Twitalyzer Home Screen

This week we witnessed the birth of yet another Twitter tool. Its name is Twitalyzer. What makes it special in the midst of so many other Twitter-related tools and applications ? Well, at first glance, it did not became apparent for me either as it looks like one of those tools to analyze your “influence” on Twitter by measuring such variables like the number of times people reply to you and mention your name.

That is, until I discovered a tiny menu on the top right of its homepage, mentioning “Twitalyze Brands”. Interested, I clicked on the menu and voila ! I was taken to a page where there was this big title banner of “Twitalyzer Brand”. Now it got me intrigued, and just for the sake of testing, I entered “Nokia” as the brand to be analyzed. I waited like three minutes before I got to see the results, but it’s all expected because Nokia is such a big brand and must be getting a lot of mention from the Twitter crowd. Fair enough.

It was not until I got to the result page that I realize that this is indeed an excellent tool. Of course, by now we need not mention again the importance of online reputation management. But until now, I was only aware of Twitter-search based tools in order to do just that. Twitalyzer Brand takes it one step further by giving you the important parameters right in the first page of the result of your brand.

Twitalyzer Nokia Result

After it has finished analyzing Nokia, – in this example -, Twitalyzer Brand told me that “NOKIA most recent brand strength in Twitter was rated as mind-boggling based on a calculated score of 88.4 out of 100…” Furthermore, it also measured the brand as having 70.5% of signal-to-noise ratio, 4:1 positive brand favor, 22.3% of brand passion, and 77.5% of clout. Now, of course I’m aware that for the curious side of us, it may not be enough. We might want to know on what calculations and algorithms such assessments are based upon, but that’s beside the point here.

My point is that, at the very least, Twitalyzer Brand can be used as a very splendid method to analyze your brand’s mention on Twitter, – and thus, manage your online reputation. Bear with me for a second, and I’ll tell you why. Excited by a neat execution of its analysis on Nokia, I clicked “learn more” under the parameter of “brand favor”. I then was taken to another page where it gave me the definition of “brand favor” ( “the ratio of citations that are generally positive to those that are generally negative” ) and the list of actual public updates where people mentioned Nokia in their tweets, – both positively and negatively. I don’t know about you, but for me, that alone is a big enough appeal to use it as a tool to scan feedbacks from people who used my products.

I suggest you do the similar thing with the other parameters. Explore the site. Also don’t forget to take a look at their features of “Time-Based Analysis”, “Benchmark Your Success” and “Twitter Brand 100” list, which are located in the bottom of the page. If there is a time that I recommend a young site, then this is it.

NOTE :  The Twitalyzer site can also analyze your personal Twitter statistics other than your brand’s.  Just click on the “Twitalyze People” menu in the top right of the page.

Online Reputation Management is something you and your company can not do without these days. It’s because the need for brand and reputation management continues to increase in importance as consumer time spent on the social web replaces traditional media. Furthermore, let’s not forget the fact that :

· Customers are online – Customers who find products and services via internet channels have various experiences. Many consumers blog, write reviews, make comments and share opinions on social networks. It’s important to have a good handle on customers that are publishing both negative and positive information so the brand can monitor and engage in the right way.

· Journalists are online – Public and media relations is an effective marketing/communications channel for merchants, networks and in some cases, affiliates. Journalists are increasingly researching stories online and the way companies represent brands can influence whether a particular one is considered for a story or not.

· Competitors are online - Brand monitoring online and within digital media provides companies a real opportunity for competitive research. Discover what other brands are doing to be effective and whether they publish negative information about your brand in order to attract sales from products and services.

However you choose to look at it, it means one thing and one thing only : that the future of your brands are also online. It does not necessarily mean that you will kill your brand if you don’t engage in these activities, – but rather that you may hurt your real-world business if you neglect to nurture your online reputation management. Take some time to study it. As usual, followings are a couple of good articles about it for you to dig further :

· Basics of Online Reputation Management

· PubCon : Online Reputation Management

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.”

• Wilson Mizner ( 1876-1933 )

In my last post, we talked about social media and its implications to your PR strategy. I promised you that we were going to cover the issue of listening on what people say about you and/or your company.

Before we start, it will be very crucial to remember that listening is a very big part of communication. In fact, it could even be argued that listening is a part of life that we can’t live without. Any good communicators out there will confirm this fact. Just ask somebody you admire for his / her communication skills. It’s undeniable.

