Could WhatsApp take over from Facebook? Could Twitter take over from WhatsApp?

Battle of the social media messaging tools as Twitter launches group DMs

Were you a victim of the Facebook and Instagram outage this morning? Both sites, along with other related apps, were down for around an hour, which sent the social media world into panic.

One of the features users would have been missing out on during this time is Facebook Messenger, which allows both one-on-one and group conversations between Facebookers. In the mean time, Twitter was one of the remaining social media channels still live and kicking and has now added a function to directly compete with Facebook Messenger...

Facebook is one of the two main platforms used for group conversations, the other being WhatsApp which last week launched a browser/desktop version.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is one of the most popular instant messaging apps globally. It claims to have 700 million monthly active users sending more than 30 billion messages every day. According to Expanded Ramblings, Facebook Messenger has 200 million users.

While many users still benefit from the group messaging tool on Facebook Messenger, it's clear that WhatsApp (which also offers a group messaging feature) is currently the more popular choice for instant messaging.

But is Twitter trying to overtake WhatsApp? And is it possible?

Twitter has finally added group direct messages (DMs) to its service. If you use the service as a way to privately communicate with friends, family, brands or even the odd random celebrity, you will soon be able to communicate with more than one person (or brand) at a time.

Rolling out over the next few days to all users, the group DM feature will allow users to add multiple contacts to a group chat. You can start a group chat with any of your followers, but those individuals don’t have to follow each other to participate in your chat.

You’ll receive a notification when you’ve been added to a group direct message discussion. Watch Twitter's group DM launch video here:

Will you be using group DMs? Let us know what you think of Twitter's new tool in the comments.

Does anyone actually read your tweets?

Twitter has just released its Twitter analytics dashboard to all users (as long as you've had an account for at least 14 days) and we love it! Unlike some more complicated and in-depth analytics tools, Twitter's dashboard is very basic and easy to use.

Log in to your Twitter account and go to:

http://analytics.twitter.com/.

A dashboard will then display the "performance" of your recent tweets.

Because the Twitter timeline moves so fast with constant updates and interactions, it's often said that a tweet has a "life" of just a few minutes and hardly anyone sees it unless you're lucky enough to get retweeted by a celeb or influential tweeter.

With Twitter Analytics, you can now find out how far the lifespan of your tweet has actually reached.

The dashboard shows you how many impressions your tweets have earned over the last 28 days, including a breakdown per tweet of impressions (how many times users saw the tweet), engagement (how many times a user has interacted with the tweet) and the engagement rate (engagement divided by impressions).

If you want a high level of engagement on Twitter, here's what you have to do:

Find out the real reasons that your followers find you interesting. If you start to notice a pattern in the types of tweets that spark a lot of engagement compared to those that don't, adjust the content you share accordingly.

Here's Twitter's official guide on how it works.

For further advice or info on social media analytics, get in touch: @LambintheCity or 020 7264 7880

photo credit: opensourceway

Dough-nut start a digital battle with Greggs - they will win!

Greggs this week provided a glowing example of how to handle a social media nightmare after an offensive version of their logo appeared on Google on Tuesday.

On 19th August, Britain's biggest bakery chain was inundated with thousands of tweets after a fake company logo appeared in Google searches, insinuating that Greggs has been supplying faeces to the less classy end of society for over 70 years.

The spoof image, pulled in from uncyclopedia.wikia.com, appeared on the right hand-side of Google when users typed the company name into the search engine.

Thousands of people were quick to point out the error to the company’s social media team who reacted brilliantly to the unexpected busy day at the office.

 

^{The infamous fake logo. Photo: uncyclopedia}

A common reservation of starting up a social media presence is often the fear that it will encourage negative messaging.

With their response to this nightmare, Greggs proved that PR disasters can occur even without the adoption of social media networks, and goes even further to show that using platforms like Twitter can be fundamental in very quickly turning a negative into a positive.

Here's how the social media team at Greggs cleverly used Twitter to control the situation, whilst using it to their advantage to portray their fun personality through light-hearted responses to tweets received and jovial interactions with Google:

Greggs' intelligent, witty and timely handling of this incident via Twitter has resulted in huge positive feedback and buzz around the brand. 'Greggs' was trending on Twitter and stories have been published surrounding the baker's reactions to the event in the likes of the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Guardian.

