Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Joel Hughes - Internet Strategy, web dev, websites, Twitter, location etc


Blog of Joel Hughes, director of Jojet.com

Filed under: twitter

Creating a "channel" for your World Cup Rugby tweets

The Rugby World cup has kicked off and, as an avid fan, my twitter stream will be full of witty insights (ahem!) and cross chat on the popular #rwc #rwc11 & #rwc2011 hashtags.

However, I want to be sensitive to my regular followers (sweet aren't I?) - some of whom may not give two figs about rugby (it's crazy but true) - surely there is a way to protect them from the barrage of tweets I shall emit when Wales destroy South Africa tomorrow (ahem again!)?

...luckily there is

Read the rest of this post »

iPhone Twitter apps

Untitled-5

Recently I moved from my beloved Blackberry to iPhone. I won't bore you with the string of reasons why I did that but, being a Twitter addict, the first issue for me was chosing the right Twitter client. And as someone who was actively using 2 to 3 Twitter clients on his Blackberry, I knew that this would be an even harder choice on the iPhone.

So, let's have a look about my current findings:

Read the rest of this post »

Interview with South Wales Police re Twitter

Untitled-13
A few weeks ago I spoke to James Harper the Marketing Officer for the South Wales Police Force - specifically about their @swpolice Twitter account as well as their approach to social media in general. Below is a bit of a mixed bag of questions and answers from a really interesting 1hr we spent chatting!
 
 
Joel: How did South Wales Police get into social media & Twitter?
James: Basically we have a National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) who looks for best practice across all the police forces. We've got 43 forces across England & Wales so there's lots of good work going on but it can be hard sometimes to capture that good work and to share it, and that's why it (the NPIA) is so useful.
 
Joel: So, if one force can get a handle on social media then that makes it easier
to sell to other forces then? (note 1)
James: And there are some great examples [raised in case studies by the NPIA], there's a PC over in Harrogate Ed Rogerson and he's just become the most popular single police officer on Twitter. He was one of the first to embrace it and he uses it to say when he is on patrol, I'm doing this & that, I've looked into this issue etc. He does lots of filming as well so there's lots on youtube so he was a pioneer really. Who else is there? [thinks] West Midlands Police are very good, Gwent police use it quite a bit. But we (South Wales Police) looked at it and thought that there is an opportunity here to build our brand, to be far more friendly and be up to speed.
 
Joel: So what do you see as 'The Brand' for South Wales Police?
James: Well culturally everyone sees us very much as enforcement but policing has gone totally full circle. Yes we catch the bad guys, yes we'll arrest people, that's our core "business" but also a lot of time is spent meeting people, working with communities, solving low level issues (litter, criminal damage etc) which people don't often read about but it has a big impact on quality of life issues so we wanted to bring policing to life and show case what we were about. For large organisations it can be harder to portray that image so I wanted to really show what sort of things the Police do on a daily basis and also meet some of our staff as well, show a bit of personality of our force. Showing we are friendly and we do care and you can call us, you can send us a message on Twitter - it's all about responding and improving service.

Joel: So what have you got up & running? There's Twitter...
James: Yes, we've got @swpolice which is our "corporate twitter" (I hate that term!) that's the one myself and a few others from Corporate Communications run. We didn't want people to think that it's just marketing spin - the reason they put me in charge is that with my job I get to see a wide variety of things happening across the force day to day and I can pick some of these stories to communicate to the public.


We've got the @helicops Twitter all about our Police helicopter which has proved really popular as we get lots of calls saying things like "the helicopter is over my house, is there someone dangerous on the run?!" - the officers have found this a fantastic tool to communicate to the public. They've also found lots of intelligence coming through which is obviously great and to me that's such a simple and nice use of Twitter really.
And there’s a twitter account run by our Chief Officers @Chiefs_SWP, which gives an insight into our leaders.

Joel. Ok, that's Twitter. What about blogs or Facebook?
James: Our Chief Constable has done internal blogs for staff. We do have a small presence on youtube swptv but it's quite restricted at the moment - it's not quite where I want it to be yet but it is improving.

Joel: ..but you can't fight on all (social media) fronts at the same time.
James: Yes, we're taking it on a staged approach really. We're getting to a point now where Twitter is working well. We have just set up a facebook page, which is being used to promote events for operation bang (an all wales campaign to keep people safe over halloween and bonfire night).

Joel: How long have you been in charge of @SWPOLICE etc?
James: We did a pilot back in November last year but it's only be properly live since May and it's quickly become one of our most effective communication channels.

Joel. Why?
James: I think the climate is changing in policing. There are no budgets for tv and radio advertising so we have to have low cost and maximum impact. In theory Twitter is free and we're finding at the moment that lots of young people are using the Twitter page and we get lots of questions about careers. Like last week I had 5 or 6 such queries based on the twitpics we'd put up and that would never happen in the past. So it's a changing environment which I think is fantastic. We are looking at the potential of working in collaboration with Northern Ireland Police as they are very good at Facebook but they don't do Twitter like us - so we can help each other learn.

Joel: {I prattled on about Foursquare for a while}
James: Well we'll consider any option because we know our communities are totally transforming. Yes we'll do all the traditional neighbourhood meetings etc and that's not going to go away but we've got to look for new ways to engage with the community, especially young people and the professional person - they're not going to see an officer patrolling the streets in the day whilst at work and they've got a family life and are too busy in the evenings so they need other options.

Joel: Well, that's me definitely. I'm happy to tweet my concerns etc but ringing
the police (for small issues) would be too formal for me.
James: Exactly. We have to give the public as many options as possible to communicate - some will want to pick up the phone; others may want to tweet. The days are gone where we say that come to a meeting as that's your only chance to air your concerns. No business would do that. And we're always looking at business best practice. Starbucks has a fantastic social media strategy where they get everything working together.

Joel: ok, this sounds like it takes up quite a lot of your time - how do you
handle the return on investment question?
James: Really good question! We review everything but we realise that the working day is really short so we've tried to build our Twitter process so that it is no extra time on my part. Saying that I'll get up in the middle of the night and think "oh! I'll send something out". We prepare reports and feedback for officers on what messages we've sent out, followers (aiming for a monthly increase), interaction (are people asking questions?), and number of retweets (I think this is gold dust).

Joel: how do you promote your Twitter account outside of Twitter itself?
James: Well the best example of late is from our Ryder Cup campaign where we're trying to combine
new with old. These posters/leaflets were displayed in hotels etc as part of a crime prevention campaign and, as you can see, they prominently display our Twitter address. And in Cardiff airport we've had a large wall display in arrivals which basically says "follow us on Twitter".

Joel: Will there be actual Police on the beat tweeting in South Wales?
James: At the moment officers update the ourbobby.com website, and we will be looking at what is the best approach for localised tweets etc, all part of a social media development process. What we do will be based on public demand and ensuring any process is efficient and effective for officers.

Joel: Ah! so did these police officers receive instructions about what to say?
James: All officers get a visit from me explaining about marketing and helping them to recognise
opportunities to capture some good news etc. I mean, they've all got their Blackberry's so they have the tools for the job. Our policy is that we trust them to go out on the beat and to talk to people so we trust them to talk to people on-line. In the coming months training on social media will be important.

Joel: So I've seen that @swpolice is big on replying to tweets; do you use
searches though? Any reach out?
James: Every week I'll do a scan for a variety of phrases - looking for opportunities for good news or to solve problems. It can be difficult as searches pull up lots of content form New South Wales in Australia.

Joel: So where are you looking to take Twitter?
James: I'm very focussed on getting news in now; there's no point in photos from an event from last week. News and updates have to be timely. We've got the tools to get the images/video etc – we just need to use them. And I think we can improve on that. I do also try to make a point of tweeting at different times and just between the hours of 9 and 5, to reach different people.

Joel: where do you think the social media for South Wales Police will look in 3
years time?
James: I think it will look totally different! I don't think we are anywhere near our full potential. In a way this is only the first step in a very exciting journey. I'd like to think we'll give Starbucks a run for their money!

Joel: how do you deal with negative feedback on Twitter?
James: Over the past four months we've certainly had more positive feedback than negative; they key is how you deal with it. For example, one follower contacted us about a police car, which turned out was attending an incident. Any issues raised get passed to the best person in force and it is important to keep followers updated. We also have lots of queries about local policing, so this is a good opportunity for us to promote ourbobby.com.

