Twitter was EVERYWHERE at SXSWi this year, and I’m happy to share another trick, especially helpful if you tweet by text.

To Direct Message someone, simply add the letter “d” [space] then their username and the message. Ta Da! This works when typing in twitter.com or any of the lovely twitter applications. So instead of @username, you begin with d username. You can thank me later for that tip.

More notes from SXSWi coming soon…

Got this link from a friend.

http://trackingtwitter.com

For anyone who’s still trying to figure out Twitter, this is a nice site that tracks some of the major brands, celebs and media outlets’ tweets. You can see how companies and public figures are using Twitter to share information and start conversations in a timely fashion. It can get rather overwhelming to sort through your friends’ tweets vs. news media tweets vs. government tweets, etc. So if you ever need a quick snapshot of what’s being tweeted in these categories, the site pulls them together in an organized fashion.

It’s interesting to see how Twitter has expanded drastically in the last year, especially with hot topics like the presidential election and now with companies jumping on board. There is still the aspect of friends and family sharing microblog tweets with each other to just keep up with what’s going on in each others’ lives. But with the addition of marketers, celebrities and official organizations jumping into the mix, your Twitter feed soon looks more like headlines in a ticker, except you get to choose the source.

Just so I can share some of the knowledge I picked up this week…

RT = re-tweet. You put this at the start of your tweet, include @whomever’s-tweet-you’re-sharing, and then paste their tweet. This is a way to take something you saw and share it with your own network of followers.

# = tag. When the debacle of the final rose for the Bachelor went down, a lot of the tweets included #bachelor in their commentary. This is a way of tagging. You can see or search for popular tags at search.twitter.com, where it pulls up real-time search results.

If anyone has more tips to share on how to make the most of Twitter or how to decipher all the little codes, please pass them along.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh just sent a letter to the company about upcoming layoffs. Even though they’re the online market leader in footwear, they’re feeling the pain of a slowing economy, and they’re taking steps now in anticipation of the coming months.

You can read the full letter here. But I wanted to highlight some of the upstanding things Zappos is doing to take care of their laid off employees.

We are offering to pay each laid-off employee through the end of the year (about 2 months), and offering an additional amount for employees that have been with us for 3 or more years.

In addition, because our regular health benefits cover 100% medical, dental, and vision for employees and 50% for spouses and dependents, we decided to offer to reimburse laid-off employees for up to 6 months of COBRA payments.

It’s refreshing to see that the Zappos brand and culture that always cares about its people (whether it’s employees or customers) are doing so even in tough times.

Overall comments: The presentation Barry Tallis of Jive gave this morning felt more directed to companies who already have or are deciding on adding a social media component to their current digital marketing strategy. While we already have a strong understanding of the space from the agency side, there were some great reminders for why and how to make social media an important part of business.

Key Takeaways:

- If for nothing else, getting into the social media game will let you gain insights about your consumers. Whether you’re a beginner or a veteran, being an active listener and observer will give you an opportunity to learn what’s on your consumers’ minds. They’re already talking about your brand in other digital formats whether you’re a part of the conversation or not, so listen. They want to be heard.

- For a digital community to succeed, support should be part of everyone’s job. This means support should be cross-functional and not just a responsibility of the PR department. By pulling across disciplines and up the ladder to the executive level, the community has a better chance to take off and gain traction with consumers. They want to see that a brand is serious about building relationships with them. They also trust they’ll get more genuine and thorough responses than just what the PR or marketing folks say.

- Reward and recognize participants for their contributions to the community. Folks from National Instruments talked about how they rewarded their top contributor (15,000 posts) with the title “the Knight of NI” (play on Monty Python reference). Seems like such a small thing, but for participants who pride themselves on the social value they add to a community, a change in title beats a $25 gift card for Amazon any day.

- Start with a critical mass of content before marketing your community. It’s awkward to drive consumers to a big beautiful online community without some type of catalyst or conversation starter. Pull content from articles, other communities’ hot topics and even your website itself and keep it fresh. It helps provide direction to consumers of what to do when they arrive. You just have to give them a little starting nudge.

- Figure out what’s in it for the consumer FIRST before diving into designing for your own goals and objectives. Consumers can sniff out ulterior motives (say, just driving sales of more product when really what they want is customer service for a problem). With a consumer-focused approach, you’ll give consumers more reasons to give the community a chance.

- Once you have your community up and running, integrate the content with your existing web presence. Pull some of the conversations onto the company homepage to draw people in. Promote the community through your other digital touch points. Make it easier for members and lurkers to access the community via mobile and email alerts. Syndicate comments from the blog to the forum and vice versa. This gets the groundswell going.

I had this video saved in my inbox and was reminded of it when I attended a seminar this morning about social media. This is a great example of how EA Sports responded to a consumer-generated video about a supposed glitch in the Tiger Woods golf game by posting a video of their own on YouTube.

This is the follow-up video by Microsoft Advertising, talking about the broken relationship between the advertiser and consumer. A lot of buzzwords that are still misunderstood. “viral” “integrated” “web 2.0″

Check it out for yourself.

Peter Kim, a former Forrester analyst, posted a list of companies who are playing in the social media space. The list was last updated on October 8, 2008.

http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/09/ive-been-thinki.html

Keep this link in your back pocket…

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2008/tc2008095_320491.htm

This is a quick read from Business Week about how more businesses are using Twitter to keep tabs of their brands, hear what their consumers are saying and responding in kind when a question or concern pops up.

From a consumer perspective, I thought Twitter was a novel idea at first. It was basically doing the same function as updating my facebook status so my friends could get little bite size updates of what I was up to. Then, I added a text messaging plan for my cell phone (yes, I’m slow to the SMS-ing and MMS-ing because I like things to be free!), and the beauty of Twitter has exponentially increased.

At 2008 SXSW Interactive, the sponsored after-parties had tremendously long lines and the wait was pushing over an hour. Instead of waiting to get in, people started tweeting about having an impromptu unofficial after-party of their own. And anyone who followed tags of SXSW on Twitter saw these tweets happening and stepped out of line to join the party. This would’ve never happened through regular SMS’s where you’re limited to just who’s in your phonebook.

For the businesses though, I thought this quote nicely sums it up. This was a passenger waiting for his JetBlue flight who got a surprise reply back from the company. He had tweeted about William Shatner also waiting to fly on JetBlue.

“I was blown away that a company of this size actually had a guy dedicated to Twitter not only to monitor it but to engage in conversation.”

Again, this type of dialogue would have not have happened through regular SMS or probably not even blogging. Twitter is a centralized place that is starting to benefit consumers and businesses alike in ways that other channels would not have been able to do.

Keep an eye out on how this trend will continue to grow and change.

- Posted by Terri

Go to: http://www.gocourtyard.com

Click on “Watch Brian’s Lobby Video”
If you want to go deeper, click on the “New Lobby Features” tab and click through the different videos.

Now,  I wouldn’t normally get very jazzed about Courtyard by Marriott, but I’m very impressed by how much they’re trying to evolve a pretty tired and boring brand. They thought through every last detail of a business traveler’s needs (everything from workspace, to food, to music, to color).

I think this is a great example of how more and more brands are taking the opportunity for a major redesign a step further. Beyond the old model of simply refreshing their aesthetics, brands are understanding the consumer’s needs at a much deeper level of experience and interaction. I’m seeing this trend happening across multiple categories (read up on jetBlue’s new Terminal 5 at JFK).

The key seems to be in making the experience true to the brand, but also flexible and adaptable enough for the consumer to mold it to what they want it to be. It’s beyond just a “new look and feel” to drive differentiation. Today’s consumer can sniff-out surface-level differences in brands – they need to feel the difference for a brand to earn their share of wallet. As a result, brands seem to be pushing their redesigns to a new level that goes beyond updated logos and color palettes.

I like this Courtyard by Marriott example because they’re clearly using the web to tout the news of this redesign, and they’re incorporating “digital” into the refreshed Courtyard experience. Note the digital touchscreen with prominent placement in the lobby. I think it’s a nice reminder that while these kinds of digital experiences are important, within our client’s fuller, broader perspective, they’re just part of the overall story. This is an example where digital is critical, but it’s not the whole enchilada.

There was a time when the “big idea” was all that mattered. You didn’t need to know how it was produced because the medium was always predictable and the line between idea and execution was distinct. Ideas will always be central to great work. But we can no longer separate them from the platforms and channels they play out in. In our world, you can’t plan digital communications insightfully, or execute effectively, without understanding how to build it.

Consider the emerging model we’re crafting. Digital communication is dynamic. It starts a conversation, one that is multifaceted and adaptable. The platform of delivery can change, grow or respond every time you engage. And the platform and the message are deeply interrelated. The division is disappearing, because what the idea “says” is no longer enough; what it is and what it does are intrinsically linked. Static, one-way messaging is antiquated.

. . . . . .
Big Spaceship is a digital creative agency. We don’t define our projects in terms of strategy versus production. We come to the table as partners, and there’s strategy and insight behind everything we do. But our core philosophy is rooted in respect and collaboration. Because without those tenets, there’s little chance of achieving excellence.

We’re at the very beginning of this. If you aren’t interested in discussing it, optimizing it, improving it, and reconsidering the way you run your business, you’ll inevitably fade into the background. But this can go incredibly well for all of us who start talking…and listening.

COMMENTS:
By Wrecker August 12th, 2008 6:03 pm:
Very well put. I totally agree! Change is in the air, breathe or suffocate!

http://creativity-online.com/?action=news:article&newsId=130090&sectionId=pov