Tasha Harrison

If you use Twitter then you will no doubt have come across the Twitter Fail Whale:

This image is met by a number of emotions – derision, annoyance, frustration and fondness. The way in which Twitter has developed has meant that they have gone through periods where they can’t handle the quantity of traffic, so users are shown the whale. As with so many aspects of Twitter, it is the users who coined the term ‘Fail Whale’, rushing to other social media sites to discuss the fact that Twitter was down and what they would do. Such is the obsessiveness that users feel for the site that this image has become something of an icon.

Now other sites are trying emulate the success of failure, by attempting to create their own fail pages. Here is the fail page for the new Digg that I came across this morning:

I’m not convinced that Digg’s users have the same obsessive fondness to make this page iconic, but what other great fail pages are there?

Last Monday I went to see For Neda, a documentary about a girl who was shot dead during the Iranian demonstrations last year after the election. The footage of her last moments were captured on video camera and posted on Youtube. This extremely shocking and incredibly sad video highlighted the horror of the government’s repression and helped to unite the country behind a single figure.

The incredible nature of the internet meant that news was being posted online during the events. Videos and images were captured on people’s phones, several Twitter accounts were set up to keep people up to date. Journalists were able to monitor events through these chanels, helping to spread the news. The film tells of how Twitter changed their planned maintenance time to coincide with Iranian nighttime, enabling people to update during the day.

The documentary describes this as citizen journalism. People recording the news as it happens. This changes the way that news is distributed and changes the emphasis on who controls it. The Iranian government has made many efforts to alter the story of Neda’s death, making their own documentary and even claiming that the CIA were responsible. The weight of evidence coming from the actual protestors makes it extremely difficult for these stories to be believable.

The notion of who controls our media is at the heart of the internet. Pre-internet it was more difficult to be published, to distribute your own views and thoughts and to have a say in how events were portrayed. The events in Iran show how much more difficult it is to hide the truth.

You can download and watch the film here: http://www.thisisforneda.com/

The thing that makes Twitter so amazing isn’t Twitter itself, but the users. It is the users of Twitter that have made up many of the rules and multitude of applications.

Here are my top five applications:

1. Tweetdeck
   As a friend of mine put it, ‘So that’s what Twitter should look like’. It enables you to organise your followers into columns, so you no longer view everyone in one large stream. You can also manage multiple accounts, follow a particular hashtag and find and follow new Tweeps. It has the ability to integrate bit.ly, so you can monitor how many people are clicking on your links. (Also see Hootsuite, some people prefer it!)
2. Mr Tweet
   Discover new Tweeters and get new followers. This site sends you a regular update and helps build your network by recommending new people to follow. It also allows you to recommend your favourite Tweeps.
3. TweetEffect
   See your most effective Tweets, which helped you gain followers and which caused you to lose them.
4. WeFollow
   An excellently organised directory. Search by your industry or interest and find the most influencial Tweeps to follow.
5. Twitpic
   The easiest way to share pictures on Twitter. Upload your photo and it Tweets it to all your followers. It is also possible to integrate with Tweetdeck, so you only need to use one application.

When measuring the success of your Tweeting it is important not to simply count the number of followers you have. You need to think about how many potential people are within your network.

For example, let’s imagine you have 200 followers. 2 of those followers retweet your link to their 200 followers. Suddenly you have reached a potential 600 people.

With any social networking you’re doing it isn’t enough to just talk at your followers and fans. They’ll quickly turn off to your incessent stream of links. The reason people join social networks is to talk to their friends and make new ones, so the most effective social media strategy will look for ways to join in the conversation.

Tips for how to engage and become part of the conversation:

1. Talk to people - watch what your followers are saying by following them back. Then reply to comments, questions and articles.
2. Retweet people – if someone posts an interesting article that you think your followers will appreciate, retweet them. See Retweeting made easy for tips on how to retweet.
3. Monitor what people are saying about your brand using Twilert. Then follow them and talk to them. If their comments are positive you can thank them, if they’re negative it is an opportunity to respond.
4. Always follow people back – if someone follows you and you follow them back they will instantly feel more positive about your brand. Don’t become like the celebrities who follow a select 50 or so people, Twitter is not a one way stream. (The only occasion when I’d recommend you don’t follow someone back is if they are obviously a spammer or a bot.)
5. Use an application like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. These are both great services that help you organise your followers, making it possible to follow hundreds of people. By organising your followers into groups it is far easier to sort through the thousands of tweets in your Twitter stream.
6. Write a good description of your business and what you’re going to be tweeting about in your Bio. Try and identify the person who will be tweeting or the team, so that people know who they are talking to.
7. Always use an image, either your logo or a picture of the person who is tweeting. If there are a team of people tweeting from different accounts then each person should have a personal picture.