“I am afraid I get asked to RT so much stuff for charity or whatever that I have to refuse all requests or my timeline’d be nothing but,” he said, before adding, “Also if all charity stuff gets RT then it would have no impact. Like to save it up for causes I am involved with.”

A fair enough explanation, it seems, although judging by the exchanges that followed, not all of his followers agreed.

Requests for retweets is something I’ve noticed a rise in lately, whether it’s retweets from people I follow with a message such as “Hi @celebrityorkeyinfluencer, I’m running this race in memory of my mum, please RT,” or “Hi @writerorjournalist, I’ve written a piece o the history of Eintracht Frankfurt. Any chance of a RT?”

Even I get a fair few requests for both charity and article retweets and I really wouldn’t consider myself particularly influential (indeed, if you go by my Klout score I sit somewhere between the invisible man and a chocolate kettle in terms of usefulness).

Given the amount I get, I can only imagine the volume of requests fired at celebrities or well-known tweeters and, in the politest possible way, it’s probably a bit of a drag to go through them all.

I’ll make an effort, generally, to read most pieces or requests fired at me, but I won’t always retweet, often because I don’t feel it’s appropriate or I don’t find it interesting enough. It’s my feed and, sympathetic as I am to a lot of the requests, I also like to maintain some form of quality or brand control (although those of you who follow me may disagree given some of the rather random stuff I tweet).

But what of those requesting the RT? It’s clearly important to them, but is replying to a large number of celebrities or influencers the best way to go about it?

In the real world, if somebody kept running up to you and constantly asking you to tell others about their views on a topic or ask for money for charity, you’d probably get fed up quite quickly or tell them to sod off.

Kate Bevan, who has written an excellent summing up of why she doesn’t retweet, says some of these requests can amount to little more than chugging.

For those who follow the habitual retweet requester as well, it can get a bit irritating, especially if you follow the same people. It’s a horribly delicate balance – on one hand, you want as many people as possible to see your link.

On the other, it’s a bit irritating for your followers and for the person you’re asking for a RT from, even a bit rude, especially if it’s something they don’t want to tweet but feel uncomfortable not doing so.

One of Twitter’s strong points is the lack of rules. Everybody uses the service in a slightly different way and gets something different back out of it. But, gradually, accepted etiquette has developed. And in terms of general politeness, I’d say that continually pestering for a RT goes against this (even if it’s really not my place to say).

But it is, as mentioned, a balancing act, especially when it comes to flagging your content to the right people. I will @ or Direct Message selected people if, and only if, I think they may find it interesting. And I’ll certainly never ask for a RT – if they think the link is good enough, chances are they’ll RT without being asked.

That said, if you’re just after hits and traffic, then the scattergun approach will probably increase your page views, but in the longer term, how many of those who’ve retweeted will continue to do so?

I’d argue that rather than adopt a scattergun approach with key influencers and celebrities asking for RTs, it’s worth taking time to build relationships with them, replying and interacting to their other Tweets.

That way, any occasional request comes across less mercenary (“oh, you’re famous or influential, you’ll send me traffic) and more friendly and meaningful (“I know we’ve chatted a fair bit on here in the past, so I thought you might be interested in this link.”). It may not work every time, but building up a relationship is a lot better than an unsolicited request.

Ultimately, somebody’s Twitter feed is, as much as anything, a reflection of themselves and their own personal brand. And just as a news website wouldn’t post an unverified story that’s been sent in by a reader, so it’s up to an individual Tweeter to curate content for their own individual feeds, and some of the RT requests just won’t fit.

As Richard Herring said, retweeting every charity-related request will diminish the impact of the causes he puts a lot of effort into – and that’s just one example of a tweet request not fitting a specific brand.

That’s not to say there aren’t times and places for asking for a retweet but they are, I think, few and far between.

Now, if you could all retweet this post, I’d be very grateful.

Not that seeing breaking news spread virally on social networks is in any way new these days, but the news of bin Laden’s death shows, beyond doubt, of how integrated Twitter and other networks have become for breaking news and are the best places to head to for updates, if you can work out how to cut through the chatter.