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In the context of Social Media, it can become quite confusing, – especially for a first-timer -, to scan and monitor what people say about you. As in real-life communication, it takes a skill to listen. The good news is, it’s easy to acquire the ability to listen in Social Media. Enter the “Search” function.

To elaborate more on this, we’re going to use Twitter as an example. By now, you must know already about what is it. If you have not join Twitter, do so now. You owe it to yourself. Find some important people to follow, – or better yet -, some people who is relevant to your field.

Assuming that you have already done all of the above, what you need to do now is searching the public timeline for the topic pertaining to your field. Owing to Twitter’s wild popularity, there are some excellent tools out there to do this very thing. Make use of them. Followings are three of them that I myself use most often :

• Twitter official search tool
• Tweetscan
• TwitterTroll

Official Twitter Search page

Now all you need to do is go to their sites and type your topic, much as the way you use Google or other search engines. For example : Peter is in the business of airlines. He would want to search for “airlines”, “flying”, “flight” or other similar search terms. The search tool will then give him tweets from people that used such words in it. Don’t just stop there, however. Push your listening act a little bit further. You might want to even search for your brand. Type “Apple” for instance, and you will see what I mean.

Once you reach this point, it will become easy for you to see what people say about you and/or your brands. Don’t forget other valuable information like what their needs, preferences or anything else that might help you to sell more. Good luck !

At this point, it may not be necessary to explain what blogging is. You should know, you are reading one of them. Yet, corporate blogging is a whole different game to personal blogging. This blog is an example of corporate blogging.

Depending on the direction, corporate blogging is classified into 2 groups :

• Internal : Accessible only to employees, internal corporate blog is very similar to company bulletins or newsletters.
• External : Meant for public consumption, many times it involves PR efforts and soft-selling writings.

Focusing on external corporate blogging, let’s pose a question : Do my company needs a corporate blog ? There really is no easy way to answer this, but some issues you need to ponder are :

• The Nature of Your Product / Service : Is it something that requires a lot of information ? Is it something that can be used in many ways, – and thus, has interesting tips and tricks ? Is it something that needs a heavy PR strategy ?
• Your Company’s Ability to Blog : Contrary to popular belief, corporate blogs are NOT the place to dump your PR essays and press releases. The most successful corporate blogs are the ones who shares some interesting news and insights about their fields. If you’re not sure that you do have someone in your company that can write about interesting issues ASIDE of your product, – then maybe it’s best to forget about the idea.
• Consistency : I keep on stressing this. Interesting topics are not enough when you don’t have consistency. It is as true in the world of corporate blogging as in the personal one.
• Control Method : Corporate blogs need a supervising editorial team. The word “team” is defined loosely. It can consist of you only as the CEO, or maybe a specially-paid group of 6 people. The key point is, you have to have a feel as to what your writer posts about, – and develop some methods to have them stay in the company’s directions.

Those are issues at the very basic level. There are many dimensions that you need to at least be aware about before you decide to take the proverbial plunge. To help your research, the following references may be particularly helpful :

• Wikipedia page of Corporate Blogging
• Sitepoint’s List of 15 Good Corporate Blogs
• Jeremiah Owyang’s Essay on The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging
• Practical Guide To Starting A Corporate Blog by Jason Falls

You might already aware of many pessimistic views about internet penetration in Indonesia, compared to Malaysia, Filipina or even small country like Singapore, somehow underestimated. You might also find that most Indonesian preferred into mobile primitive features like SMS and insignificant ring back tones than the border-less world wide web. It also took more than 5 years for big boy like Yahoo to eventually decided to explore more opportunities to go deep with millions of its Indonesian users by established more partnership with local players. With Indonesia current market development of mobile connectivity competition and local infrastructure availability, shall turn those pessimistic views.

SInce the end of 2007, the mobile industry had reached 100 million subscribers via various MNO (Mobile Network Operator) and FWA (Fixed Wireless Access). However it believed that the number doesn’t respectfully correspond to the usage of today’s technology (HSDPA, mobile web), until a leading mobile browser maker, Opera, released reports that SouthEast Asia is leading in mobile web usage and growth.

It reported that Indonesia ranks first in SouthEast Asia (and second worldwide) in usage with almost 330% user growth and 827% page view growth in 2008. Followed by Malaysia with 462.6%  user growth and 474.5% page view growth. Obviously, more Indonesian mobile subscribers are using their phone to go online today.

