Step 1: My name is Luke and I’m a tweetaholic (averaging about 10-20 tweets a day).

I signed up for the micro blogging service back when it was still in its infancy. Initially I didn’t use it much as hardly anyone I knew was using it. That changed when we organized the first BarCamp in Bangkok and every name tag had a place for people to put their twitter name. Being a small community, once a few people start using something it spreads like wild fire. Since then Twitter has been a major catalyst for the growth of both the tech and expat communities here in Thailand.

Twitter proved its worth during the recent political turmoils that battered this country. It was the only place where you could hear the opinions of both sides and follow unfolding events in real time. I recall when tanks were rolling down the streets, we knew exactly where they were and what direction they were headed thanks to friends tweeting (and retweeting) updates. When the “red shirt” gangs took over the streets in protests there was a constant stream of photos and videos from the ground. People were concerned but at the same time there was a good community feeling of bonding. We made jokes about what was going on, debated possible outcomes, and prayed they wouldn’t shut Twitter down.

On TV the political problems playing out on the streets of Bangkok made @breakingnews on both CNN and BBC. Unfortunately they reported the same dumbed down “edited” version of the story that failed to convey an accurate picture. This made me realise that if you are following the right set of sources on Twitter you can get a broader spectrum of news than you get by taking as gospel what old media decides to spoon feed you.

Nothing travels faster on Twitter than news of an earthquake. Back in 2009 there was a 8.7 earthquake off the cost of New Zealand. My mom lives in New Plymouth, so it immediately grabbed my attention. Seeing there was risk of a tsunami “expected to hit the cost in about 15 minutes” I called my mom on Skype right away...

“Hi mom, sorry I haven’t called in a while. I don’t want to cause alarm but there might be a tsunami heading your way... Perhaps you should turn on the telly.”

The online simulation showed the tsunami was unlikely to reach the north island. So the purpose of the call was really about breaking news rather than delivering a warning to run for the hills. But nether the less it makes one wonder, had Twitter been around when the 2004 Asian tsunami struck, how many lives could have been saved?

I think its clear twitter has real value. Over the past year I’ve made good friends, connected with the industry, recruited staff, and kept abreast on the latest breaking news. There is no disputing Twitter is changing how we do business and how we interact with customers online. By all accounts the trend will only accelerate, 2010 is poised to be the year the “real time” wave breaks. Armed with this information, I’ve decided to head for the hills.

Last night while coding I listened to Jason Fried’s talk on the negative effect of distractions on your workflow.

He suggested “spending Thursday without talking to anyone in the office”, the less distractions, the more work you will get done. This along with the enduring voice of Gary Vaynerchuk in my head made me stop and think: I’ve got the passion, I’ve got the skills, really all I need is enough time “in the zone” (coders will know what I mean) to deliver on the vision. Life has thrown me a bone, an opportunity to “crush it”, in order to make the most of that opportunity its time to make some sacrifices. Here is my New Year's resolution.

I’m going cold turkey on Twitter, restricting Skype to a certain time per day, and reducing the torrent of news to a trickle. Unless there's a tsunami headed for Bangkok, I don’t need to know. If there are tanks on the street, and I happen to leave the office, I’m sure I will notice.

How long do I intend to keep this up? I’ve set a target of 64 days before I come up for air. Hopefully when I surface we will surprise the world with our rocking new app.

You can wish me luck on Twitter (@lukeinth) but come 00:00 GMT+8 on 01/01/2010 don’t expect any @repiles

Cold Turkey three weeks on – the update:

Three weeks on and how am I holding up? The first couple of days without twitter were ‘odd’. I kept coming across things that I wanted to rant or rave about but there was no outlet available. Like anyone who gives up something they have become reliant on, you have those moments when you feel a relapse coming on. And I have to admit that I have had one so far, tweeting to tell the world about a Thai ISP which I discovered had been hacked to host Russian malware. Nobody seemed to care and so I quickly deleted the tweet. Generally it’s been OK, there was life before twitter and there is life after it.

If I'm not feeling productive, rather than tweet or read news sites, now I try to either get away from the computer and do some exercise.

Work on our new app is going well, nothing to show the world yet, but if you are interested you can sign-up for updates on the website. http://www.getdash.com

What is twitter?

Twitter is what we call a "microblogging" service, allowing you to post frequent tiny updates on what you're doing. It is a free way for friends, family, co–workers and other to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length, also known as "Tweets".

Users can receive and send updates about what they're doing via the Twitter website but also through several other ways. Check out the official Twitter Downloads page and the list of all third party applications on the Twitter Fan Wiki.

As of October 2008, Twitter claims to have over 3,200,000 accounts registered. Twitter is the most popular microblogging service, but other similar services have emerged: Identi.ca, friendfeed, Plurk, Jaiku (acquired by Google end of 2007), Pownce and also Yammer known as the enterprise version of Twitter.

Why you should get on Twitter?

People on Twitter talk about where they are, what they like, hate, do, plan, read, eat and they also communicate about their good or bad experiences with brands. Indeed, Twitter is a very good place to LISTEN to what people are saying on your products, your services, and to learn about their experiences with the brand. (See my last post: Do marketers and consumers understand each other anymore)

Conversations happening on Twitter are public, searchable and even trackable. To find out when anyone mentions your brand name, your product name, or the name of your employees, you can use the Twitter search tool or Tweetscan. A great feature allows you to subscribe to any keywords and get alerts whenever a new Tweet appears!

By listening, you will be able to spot who is encouraging those conversations and more importantly why. Only then, join in the conversations, follow any person who talks about you and who looks interesting and make sure you reply to anyone talking about your brand, even if you don't have a solution yet. By answering their questions, responding to their opinions, and engaging with them in a real human voice, you'll positively surprise most Twitterers. You can even expect to generate a positive buzz and inspire a blog!

There are some great examples: Michael Arrington complained publicly on Twitter after Comcast support failed to resolve his issue. Comcast was actually listening and settled the matter quite quickly. Michael Arrington posted an article on his blog about it: Comcast, Twitter And The Chicken (trust me, I have a point).

Another similar story started when the famous blogger Louis Gray tweeted about the issue he had to run on his blog with Disqus, a third-party commenting system. One hour later, Daniel Ha, co-founder of Disqus replied to Gray and manage to help him to integrate Disqus comments on his blog. Gray was so pleased that he blogged about it: Disqus' Excellent Customer Service Enables Comments Integration.

Companies already using Twitter

• Comcast is reaching out to customers online and tries to improve its customer service.
• Southwest Airlines answers customer questions about ticket prices, flight delays, news...
• Whole Foods Market posts details about discounts, recipes... and are quite interactive with twitterers.
• The CEO of Zappos shares details of his life with more than 15,000 "followers" and he also encourages his employees to join, currently 460 employees are on Twitter.
• Dell has several Twitter accounts for offers, news, promotions, communities, blogs...
• Ultimate Rugby Sevens (UR7s) uses Twitter to publish insider Rugby Sevens news.

If you want to get a complete directory of brands using Twitter, the Social Brand Index offers a very good listing of companies on Twitter.

Some tips when using Twitter as a part of your Social Media Strategy

1. Remember it's all about honesty. Be transparent and authentic with people.
2. Include a real name on your Twitter profile and not just the brand name. Yes, you are running this Twitter account for your company but there must be somebody writing all these Tweets! People want to know who they are talking to. JetBlue is doing well by providing the customer support employee's name currently on duty:
   
   
3. Make the most of the "Bio": use this section to explain why you are on Twitter and to give important information like an email address. Comcast for instance gives the customer support contact:
   
   
4. Listen to people talking about you both negatively and positively. But also try to find people with similar interests, who are passionate about your industry. For example, if you are a food company, look who's talking about recipes, diet, healthy eating... Then follow those people. The screenshot below is a good example of what you shouldn't do! How do you want to build a two-way communication if you are only talking to and about yourself? By following people you show you care for them and you are willing to listen to them.
   
   
5. Interact and communicate using the "@replies": Twitter is not a broadcast medium where you can only talk about yourself and your products. It's all about engaging and creating a real dialogue with people! Help them to solve problems they encounter with your products/services and offer them value.

These are just some tips I learnt and which I thought it is worth sharing with you. Please feel free to make any comments or to share your experience using Twitter. I'm also using Twitter so, if you wish, you can follow me here.

I chaired a round table at the IDBG Marketing Directors Strategy Meeting last week on the subject of corporate blogging. There were two key things that we wanted to look at:

1. How should brands approach the subject of blogging? Should they even be blogging in the first place?

2. In what ways should brands be working with other bloggers who may have an influence on their customers?

I’ll talk about the first one today and follow up with the second one next week.

The panel of brands represented at the table was an interesting one: it included representatives of companies such as Bowers and Wilkins, CNN, Comet Group, Endsleigh, Hodder and Stoughton, Microsoft, More Than and T Mobile. Some of these companies are doing interesting things with their blogs.

We began by talking about our own experiences: I admitted that our Codegent blog sometimes became a bit of a sales tool and was often written by the usual suspects, even though the blog is open to everyone in the company to contribute to and is not policed. So, note to self: less bragging about how great we are and more industry observations and insightful witticisms. Maybe even have the balls to criticise people now and again.

The over-whelming feeling is that blogs have become incredibly influential over the last few years. One attendee explaining that they treat bloggers with the “same deference as they treat journalists”. With this in mind it makes absolute sense to have some degree of involvement, but without turning what you do into an overt drive to increase sales.

But hang on a minute, we’re all a cynical bunch really, aren’t we? Can blogs from corporates rather than individuals ever be anything ‘more than’ a sales tool? More Than (see what I did there in the previous sentence) believe that they can. With their Living Blog, they write, not about insurance, but about green driving. The site is a genuine attempt to raise a debate around this important area which, although loosely associated to More Than’s products, is not directly related. In other words, by writing a blog about green driving rather than a blog warning of the dangers of inadequate insurance, More Than believes it is able to maintain credibility.

Microsoft, too, allows its staff to blog about issues that their customers might be interested in. The very popular and respected blogger, Robert Scoble (pictured), “Scobleizer” is a geeky employee of Microsoft. He apparently isn’t “policed” as such, but in a strangely relevant post this month he talks about the question of whether what he and other corporate bloggers might say reflect on the companies they work for.

Hodder & Stoughton talked about their multiple blogs that are written both by authors and by staff. We discussed whether negative comments should be responded to. The feeling was that it depended on who was writing the blog: a member of staff might have thicker skin than an author who is being directly attacked.

This led onto whether a blog could be used for crisis management. We spoke about PA Consulting’s handling of the loss of data for the Home Office and their subsequent radio silence for three weeks afterwards. Everyone agreed that starting a blog just to deal with this would have been a mistake, but given the fact that PA Consulting already have embraced the internet with their Second Life  presence, arguably they should have already had a blog. According to Robert Scoble in his Corporate Weblog Manifesto, you should “Post fast on good news or bad” and “If you screw up, acknowledge it. Fast.” But in a world where you have demonstrated publicly how useless your staff are at holding onto information maybe opening up a public forum where they can talk about it isn’t the smartest idea.

Someone described us as a “boutique agency” the other day. I’m not sure I’m 100% happy with that description because boutique sounds like something that’s small and expensive. But the concept of working with a digital-only agency versus one that does a variety of marketing disciplines is one that people talk about a lot.

I’m going to be biased in favour of our own set-up, but my view is based on my own real experiences over many years. There are a few myths that are banded around about the benefits of one approach over the other. These are a few of them:

Going to a one-stop shop ensures joined-up thinking

I’m not saying this is the case for every agency, but what I have observed is that each agency within a so-called  'integrated' group will have its own P&L and its own interest in not sharing the love around. If one part has a budget for the year from one of their clients, they are really loathed to give it away to anyone, even if they are all part of the same group. Your DM agency is unlikely to recommend that this year you divert a larger part of your marketing budget to digital – because it will reflect badly on their own business unit’s P&L.  How do you think the excuse that you missed your targets this year is because you were bolstering the Group elsewhere going to go down?

Bigger is better

Imagine, all those experienced directors from all those marketing disciplines all thinking about my business? Er... no. I worked for a large agency where everyone tended to operate in silos. OK they were big and some of the people there were bright, but the client might have one person fresh out of University really thinking about their business. He or she may get a share of a designer and a developer, but again, experience and expertise was a real lottery. Unless you had a lot of money to spend. But please don’t ever think that in a large agency the CEO sits down on a Monday and applies his or her enormous brain to each and every one of the campaigns going out that week.

Multi-disciplined means multi-expertise

Again, not always so. A lot of agencies will offer digital because they see an opportunity to cross-sell to their existing clients. I’m talking here more of agencies whose real expertise lies in something else. This may work for a bit of an HTML newsletter here or there, or a flash microsite, but ask them about database-driven content or video delivery and watch them reach for the “I’ll get back to you on that one” excuse.  I tend to think of it like asking your plumber to build you a shelving unit. Yeah – it all kind of falls under the same broad umbrella, but really wouldn’t it be better to get a carpenter to do that?

So, if being a boutique means that we are digital specialists, that we are small enough that the senior people are able to really care about each and every one of our clients, then I guess we are that. And if a boutique means that we have some soul and passion, where the department stores recycle the same old shit just to make the figures work, then I’m happy to be a boutique agency every day of the week.

The kind people of Google have graphed our searches to show us our Zeitgeist, it quite intresting reading

Future of film and tv on the web

We went to a talk last night, given mainly by broadcasters. Predictably the view was that broadcasters had a future in the changing landscape, but that the challenge was really how much they could get down with the kids.

In some ways, a bunch of middle aged men in Soho talking about how 14 year olds are going to be consuming media in a decade's time is probably more about them convincing themselves that they will still have a job then. But it did raise some interesting points.

It is only a matter of time before the broadcast quality of video on the internet, or on mobile phones will become the same quality as TV.  So broadcasters will lose their oligopoly in that sense. Which means they will be left with what? As far as I can see, they will be left with a budget to commission content and hopefully a way of shoe-horning their traditional advertising revenue model into new formats.

But there will be thousands of other people doing the same thing and in the way that YouTube doesn't rely on anything other than a search function and word of mouth, the decision when and what to watch will be impossible for the broadcasters to control on any way near the level they do currently.

The talk ended by everyone saying how exciting it was to be in our industry, and that everything is up for grabs. It IS exciting, but it's also pretty scary and the only certainty is that whatever we think we know or understand about media consumption today will no doubt look hopelessly naive in years to come.