Gary Andrews

Last week the comedian Richard Herring tweeted a firm but polite message to his followers about requests for retweets and why he doesn’t retweet many links people ask him to.

“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.

written by Gary \\ tags: relationship building, retweeting, Twitter, Twitter etiquette

Nearly ten years ago, the way I first knew about the 9/11 attacks was when I received a text from a friend telling me to turn on the TV. Today, I logged onto Facebook when I woke up, after a push notification to my phone, and saw my news feed filled up with statuses bout the death of Osama bin Laden. Same device, a very different way of receiving the news.

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.]

written by Gary \\ tags: al-Qaeda, al-Qaida, bin Laden, breaking news, Google Realtime, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Storify, Twitter, USA

That today is Twitter’s fifth birthday is an indication of exactly how fast time can seem to move in the world of social networking. About three and a half years ago, promoted by Ben Ayers, I signed up to Twitter. I don’t think either of us quite knew how influential Twitter would become (even if we never stopped banging on about its importance at work).

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?

written by Gary \\ tags: newsgathering, Twitter, twitter's birthday, twofootedtackle podcast

Social media’s pretty well established now but the question of who should take ownership for activity is no closer to being answered. PR Week have recently been attempting to answer this, making an argument for a host of different disciplines, while Econsultancy have argued that social media shouldn’t be owned by a PR or ad agency. I tend to agree with them.

Social media is a multi-faceted beast. It can be used to break stories, promote campaigns and brands, deal with reputation management, drive sales, and nurture and develop an enthusiastic community of fans and followers.

Just looking at this list it’s clear that there’s a whole host of potential stakeholders all of whom could legitimately lay claim to be the right people to drive this strategy forward.

Marketing will certainly be happy to push the message or the brand but may not be the right people to respond to a crisis or issues that might arrive.

PR, meanwhile, will be perfect for this and would seem to be the most natural fit but, although you have some excellent social PRs, may not be the most naturally inclined to nurture or build a community, while the community person may not necessarily be the right person to completely get across the message on the occasions that are required, or deal with social issues out of the community.

Then there’s the analytics, something that those on the media side of things are generally less inclined towards. Then there’s always the temptation for some companies to give it to “the web guy” or the most enthusiastic member of the team. But if they’re doing this on top of their normal work and don’t get the support from the rest of the organisation then this negates any savyness they bring to the table.

I realise this is a somewhat simplistic overview of the whole area – some companies have very evolved social practices and are happy to work in the grey areas – but it still shows the dilemmas and issues ownership of social projects.

It’s why, increasingly, I strongly believe that any company, organisation or group that has genuine aspirations of working successfully in a social space should be employing somebody whose brief is solely social media and is comfortable with all these disciplines (and, in fairness, a lot of companies are moving in this direction).

Ideally this person will have some form of media background or knowledge – they’d need to be able to communicate with the PR and marketing sides, and also comfortable writing and commissioning blog posts. They’d also have the time to integrate with a community, appreciate the sensitivities and, if they’re really good, use this to feed back and potentially help their employers produce something cool and well-received.

The other aspect of this is the social person being happy to delegate social responsibility elsewhere in the organisation. One of the temptations for social media is to give it all to one person.

But if you’re going to have one person overseeing social media then they will need to facilitate and delegate. There will inevitably be co-workers who are better placed to run Twitter feeds or answer questions on this topic, and, most importantly provide guidance.

I’ve worked in plenty of places and heard tales from elsewhere where social strategy and cool ideas were held up because several different departments wanted to make a land-grab for the social media rights and this internal jostling often ended up slowing the whole process down.

And, as we all know, social media isn’t exactly an area that’s inclined to hang around.

It’s all to easy to have assorted departments squabbling over who should take charge of social media. Instead, treat is as a separate discipline and hopefully you’ll see the benefits.

written by Gary \\ tags: advertising agencies, PR, PR agencies, PR Week, social media, Twitter

I’m sat on my sofa writing this at half eleven, the night before the general election. The Sun’s front page for election day, with David Cameron mocked up into the iconic Barack Obama image, is flying around Twitter – mostly to disbelief. Bet their sales go up though. It’s almost as if they’ve deliberately chosen an image that’ll provoke howls of online outrage.