What was interesting about this story, from a news and social media perspective, was the timing and nature of the news. Many big breaking news stories tend to be naturally chaotic as journalists scramble for facts and people Tweet without any knowledge of what’s going on – the on-the-scene Tweets tend to be fairly jumbled and it takes a bit of time to sift and verify, even if it gives you a general picture of what’s going on.

In this case, the news broke late into the evening in America and during the night in Britain, while the actual event happened in Pakistan. Without being awake during this time, I’d hazard this probably made it slightly easier to track, given there would be less people online (slightly).

Secondly, this was an unusual breaking news story insofar as although there were updates on social media from the scene and then from elsewhere as the news leaked out, it was still more of a controlled story than many big breaking news stories.

In this case, journalists were on a surer footing from the off (and probably had several articles prepared), which probably explains why the majority of articles and Tweets I’ve seen shared this morning have been from news organisations such as the Guardian and New York Times, rather than blogs or Twitter users – although Mashable, as ever, features very highly in articles I’ve seen shared.

But despite this, Twitter and other social media has shown itself to be the place to track the news. Sohaib Athar, aka @ReallyVirtual on Twitter, inadvertently liveblogged the US operation against bin Laden, while @Pauliemyers’ Twitpic shows the earliest mentions of the operation via Google Realtime (an increasingly useful search engine).

Elsewhere, the New York Times has detailed how the news and confirmation of bin Laden’s death starting leaking on Twitter, primarily from Donald Rumsfeld’s chief of staff, Keith Urbahn. Interestingly, and showing the importance of a trusted source, although Urbahn wasn’t the first to Tweet the news, his credibility as a source meant that he was credited with breaking the news pr, at the very least, the primary Twitter source being cited.

As the news spread, other aspects of social media came forward. On Facebook, as well as news feeds filling up with the news, the Osama bin Laden is dead group, originally set up as more of a conspiracy theory group, became a focal point for collating updates. Google Maps updated to pinpoint the area where bin Laden was killed, while users of Storify, rapidly becoming an incredibly useful curation tool, started pulling together the strands of the story.

And, as a breaking news story, this has moved quicker than usual from social media to traditional media. The story is no longer breaking, and the analysis from experts begins, as tends to be the case. But, as ever, social media is definitely not something you can view as separate from the story. As the journalists Tweet and collate the information, it’s become a complete part of the fabric of newsgathering and news viewing.

[h/t to @SueLlewellyn, who has Tweeted many of these links I've listed above.]

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration (albeit one with no intentional hyperbole behind it) to say that Twitter has changed my life.

Twitter had been across my radar for six months before that. I’d even started looking into how it could be used with the website and reporting of the local commercial station I was working for at the time, before I moved to the bright lights of London.

At first, I think I confined myself to people I knew. Then started branching out to people they knew, or followed people who followed me and it kind of took off from there, as I gradually moved from having virtual conversations with people to meeting them in real life.

I still remember the first proper Twitterer I met in real life who I’d previously only spoken to on Twitter beforehand. Darika Ahrens came into my then workplace to pitch for some business – and DMed me the day before to say hello. It seemed like a novelty at the time, exciting even.

Now, I’d think nothing of saying hi to a random Twitter person I’d been following for a while. And Darika’s become a brilliant friend, not to mention being the first person I’d go to if I wanted to sound out an idea about social media.

I remember the first Twestival I went to. Colleagues at work thought it was slightly strange that I was going to party with a bunch of people, many of whom had never met each other before. Now, a Twitter meetup seems normal. Of course, I’ve dragged friends along to assorted Twitter events. We all use the service in a different way, which is one of the joys of Twitter.

I’ve made other friends through social media too. Without Twitter, it’s doubtful there would have ever been a twofootedtackle podcast, or at least not one with so many different guests (some of whom have become great friends as well). I’ve met some amazing people, and been afforded some amazing opportunities as a result.

Five years ago, the job I currently do wouldn’t have existed. Nor the job before that. I work with Twitter on a daily basis (it’s not the only thing I do, I hasten to add).  It continues to fascinate, entertain and challenge me. Without Twitter, I certainly wouldn’t have my current job.

Then there’s the way Twitter has evolved and continues to evolve. Sure, you’ll get people (myself included a vast amount of the time) wittering away about everyday mundanities – although I’ve rarely had such a large amount of replies as when I asked about the best way to remove mould from my bathroom.

