Methodical Madness

U2 and Foo Fighters usher in new era of interactive concerts

There’s no question the Internet has changed the way we consume music. Digital downloads have become a staple of our lives, but digital concerts? Is experiencing your favorite band perform live being claimed by the ever expanding Internet as well?

I don’t see bands ever forsaking the road, but they are starting to embrace the concept of concert via fiber optic cable as a way to get closer to their fans. Two weeks ago, U2 played a concert in the Rose Bowl which was simultaneously broadcast by YouTube to millions of viewers across 16 countries. It was a first for the world’s largest video provider, and, unsurprisingly, it was a major success. After all, what U2 fan wouldn’t go to the trouble of simply clicking a link from the comfort of their living room?

The roughly 10 million fans who tuned in were able to chat with each other via an integrated Twitter feed, many of whom simply posted thank you’s to the band. Never one to miss an opportunity to save the world, Bono slipped in a “donate to (RED)” button for the millions of viewers to contemplate clicking while in their happy spirits over the free show.

The event was another demonstration of traditional media’s decline in prominence. Those 10 million viewers showed up with zero promotion carried out in traditional media – the concert was promoted exclusively online. And while those numbers are pretty far off what the big network TV broadcasts get, it’s a major jump forward in seriously competing with them.

U2’s Internet extravaganza was well publicized and hard to miss, but did you catch Foo Fighters pulling an Internet first of their own last weekend? The alt-rockers broadcast a live show on Facebook (via livestream), becoming the first major act to do so. Even without much promotion, the 2 hour and 45 minute stream from their recording studio drew in 440,000 viewers.

The band played fan favorites in support of their newly released greatest hits album. During the show, fans were able to talk not only with each other, but with the band themselves who responded to comments and took requests. Imagine having that opportunity with your favorite band.

So are streaming concerts the wave of the future? Perhaps, but probably not the near future. The rights issues around concerts are far more complicated than broadcasting other media, as there are so many people who need to sign off on the project including managers, band members, the record label, the venue, etc. But the technology is there, the demand is there and there is money to be made, so expect the likes of Bono and Dave Grohl to be invading your living room more often in the coming years.

One big dysfunctional twamily

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

How to recognize 15 types of tweeters

With millions of people around the world tweeting like mad, Twitter can seem a bit chaotic when you first jump in. But when you’ve been entrenched for a while and have a few tweets, RTs and @s under your belt, you’ll start noticing patterns in your Twitter feed. Twitter attracts many users who have very specific goals in mind – some good, some bad, and some just plain weird. Here are 15 different types of people in your extended twamily that are out there in large numbers. See if you can spot one of each among the tweeple you follow.

The suit
AKA the self-proclaimed social media guru, this ambitious tweeter usually has a corporate/marketing background and is CEO of some company they just made up. Most of these ‘visionaries’ with their can’t-be-missed offers are little more than con artists, but there are a few diamonds in the rough who really know what they’re talking about.

The n00b
N00bs can be the most frustrating - and the most entertaining. They have yet to grasp how Twitter works. When you see someone treating Twitter like a big, open chatroom, you’ve got a n00b.

The brand
Some companies get what Twitter is all about and use it to genuinely connect with their customers. Starbucks and Zippo have used Twitter to great effect, much to the appreciation of their followers. Others are little better than spammers, blasting their followers with offers and deals. In other words, all the stuff that ends up in a junk mail folder in your email.

The Twitterati
These monoliths of the twitterverse have risen from anonymity to become the idols of tens of thousands of followers who they’ve never met and whose names they couldn’t possibly remember. Some are deserving of their social media tycoon status, others not so much. At any rate, don’t expect to be followed back or respond to messages, their egos tend to be just a little over-inflated.

The celeb
Though there are a slew of fake celebrity accounts, the real ones are out there. Among the more interesting are Shaquille O’neal and Barrack Obama. Again, don’t expect much of a response from the bigger celebs. But the B-listers have been known to be fairly open. 

The newsie
If you’re on Twitter a lot, you’ll notice that breaking news comes across the Twitter waves faster than it appears in mainstream media. There are loads of regular people who love to race to break news to all their followers, but you can also follow proper news organizations on Twitter to get up-to-the second info on what’s happening in the world, like CNN, BreakingNewsON and fark.