What we can learn from this is that to be absent on social media is to lack a powerful crisis management tool. The risks of negativity resulting from being active on networks such as Twitter are far lower than the likelihood of such activity generating positive and impressive engagement, which would otherwise be unattainable when relying purely on traditional forms of media and communication.

If you'd like to chat to one of our social media gurus, contact the office on 020 72657 880 or tweet us @Lambinthecity

How to 'handle' Twitter

Do you make this 'Twitter handle' mistake? Gone is the belief that Twitter is a platform exclusively for celebs.

Everyone these days seems to be on Twitter - are you? If so, are you aware of all of the mistakes people make on this platform?

You have probably spotted the following examples:

• Those who haven’t quite grasped the concept of Hashtags:

• Those who don’t pay attention to the character limit:

• Those who don’t shorten links:

But there’s one important mistake you could be repeatedly missing, especially if you use Twitter for your company's marketing communications..

You may know that to ensure a tweet includes another tweeter's account and is alerted to them as a notification, you must tag or 'mention' their Twitter handle by typing an '@' followed by their username. However, many people are unaware of the implication of placing these mentions at the start of a tweet.

Did you know that by starting a tweet with someone’s Twitter handle, you are limiting who will see it?

When using Twitter as part of an integrated social media marketing strategy, you probably spend ages crafting the perfect tweet. We know we do.

When wording a tweet, front-of-mind are your efforts to show your clients and followers all of the impressive tweeters you interact with, and the goal to ensure that your communications are exposed to as many relevant and influential people as possible.

All of this hard work can be wasted if you are unaware of this widely unknown Twitter rule.

Unless you have a word/character before the @ symbol, ONLY the followers of BOTH you and the person you have mentioned will see the tweet on their feed.

To guarantee that you are not one of the millions of Twitter users making this mistake, you should always avoid starting a tweet with a mention.

Sometimes, however, this may alter the effectiveness of your message, or take up valuable character space. Here’s a sneaky tip: begin your tweet with a full stop.

Simply inserting this (or any) character before the handle will remove the rule which restricts who the tweet is visible to, and will no doubt go unnoticed by most people who are unaware of this catch.

Had you noticed it before?

What other Twitter mistakes have you come across?

photo credit: mkhmarketing

Survival of the Tweetest - Hux's Claim to Fame!

One of our Directors, Mark Huxley, has written a piece on social media which has been published today in Insider Quarterly as part of their Summer issue. Hux introduces his article by acknowledging the shift in the insurance sector's thinking, whereby the vast majority is now taking its digital footprint seriously and considering how social media can be harnessed as a channel to help spread company messages in a different way.

He comments that the sector is catching up quickly, and goes on to explore the various benefits generated by social media and the trends which have appeared amongst businesses who are using it effectively, with a particular focus on LinkedIn. But beware, there is an important need to take care with the "more publicly ubiquitous social media channels" such as Twitter or Facebook.

The final and perhaps most important point to consider is that, whether or not a company elects to engage themselves with social media, in reality there is not an opt-in or opt-out.

Brands across the globe are being spoken about every minute of every day across the entirety of social media in all its various guises, where news travels at the speed of light and where reputations can be made as well broken in quite literally a matter of minutes.

Read Mark's full article on the Insider Quarterly website.

photo credit: Jason A. Howie

Less Poking, More Broking! What the industry wants from social media

The insurance world is overcoming its fear of Social Media and realising the growing need for having a presence on channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter. However, knowing why and where to be on social media is not enough. The key to success is in knowing the types of content to deliver and how to deliver that content to the right audience. Social media is about engagement and encouraging your audience to, believe it or not, socialise with your brand. Although the clue is in the name, it is all too easy to forget that communicating via these networks should be focused on what your audiences want to gain from following you.

The buzz surrounding the #BIBA2014 and #BIBAFever hashtags last week demonstrated that brokers are catching up with the idea of online socialising and increasingly turn to these channels seeking relevant and timely information.

So what do brokers want?

According to Insurance Age’s latest Spring Sentiment Survey, the majority of brokers (86%) want product information, implying that insurers’ content on social channels should be a visually appealing, informative showcase of their products.

However, content should never be 100% selling, and needs variety to spark attention and engagement.

Respondents could select more than one option, and over 45% said they follow insurers hoping for opinion or thought-leadership pieces via social media. 44% think the likes of Twitter and LinkedIn should be used for business updates during surge claims events, while only 11% are impressed by amusing posts.

What types of content do you engage with most??

[photo credit: Rosaura Ochoa]