In many of Southeast Asian countries the mobile Web exists not because it complements existing means of access, but rather because it replaces them. Page view growth and pages per user are an interesting metric to see how much people use Opera Mini to browse the Web. It is interesting to note that page views per user in Indonesia and the Philippines are significantly higher than the worldwide numbers. In fact page views grew more than 1120% in the Philippines this year.

The report geographic focus is on Southeast Asia, where we see Google as the dominant player in the search engine space and Friendster as the premier social-networking site, with hi5 coming in second. Nokia is dominant in the region, with brands like Sony Ericsson and Huawei competing for a distant second place. Here’s the highlight.

• Indonesia and Malaysia lead the way for mobile Web adoption, followed by Thailand and Brunei.
• Indonesia leads the top 9 countries in page views, with each user browsing 358 pages on average in October 2008, well above the global average.
• Growth rates are soaring: Malaysia leads the top 9 with 462.6% growth in users this year, followed by the Philippines (396.4% growth) and Indonesia (329.5% growth.
• In Southeast Asia, among mobile Web users, Google is the dominant player in the search engine space, with Yahoo and Live Search vying for second place.
• Friendster is the premier social-networking site in the region, with hi5 coming in second.
• Nokia is dominant in the region, with brands like Sony Ericsson and Huawei competing for a distant second place.

On top sites rank by Indonesian unique users, Facebook made a big jump entering the list this month. The report also predicted about Facebook beat Friendster in the near future, “It will be interesting to see if Facebook will affect the dominance of Friendster in Indonesia”. Here’s the complete top sites viewed via  mobile:

1. friendster.com
2. google.com
3. gamejump.com (back on the list)
4. facebook.com (new)
5. yahoo.com (back on the list)
6. waptrick.com (new)
7. peperonity.com (down from 4)
8. wikipedia.org (down from 5)
9. getjar.com (back on the list)
10. gratisindo.com (down from 6)

and here is the top handsets for October 2008 (which use the Opera Browser):

1. Nokia 6600
2. Nokia N70
3. Nokia 3230
4. Nokia 7610
5. Nokia N73
6. Nokia 6300
7. Sony Ericsson W200i
8. Nokia 5310
9. Sony Ericsson K750i
10. Sony Ericsson K510i

It seems (Indonesia) mobile industry really helps bridging the gap of internet infrastructure thus accelerates nation-wide internet penetration (at least Opera enjoys it). I wonder if Blackberry will be listed in top handsets list by the end of 2008, noted that all major GSM operators offers Blackberry with affordable monthly plan connection package.

These development gave new insight of opportunities in mobile web, conventional web and mobile application. Simply develop “m” as your subdomain will extend your audience to mobile web users. You don’t even have to develop a special java application to comply the web communication model, most recognized format for mobile web is XHTML which took an article of web standards. Have you xhtml-ized your site?

For me, I prefer desktop/notebook view, using Sony Ericsson G502 as modem (traveling) or  view directly via NetFront Browser (pre-installed) with HSDPA connection. Quite fast!

Into web services framework:

• Development Model
• Operation
• Business and Marketing Model
• Marketing Operation

Development 2.0
(a proposal for a discussion with Ardy, Andi sama, CenCen, Rizky and Catur). BOP (Bottom of Pyramid) Principle applied in web technology. Web Services go to consumer.
is about how to build today’s web services platform
- original concept then up to customer (user)
- database structure again and again
- visual imagination modeling
- perpetual beta
- always platform with user space on it
- should be the easiest as possible to set up and use
- explore the live navigation possibilities
- system scalability design

Services Operation:
- Server – network performance maintenance and administration
- Statistic Production
- Technical Support
- Perpetual Activation
- Vendor, Agency, Partner management
- general administration

Business and Marketing Model
- paid services –>> Revenue from specific user
- free services –>> Revenue from ad agency and direct client

A. Paid Services:
- Define distinguished services (comparative and competitive)
- Define Charging Model
- Define Specific User segment that will charged (market)
- Define Financial Projection including Monthly BEP
- Evaluation and back to top

B. free Service:
- Define distinguished services that drive user to
- Define Products (sponsored links, banners, channel etc)
- Define Segmented Client
- Select Agency Partners
- Define charging model combination (best for BEP) through statistic data optimization

Marketing Operation
- Maintain best statistic feed
- Evaluate trends through creative queries (geo-segment, behavior, etc)
- Promotion: 80% internet and 20% other
- Sales: 65% online and 35% offline (direct marketing)
- Creative Presentation Updates (Marketing Kit)
- Business Development: Partnership and New Product/Services
- Customer relationship Management
- General administration