Joel: The superb thing there is that people have got a route to report such
issues...
James: Yes, I mean, who would you phone to report that? You could be passed from pillar to post. This way there's a route in and it gets dealt with.

Joel: What I love about Twitter is that I don't see 'technology' but 'people'...
James: We always search for community spirit and we live in such a great country so we're just trying to capture that really. We want people to come here, to live here, set up a business and policing has got a huge impact on all that. These decisions are influenced by crime rates, insurance premiums, council tax etc and it's all linked back to policing and the continued reduction in crime hopefully! So it's very exciting time for policing!

To Finish
I've not done justice to the chat James I had, but I am planning on staying in touch so that I can keep up to date on how South Wales Police are updating and adapting their social media presence. Many, many thanks to James for taking the time out to talk to me about South Wales Police and I look forward to hearing more about the progress he makes (well, I'll be following on Twitter so I should see first hand!).

I'd like to end with a little bit about James, his first job with South Wales Police was as a Student Placement Officer based in Bridgend. It was his job to promote neighbourhood policing and to get out in the community to engage. After twelve packed months and hundreds of operation the Bridgend Division set the tone for delivering (and marketing) neighbourhood policing. He was even awarded the first ever policing commendation for "infectious enthusiasm and dedication" - if you met James you could well believe this! James' proactive approach to policing has been continued over the years with him delivering brand ambassador training for officers – more infectious enthusiasm which won a CIM Wales Marketign Award in 2009.

Best of luck to James for the future (not that he'll need it!) and I hope to catch up with him soon :)


Notes:
1. This question probably shows that I was expecting there to have been more resistance to social media etc within the police. Perhaps I've got too battle hardened from objections to social media in the private sector!

 

Guest post: How LinkedIn adds quality to your Twitter following

Untitled-13

Am very pleased to launch a "guest post" series in this blog. Ali Turnbull (one of my virtual friends on Twitter, we've spoken on Skype etc and it would be nice to meet up one day!) kindly responded to my previous post on Twitter & Linkedin and offered her very interesting take on Linkedin.

Ali is a web content strategist and a very nice person to chat to!

Ok, now I'll hand over to Ali..

p.s. I'm working on my Twitter/Linkedin type app - it's called WeAreRecommended.com - more details soon...

How LinkedIn adds quality to your Twitter following

Last week in this blog Joel asked ‘Can we use Twitter as LinkedIn?’ and came up with some wizard tips for recommending folk on Twitter in the same way that we do on LinkedIn.

 

But he said ‘LinkedIn doesn't really do it for me’ and I can see what he means.  Like him, I definitely prefer the informality and fun of Twitter and the discipline of squeezing everything into 140 characters.  And, like him, I believe in quality over quantity when it comes to followers.

However -  there is great potential in LinkedIn for building up quality contacts and prospects. I use LinkedIn to enhance my Twitter experience. Here’s how.

 

Let’s say I want to connect with internet strategists – people, in fact, just like Joel. First, I’ll choose a town or city to focus on – let’s try Newport in South Wales.

 

Go to LinkedIn Advanced Search

 

Enter keyword ‘Internet Strategist’

 

Location > United Kingdom> in or near NP1 with a 25-mile radius.

 

Voilà! There he is, Joel H. I see a brief resume but I don’t really know what makes him tick. I see that we are third cousins on LinkedIn, which is a rather distant relationship.  If I want an introduction to him I have to go through several layers of connection, asking third parties for referrals. Moving from Know to Like to Trust is going to take some time and may involve meeting in person and shaking hands. He is 270 miles away.

 

I could just send him the standard   ‘I’d like to add you…’ LinkedIn message. But I know this is poor LinkedIn etiquette and my response to these is usually  ‘Excuse me, and you are…?

 

But look! There, on LinkedIn, is a link to Joel’s Twitter profile. I can cut out the middlemen and women who stand between us and go straight to his business Twitter account www.twitter.com/Jojet. I see he also has a personal Twitter account where I find out that he likes to start the weekend with a pint of Rev James (ABV 4.5% – ‘Full bodied and warming, rich in palate, spicy and aromatic with a deeply satisfying finish’). I have moved from Know to Like in a matter of seconds. 