The lurker
Every type of online community has its fair share of lurkers. You’ll find these users cowering in dark corners, eyeballing the updates of their many followers while rarely contributing anything themselves. Because, you know, they don’t have anything as important as Steve’s last update (eating yummy donuts, nom nom nom) to add the conversation.

The bot
When a spammer can’t be bothered to cut and paste their tweets 30 times a day, a bot does it for them. Thankfully, if you make the mistake of following one all it takes is a simple unfollow to be rid of them.

The guy stuck on repeat
Everything they have to say, they say over and over again. You know, just in case you missed it the first ten times. This may also be a symptom of a n00b who doesn’t understand how Twitter works or a spammer who is just trying to increase traffic to their website.

Mr Mundane
Like Steve and his donut eating mentioned above, many people feel compelled to tell the world inane details about what they happen to be doing at any given moment. Why they believe anyone cares that they are drinking coffee or thinking about what to have for lunch is a mystery that continues to elude the world’s top scientists.

The ‘everyone look how deep I am’ tweeter
This one is characterized by their deep, student councilor-like insights into life and the universe like, ‘today is the first day of the rest of your life.’ You may be saying to yourself, that’s not deep, it’s over-used drivel. You’ll be saying that a lot.

The whiner
Chronic complainers love Twitter because it lets them greatly expand the number of people they can tell how bad everything is at once. Always a good source for your daily bring-me-down.

The RT junkie
Retweeting is a great way to share interesting links and videos. But some people go overboard and post almost nothing but RTs. If you notice a friend with this addiction, stage an intervention and get them to add something of their own to the conversation.

The collector
This person’s mission in life is to gather as many followers as possible, as though reaching 1,000,000 twitter followers will grant them eternal life or make them an international celebrity. You don’t find this one, this one finds you. Beware, as they don’t usually have much of anything interesting to say.

The siren
There are endless amounts of beautiful young women who want to be your friend. Hard to believe, right? It’s too good to be true in reality, and it’s too good to be true on Twitter. Still, girls do manage to get hoards of followers by showing some skin and singing a tempting song to all the suckers out there. Do your best to avoid crashing on those rocks, these sirens aren’t worth following.

Which of the tweeple drive you crazy?

Spooktacular Halloween – 2.0 style

What are the scariest online activities for this Halloween?

It’s my favorite time of the year, Halloween! For me, Halloween is Christmas for adults. We get to dress up, make fools of ourselves and have fun. In order to set the mood, we have to get our Twitter avatar properly set up. Trickotweet gives you several really cute and fun monster avatars to choose from. I went with the hockey masked one.

On to Facebook. Pet Zombie allows you to create your own pet zombie that you can feed, play with, cover in toilet paper and make dance. My zombie is named Marvin.

Cute isn’t he.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “How would I do in a zombie apocalypse?” Find out by taking this short Facebook quiz. Turns out I might survive.

I love carving jack-o-lanterns. But sometimes I have problems coming up with ideas. Extreme Pumpkins has lots of jack-o-lanterns that people have taken to unusual levels. The 2009 winners provide lots of inspiration to go far beyond the mundane. The site is packed with “how to” tips, patterns and lots of photos of pumpkins.

If you need some practice before you start carving your pumpkin, try carving a virtual pumpkin.

If you don’t want to sit inside this Samhain, join a zombie walk.


What could be more fun than dressing up as the undead and shambling down the street?

If dressing as a zombie isn’t your game, why not play some? Re-kill the undead with Boxhead, a Lego like character game where you’re stranded in a tunnel where you shoot or get eaten. The more you kill, the better your weapons become. If the undead become too much, shoot barrels to thin the herd.

If you need something a little bloodier to slake your zombie thirst, Endless Zombie Rampage is your game. You have to defend your ground against gut-munchers with a handgun. As you gain experience points, you can upgrade your weapons to assault rifles, shotguns and laser cannons. Both games are great fun.

Sometimes you can’t be at your computer (you have to eat, poop and sleep sometimes). Thankfully, 148apps.com has found four iPhone applications to fill the void that’s in your soul when you leave your computer. Alive 4-ever gets their highest rating and from the images, it looks action packed. Personally, I can't wait to play Hysteria Project, check out the screen capture below. There are also iPhone versions of DOOM and Resident Evil for a bit of classic game play.

Finally, this All Hallow’s Eve, I want to leave you with this bit of stop motion zombie mayhem fright, Chainsaw Maid. 

What are you favorite Halloween sites?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

Analyze your Twitter profile

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

What’s the best way to get analytics on your Twitter profile?