But more than that, you’ll get people who use it to share information and use it for their profession, be it journalism, PR or celebrity (or other).

The rise of celebrities on Twitter added another dimension to the site. It felt a bit weird when the big names, complete with all their new followers, invaded Twitter (I still maintain Phillip Schofield had a bigger effect than any other celebrity in the UK when he first joined).

Then there’s the newsgathering aspects, and even using it to challenge governments or coordinate aid efforts, as we’ve seen in Egypt and Japan recently.

When, in 2008, I blogged about tracking a breaking news story (in this case, the attempted suicide bombing in Exeter) using Twitter and other social media, it was a slightly unusual way of treating the newsgathering process. Today, I suspect any journalist covering a breaking story would immediately head onto Twitter and start searching.

Twitter has given me a lot of laughs, contacts, career help, new friends, helped create a podcast, fuelled my love of football and, at times, been a source of comfort, especially when I ended up in hospital, alone and scared with no idea what was wrong with me.

Like it or not, and for better or for worse, Twitter has changed the way we see the world. And, I suspect, as new users join and start using the service in different ways, it will continue to evolve.

Now, who wants to know what I had for lunch?

Last election Twitter didn’t exist, all the cool kids were flocking to MySpace and, while the political blogosphere was in fairly healthy shape (and, it has to be said, a lot friendlier), the whole area was seen as a niche concern. These days, political news is being discussed on social media before the speech has even finished, while somebody will already be plotting the inevitable Downfall parody. Yes, for General Election 2010, social media matters – both to the media and the politicians. And that’s both a good and a bad thing.

The bad covers a range of areas, the most obvious being that politicians and the media will try too hard to woo and give credence to what is, in all honesty,  a small percentage of the voting population by focusing too heavily on what Twitter users and bloggers are saying. That’s not to say they shouldn’t, but us social media types may not be representative of the areas of society who a change of government will make the biggest differences to.

[Facebook, incidentally, is a completely different proposition and one where there is are genuine possibilities for breaking down barriers between the public and politicians and enhancing democracy like never before.

My feelings on YouTube and politicians, though, generally falls under the same category as the words "let's do a viral."]

There’s also the unsightly and rather depressing sight of grown adults indulging in petty point scoring across these networks, and the media breathlessly reporting this like IT MATTERS. It possibly does, but maybe not to the level it gets elevated to. I’m more interested in working out if the sums add up, or there’s a commitment to, say, democratic reform of Parliament than seeing a schoolboy-like putdown that serves nothing other than mutual backslapping from that team.

Then there’s the gaffes. With social media now firmly entrenched in our lives, it was inevitable that there would be plenty of political gaffes, fails and misunderstandings on how to use it all.

Us social media bods across the media or in brands engaging online have just about got the hang of what works and what doesn’t, by and large, although are always learning. We’re adaptable to the needs of our audience because we’ve been listening and engaging with communities for a while now.

Politicians, with some notable exceptions, haven’t. There’s a reason why companies are prepared to spend thousands on pounds in training their staff on how to use social media. Sure, they can use Facebook and Twitter for personal use, but that’s a very different thing to acting as a representative for your brand in a public space, where anything you do can be attributed to your paymasters. The list of companies who’ve committed brand-damaging social faux pas grows monthly.

Stuart MacLennan could have probably done with some of this training.

And it’s why there will probably continue to be many more social media gaffes as the election campaign carries on. If MacLennan is the only political online casualty over the next month, I’ll be a very surprised man.

Yet these sort of fails also highlight the good side of social media and politics. For a start, it enables us to get an insight into prospective candidates, many of whom you’ll never have heard of, and have at least something to judge their suitability for office on. And if they fall up short, then that helps inform your vote.

This is something that, the few blogging MPs that existed in 2005 aside, simply wasn’t available at the last election and anything that brings politicians closer to the public is a good thing, broadly, in my book.

In many ways, this reminds me somewhat of a post I wrote almost a year ago, on the criticism around Gordon Brown’s YouTube video, and Hazel Blears’ comments that YouTube was no substitute for knocking on doors.

While I was critical of Blears, perhaps I was also a little disingenuous, although probably not in the way she was meaning. Yes, it’s good that politicians are experimenting with social media and using it to campaign with, but it’s not really a substitute for talking to the electorate. Fortunately social media allows just that.

