The ‘Jedward’ saga generates so much media interest for the X-factor that Simon could not bring himself to judge them out of the competition (no matter how much he claims to hate them) so he, once again, side-stepped the issue and left it to the public.

Putting aside my personal preferences and the fact that this is supposed to be a singing talent competition (Simon C’s definition when it suites him), I decided to get some real-time responses and follow consumer interest through Twitter with #xfactor.

Wow! Talk about a hornet’s nest. At one point, just a few minutes after ‘Simon Cowardly’s’ decision to go public, there were upwards of 1000 new tweets ever 15 seconds. ITV2 were claiming the telephone lines were hot with callers but I can’t imagine that there were a fraction of the nuber of people tweeting their frustration and anger.

Today I’ve received invites to join Facebook groups that ‘Ban X-factor from TV’ and a few others that want to do some horrid things to Mr Cowell.  My RSS feeds are hot with news stories and, since I started typing this entry, there’s been another 1748 tweets on #xfactor (so far).

I don’t know if Mr Cowell is on FB, Myspace or tweets or does anything else with Social Media. If he does, well done Simon, your finger is well and truly on the pulse. If he doesn’t, I doubt he’ll much care for what’s said about him and his X-factor.   However, there are tens of thousands of conversation going on every second on the social network and to completely ignore them all would be utter maddness; for Mr Cowell, the X-factor, and anyone else who’s not listening to the chatter regarding their brands.

The Internet has allowed social networking activities to evolve on a scale that even 20 years ago was unimaginable. Social network service providers, like Facebook, allow new groups to form and evolve on a global scale within minutes. You can now join special interest groups that share experiences on growing, say, minature tomatoes or a general group that links school-friends or family members.

Other popular sites that you may have heard about include MySpace, Bebo, Flickr, YouTube, Friends Reunited and, of course, Twitter. All these cater for slightly different groups, ages and needs but they all have one thing in common; they provide a service that allows anyone to keep in touch with, and grow, their own network of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances.

Although the main growth in the use of these sites is by the young and early adopters who generally accept, and are very comfortable with, these technologies, there is a growing acceptance by the older generation who have been introduced to the technology through Friends Reunited (now with an estimated 21 million members!).

People tend join social networking sites for all kind of reasons:

As personal time becomes even more scarce, they are a great way to keep in touch with your friends, especially as friend-networks are now geographically diverse. The days are long gone when the friends you grew up with still live in the same village as you – even I have childhood friends that are now spread-out all over the world. Social Network sites make keeping in touch really easy and fun.

Many businesses use social networking sites to keep in touch with their employees, suppliers, sub-contractors and even customers.

Teenagers use a multitude of new media technologies, including social networking sites, to keep in touch with their friends. Bebo and MySpace are favourites with this age group and features that include photo-albums and polls make these sites interactive, great fun and very addictive.

As well as the social aspects of these sites, they also provide more serious applications; special interest groups and politicians use them to spread the word, gain support and get feedback on their opinions and policies and businesses are using them as powerful marketing tools – although beware, as negative views spread more quickly than positive ones!

Another type of social network site that has grown massively since their advent is the online dating community. Virtual dating with the goal of finding your perfect partner has evolved from being a sleazy pastime to a serious business. An estimated 1 in 12 newlyweds in the UK initially met online and the fastest growing sector is those aged 50 and up. We usually only hear of the more unusual stories but there are thousands of new relationships starting every day around the world thanks to social networking sites. With the Internet changing so much of our lives, why should the human heart be exempt?

Looking forward, the ever reducing cost of getting online with mobile devices, the explosion in availability of rich content such as music and video, coupled with our ever increasing fascination with technology, will make social networking sites an ever more important point of contact with our chosen social group; with whom we will be able to share experiences, like watch a film, as well as just keeping in touch.

Has the way we make and retain friends changed forever? Hopefully not, but keeping in touch with them certainly has.
Have you, or your, business used social networking site to help communicate with your network in an innovative way?

(article originally written for out-and-out-living magazine, June 2008)

Listen, I don’t want to make $4,000 per month with Twitter by hacking off the whole Twitter community, I don’t want a 1,000 new followers by the time I wake up tomorrow morning, and I don’t want any free gifts, free reports, free webinars or free courses. While I’m at it, I don’t want my Twitter feed bombarded and stuffed with spam either.

Selling through Twitter is, I’d suggest, like selling anywhere else: People buy from people, not from some faceless avatar that you’ve never met and unlikely to trust. So, for those seeking to use Twitter as a sales tool, try applying some thought behind what you’re doing before you get going. For those spammers that bombard me dozens of times a day, you are wasting your time with me. I will never ever buy anything from you unless I know you first.

As an example, a page that would originally have be fount at

http://new.facebook.com/pages/the-harcombe-diet/100265415

is now at
www.facebook.com/theharcombediet.

I like this feature. It makes it much easier to let people know about your fan page and to include it on marketing materials, press releases, email signatures and, of course, in conversation.

The video is nothing special; a comical tongue-in-cheek pop at the airline. The impact, however is huge.

More than 3,600,000 views on youtube (at the time of posting this blog)

More than 25,000 positive ratings on youtube

Prime time story across US and UK TV channels.

And, most staggering figure, $118m wiped off United Airline stock value.

Dave Carroll got his compensation.

Qustion? How are you managing your business/brand online to protect against a similar event?

Many businesses have a quiet period over the summer and many close for the holiday period. This year, unfortunately, some may not reopen.

The holiday period is a great time to take stock of your online business activities and learn about new things happening on the Internet. There’s a huge buzz about Social Media on the Internet, and it’s not all about dating. If you’ve heard about and play with Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, Linkedin etc. Great! Have you started to think about how you could use these tools to benefit your business? If you’ve not heard about them, don’t you think it’s about time you did?

Many people I come across tell me that they don’t have time for all the online social networking activities. Yet, the same people spend hours every evening watching some re-run film or soap on the TV.

Socialising online needn’t take large chunks out of your life. However, like most things in life, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get back.

Whether you’re a pro online socialiser or a novice, grab yourself a cup of coffee and get entertained for 10 minutes watching this clip.

Vanity URL’s make it easier and cleaner to let people know how to get, and keep, in touch and I always advise clients to secure their ‘real estate’ with as many online services as they can. Practice what you preach eh!

Anyway, if you haven’t already grabbed your vanity URL on Facebook, I would suggest you go and do it now. Log in to Facebook and you should have a link to choose your username in the upper left-hand corner — or just go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ , login and  select your username there.

While you’re at it, why not do the same for twitter, flickr, gmail etc.

For those of you that haven’t yet tweeted, go and sign up and have a play around. it’s at http://twitter.com. Like many good things online, it’s free, so you have nothing to lose. When I recently started tweeting, I couldn’t much see the point. But now I do.

I get asked a lot what twitter is all about and the simplest answer I’ve thought of is; it’s a shorthand blog. The fact that you only have 140 characters makes it interesting, and very applicable to texting, which is great, as you can text your tweets as well as email them or just type from your pc.

Now words are ok, but pictures are even better and twitter’s little brother, twitpic, is just fab! you can snap away on your mobile and email your photo to twitpic and the entry appears as a new tweet. Over at twitpic, your pics can appear on a global timeline that makes for some fascinating browsing over a cup of coffee or, better, a beer!

Just like when blogging started people couldn’t see the point but now everyone has their own piece of the Internet through their own blog. Twitter is fast becoming that way also so get on over to twitter.com and grab a piece of the action.

(ps, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/andyharcombe or just look at the little blue bird on the right)