 

I don’t warm to everyone I find this way. I keep my LinkedIn-Twitterati in their own column in TweetDeck and monitor them carefully. At any whiff of automation from them, I go straight to the Unfollow button. But those who make it through my strict quality controls have taught me some great stuff, and I know that I am now firmly on their radar.

 

Try it yourself. It works just as well if you are looking for accountants in Aberdeen (AB1) or project managers in Penzance (TR18).

 

Ali Turnbull

www.twitter.com/fit_to_print

 

 

 

Using Twitter For Linkedin

Untitled-13

Linkedin doesn't really do it for me, I 'get it' as an idea but I just find it's whole web experience confusing and I have no idea what they have spent all their money on (dot com bubble anyone?).

Still, I do appreciate the value of a recommendations - and, better still, I value recommendations from people I know, like and trust. This feature is at the very heart of linkedin.

So, my mind got wandering to "how could we use Twitter for such recommendations?"

In a sense we already do, I'll ask my followers advice etc but I was thinking there might be a bigger solution out there...

For instance, if we tweeted something like:
"I #recommend @XXXXX as a superb accountancy based in Newport, South Wales. Speak to Diane."

Now it's not rocket science to create a Twitter app (see note 1) which will monitor twitter and store such #recommend tweets (note 2).

The website could then show a page for all Twitter accounts which have been recommended - and what the recommendations were.

Now where I think it gets sexy is:
1) You could search for recommendations
2) You could filter recommendations and ONLY see recommendations made by people who are within "n" degrees of separation from you.

To me recommendations made this way are very powerful: eg I put a lot of time/effort into my @joel_hughes Twitter account - it has nearly 20K tweets. If I recommend someone it is validated by me & my account - not something done lightly.

I'm not proposing that we start doing this, I'm simply improvising with the concept of using Twitter for recommendations. My gut feel is that any such app needs to record criticism as well as recommendations.

Update:

Please read a great guest blog response to this...


Notes:
1) Really it's not. I wrote http://tweko.com

2) The hashtag could be anything of course, just needs to be a convention.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Twitter Retweets v Replies - the difference

It's seems there's quite some confusion as to the difference between a "reply" on Twitter and an old school retweet (e.g. a tweet which starts "RT" but see note 1).

Ok, let's have a look at the difference and the implications...

In this scenario there are x3 people @Peter, @Paul, @Jane and @Mary. They all follow each other with the exception of @Mary (who only follows @Jane).

Note! I've made up these Twitter names! I'm sure @Peter etc exist but I'm just using them as examples here!

So, let's go through a scenario of tweets:

Peter tweets: "Jeez I'm hungry, what shall I eat for tea?!"

 

Paul notices this and decides to reply:

Paul tweets: "@Peter, fish & chips, the food of champions!" 

Note that this is a "reply" it is only visible to Peter (AND Paul's followers who additionally follow Peter) because it starts with @Peter's username.

 

Jane also notices Peter's tweet and, instead of replying decides to do an old fashion RT reweet and add a little reply on the end

Jane tweets: "RT @Peter Jeez I'm hungry, what shall I eat for tea?! <-- I'm hungry too - let's go out for dinner!"

From Peters perspective this doesn't make much difference as this reply still appears in his mentions column (a reply is just a mention which starts with username). 

However, for Jane's followers there is a BIG difference. ALL of Jane's followers will be subject to this conversation. Even people like @Mary who probably has  no interest in @Peter's dietary dilemma.

 

So, what's the moral of the story?

RTing instead of replying can be noisy and annoying so chose to use it when you REALLY want all of your followers to be subjected to it.

 

Notes:

*1 - The "RT" characters are arbitrary. There could be ANY characters between the username and the start of the tweet, e.g. sometimes you'll see ".@Peter Jeez I'm hungry, what shall I eat for tea?! <-- I'm hungry too - let's go out for dinner" - the fullstop at the front achieves the same result as the arbitrary characters RT - it turns the tweet from a reply to a mention.