Was News International Twittered?
Whatever you think of the current firestorm swirling its way through our Parliament, media and police, the pace of this story itself is breath taking. In less than two weeks it has upset the financial plans of a global powerbroker and looks set to transform how national institutions interact in the public interest too.
Whilst the story itself has been driven no doubt by the ‘traditional’ 24/7 media, the sheer speed of the story’s development feels new. The effect of social media? Surely, yes when you consider how Twitter targeted News of the World’s advertisers. Why? Both media and politicians can tell in real time if they are on the right track and where to go next with a story.
Perhaps social media’s biggest contribution is the speed it can accelerate an issue, in this case, to devastating effect.
In praise of mathletics
Anything that makes younger children actually want to do their homework is a good thing in my book. My junior school aged son is fine when it comes to science – particularly if it involves live action experiments – or anything arty that demands a bit of ‘mod rock’ or much cardboard, paint and tape but getting him to do the basics can be more than challenging. So bring on Mathletics, which has just been upgraded: I heart you. Never has learning times tables for the nth time been so easy to make fun.
We’ve been rocking, rapping and mixing to times tables cartoon music videos (‘Times Table Toons’ no less), in the rainforest learning algebra and decking out his avatar in the latest garb via credits he’s earned doing his math. Ok, the last one isn’t quite learning maths. The best thing however is playing live mathletics against other students his age from around the globe. It’s all I can do to stop myself shouting out the answers as you see three or four kids doing mental maths in real time and racing against each other and the clock live on screen. So simple, but such cool tech. Love it.
Understanding your audience
Forrester recently released the latest Global Social Technographics annual report looking at key social media behaviours. A few things struck me as true. Firstly that social media is here to stay (if there is there anyone who still doubts it). For example, social network memberships are still growing across the globe: 11% up in Europe, 18% in metropolitan China and 8% across the US.
What is probably most interesting is the Social Technographics Ladder Forrester updates each year to understand the ‘groups’ out there on the web. From our perspective understanding the online audiences inside out is the only way to be able to create campaigns that will entertain and/or engage those groups in the best way possible. Forrester makes a big fuss itself of the fact that the ‘creator’ group, as in those who create blogs, web pages and upload video/music (so the content creators) , has stopped growing. They represent 23% of the community overall, so nearly one in four, which sounds very healthy to me. Given that they are looking at percentages against the underlying trend that the community is still expanding, means that in literal terms the number of creators is in fact increasing. It also suggests, not too surprisingly, that there is a limit to the number of people who want to do this. This group is exciting because they want to generate new content for others and we must be able to support that.
But they are not the only group that us communicators/conversationalists should be interested in. 33% are ‘critics’, people who for example, post reviews, comment on others blog posts – that’s one in three of all people on the web, so a pretty large audience. 68% are ‘spectators’ so those who want to consume content online. And 19% are ‘collectors’ so these are the people who organise content for others.
This segmentation just goes to underline that content and context is key. And different tactics are needed within a social media campaign to reach out to different parts of the audience. As the understanding of online audience behaviour becomes more sophisticated so can our campaigns. Now that has to benefit everyone. Good news!
ITU World Series Triathlon hits London
onechocolate had a great time at the ITU World Championship Series in London at the weekend. The impressive event held in the wonderful surroundings of Hyde Park really is turning into a quite a spectacle. And these are just the ‘rehearsals’ for the 2012 Olympic Triathlon which will be held on the same site.
The weekend was even better for our client Suunto’s ambassadors both achieving podium places. Helen Jenkins came third in the Elite Women’s event on the Saturday and Javier Gomez won the Elite men’s race on the Sunday.
It’s a great day out and free to attend, so well worth pencilling in your diaries for next year!
Take at look at a couple of our action shots:
