Tag Archives | Twitter

The future of TV

By Val Skelton on April 30, 2013 in Society, Trends and Statistics, Web Technology & The Cloud

Variety has published a story about a new reality show called @SummerBreak. That might not sound too interesting, but what makes this show stand out is that it will unfold over four social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube) and completely bypass television.

The ways in which people view and interact with television are being completely transformed.

A number of providers are broadcasting ‘online’ only programmes and YouTube and Amazon have been investing in original programming. The CEO of Netflix, purveyor of on demand programming, has published an opinion piece which outlines a vision for the future of television. Netflix has seen a sharp rise in its share price and has added three million new viewers so far in 2013.

The document explores the drivers for a move away from so-called ‘linear’ TV towards ‘internet TV and apps’. Although linear TV remains popular, the steady growth of such services as BBC i-player, HBO-GO and Watch ESPN demonstrates how TV viewing habits will continue to change. Drivers for change in television viewing include:

Increased internet speeds and reliability
Increased sales of smart TVs – eventually all TVs will have Wi-Fi and apps
Mobile viewing will increase
Internet video advertising will become personalised
Innovative new entrants
Internet TV apps will improve rapidly, just as mobile phones have done over the last 20 years

Viewers are changing

While the technology is moving forward, consumers’ behaviours are also changing. New research from the US shows that mobile app usage reaches its daily peak between 7pm and 9pm – traditionally TV prime time. As app usage between these times increases (rising to 50 million during these two hours) viewing figures for almost all prime time TV shows are declining. The only shows not losing out are those with older viewers.

TV is not simply losing out to apps of course. Alternative providers (including HBO and Netflix) continue to grow their market share. What is known as ‘long form video’ is the fastest growing content segment for tablets. On demand/ internet TV services facilitate what is known as ‘binge viewing’ – where viewers may watch several episodes or indeed entire series of programmes in one go.

To quote the CEO of Netflix on the future of TV… TV, as we know it is coming to an end.

Comments { 1 }

Multi-screen trends

By Val Skelton on April 17, 2013 in Mobile Devices, Post

We are living in an increasingly connected and mobile world. It is critical that we understand how our customers and potential customers are using multiple devices so that we can ensure they are receiving the right content where and when it is most relevant.

Microsoft Advertising surveyed global consumers and identified four types of multi-screen behaviour:

Content grazing – the most common multi-screen behaviour, with 68% of those surveyed reporting that they view two screens of unrelated content simultaneously (e.g. reading emails while watching television)
Investigative spider-webbing - 57% reported that they view related content on two screens simultaneously
Quantum journeys – 46% of consumers report beginning their content journeys on one device and continuing on another
Social spider-webbing – 39% of people reported they share and connect with two or more devices – for example watching a TV show and using a second device to tweet, comment or update their status

In the UK Fast Web Media has looked at the TV adverts of 50 brands to explore how many are encouraging multi-screening. Econsultancy.com summarises the key findings:

48% of the brands included URLs in their adverts
20% mentioned Twitter or hashtags
16% mentioned Facebook ‘likes’
6% sought follow up on YouTube

Extending engagement

Google undertook research exploring the ways in which UK consumers were multi-screening the London Olympics. They found that 33% of people in the UK were following the Olympics on more than one screen. Those that were using more than one device were averaging many more minutes per day of viewing than single screen viewers – they were watching while they were out of the home and on the move.

The research also found that the Olympics was a stimulus for many consumers to try something new on their smart devices, including live streaming and joining social networks to ‘talk’ about events. Almost one in three people who attended Olympic events were looking at online content while they were there. They conclude that stadiums and venues are becoming as ‘porous’ as retail outlets with people sourcing relevant information to enhance their experience.

Connected Europe – the latest consumer figures

By Val Skelton on April 15, 2013 in Post

Forrester has released a European edition of its US consumers and technology benchmark report. The State Of Consumers And Technology: Benchmark 2012, Europe explores changes in consumer behaviour in the EU5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK).

Key findings

Almost 75% of European adults go online at least once a month
Over half of them own two or more connected devices
22% report they are online when they are outdoors
14% are online in their cars
58% of online Europeans have a Facebook account

National differences

Of the five countries studied, the UK has the highest percentage (83%) of consumers going online regularly and also has the highest average online shopping spend (10% have used a shopping app in the last month). 52% own a smartphone and 12% own a tablet device and 18% of them have a Twitter account

Germany has the largest online audience in Europe (over 46 million online consumer), with just under three-quarters ordering services or products online in the last three months. Only 5% have a Twitter account

In France consumers are the least likely to own multiple connected devices and the least likely to own a tablet (7%), smartphone (42%) or other connected device. 7% have a Twitter account

In Italy 58% of adults go online each month.

In Spain 69% of adults go online monthly

Although the online populations are smaller in Italy and Spain, they are relatively active. Two thirds of online consumers in each country have a Facebook account and they are more likely to be ‘creators’ or ‘critics’ of content rather than passive participants.

The full report is available from Forrester.

Behaving badly on social media

By Val Skelton on April 11, 2013 in Post, Social Media

This week the UK’s first ever ‘youth police and crime commissioner’ resigned after less than a week in the post.

Paris Brown, who is 17, had published a number of tweets which critics condemned as racist and homophobic. She had also alluded to underage drinking and drug taking. The tweets were at least two years old.

This is a high profile example proving that we should all (not just young people) think carefully about what we share on social media. Irresponsible use can have a serious impact on employability. Following her resignation, Brown made the following statement:

I have fallen into the trap of behaving with bravado on social networking sites. I hope this may stand as a learning experience for many other young people.

An interesting aspect of this case is that Brown’s employer, Kent Police, failed to vet a potential employee’s social media profile and history. A recent report suggests that 47% of employers check social media profiles of applicants immediately after they received their applications. Kent Police’s spokesperson said:

We used Kent police’s vetting procedures, which do not normally involve scrutiny of social networks for this grade of post.

Perhaps these procedures will be reviewed now.

Instagram arrests in Sweden

Meanwhile in Sweden two teenage girls are to be charged in relation to a riot last year. The girls are alleged to have used Instagram to shame other teenagers by publishing photographs and posting insults and comments about their sexual activities. Hundreds of school pupils had gathered at a high school in an attempt to identify the Instagram account owner and a riot ensued.

Twitter and advertising

By Val Skelton on April 2, 2013 in Post, Social Media

Twitter has been enhancing its advertising services as it continues to increase its revenues. Improvements include a new advertising API and an upgraded dashboard which provides more performance data to advertisers.

Twitter’s ‘business’ site has also been enhanced with new content to help businesses use Twitter to better engage with their audiences. The website provides some basic and advanced tips for using the tool for marketing purposes and also features some excellent case studies from a wide range of organisations. This content features lessons learned which can be searched by company size, sector, product and – interestingly – by campaign goals.

Twitter success stories

What is the main goal or purpose of your Twitter campaign? The case studies on the Twitter site are grouped by client goals, including: drive sales, increase the number of followers; educate and inform; brand awareness; product launch and increase engagement. Once you are clear about the main goal of any campaign, then you can begin to focus on the best tactics. Once again, the site enables you to search by approach, including direct response and partnership models.

Each of the case studies features measurement data including numbers of new customers/ orders/ follows and ROI. If you have colleagues who may be looking for more information about the value of Twitter as a marketing or engagement tool, they may find the content of value.

Meanwhile, eMarketer has revised (upwards) its predicted advertising earnings for Twitter, forecasting that the social network will earn almost $1billion in 2014.

Mobile drives growth

53% of Twitter’s advertising revenues will come from mobile advertising in 2013
2013 mobile advertising revenue will total $309million (2012 total = $138million)
By 2015 Twitter’s advertising revenues will be $1.3billion, with over 60% coming from mobile
83% of advertising revenue in 2013 will come from the US (down from 90% in 2012)

Source: eMarketer. Further reading on TechCrunch.

‘Hashtag omnishambles’ – 2012 words of the year

By Val Skelton on January 9, 2013 in Post

Newly minted or newly popular words and phrases showcase the key social, economic, technological and cultural trends that have impacted the general consciousness. Twelve months ago the words of the year included ‘Arab spring’, ‘Occupy’ and ‘The 99 per cent’. A number of analysts and commentators have now chosen their words of 2012.

In the UK ‘omnishambles’ was coined by the writers of the political satire TV show ‘The Thick of It’. Used by the foul-mouthed protagonist, it summed up a shambolic political situation and – in an example of life imitating art – was taken up in 2012 by ‘real’ politicians in the UK. It was also briefly amended in the UK to ‘Romneyshambles’ after US-Presidential candidate Mitt Romney expressed doubt as to London’s capability to host the Olympic Games.

Omnishambles was chosen as word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries, which chose the verb ‘gif’ as the US word of the year.

Continue Reading →

Using social media tools to disseminate academic research

By Val Skelton on December 4, 2012 in Post, Research, Social Media

There are many reasons for taking the measurement of academic impact seriously, particularly in the current economic climate. Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of Universities UK and speaking at The Future of Academic Impact conference, reminded the audience that the public perception of academia tends to focus on the most visible aspect – namely undergraduate teaching and fees. How can we increase the public perception of the value of academic research and its contribution to the economic and social wellbeing of the nation and beyond?

One aspect of improving the visibility of academic research was covered in a breakout session exploring the value of the ‘top five’ social media tools in supporting academic communication.

Know your audience

Each tool can bring your tool to different audiences. It is therefore important to understand both the demographic of your chosen tools and the potential audiences of your work.

Twitter

With a global audience of over 100 million, Twitter is a realtime information network which encourages sharing of links and posts and facilitates conversation and feedback. By using metric tools or the statistics of URL shortening services (e.g. Bitly), it is easy to measure the increased traffic to your blog generated by tweeting.

By mentioning your collaborators and using retweets and hashtags appropriately you can significantly increase your own visibility. You can also use the ‘favourite’ button as a simple bookmarking tool.

Facebook

By far the most popular social network, Facebook offers an alternative tool to help drive traffic to your blog and other outputs. It also has the potential to ‘go viral’. 50% of all Europeans use Facebook regularly. The drive to monetisation by Facebook does mean that to appear in the newsfeeds of all of your ‘likers’ you may have to pay a small fee.

Pinterest

An image driven tool, Pinterest enables content creation and social sharing. Although not particularly well-used by academics at the moment, use is increasing e.g. as a ‘visual ideas board’ for research interests. It’s also a great way to disseminate visual outputs of your research.

Google+

Although not particularly well-used, a particularly valuable feature of Google+ for academics is the Google Hangouts option, which enables group collaboration and chats and the ability to record these sessions.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is evolving into a business focused social media site that enables sharing and discussion as well as another platform to showcase achievements.

Social media tools can help open us research and reach new, interested audiences. “It’s not about where you publish, but who you reach.”

The breakout session was led by Amy Mollett (@amymollett) and Joel Suss (@joelsuss).

The social London Olympics – to tweet or not to tweet

By Val Skelton on August 3, 2012 in Social Media

Can a social media strategy be too successful? The plan was that the London Olympics (#London2012) were to be opened up and made more accessible via a number of social media channels. The public was encouraged to interact and comment. On the first sporting Sunday of the games, the amount of Twitter traffic began to interfere with mobile networks – and even caused problems for the BBC’s coverage of the road cycling event.

Following concerns caused by highly visible empty seats, a new Twitter hashtag had emerged in the first 48 hours. #filltheseats was used by Olympic attendees photographing empty seats at the venues as well as a way to collect creative ideas for how the seats could be filled.

Twitter was in the Olympic headlines again when the 18 year old Tom Daley received some hateful tweets (or, as a British tabloid alliteratively described the incident, ‘Tom twitter troll torment’) after he had failed to win a medal for Great Britain. The offender was named, shamed and later arrested – an act which in itself caused some consternation on Twitter and elsewhere.

Of course, the appearance of Tim Berners-Lee, live tweeting from the Olympic opening ceremony, was a great (if apparently confusing for some) thumbs up for the great British inventor of the www and a whole segment of Danny Boyle’s eccentric vision was devoted to the power of social media to bring people together. Hooray!

While there has been some debate of the US coverage of the Olympics (#NBCFail), the BBC has been busy, providing additional digital channels for each live event, and creating a website that uses semantic technologies to manage a huge amount of information, including a webpage for every single competing athlete. Marydee Ojala describes their efforts here.

Tony Hirst, via his OUseful.info blog, lists some interesting Olympic data coverage. The 10,000 words blog lists five interesting Olympic news projects from around the world including the rather wonderfully simple Guardian newspaper’s wasanolympicrecordsettoday.com.

For a much more informed response to the social Olympics than mine, Euan Semple has written this on his blog.

Meanwhile, for anyone looking for a ‘typically British’ online Olympic experience, www.londonunderdogs.com celebrates the British love of the underdog by providing helpful tips for identifying and supporting those least likely to win a medal. The website provides posters to print and carry to Olympic events, including the faint praise of ‘Well, at least you’re better than me’. (Spotted by Sara Batts – thank you!).

Finally, if you are inspired by watching or listening to the Games, you might be interested in the BBC’s ‘athlete body match’ webpage.

Apparently I am body-matched with a (male) Jordanian marathon runner.

Navigation

Tag Archives | Twitter

The future of TV

Connected Europe – the latest consumer figures

‘Hashtag omnishambles’ – 2012 words of the year

Search

Subscribe

Recent Tweets

NewsBreaks

Blogroll