As you try to build your Twitter profile and find new people to follow, it’s important to track how you use Twitter. Odds are you’re doing things with your account that you’re not even aware of. By using analytics, you can discover not only what your Twitter habits are, but the Twitter habits of your friends as well. This is important info when you want to get a lot of exposure for a tweet or launch a Twitter campaign. There a lot of websites that provide one aspect of user statistics or have a gimmick to measure popularity, but today we’re looking at sites that provide thorough user statistics. In the future, we’ll cover user trends and ranking.



I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a Twitter account analyzer. Of course, all the apps have to be free and require no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• see how many daily tweets are added
• see how many daily chats we have
• analyze subjects we tweet about
• see the hashtags we use most often
• see our online follower growth rate
• see the location of followers
• see who is retweets most often
• see who we contact the most
• see who mentions us the most


The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about ten minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

Twitter Grader is best known for its Twitter user account grading. What people don’t realize is that it also has analytics. Well...sort of. They can analyze followers within their site, meaning that if your followers or followings are registered with Twitter Grader, they can be analyzed. Of our 3,681 followers and 2,705 following only two people were found. 

Twitter Grader’s best feature is its user history. This is a quick chart that shows how your follower rate compares to your following rate. You can also register with the site to get more functionality, but I didn’t see any after registering. While it’s not a very good analysis tool, the site’s account grading is still the best bragging rights tool available.

PROS: You can grade your account against other Twitter accounts with a tangible grade. You can also see how many people follow you and you follow.

CONS: None of the other metrics really work or have any meaning. While the grading is a good indication of how well you use Twitter, none of the other metrics are useful.

RATING:




Twitter Analyzer is a great free tool that provides over 26 different analytics, and more are in the works. If you need to know specific information about your Twitter habits, this is it. From the number of times you tweet a day to what groups your Twitter followers fall into to the friends you mention most in your tweets, Twitter Analyzer covers all my analytics needs and then some. It is easily the most thorough free analytics tool available today. The best part is you don’t have to register with the site to use it. This means you can also check out the Twitter usage of your friends as well. Analytics like “the friends you’re most in contact with” can help you identify the people that influence the people that influence you. This can be incredibly helpful in building your online network.

PROS: If you need to know something about your Twitter habits, this is the place to go. I’m looking forward to seeing what the ‘Trends’ and ‘FUN’ tabs will add to the experience.

CONS: Some of the analytics get a little confusing. Under ‘Mentions’, it’s hard to tell what exactly the difference is between the mentions. What is the difference between “the friends you mention the most in your Update Messages” and “the friends you mention the most”? Since the results can be slightly different, some deeper explanation of the functions would be appreciated.

RESULTS:

Twitalyzer measures your Twitter profile against five analytics: Influence, Signal, Generosity, Velocity and Clout. The concept is similar to Twitter Grader – your profile is measured on a scale of 0-100. The grading is rather harsh, so you really have to work on your account to bring it up. Each of the five areas go into more detail and offer up suggestions on how to improve your score. This can be very helpful if you’re trying to be more influential on Twitter. A nice additional feature is the use of time-based analysis using Google Motion Charts and the ability to set benchmarks to work towards. Finally, if you’re weak in one area, Twitalyzer provides the top 100 people in each of the five components you can follow and learn from.

PROS: Simple to use and provides lots of details. While it doesn’t hit many of the criteria I set out to find, the information it does provide empowers you to create a superior Twitter account.

CONS: It takes several uses to remember exactly what the five components do. Even after reading each one, I found myself returning to refresh my memory. There are also some loading issues. When you click on any of the analytics under “Recent Activity”, it either takes a very long time to pull up the information or it just hangs in limbo forever.

RATING:

TweetStatswas the first Twitter analytics tool I ever used. It’s bright, colorful and simple to use. Not much has changed in the time I’ve been using it. There are eight graphs and two tweet word clouds. From time of day to who you reply to and retweet the most, the graphs give you a quick overview of your Twitter activity. As for the Tweet Cloud, this gives you a great breakdown of which words you use the most, the top five words you use and the top five hashtags you use.

PROS: Simple and colorful. The Tweet Cloud is a great way to see what you’re saying online.

CONS: The site needs more analytics to deliver real impact. If you need a quick breakdown with graphs you can use in a report, TweetStats will do in a pinch.

RATINGS:

Xerfer serves up your Twitter usage. You can find the times you most often tweet, reply and which days and hours you’re mostly likely to tweet. This is a useful function, but considering that other sites have this as one part of a bigger package, it just isn’t enough. Sure, you can research anyone on Twitter, but you can do the same thing with other sites.

PROS: Easy to use and simple to understand but with useful graphics.

CONS: Doesn’t provide much past the one chart. With other sites doing the same thing and providing more content, it’s hard to recommend this site.

RATING:

Klout is another grading site, but with much more statistical analysis. Using five key analytics – reach, demand, engagement, velocity and activity – Klout allows you to not only  see who you influence and who influences you, but also shows who is losing influence and who is gaining influence. The site feels very similar to Twitalyzer in look and feel. There is no explanation for what their five analytics mean or how to influence them. Klout’s current offer is a good start, but still has some growing to do.

PROS: Lots of analytics that provide a good deal information. The influence tracker is a great feature to find out who is most influential in your network while helping you build your own influence.

CONS: Little explanation of any of the analytics used. Klout could easily rip off what Twitalyzer does to create a better experience, but for now they are living their shadow.

RATING:

CONCLUSION: While TweetStats and Twitalyzer both have very useful analytics, neither comes close to the depth and variety of Twitter Analyzer. Twitalyzer’s benchmarking tool is a great way to set goals for yourself. Combined with Twitter Analyzer, you have all the software you need to mount a Twitter campaign and measure its success. Because the analytics are live, you can make course adjustments on the fly to optimize your Tweeting.

What tools do you use to analyze your Twitter profile?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

Download the Slideshare version of this blog post.

Help stop global warming in one minute, or less.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but global warming is for real. Oceans are rising. The polar caps are melting. Land masses are shrinking. There is no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, and the planet is in grave danger. In fact, some pessimistic experts opine that it’s already too late, and you may as well hand in your papers and kiss your backside goodbye.

So should you scream ‘Armageddon’, drink all the wine you’ve been hoarding and turn to spirituality in anticipation of the inevitable?

Er, not just yet. Sure, as human beings we’ve some explaining to do for our fatheadedness (Reality TV, Sarah Palin, Karaoke.) But we’ve also demonstrated we can make the impossible happen, especially when our backs are to the wall.
 
We’ve saved the panda from extinction. We’ve plugged the hole in the ozone layer. And Michael Bolton no longer pollutes the airwaves.

We can reverse global warming too. All we have to do is rally around and make a genuine effort. OK, this is where the ad spiel comes in.

We’ve just launched a website for our client Schneider Electric. It’s called ActiveBE.com. This site is helping raise awareness about climate change. The idea behind the site is to help visitors record and upload a short video of themselves pledging to do their bit to stop global warming. These videos will be compiled into a global video petition that will initiate debate and discussion around this issue amongst key opinion leaders.

You can do your part by recording your video petition on the website, or uploading a short video you’ve made using your cellphone or digital camera.

Get started right away. Record your video pledge now.

It would also be fantastic if you could populate the social media properties we’ve created around this project.

Become a fan on Facebook here.

Join our MyGreenPledge Group.

Follow ActiveBE on Twitter.

Join ActiveBE on LinkedIn.

Thanks a bunch in advance. I hope to see you on ActiveBE.com.

Asif Ansari is partner and creative director at The Duffy Agency. He loves writing, technology and beer.

Do you like this post? Please share with others on Facebook/Twitter.

Social media and death

How to use social media to cope with loss

As Halloween draws near, our thoughts turn to the more macabre areas of the imagination. While visions of ghouls, goblins, vampires (no, not the sparkly Twilight kind) and zombies creep into my mind, the celebration of the darker nature of humanity eventually brought me to thoughts about death. Sure, social media helps people connect to meet up for coffee, attend conferences or find a good place to buy shoes, but how does it help us cope with death? I had no idea, so I set out to discover how support groups are using social media these days.

The Compassionate Friends , a support group for families dealing with the death of a child, has gone beyond a standard support site and added a Facebook page. You can leave videos, upload photos and participate on their discussion board to help build a community on a site you already visit regularly. Their discussion page is very active with many people offering up stories and advice about their experiences.

Pocket Cemetery is an iPhone app that lets you create memorials to your lost friends and relatives (or beloved celebrities and pets). You can create customizable virtual gravestones, send virtual flowers and send prayers and messages.

This is the only iPhone app I could find in this area. As death is something that touches us all, without exception, I’d expect to see a lot more effort to cater to our need to cope in the future.

