On the pros and cons of business tweeting

In the past I have used my blog to say nice things about a company (for instance Ed's Diner) or to be less nice (Anglian Windows springs to mind). In principle companies can keep a watch for comments anywhere online and pop in and make a response - and occasionally they do - but usually such good or bad publicity goes unnoticed by them.

Twitter, though, is different, because there is a communication element as much as it is about broadcasting to the world. Every company worth its salt now has a Twitter account, and used correctly it can be a huge PR coup, but getting it wrong makes your business look feeble or out of touch.

The big difference from a blog post is that when tweeting it is easy to use the company's Twitter name in the tweet and hence highlight the tweet to the company (or individual) that is being being talked about. So, for instance, when someone tweets about one of my books, if instead of saying 'by Brian Clegg' they say 'by @brianclegg' then their tweet appears as a notification on my Twitter feed.

Now, companies who don't understand social media spends all their time pumping stuff out about themselves and ignore others who mention them. But a savvy company responds to tweets. Because once you've had a conversation it's hard to see the other side as a faceless corporation. Unless the Twitter operative messes up the conversation, the company will improve its image.

As it happens I had occasion to tweet twice about companies at the weekend on my journey to Lichfield to speak at the excellent literary festival, and what happened as a result of this is a great reflection of that observation.

The first was my favourite newspaper, the i. I probably read a newspaper around once a week, and the i does exactly what I want from a paper (and suits the pocket of a straightened writer). I noticed the classic error below:

... and tweeted oops, the i newspaper (@theipaper) thinks Microsoft makes breast implants. They kept a dark silence, though the tweet got plenty of response from others (including pointing out that Seattle is a teensy way from Silicon Valley). So zero marks for the i.

By contrast, Cross Country Trains showed how to do it. I was (for no obvious reason) chronicling my journey to Lichfield and tweeted at Cheltenham: First change and awaiting train to Mordor*, which like every Cross Country Trains service I've ever caught is running late.

Yes, I know rail geeks, that's not a Cross Country Trains service,
it's the one I'd just got off.

Within a few minutes, Cross Country Trains had tweeted back, 'Hi Brian, trains are delayed following a person being struck by a train earlier at #CamAndDursley - apologies for the disruption.' I pointed out that the station announcement had said it was due to the rather more amusing 'animals on the line' and again I got a quick response: 'That's a little odd Brian! We can only assume something was lost in translation between our control and station announcers! :)'

There is no doubt which of the two has gone up in my estimation, and which has gone down. (Oh, and on my return trip, the Cross Country Trains service I caught from Birmingham to Cheltenham was on time.)

* I like Birmingham, but I am convinced that New Street is, in fact, Mordor station.

Twitter logo from Twitter website: Copyright Marisa Allegra Williams (@marisa) for Twitter, Inc. and reproduced under Twitter's guidelines.

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog