Recently, there has been much talk about U.S. politicians using Twitter. I assume most of them like the service.
It will be interesting to see what happens next, as organizations like the Sunlight Foundation ask people to Help Lobby Congress on things like S. 482. I can see this happening more and more. And politicians may find themselves getting alot of feedback this way. This is not a bad thing, depending on how well they are able to deal with it. And it is a good story to follow for any organization considering the use of Twitter or any other social software or social media.
Amana has an interesting experiment going on: it is allowing viewers to help them pick which design to go with first. In exchange, they will use your selections to help determine your personality (apparently mine was too eclectic for them to decide!)
This is a simple and smart idea. They get feedback from potential buyers, potentially get some viral marketing (a link to sites like Facebook or other social networking sites would be helpful), and get to promote their ideas. Plus, they also get to see which ones are big hits and which ones are big misses. (Speaking only for myself, my most favourite was Green Tea and my least favourite was Mojo).
If you have wanted to engage your clients more, consider what Amana has done:
How colorful is your personality? / Amana’s New Color Refrigerators
Pardon the bad pun, but it is difficult to predict. A number of companies are using them and getting success, but there are plenty of pitfalls too. This short article, An uncertain future, in The Economist, gives a run down of prediction markets, who’s using them, and what works and what doesn’t.
I predict there will be more exploration of prediction markets this year. (Ok, that’s enough with the bad jokes.)
Thanks to @amcafee on twitter for the link.
Skittles is known for their unusual approach to advertising and media. I think they are quite inventive and noteworthy. However, as reported on Mashable.com, Skittles unusual approach with social media this week, while innovative and noteworthy, also, as a result of “Bad Jokes”, were forced to retreat from twitter to Facebook. (“Bad jokes” is Mashable’s term: as they say later, the comments were much worse than that.)
I thought this lesson had been generally learned from the previous bad experiences at Chevrolet and the Los Angeles Times, but apparently not. As Mashable says:
“It’s important to point out how nasty (insults, racial slurs) things can turn out when you give control of the content on your site to users, some of which can be completely anonymous.”
Anyone developing a social networking service like this needs to have a strategy for dealing with trolls and other antisocial behavoir on your site. Otherwise…well, you might end up with something similar happening.
Mashable.com has a good rundown of the story at the link above.