People often turn to religion in their grieving. Tangle, a Christian lifestyle site, has embraced Web 2.0 technology. They’ve launched an online prayer wall that allows you to share videos, photos, leave prayers and have someone add their own support for you. They allow you to share your prayers through Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and via email and Twitter. Tangle is very active within the Christian community, and with comments posted on almost every prayer, many people are finding the community support they need.

Muxlim.tv is the world’s largest Muslim lifestyle site. On it, you can read blogs, watch videos, listen to prayers, take polls and a whole lot more. It’s a social media haven for Muslim’s online. Once you register, you create a personal profile, which appears to be a cross between Facebook and MySpace.

But what about those of us who aren’t religious? Experience Project is for anyone regardless of religious preference – or lack thereof. You can create a group to talk about your experiences where others can comment and offer support, insight and help. Each group has its own built-in support system that helps create a support community.

Dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, but with the help of social media many people are finding it a little less painful.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

When to DM and when to @

 
Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

It’s the difference between looking like a n00b and looking like a pro

In our previous post entitled “These are the twrules”, rule #10 is: “Don’t have a huge conversation.” It’s always good to communicate with the people you follow on Twitter. You can make new business connections, find an excellent resource or make new friends. I’ve done all three through Twitter. It’s very easy to start chatting with people and the more you use the site, the more this will happen. Just remember that it isn’t a chat room or instant messenger.

Twitter is a broadcast system where you send out a message for everyone to hear. Imagine Twitter as your local television station. They broadcast the latest episode of “30 Rock” and anyone watching will see the episode, but so will anyone else searching for the words “30 Rock.” This is the essence of Twitter. Anyone following you can see your message and so can anyone searching for the keywords in your tweet. Now imagine that anyone that sees your broadcast can respond to it with their own message. This is called an @ reply. 

By using an @ symbol and the Twitter user’s name, you can reply to their message. As such, you can have a simple conversation. So if I ask, “Does anyone know a good steak restaurant?”, anyone that lives in my area can contact me with an “@stefanhy you should try Mando.”

And I might reply with  “@username Thanks.” Since my tweet and my follower’s tweet have been broadcast to all of our followers, and if our respective followers aren’t following both of us, they are only seeing a fragment of the conversation. That’s why a conversation shouldn’t go much beyond this.

If I need further information about location, prices, reservations or opening hours, as a good tweeter, I would move the conversation to direct messages (DM) that only the two of us can see. DM’s are best used when asking someone a question that the general population doesn’t need to be aware of. If I’m asking @maydbs if she’s going to debaser for lunch, it’s not really a question everyone needs to see, especially my followers who aren’t in the Malmö area.

Any direct remark that is only useful to you and the responder should always be a direct message. Any tweet that is business related should probably be a direct message. Also, use DM’s for setting appointments, giving someone a notice, planning events or confirming personal information.

These aren’t rules set in stone. It’s more of a general guideline. Like most things, the more you use Twitter, the more you’ll get a feel for the do’s and dont’s. How you use Twitter and how you communicate with others can greatly effect your follower count and how people view you. If you feel like you’re having too many instant messenger style conversations, odds are you probably are. Be vigilant of how you use Twitter and you’ll discover that your experience will be more beneficial and rewarding.

What are your rules for using @replies and DM's?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

Fall is in the air

Time to bundle up

Summer is over and gone and taken with it all those sunny days on the beach. It’s rainy in Atlanta and snowy in Stockholm. Time to put away your swimsuits and dig out the scarfs, gloves and coats. If you find that last year’s fashion has become horribly out of date, check out Uniqlo’s  website for a fun and unique way to shop for clothes.


Having lived in a warmer climate for ten years, how to wear a scarf is a bit of a mystery. Then I found this video that shows how to wear a scarf in six different way. Now I can do something different every day of the week.


Knowing what the weather will be like has never been easier. AccuWeather.com has an iPhone app, Mac and Windows dashboard widgets, a Twitter & Tumblr app and a browser toolbar. Now you can find out if you need to wear a windbreaker, heavy coat or if you’ll need an umbrella anywhere you are.

No matter how bad the weather gets where you are, there is always worse weather somewhere else.

You could be caught in a huge hail storm.


or a tornado


or a blizzard.


So this fall when you’re stuck inside trying to keep warm, just imagine relaxing on an island paradise and dream of a happier place.