So, yes, I’m sat here still not sure who to vote for. Tomorrow should be interesting, historic even. I can’t wait for the drama and the coverage, although I’m less than sure about 98% of the politicians involved.

It’s been a fascinating election to watch, especially from an online perspective, although I’m somewhat glad I took a holiday in the middle of it all and totally switched off from the entire campaign. Fun as it can be, I can totally understand why Adam Tinworth, and others, have retreated from Twitter for some of the election period. It can get a bit much, really.

Politics is tribal, yes. It also invokes passion. That I also understand. But it’s somewhat unedifying to see people who are already elected representatives or are aiming to become an elected representative – and especially party-supporting people – close up and angry on social sites. This Tweet from Conservative blogger, Iain Dale, being a case in point (although, in fairness to Dale, he did apologise and he’s not deleted the offending Tweet).

Call me an idealist, but given these people are meant to be aiming to change the world for the better and represent our interests, it’d be nice if one or two could rise above the mud-slinging. Really, all it comes across is that these people want power above political convictions (I’m probably doing quite a few a disservice here though). And I’d rather back somebody who is entering politics because of convictions as opposed to a fanatical desire to see their party returned to or achieving power.

It’s not just Dale, who is meant to be one of the online stars of politics, who has forgotten what social media is about. I’ve seen plenty of people, especially on Twitter, who sell themselves as social media experts and, by and large, fall into that category, forget themselves.

Brands should listen and engage is a regular message from social media land. Which is why it’s rather depressing to see certain people shout down and talk at others for having their party’s policies questioned. It’s worse than some of the rather low-brow football banter on the site. Much as I dislike Plymouth Argyle, I wouldn’t go as far as some social media people have gone with politics.

And still the politics rumbles on, the 24 News Channels do their best to make The Thick Of It look like a factual documentary and all the political parties come out with policies with so many holes in them you could drive the entire US marine corps though.

This all probably sounds a bit gloomy and, yes, it’s easy to be disillusioned with British politics. If there was a ‘None of the above’ option on the ballot paper, as they used to have in my old Students’ Union elections, I’d place my cross there without hesitation.

But, having worked reporting two general elections and numerous local elections, 2010 feels like people actually care about the outcome. I haven’t felt the country (at least in my personal sphere) be this engaged with the election.

I’ve had long conversations with strangers on the bus about the election, the result, their hopes and fears. That wouldn’t have happened at the last two elections.

And, for the first time in ages, it’s never been easier to connect with your MPs and other local politicians via social media and hold them to account. Anything that brings the public closer to their elected representatives can only be a good thing. Twitter and Facebook have made this possible.

But the most entertaining aspect has been the humour on social media, aimed at all parties. At least once a day I’ve laughed at something irreverent posted on Twitter or Facebook. It’s made it entertaining. Politics is suddenly fun to discuss.

And it’ll sure as hell be fun to watch tomorrow as the TV coverage gets bigger and probably more bizarre and the results fly in.

That said, it’s now quarter past midnight on election day.

I still have absolutely no idea who I’m going to vote for.

written by Gary \\ tags: election 2010, ge2010, general election 2010, general election and social media, party politics, politics and Twitter, social media, Twitter

Everyone’s favourite microblogging site has continued its evolution this week, as Twitter moved subtly into a mass grassroots campaigning tool. Move over breaking news, you were so Spring 2009, organic protest is where it’s at now.

First up was the Trafigura case, of which so much has been written, it’s somewhat pointless to rehash completely what went on (Adam Tinworth has a nice, concise summary). In a nutshell, the Guardian were gagged on writing about reporting on a Parliamentary question concerning Trafigura and there actions surrounding the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.

Once the Guardian wrote that they’d been gagged, Twitter (and plenty of blogs) quickly ensured it was one of the most discussed and written about topics online. The Streisand effect, if you will.

Much has been said about how Twitter brought about the downfall of Carter-Ruck’s gagging order. For what it’s worth, I suspect it would have been lifted eventually – you simply can’t stop papers reporting on the democratic business of Parliament just because it damages your client’s reputation. That would abolish hundreds of years of precedent. There’s a fair bit of that around.

