Harnessing the Power of Twitter – organised by Internet World – was clearly aimed at newbies; by far the largest group of elevated hands were from the “using Twitter but don’t get it or need convincing” subset. It’s no secret that I am far from being a Twitter virgin but if I had been one, I’m confident that I would have come away from the sunny Albert Embankment educated, edified and enthused.
The fragrant Vikki Chowney of Six Degrees kicked off with a lucid explanation of micro-blogging as tweets wishing her a very happy birthday popped up on the huge screen adjacent, carrying the live feed of the #hpt09 twitter stream. I particularly liked her identification of Twitter users as narcissists, inactives, marketers, SEO obsessives and Facebook converts. Vikki illuminated Twitter’s efficacy in humanising corporations and gave a great exposition of how NOT to use Twitter highlighting the recent, and IMHO utterly contemptible, spamming of key trending topics by @HabitatUK. The retailer compounded this huge fail by deleting many of the offending tweets but some can still be seen in this piece from BrandRepublic reporting the belated apology. (Congrats Vikki - power of twitter!)
Then Vicky “Good Morning Twitterville” Harres Akers - the human voice of @PRNewswire - gave us a trans-Atlantic perspective of how Twitter enables apparently monolithic conglomerates to give humble consumers a peek behind the curtains. She also stressed the importance of converting all these virtual relationships into real life ones whenever possible.
Glue London’s Jonny Spindler gave an intriguing presentation into the thinking behind the very clever Social Media campaign to transform good old Woolworths from just another High Street casualty into a hip and happening digital brand. I spotted their virtual Easter egg thread but I hadn’t twigged that @team_woolies was behind the irresistible #myfirstsingle meme.
Personally, I was relieved to hear the key themes of “transparency”, “authenticity” and “value” reiterated. The power of the personal also resonated through the next presentation from Future Media veteran and Twitter evangelist Daren Forsyth.
If I had been a newbie, I would have found Tweetmeme founder Nick Halstead’s guide to jargon invaluable. As it was, I discovered some handy Twitter tools of which I was unaware. Nick’s insight into the growing real i.e. monetary value of the Retweet was fascinating, particularly given that most of the delegates were clearly there both playing catch up and trying to work out the KPIs and ROI of Twitter – if anyone ever manages to work out the precise formula for the latter, they will clearly make millions!
No 10 comms head honcho Ian Green was next: extolling the superiority of the @DowningStreet twitter stream vs. the dull old news feed of officially verified @whitehouse (now tweeting in Farsi, I noted today). I hasten to add that Ian was amusing, informative and self-deprecating, stressing the importance of identity and of consistency of voice. Ian is the only member of the PM’s comms team to add any personal imput to the stream; his forlorn tweet about being stuck in a DC basement with only a muffin for sustenance inspired the title of this post.
Alas, that was all I was able to attend. Pity! Well-organised get-together; spectacular venue overlooking the sunny Thames and delicious lunch and cake. All the latter often in short supply at these bashes so kudos where due to James Drake-Brockman and the rest of the IW crew.
Finally, for everyone who has complained that all this useless social media guff is polluting a perfectly serviceable photojournalism blog, you will be pleased to hear that I will shortly be moving it all to a brand new URL at the Media140 blog where I am going to be part of an international team posting about the future of the real time Web.