But it’s a two way conversation and those politicians and political parties that get it right may reap the benefits. Lets not forget, 12 votes can be enough to swing a marginal, so engaging online could just be a seat-winner.

That is to say, those who talk with rather to to the electorate will help their case. A politician could just be on Twitter broadcasting his thoughts, on YouTube, blogging away, and encouraging people to become a fan on Facebook, but all this activity, while making the politician appear a bit more switched on, means nothing if said politician doesn’t get engage.

The really good ones will chat back and forth and listen over Twitter, respond to comments on their blog, answer questions on their Facebook page, and be an active member of the YouTube community. Now that becomes a bit more likely to get a precious few extra votes. But more than that, it shows the politician is prepared to listen, engage and respond. A bit like a 21st century version of door knocking.

It’s also one of the reasons why, in my mind, the whole Cash Gordon debacle wasn’t the greatest of ideas. Many of the most effective or notacable online campaigns tap directly into the zeitgeist of that particular moment. Think Trafigura and Jan Moir.

They are a swift, sharp, popular movement that gains traction because people feel strong enough to, at the very least, Tweet about it. The story or campaign then takes on a life of its own from there, and becomes a story in itself.

But trying to tell somebody on a social network what they should be getting angry about is unlikely to go beyond the traditional supporter base unless it touches a nerve, and the Labour / Unite issue wasn’t enough to get worked up about. Had the Conservatives done something quick and cheap around the hiking of cider tax or the Digital Economy Bill, then they might have got more widespread support.

Again, this shows the value of listening and responding – and is possibly why having something cheap and ready to go isn’t necessarily a bad idea. It’s easy enough to spot something developing on Twitter if you know how to listen, and if it ties in with a political party’s ideals, then there’s certainly possibilities, providing it’s not done in a completely top-down manner.

And if the online campaign is very top-down and has an indifferent response, you’re much more likely to see the politically agnostic hijack it for a bit of fun (leaving the page open to a very simple barely-even a hack is just stupid. As is claiming it’s still a victory. Sometimes it’d be nice if political people were prepared to say they made a mistake).

Those MPs who understand the sensitivities of a social media environment and listen and respond are those who may well benefit. My own MP has gone up in my estimation for a very quick response to my email about the Digital Economy Bill, although it’d be nice to see them on Facebook and Twitter. It’s little things like that which can sway where an individuals vote will go.

Social media, as with its relation to most aspects of life, isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to politics, but it is an incredibly useful communication channel to get an insight into the person behind the politician, as well as a chance to ask direct questions, something we so rarely get the chance to do.

Come the end of the election, it’ll be fascinating to see how the three main parties – and the other parties – have harnessed social media and how well they’ve done, on both an individual MP level, and a party level.

There will undoubtedly be more mistakes. But there may be triumphs. And with the possibility of a hung parliament very real, that could make a huge difference. Or at least a difference between me actually knowing who I want to vote for in advance of polling day, as opposed to my usual dilemma of not being impressed with any candidate and having to resist the temptation to draw something rather crude on the ballot paper. Not that I’ve cocked up my vote yet, mind.

DISCLOSURE: I’m not a member of any political party and have no idea who, if anybody, I’ll be voting for come May 6th.

Somewhere along the line, I’ve morphed from Riggs into Murtaugh.

It’s not that I didn’t want to go to Twestival tonight. I even had a ticket and had every intention of going. But it clashed with podcast recording night, and we were running a bit late, and the studios were across the other side of London, and I had lots to do and didn’t want to be tired at work, and home is back the other side of town, and so on and so on. And so the sensible, but boring, decision was taken to head home rather than party into the night.

(And in many respects I’m rather gutted I didn’t make it. The Twestival team have done a fantastic job from turning it into a small one-off in a bar near Trafalgar Square into a global phenomenon. I’m always slightly humbled whenever I see what they’ve achieved).

Gone are the days where I’d run across London, make three social media parties in a night, and still come in bright and cheerful the next morning.

But it’s also interesting as I don’t think I’m the only one. When it comes to partying or cracking on and doing something, the latter is often the default setting.

