can’t watch it right now, here’s a starter explanation of Sina Weibo from AdAge:

[...] While other digital companies, including Tencent, offer weibo, which means microblog in Chinese, Sina’s is by far the biggest service, with over 200 million registered users who send out up to 75 million messages daily.

[...] Sina Weibo goes far beyond Twitter. The microblog allows private groups, threaded comments that better enable personal conversations, polls, games, apps, e-commerce, search, photos and streaming audio and video, "enterprise pages" that feature brands and group-buying services. The most-popular user, actress Yao Chen, has 12.5 million followers.

Sina Weibo even has its own currency called the weibi and a "light blogging" side service for users who produce original content and want extra space to post multiple pictures, audio and video files, and text with unrestricted length. And the company announced plans earlier this year for an English-language version of Sina Weibo, although that hasn’t happened yet.

If China looms on your marketing horizon, information like this is need-to-know.

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