Blog Action Day: 5 ways to use social media to affect climate change

Social media is the new voice of the people. Don’t believe me? Twitter kept alive the civil unrest in Iran after the elections and awoke interest around the world leading to global protests. This week in the United Kingdom, bloggers and Twitter usersfought back against a court injunction that called into question the Guardian newspaper’s right to report on a parliamentary debate. Within 16 hours, they were able to get to the judge to overturn the order. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are filled with groups to join on almost any and every issue you can think of. From Dafur to H1N1 to climate change, groups are forming to affect change. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Living right next door to Copenhagen, the upcoming United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP15) in December is a constant source of conversation. Climate change has become more and more a topic of daily conversation. Every day, we see more tweets, blog posts and YouTube videos being used to crack the public consciousness. Social media is activating more people in better ways than in the whole history of communication. It’s no longer students on college campuses trying to find a few hundred votes. Now you can mobilize a city, a state or a nation from your living room.

Here are five ways you can help affect climate change though social media.

1. Join a Facebook group – Don’t join a group just to join. Find a group with lots of members and actively post news, videos and content you find online. Start discussions with other members of the group and invite your friends to join.
2. Sign an online petition – Care2.com has an entire section dedicated to petitions involved with climate change.
3. Add a badge to your blog or online profile – If you’re active online these days, odds are you have a blog, a website, a facebook profile, or a Twitter account. Show people that visit your site that you care about an issue. Blog Action Day has done a great job of raising awareness of what they’re doing. They have created a series of badges with the most common banner sizes that you can add to your blog or website. You can also add one to your Twitter profile or add a link to your Facebook profile.
4. Share videos – Here are six videos that will help you get started and give you ideas for our next suggestion.
5. Make your own content – Create a new website around an issue, make a video about a project you are working on, write a song, do a dance and show people how you would affect climate change.

The good news is you’re already doing the 6th thing. You’re reading blogs that promote climate change. Check out more of the bloggers participating in the Blog Action Day. If we all work together and make our voices heard, we can make the people in charge listen and change the world for the better.

So what would you do to get involved in affecting climate change?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

Twitter follower management apps

Welcome to Twitter Tuesday. Every Tuesday we will post about Twitter. Stop by for advice and how to's for marketing professionals. Every other week we will post our AppQuest Edition featuring a review of twitter applications.

What’s the best way to manage your Twitter followers?

The longer you’re on Twitter, hopefully the more followers you’ll gain. The more followers you gain, the more difficult it becomes to monitor who you follow and who follows you. Fortunately, there are lots of applications created to solve this very problem. It’s important to monitor your followers and the people you follow to make sure you’ve got the right audience. Finding the right online application will make doing this simpler and help make you even more productive on Twitter.

I sat down with my co-workers and created a wish-list of qualities that we as marketing people want in a follower management application. Of course, all the apps have to be free and have no downloadable client. Beyond that, we wanted to be able to:

• have an easy-to-use interface
• get the hang of it quickly
• see who we’re following
• see who is following us
• unfollow/follow people
• bulk unfollow/follow users
• see how active our followers are
• view profiles
• tag followers to better organize them
• add comments to followers profiles
• sort followers by Twitter activity
• offer suggest for new people to follow

The evaluation method was simple. I visited each site and registered. After my profile loaded, I took a screenshot of the interface and then spent about 10 minutes looking around the site. A decent site should be able to explain itself in that time. After using the application, I rated each site against my wish list.

 






The URL is Huitter.com but the site is also called Mutuality. You can find both names in various places on the web. It allows you to sign in using Twitter Authority, which is nice since you don’t have to create another account just for this site. Once logged in, you’re presented two options: Manual, for people with accounts with under 10,000 followers; and Auto for accounts with over 10,000 followers. The Manual version is free, while the Auto has a slight charge. Mutuality doesn’t do much. You can follow all who follow you and unfollow all who do not follow you back. It’s possible to make exclusions to these tasks but you have to know their Twitter name.

PROS: You can bulk follow or unfollow Twitter users.

CONS: That’s all you can do. This is the definition of a single service site. It does one thing and not very well. At the very least they need a way to view your users to find the accounts that you want to exclude from your action.

RATING:

  

UnTweeps allows you to unfollow users based on the last time they tweeted. This is a great way to cut out the dead users. It’s very easy to use and uses the Twitter Authentication to login. On the downside, you can only use the site once every 14 days unless you want to pay for the service. You can get a 3 day subscription for $1.37 or a monthly subscription for $5, which can only be paid through PayPal. I would have taken a screenshot but after using it once I discovered I had to pay to get back in.

PROS: Easy to use and allows you to filter your followers based on how many days since their last tweet. The site is very straightforward and looks great.

CONS: The one time use feature is a huge drawback for a single service site. UnTweeps only does one thing and then charges you for it after you use it once. It’s even more limiting by the fact that you have to have a PayPal account.

RAITING:

Friend or Follow was my “go to” site to manage my Twitter account before I started researching this article. You don’t have to register with the site. You simply enter your Twitter username and it will pull in your following, fans and friends. The interface is very graphic. Each follower’s picture is lined up and when you roll over their photo, you get their name, followers, following, last tweet and the date the account was created. Because you don’t login, you’re unable to follow or unfollow from the site. When you click on a photo, it takes you to that person’s Twitter account. It’s also possible to sort users by A-Z ascending or descending order, most recent tweet and the date the account was created.

PROS: No login and easy to use. Easy to navigate and sort users.

CONS: You can’t follow or unfollow from the site. Looking at a bunch of tiny boxes can be hard on the eyes and makes it difficult to keep track of what you’re doing.

RATING:

With its rainbow color pallet, Tweepular looks like it was designed by someone with a passion for Skittles. But this is the first site that really gets what Twitter follower management is all about. You can bulk follow and unfollow, see who you mutual follow, who doesn’t follow you and who you don’t follow back. The main display shows each follower and has their Twitter name, last update, date added, if you are following them, if they are following you and their follower count. Under their photo, there is a follow and unfollow button. There is a tick box that allows you to select multiple accounts to follow/unfollow. There is also the ability to sort by “tweepularity”, number of followers, date added, last updated or A-Z ascending and descending. Finally, they have a tab that recommends new followers to you. There is a warning window that appears when you first visit the site. After using the site several times, I never experienced any problems. I'm not sure what the reason for the warning is.

PROS: Tweepular has all the main features we want plus it suggests new people to follow. It’s easy to use and simple to understand. You can see who you’re following and see who is following you. Plus, it has the standard unfollow/follow accounts, bulk unfollow/follow users and allows you to see how active accounts are.

CONS: We can’t tag accounts or comment on profiles to better organize followers. It’s not a deal breaker, but it would be nice to have.

RATING:

Refollow has it all. There are seventeen different ways to filter. Besides the expected follow/unfollow filtering, you can also sort by never followed, with picture, without picture, last tweeted, search for, users who are following other users, users who are followed by other users, users who have @mentioned you, and more. Sorting is available by last tweet, tweet count, screen name, follow count and friend count. You have the ability to bulk follow and unfollow. Moving your cursor over a profile brings up a window that shows their last tweet, any tags you’ve given and their entire Twitter profile. There is a details button that opens a sidebar with the person’s profile, the ability to retweet their last tweet, tagging options and comments.

PROS: WOW, this site hits all of our criteria save one – the ability to suggest new followers. I can’t recommend this site enough.

CONS: It doesn’t recommend new followers, but we can find those people though other sites if we have to.

RATING:

Twitter Karma was my other “go to” site to manage my followers. It’s slow to load and times out if you have more a than a few thousand followers. The site allows you to see who you’re following, who is following you and who you mutually follow. It also allows you to bulk follow/unfollow and select individuals to follow/unfollow. 

PROS: Simple to use and easy to navigate.

CONS: Very slow to load and refresh. It doesn’t do anything beyond allowing you to follow or unfollow accounts.

RATING:

I also tried to use MyCleenr, Tweeple, Tweetscan, Mr. Tweet and Twitterless. Some of the sites simply required I follow them on Twitter, like Mr. Tweet and Twitterless, but then I never heard back on how to access the site. In the case of MyCleenr, it simply couldn’t handle accounts with more than 700 followers.



CONCLUSION: Refollow and Tweepular are the hands-down winners here. Refollow slightly edges out Tweepular due to the variety of filtering options and the ability to tag and comment on user accounts. This is a great site for beginners as well as super users. Tweepular’s colorful design, broad functionality and suggested user tab make it a strong runner up. This is still a wide open field as the top two sites are miles ahead of the rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more contenders in this arena soon that offer even more features.

Which Twitter follower management application do you use?

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He love to talk about social media and won't shut up about Twitter.

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