Perhaps its because social media has been around for long enough that it’s no longer new, it’s not a phenomenon, any people have stopped going “Ooh, isn’t this cool,” and moved towards “Right, how can we use this better.” Or, put more crudely, “How can I make money from this?” [1]

It’s not that in social media that people have now met all the useful people. But we’ve got a better idea of who we need to contact and how to get hold of them. And while partying was, you know, fun, websites don’t just built themselves, and Twitter doesn’t update itself, and money doesn’t just magically appear in your bank account, and willyalookatthateverybodysdoingsocialmediathesedaysholyshitwebetterupourgame.

And the thing is, we generally get it now. Not all of it. That implies there’s no more to get. But now social media is more commonplace and even if not everybody in any given is immersed in social media, they know it’s important and they’re prepared to create new jobs for people to show them how to do social media and these people have stopped going “Well, there’s a lot to learn<’ and instead are saying “It’s not that hard. Look, I’ll show you. And, actually, we can do something VERY cool with this.”

So, yes, doing things. That’s what we’re largely doing now. Burying ourselves in work – and this isn’t necessary dull, because a lot of it is putting the VERY cool things into practice rather than just talking about them. There’s less of a need to jump around and drink lots and generally tell people how cool the projects are you’re doing. We know. We’re probably working on something similar.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t party from time to time, right? And every last person at Twestival well deserves every drop of beer drunk tonight because they’re all contributing to something amazing and making a huge difference to people’s lives in places where debates over Foursquare are, frankly, insignificant. And this wouldn’t have been possible without social media.

And tomorrow we’ll get our heads down to working again, either with hangovers or tinges of regret about not being able to make it. And we’ll enjoy it.

I’m getting old. I’m also working hard with VERY cool things. And while I’m careering slowly towards not being able to name the majority of artists in the Top 40, I’m still loving every minute of it. Social media isn’t the future any more, it’s part of the future, and I’m bloody glad I’m part of that part.

PS The podcast tonight was so much fun, I’d happily have missed most things to record it. It’ll be up at the usual places tomorrow and should be sounding fantastic.

[1] Not that I necessary subscribe to the latter viewpoint. It may surprise people, but I make precisely zero from the podcast. It’s currently done solely for the love of podcasting and football.

Sure enough, other countries were a bit puzzled by the trend, so much so that both Techcrunch and Mashable wrote stories complaining that Twitter was getting infected with spam again [2]. They were soon put right in the comments.

I’m not an overly big fan of the show, but this little Twitter trend and the reaction does appeal to my sense of humour. You’d like to think that Mollie Sugden would have found it funny as well. It’s a fitting tribute.

But among all this there is a serious point to be made, with regard to the old blogs v journalism arguments. Especially in light of TMZ’s Michael Jackson scoop, there seems to be a general reluctance to trust blogs ahead of traditional media, even if the blogs have a long and trusted record. Sadly, this little snippet gives the journalist a nice easy own goal.

As many comments in both articles have said, a very quick bit of research would have shown that this was a genuine trending topic and not a story, bar one of those ‘aren’t Twitter users funny’ filler pieces. As it was, both writers immediately jumped to the conclusion that they had a Twitter spam story on their hands and published, seemingly without any checks or approach for comment. Plenty of ammunition for the blogging naysayers.

[But then again some newspaper journalism can't claim to be a great deal better].

On the other hand, there is a lot to be said here for the fact that both writers visibly corrected their copy very quickly after being called to account, and were prepared to brave the comments. And that’s something you cannot imagine the many newspapers doing, period. Plus, it did bring up the small but interesting question of how Twitter blocks certain phrases from trending.

It doesn’t excuse the rather sloppy research (and desire to pull out a quick post) in the first place [3]. But it does show how news can be more democratic and accountable, and quickly corrected, and that’s got to be a good thing.

[1] For anybody not familiar with the sitcom, it was a running joke where Mrs Slocombe, a very prim and proper lady, would constantly refer to her pet cat in a variety of ways laced with innuendo.

[2] Although it’s easy to forget that pussy has much stronger connotations in the US than it does here.

[3] And I’m writing this as both a fan and a regular reader of both blogs. I think they’re better than a lot of traditional news sources. But when they do mess up, it’s a lot more public.

Once all the acts had performed, it was obvious that Diversity were trending stronger than any other act over Twitter. “If,” I thought, “Twitter is anything to go by, Diversity will win.”

Interestingly, Julian Smith, the third place act, wasn’t far behind Susan Boyle in the trending stakes. Twitter seemed slightly shocked Julian made it into the top three. I initially was, but it made sense following the conversation earlier.

Twitter, to be clear, didn’t win it for Diversity (as I’ve seen claimed in some places) but it did provide a surprisingly accurate snapshot into the mindset of the nation.

Mashable have picked up on a similar point when they used Google Analytics to try and predict the result of American Idol. And, of course, Google have been using their tools to predict flu trends.

Twitter’s a fascinating backchannel to popular culture, and there’s unlocked potential to make it even more useful. Somebody, somewhere, one day not too far in the future, I’d imagine, will develop something that enables them to make a lot of money from this.

It’s perhaps understandable to be a little concerned and jumpy when you get announcements like that. Then you also start mentally working out how the hell you’re going to make it into work and which other routes were crowded.

One quick look at my Twitter stream told me there were plenty of police and sirens around Waterloo, so that place was best avoided. A quick search for both Waterloo and Vauxhall (using dabr’s search) told me there were plenty of other people stuck on trains and a bit confused as to what was going on.

But there were a few people Twittering that the trains to Victoria were still working, so I immediately changed platforms and hopped on a Victoria-bound train.

Keeping Twitter open, and continuing to search, it became clear that the alert was due to a suspicious vehicle or package near the Queenstown Road station that had caused the shutdown.

I was also Tweeting what I could find out and to let people know that buses were a nightmare but there was no delay on Victoria-bound trains. I also sent an email to everybody in my office – many of them catch trains into Waterloo so would have been hit by the delay or would be just starting their journeys.

Pretty soon, Tweets were coming through to say the package was a false alarm and trains were moving again, but very slowly. Plenty of others were, it seemed, also Tweeting their journey and the info they’d gathered.

By keeping an eye on Twitter it was relatively easy to keep on top of the situation and work out where was best avoided. Result: I was late into work but not as delayed as I’d have been without Twitter.

What’s more a couple of colleagues saw my email and took a different route into work, while other colleagues stuck on trains at least had a reasonable idea of how late they were likely to be and could plan accordingly.

So what, you may say. Well, here’s what. This may have been a non-event in the end, but to Londoners on their morning commute it was a big deal (Waterloo was a trending topic for a short while).

Now, in terms of news, it may just make a NiB in the evening freesheets. Possibly one of the rolling news channels or news websites may have got something on it quickly. But Twitter was more helpful than their of these at 9am this morning. It was also a lot more helpful than the train station staff who knew very little other than they’d been told to hold all trains.

And there’s the rub. It helped manage and ressaure during a slightly confusing real-time breaking (non-)news story. I’m guessing anybody else travelling into work through Waterloo this morning who happened to be on Twitter had a much better idea of what was going on and where to go than their colleagues. Should any journalist have wanted to piece together what was going on this morning, all they’d have to do would be to search for Waterloo on Twitter.

All thanks to a bunch of people typing 140 characters about how their journey to work was disrupted. Without them, I’d probably be wandering lost around the roads of Clapham and Battersea.

There’s nothing a geek likes more than a good list and as Twitter is full of geeks, there’s nothing us geeks like more than a good list about Twitter. It’s pretty common to see lists of top Twitterers on certain topics or locations.

Of course the lists also can provide a useful guide to who’s who and who’s getting it right, especially where brands are concerned, especially as more and more companies realise it’s worth being on Twitter.

Earlier today Brand Republic released a list of the most mentioned brands on Twitter. It was interesting stuff and looked like a pretty comprehensive list of who was getting Twitter right.

Except it wasn’t. It was a useful snapshot, but shouldn’t be viewed as the be all and end all as there were more than a few flaws.

A quick disclosure at this point, as the following may sound like sour grapes on my part. The company I work for, ITV, wasn’t on the list, whereas the BBC and Channel 4 (3rd and 28th respectively) were.

This struck me as slightly odd. We’ve been on Twitter for over a year now (unlike many of the brands in the list [1]), and have 4,778 followers. This is more than Amazon, Ford and eBay, all of whom appear in the top 15 (of course followers don’t necessarily equal mentions).

