Hashtag reality check

Businesses who think that Twitter is the solution to their marketing challenges need a reality check. Putting a hashtag on a figure of speech will not automatically make it trend. Before spending millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to create social buzz, marketers should think about what they want to accomplish. If the marketer's brand isn't enhanced, then what's the point.

Case in point: Verizon Wireless. Verizon has a Reality Check campaign in which they add the hashtag "#RealityCheck" to every ad they run. Presumably Verizon wants people exposed to the ad to either include the hashtag whenever they tweet about Verizon Wireless or use the hashtag to search Twitter. Verizon thinks this will cause the hashtag to trend and increase the exposure of their brand in social media.

The problem was Verizon's choice of hashtags. "Reality check" is a very common but generic figure of speech in English. People use it all the time about subjects unrelated to cell phone service. Had Verizon's marketers done a simple search for "#realitycheck" on Twitter, they would have found that people tweet the hashtag every couple of minutes. However, they almost never tweet it in reference to Verizon Wireless. Subsequently, any tweets of interest to Verizon are crowded out by all the unrelated #realitycheck tweets.

The smart thing for a marketer to do is to promote a hashtag that is unlikely to be used in any other context. For example, Verizon should have instead promoted a hashtag like "#best4Gnetwork." A little research would show them that no one else is using the hashtag. If the viewers of an ad promoting this hashtag were to use it, tweets about Verizon Wireless would be the only ones that would appear in a search using the hashtag. I'm not suggesting that #best4Gnetwork is the specific hashtag they should promote -- perhaps Verizon marketers can come up with something catchier -- but whichever hashtag they decide on, they should promote one that would be exclusive to their brand.

It's not hard to do a reality check. Just enter a hashtag into Twitter's search box and see what comes up. If you see an endless string of tweets, consider promoting a different hashtag before spending millions of dollars on ads trying to get the hashtag to trend.

Pay-to-play

I read that Instagram says it now has the right to sell your photos without payment or notification. Instagram made the wise move and backed down from the new policy but it wasn't the policy that caught my attention in the first place. I was amused by the irked Twitter user who quipped that "Instagram is now the new iStockPhoto, except they won't have to pay you anything to use your images."

I have a suggestion for this Twitter user if he (or she, as the case may be) feels so victimized: don't put your photos on Instagram in the first place! It's not as if they have a gun to your head and there are plenty of other sites where you can post your photos. Move on and stop complaining.

Could you imagine if everyone moved on from Instagram? A world without Instagram would be a world without blurry, scratched, sepia-toned, "artsy" pictures. Would it be such a tragedy to go back to the times of having to look at crisp, clear, 8-megapixel photos with accurate color tones again?

The Twitter user clearly thinks it's unfair to use someone else's property without paying them for it. To make things even, he should ask Instagram to, oh, I don't know -- let him use Instagram without paying for it. Oh, wait ... he already does.

National Geographic and the social media

National Geographic (NatGeo) has been active in social media for a few years. In May of 2009, its facebook Page already had slightly fewer than half a million “Fans” (as Likes were referred to at the time), its tweet stream had 7,780 Followers, and its YouTube Channel had over 150,000 subscribers. In the three years that have transpired since then, its numbers have increased exponentially. However, NatGeo’s strategic application of social media does not seem to have grown up with its numbers.

The primary objective for NatGeo’s use of social media is most likely to advance its mission:

The National Geographic Society has been inspiring people to care about the planet since 1888. It is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation.

On Twitter, @NatGeo currently has over 2-million Tweeps following its tweet stream. It also has a facebook Page that almost 11-million users have Liked. The YouTube Channel now has almost 700,000 subscribers and NatGeo’s videos on it have been viewed over 750-million times. Besides its primary web site, these constitute the bulk of NatGeo’s social media presence. In addition, NatGeo leverages its brand in TV by establishing National Geographic Channel’s own unique Twitter @NatGeoChannel and facebook Page.

There’s no denying the growth but NatGeo could do an even more effective job of capitalizing on those strong numbers. For example, when facebook Pages used to have Tabs, NatGeo used them to highlight special offers, contests, reviews, and more content. Granted, the use of their facebook page has been hampered by the new Timeline layout but the only features they’re using now are the Photos and Likes. They have plenty of content to also engage users with Timeline features like Videos, Events, Notes, and the Map. But the biggest insult to its audience is that NatGeo doesn’t allow those who Like their Page to post anything on their Timeline. It screams, “We’re not interested in what you have to say.”

Its tweets also lack a sense of connecting with @NatGeo’s Followers. The only retweets in its tweet stream are of other NatGeo @s. While Tweeps regularly retweet and mention NatGeo, there’s no reciprocation. There is not a single @mention of any of its Followers. Even though hashtags could significantly increase @NatGeo’s visibility in Twitter searches with all of the unique topics its content covers, @NatGeo uses very few of them. #lostOpportunity

The posts on both the facebook Page and tweet stream are predominantly hyperlinks to content on NatGeo’s primary web site but the content they post differs substantially one from the other. NatGeo publishes both short clips and full-length shows on its YouTube Channel but the use of the “real estate” on the front page indicates that its primary objective for the Channel is to drive its audience to new content on their primary web site that is not yet available on YouTube.

In all fairness, NatGeo’s primary web site is itself a social medium. Visitors to the site are permitted to post their own Comments on News articles and Photo of the Day. NatGeo publishes Community Rules for visitors to follow and there’s a healthy amount of Web 2.0 activity on its web site. Nonetheless, NatGeo would be better served to extend its social presence rather than trying to centralize it on their primary web site.

In its latest social media promotion, NatGeo is generating interest in its Chasing UFOs series. All tweets composed between 8:00 p.m. last night and 3:00 a.m. EDT this morning containing the hashtag #ChasingUFOs will be rolled into a single message. Then on August 15, exactly 35 years after the Wow! signal was detected, NatGeo’s crowdsourced message will be transmitted back into space towards the origin of the mysterious signal. If an extraterrestrial alien responds, I'll rescind my criticism of NatGeo’s social media efforts.

Posted by David Ward for the first assignment in Developing a Social Media Strategy

Relatively Sophisticated Syndication

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) -- what a misnomer! I'm a Microsoft Certified System Engineer and a Cisco Certified Design Associate. I've built and managed e-business for seven years, including both corporate websites and personal websites. I still didn't find RSS to be at all simple.

L.S. Butts finally got me motivated to learn about it. He has a pretty kewl blog, Justice E.R. Butts told me about how he uses RSS on his blog and gave me a little primer. He suggested I use it for some site feeds on The Progressive Zone. So I did. A tip of the hat to him :-)

First of all, I have the FeedBurner going now, and I added a chicklet in the sidebar. Then I published my Atom site feed in a couple of places. Among others, I thought The Progressive Blog Alliance was a particularly apropos place.

I still have a lot to learn about RSS, but at least I finally got started. Just don't tell me it's "really simple."