Huffington Post’s Twitter edition: an idea worth stealing
Huffington Post's Twitter Edition offers lists you can follow
Last week Huffington Post rolled out its Twitter edition. Media, Politics, Business and Technology now have their own individual Twitter pages, each featuring a list of “notable tweeters.” Politics offers you national reporters and pundits. Media serves up personalities and media watchers. Business presents readers with insiders and analysts. The lists, aggregated by Huff Post, make it easy for you discover and follow a person, or grab an entire list.
For me there are a couple things worth noting. One, Twitter is rapidly becoming a serious business tool. It’s the new means of spreading and sharing content not only for individuals, but businesses and media channels. Two, Huffington Post’s beta experiment is a perfect model for any marketer or brand to emulate.
Consider that none of us can buy share of voice anymore (the Internet is infinite); that consumers and communities prefer to connect with real people rather than logos (think Zappos, Martha Stewart or even Gary Vaynerchuk); and that everyone wants to create and participate (that includes many of your employees); and it seems this is an ideal opportunity for any company.
Twenty five percent of all Twitter users follow brands, nearly 23 percent in anticipation of useful content.
Last November this Razorfish study concluded that while most people fan or follow a brand in hopes of receiving an offer, nearly 23 percent do so in anticipation of relevant content and information. Think about that. On the web, in social media, your product is not only the content you create, but the content you share.
Sure you can blog, carefully tag your bookmarks and make them available, but why not do a version of what Huffington Post did? Curate or aggregate relevant streams of Twitter content – from employees, customers, or suppliers – and make them easily accessible to your community.
You can categorize them. Organize them by subject. Even track how many people follow the lists, giving you a sense of whether or not you’re offering useful, RT-able content.
Think about how you use Twitter yourself – as the ideal filtering system to find content and links that make you smarter, save you time, and connect you to new people worth knowing. Doing the same for your community and customers could be a valuable service worth offering. As Clay Shirky once said, the problem isn’t that we have too much information, it’s that we need better filtering systems. Why not create one?
Comments
Edward, ITA it is totally worth stealing and a smart business tool. Thanks for sharing this, now to come up with my own way of doing this. Hmmm.
.-= Davina K. Breweru00c2u00b4s last blog ..Five to Follow Friday: Challenge Yourself =-.
Great article, Edward. You are quite correct, but the idea is already in place for some organizations.
At www.HiveFire.com, we are helping B2B brands aggregate and curate topics around relevant tweets so that they can actually help customers understand the twitter-verse around specific topics, peoples, organizations, and places, automatically, and without much effort.
I am sure other companies are doing this, but HuffingtonPost has started in the right direction.
Best,
Taariq
Edward, ITA it is totally worth stealing and a smart business tool. Thanks for sharing this, now to come up with my own way of doing this. Hmmm.
.-= Davina K. Breweru00c2u00b4s last blog ..Five to Follow Friday: Challenge Yourself =-.
Edward, enjoyed the article and I agree with you on the ideas. This technique really highlights the importance of community--highlighting voices on topics that aren't necessarily just from Huffington Post. The nonprofit arena has been doing some similar things with Twitter lists. At TechSoup.org (@techsoup)we use Twitter lists for our global partners and staff, as well as individual programs. However, we want to take this a step further in making relevant Twitter lists on our site to highlight our users and key topics of interest in the sector to make relevant information easy to find.
Great article, Edward. You are quite correct, but the idea is already in place for some organizations.
At www.HiveFire.com, we are helping B2B brands aggregate and curate topics around relevant tweets so that they can actually help customers understand the twitter-verse around specific topics, peoples, organizations, and places, automatically, and without much effort.
I am sure other companies are doing this, but HuffingtonPost has started in the right direction.
Best,
Taariq
Edward, ITA it is totally worth stealing and a smart business tool. Thanks for sharing this, now to come up with my own way of doing this. Hmmm.
.-= Davina K. Breweru00c2u00b4s last blog ..Five to Follow Friday: Challenge Yourself =-.
I appreciate your insight on this, Edward. This is a simple way for any organization to provide a means of convenience and relevance to its audience; the critical "giving" part of the social web. I think it would be most effective for a company to include its competitors on such lists. This would create a couple of powerful impressions: a willingness to share and give credit beyond the motivation of a sale; and an air of confidence in one's own strenthgs and uniqueness.
Very smart (therefore definitely worth stealing). A mash-up of modern media and the rat pack. It's not just what you know, but also who you run with.
totally agree. relevant content doesn't mean it has to have been created by the brand. think the huffpost did a great job with this, and shows its a news org not afraid of how the world is changing (unlike some of the other dinosaur outlets that are slowly dying out).
.-= avinu00c2u00b4s last blog ..Infographic: the decade in mobile =-.
Very smart (therefore definitely worth stealing). A mash-up of modern media and the rat pack. It's not just what you know, but also who you run with.
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