What’s more, I know ITV gets between 50-100 mentions on a quiet day because I have assorted Tweet Beep alerts set up. Even allowing for a very quiet few days, I’d comfortably expect us to be above Dulux on 208 mentions.

Again, at the risk of sounding like a sulky teenager who realises there’s a party that they’re not invited to, it does seem there’s some serious flaws in this research. For a start, there’s no sign of Facebook anywhere on the list, which is an even more surprising omission than ITV.

First of all, there’s no word what the methodology is, so it’s difficult to work out how Jam, the agency that carried out the research, came to decide who to monitor and who didn’t. What qualifies as a brand and what doesn’t?

Also, there are thousands of brands out there, so it would be useful to know the scope of research and monitoring. Were they just given 100 brands to monitor? 200? What were the parameters? There’s a wide and varied range of companies on the list, so it’s safe to assume the scope was pretty wide.

Then there’s the way the brands were monitored – over three days in April this year. This is also problematic. The short timescale and lack of repetition increases the likelihood of a fluctuation in Twitter mentions for a brand that could be regarded as an anomaly in the Top 100.

For example, at the height of the Swine Flu panic, you’d expect Tamiflu to pick up quite a few mentions. If you’re including Chelsea FC as a brand (which I would), they’d trend very highly this week. When Woolworths went into administration, mentions alone would probably have placed it in the top ten.

The research doesn’t allow for rinsing out these random results. If the timescale were longer – say three months rather than days – you’d probably get a more accurate picture of which brands were mentioned the most. Or you could repeat the three day monitoring over, say, three weeks and see which brands consistently trended higher. The point in, a brand that finds itself in the news – unexpectedly or otherwise – will probably make it onto this list.

These are the main flaws, but – and although this probably goes byond that rather narrow parameters of the research commissioned – the list itself is probably more useful to the brands not on Twitter than those who already are. But mentions themselves don’t tell much about how the brand engages on Twitter.

Sure, they may get plenty of mentions, but is the brand passive or active? Also, it’s impossible to tell if the mentions are good or bad. For example, GMail had a brief hiccup early today. It would probably have made a significant spike in mentions of Google, which would a) as likely be negative and b) beyond Google’s control on Twitter.

Again, I’m well aware this sounds like moaning – and, yes, this does somewhat influence it. But it ties into a more general problem I have with these kind of lists.

Brand Republic’s Top 100 is useful as a snapshot, providing we accept the flaws. It also may provide the catalyst for some slightly sounder, more detailed research. But it’s also slightly misleading.

The list itself doesn’t mention the three-day limit until right at the end, and below an advert. It would be easy enough for people to look at the list, see ITV aren’t on there and assume we’re doing nothing on Twitter, in comparison to the BBC and Channel 4, which then gives the online reputation a bit of a dent.

There’s nothing wrong with these type of lists – they’re interesting, useful and generate a good amount of discussion both within and outside the brand. But if there’s no preamble to place it in context, there’s a danger they could be taken in the wrong way.

It also comes into the fringes of a pet grumble of mine – badly designed surveys and data collection. I’m a bit of a stats geek and number cruncher and have a firmly held belief that if you’re going to do research then you should at least open up your methodology and let the rest of us poke around for holes and flaws.

Ok, so it’s not exactly hard science, but there’s still science in there and if you give the research a good going over, you can either make it stronger or disprove it.

Which is somewhat of a lengthy way of saying there’s potential for some significant objective research of brands on Twitter (which would be tricky, but there’s no reason, with the right design, why it couldn’t be done). As opposed to a list like this which is interesting but not very useful as a piece of research.

[1] And even then I’m convinced I’ve seen Twitter accounts for a few of the brands on the list who aren’t meant to have a Twitter presence.

Earlier this week, Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, wrote in the Observer:

“YouTube if you want to. But it’s no substitute for knocking on doors or setting up a stall in the town centre.”

It’s pretty obvious what her target was here: the YouTube video where Gordon Brown announced plans to reform MPs expenses without telling Parliament first. It also contained a few somewhat frightening impromptu smiles that didn’t help his image one jot.

Sadly, this kerfuffle has somewhat shown British politics in a somewhat unfortunate light again when it comes to social media. You’d think when you’ve got Barack Obama and his supporters embracing the web, that politicians in the UK from all parties could learn from this.

But, no. We’re still on either dismissing tools like YouTube out of hand or, worse still, condemning any attempt to engage online as a waste of taxpayers money. 

Take this rather ignorant post from Conservative MP Nadine Dorries on her attitude to Twitter.

In some respects it’s no different from what you’d hear from others who don’t get or don’t want to get Twitter. But to hear it from an elected representative is somewhat disappointing.

It essentially implies that she’s quite simply not going to bother engaging in a growing platform that provides an excellent way to directly connect with voters. As Chris at Clicking and Screaming says:

“I see little difference between the banal comments of the Twittersphere about ‘In the Loop’ and the banal opinions of a Member of Parliament on anything outside her remit. If it’s interesting to you, follow it. If not, don’t. But don’t lash out at those who do.

…

The compulsive need of those not involved to discuss it at length shows a fear of the unknown which, for a politician (and I generally have more respect for politicians than most do), is short-sighted.”

Let’s come back to Blears’ comments that You Tube is no substitute for door-to-door canvassing or taking the soapbox on tour. Again, it’s dismissing a wide-reaching social media tool used by a lot of the voting and non-voting public. It sounds a lot like one of those people back in the day who thought email would never catch on.

Local electioneering still has its place but YouTube has the potential to reach millions – many more than the town centre soapbox [1].

A few MPs even have their own YouTube channel, including Blears’ colleague Sadiq Khan [2]. But even then, this reveals a whole new set of problems. The most popular video on Khan’s channel has 227 views. The rest average somewhere between seven and about 150. Still, it’s a start.

The problem, to me, is one that’s all too common in any business or organisation or industry. You have some people who get social media and want to engage. You have some that know that they should probably be on these sites in some way, shape or form but aren’t sure how, and you have those who just don’t want to know.

Politicians, largely, are in the second and third groups. Brown’s office is probably in the second – they’re making the right moves but aren’t really utilising it properly.

So, for Brown’s YouTube videos, it has a feeling of somebody suggesting it as a good idea but with no real strategy behind it or a proper feeling for how YouTube works.

It feels somewhat like The Thick Of It special where the opposition MP’s advisor starts a blog, while the politician himself doesn’t really care.

In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t take a lot of work to join together all the aspects. There’s no reason why, say, Brown couldn’t have announced the expenses measure to the chamber and then had a YouTube video posted immediately after the announcement (sans gurning, you’d hope) and then followed it up with, ooh, a blog post and the like.

Then, on the other side, perhaps Labour (or perhaps an apolitical body) could pull together all the politician YouTube videos, and Twitter accounts, in one place so it’s easy for constituents to find and engage with their MP (which is, after all, one of the main reasons why they were elected, right?).

And there’s no harm in giving the Twitter feed or YouTube channels a plug. I only stumbled across Sadiq Khan’s feed when I was looking for something else – in 18 months living in Tooting, I’d never had information offline that he had a web presence and it wasn’t top of my agenda to look. Many other voters probably have similar mindsets.

As The Register points out, moderating comments isn’t that difficult (and it doesn’t seem as if Downing Street had even thought of it) and there’s so much untapped potential for politicians in this country to get involved in social media, engage and perhaps win back some of the trust that they seem so keen to squander on a regular basis.

But instead Labour (and, via Dorries, the Conservatives as well) have managed to get social media, their strategy and response so spectacularly wrong. Which leads to another spat. Which turns voters off even further.

Add to this the smeargate emails, and the media’s obsession that Iain Dale, Gudio Fawkes and the unlamented Derek Draper, are the only web-politics that matter, well, it just doesn’t want to make you get involved online.

In the US, Obama used social media and the web to bring about a positive movement that engaged the average voter in politics. In the UK, all we can do is sling political mud at each other online. How very depressing.

[1] It’s worth saying that the soapbox offers politicians a direct way to engage and spend time talking to constituents, but there’s no guarantee that the constituents want to engage. With social media – You Tube, Facebook, Twitter et al – you can measure the level of success much more effectively AND engage in conversation.

[2] The only reason I’ve chosen Sadiq Khan is he used to be my local MP so I’m slightly more familiar with his online presence (he has a Twitter feed as well) rather than any particular like of dislike of the politician.