For me, that’s the most important aspect, more so, even, than Twitter’s role in all this. The very fact a law firm thought it could ride roughshod over a basic right that’s essential to any functioning democracy is somewhat concerning. It would have set a very dangerous precedent, and it’s good to see, for ones, MPs from all parties standing up pretty strongly against this. This would have been a step too far.

What Twitter definitely did was to accelerate the process. Carter-Ruck may not have backed down so quickly were it not for Twitter, and it’s unlikely that it would have spread onto more news outlets, and the original root of the litigation wouldn’t have been dug up. In all honesty, can anybody recall Trafigura’s name before this?

As Adam says, it was crowdsourced journalism at its finest.

The second was Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir’s rather sickening piece on the death of Stephen Gately (no, I’m not going to link to it), which again hit the trending topics as Twitter users flocked to express their disgust. Again, this became, and maintained its place, as a trending topic on Twitter throughout the day.

This was somewhat different from the Trafigura campaign in some respects – it was more about decency than an affront to democracy. Nevertheless, the strength of feeling was enough to crash the Press Complaints Commission’s website and cause advertisers to ask to be removed from Moir’s article on the Mail’s site.

There has been a lot written about Stephen Gately’s death, some of it probably untrue, and some of it not overly pleasant. But it was this one article that ignited Twitter’s fury. It could have ben written by any writer in any national paper – the result would have probably been the same.

The Moir case really shows the power of Twitter. I wouldn’t like to hazard a guess at how many complaints the Mail gets each day. It’s incredibly rare for them to issue a statement around a complaint so quickly though (in an episode that contains just a touch of schadenfreude).

The difference, I think (and this is only hypotheticals), is that Carter-Ruck’s injunction would have been overturned sooner or later. This isn’t to say Twitter didn’t help, but it was a key player rather than an essential in getting it lifted. With Moir, the statement would never have been issued were it not for Twitter.

Moir also grasps the wrong end of the stick with her statement by describing it as “clearly a heavily-orchestrated online campaign”. Wrong. A heavily-orchestrated one implies a degree of organisation, whereas the reaction to her piece was spontaneous. It was the strength of feeling towards Moir’s article rather than a grassroots piece of action from, say, a gay rights group. It’s difficult to think something would trend so quickly and stay trending by organisation alone. It needs other Twitter users to keep talking about it long after it first moves towards trending.

And it’s also why I can’t see an organised campaign working as well as the Moir campaign. There’s only so far you can tap into the internet before it falls away, a victim of natural information turnover.

A quick note on the politics of Twitter as well. Somebody (I can’t remember who) noted that the two major Twitter campaigns were predominantly on liberal topics.

Is Twitter a liberal haven? I’m not so sure. To me it feels liberal, but that’s because of the people I follow. That doesn’t mean there’s not a large conservative following on there.

Secondly, it’s worth pointing out that Trafigura transcended political divides. Having heavyweight and idiologically different bloggers like Guido Fawkes and Chicken Yoghurt lending their support it somewhat like the suspension of cold war, in online terms. The only internet community recognised the chilling threat of the super-injunction for what it was: an affront to democracy. That does not necessarily make it liberal.

The Moir reaction leans towards a traditional cause of the left, or liberals, but you don’t have to belong to that part of the political spectrum to be appalled by her views on Stephen Gately. It, perhaps, shows how we as a society have become more liberal and tolerant, but it isn’t quite a cause championed entirely my liberals.

For me, Twitter comes across as more libertarian than liberal, and there is a crucial difference in this. It’s quick to stand up for freedom in all sense of the word, but also leans away from censorship. It certainly isn’t an area where one spectrum of politics dominates though.

written by Gary \\ tags: Carter-Ruck, Daily Mail, Jan Moir, libel, Stephen Gately, The Guardian, Trafigura, Twitter

Anybody not from Britain looking at the Twitter trending topics today would have probably been baffled to see Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy near the top. Thanks to the British sense of humour, the catchphrase from 70s sitcom Are You Being Served was all over the microblogging site in tribute to the death of comic actress Mollie Sugden [1]. Jonathan Ross was one of those responsible for getting the topic to the top of Twitter charts.

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.

written by Gary Andrews \\ tags: Mashable, Mrs Slocombe's Pussy, Techcrunch, trending topics, Twitter