Tag Archives: Social Media

TWITTER HACK: Advanced Search Can Solve Twitter’s List Errors

THE PROBLEM

I’m a huge Twitter list user. Mainly, I keep private lists to monitor conversations from groups of people I want to network with or learn from. Lately, I’ve been unable to create or edit my lists! Sometimes I’ll get a “This user does not exist” error when trying to add a user to a list. Other times, the edits I make to my lists simply won’t save.

Naturally, the support team at Twitter is aware of the problem, as so many users have been asking for help:

There’s a work around solution to this Twitter list problem that’s plaguing so many Twitter users, and it involves using advanced search.

ADVANCED SEARCH

Search on Twitter is useful for watching hashtags or brand mentions, but advanced search features let you treat search queries as boolean expressions. Boolean expressions are commonly used in programming languages. Think of them as the true/false questions on your old high school tests. In order for one of those true/false statements to be true, all of the conditions had to be true:

“Austin is the capital of Texas, home to the annual music festival South By Southwest, and a safe harbor for 1,000 Martian ambassadors” evaluates to false, even if 2/3 of it are true. (I won’t reveal which 2/3.)

Twitter searches work the same way. You can build multiple conditions into a query, and dictate how many of those conditions need to evaluate to “TRUE” in order for Twitter to populate a tweet that meets the conditions in your search results.

SOLVING THE TWITTER LIST PROBLEM

You can duplicate a lot of the Twitter list functionality using advanced search. You won’t be able to share these list-like-queries, and Twitter users you add won’t be notified that they’ve been added to a Twitter list. But, you can still access these list-like-queries anytime by saving your search, or opening the queries as columns on your TweetDeck, HootSuite, or third-party app of your choice.

Use the “from:” advanced feature to specify which twitter user you’d like to add to your list by typing “from:username” into your query.
Append additional members of your list-like-query by adding ” OR ” (spaces on either side) followed by another “from:username.”
Keep adding members to your faux Twitter List as you see fit.

I’ve been reading Andrew Chen’s thoughts on Growth Hackers, and wanted to make a list of the Growth Hackers he acknowledges. Naturally, I got the typical Twitter list error messages, so I built a list-like-query:

from:deekay OR fro:mike_greenfield OR from:mickbirch OR from:iviko OR from:dzohrob OR from:blader OR from:yeeguy OR from:eshmu OR from:aatif_awan OR from:ibringtraffic OR from:gregtseng OR from:othman OR from:jkatzman OR from:gustaf

These kinds of queries also allow you to do things Twitter lists can’t like monitor tweets from specific people and terms. If I wanted to, I could add “OR ‘growth hacker’ OR #growthhacker OR growthhacker” to the end of the query to return the results of anyone talking about this topic.

Advanced searching is an art. To learn more about the types of queries Twitter search supports, visit the How to Use Advanced Twitter Search page.

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May 12, 2012 0 Comments Short URL Social Media, Twitter, Twitter lists Social Media, Technology

My Third-Party App Pinterest Wish List

I always say the reason foursquare was able to beat out so many early competitors in the location-based space (Gowalla, Facebook Places, Whrrl, MyTown) is because it welcomed open source development on its platform. Foursquare’s API is its most valuable asset. And everything from the careful documentation to the hackathons foursquare has hosted screams “We want you to use our technology to make awesome apps!” In today’s development environment, APIs are sort of like the famous line from Field of Dreams: If you build it, they will build with it.

Right now, developers can’t wait to get theirs hands on the yet-to-be-released Pinterest API. Here are some app features I’d like to see developers build.

1. Scheduling

Pinterest creates amazing opportunities for brands to have fun with their customers, drive

traffic to their website and even gain insight into their customers’ wants and desires. But like most social networks, marketers can’t just “set up a Pinterest and let it do it’s thing.” The newsfeeds are based on recency, so Pinterest requires constant updates and maintenance.

Third-party apps like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and CoTweet have made social marketers’ lives much easier by providing the ability to schedule posts. Pinterest needs the same type of feature.

2. Selective Unfollowing

Every new social network struggles with the “my friends aren’t here” complaint. Pinterest addresses this challenge by having its users automatically follow all of the boards users’ Facebook friends create. That’s great when the Pinterest party is small. But as this network becomes more mainstream, users won’t need as much help finding a critical mass. The result of the auto-follow feature for me has been a newsfeed crowded with wedding dresses and interior design. I’ve spent a lot of time unfollowing those boards (not the users) to get the newsfeed I wanted. The automatic following is leading to manual unfollowing, and that’s a problem.

A third-party app could automate this. I would log in and indicated that I want to follow my Facebook friends on Pinterest, but I only want to follow their boards about comedy, infographics, photography, latte art, Star Wars, and dancing gorillas. An app could take that input and, based on the tags and descriptions of my friends’ boards and pins, ensure that my newsfeed only gave me content I wanted to see.

I want to follow my friend @MShahab, but some of her boards don't interest me.

3. Recommendation Engines

The search function on Pinterest is really weak. It appears to sort only by recency, not by popularity. That’s great if I’m looking for the latest pins, but not if I’m looking for great boards to follow. There are a lot of recommendation engines out there for other social networks; Pinterest needs one too.

4. Data Visualization

My favorite third-party app for Instagram is Statigr.am. It’s a site that visualizes your activity on Instagram in ways a basic visual feed style doesn’t. Statigr.am lets you see your most used filters, what days of the week you typically post, your biggest fans, most popular photos and more in an infographic-esque style.

I’d really like to see a Pinterest data visualization tool. It would be great for helping brands optimize their content on Pinterest, and it’s a lot of fun for consumers to look at too.

There’s some speculation about when Pinterest will release its API, but when it does, I expect there to be an onslaught of third-party apps taking Pinterest to the next level.

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March 31, 2012 0 Comments Short URL Advertising, Foursquare, Social Media, social media marketing, tech Social Media, Technology

The Future of LBS: Convenient, Valuable, Secure

Last week, I was invited to speak at the Social Media Breakfast New Hampshire. The topic? Location-based services. You can watch the video below, but the short of the talk is that by becoming more convenient, valuable and secure, location-based services can move from being an unnatural behavior of the tech-savvy early adopters to a natural behavior of mainstream audiences.

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January 26, 2011 1 Comment Short URL aislebuyer, Foursquare, Future, gowalla, lbs, location-based services, SCVNGR, shopkick, Social Media, whrrl Location, Location-based Services, Technology

Black Friday Foursquare Special Madness

RadioShack

To be fair, the manager at RadioShack was extremely nice, and said he was going to print the (way too complicated) instructions on how to redeem Foursquare specials. Other employees passing by were asking what Foursquare was. Oh the woes of the early adopter.

Toys “R” Us

People are crazy! The line for Toys “R” Us wrapped around the shopping center. There were literally thousands of people waiting to get in.

I checked in on Foursquare, but got no mention of the Toys “R” Us badge. They are running the Foursquare special alongside Yelp specials and Facebook Places specials. However, when I checked in on both of those services, I didn’t see anything labeled as a deal or special. To redeem the special, the first 3000 people have to text a short code.

We talked about all of the Black Friday Specials on our AboutFoursquare Podcast special episode. Check it out:

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November 25, 2010 1 Comment Short URL Foursquare, lbs, location-based services, Marketing, Social Media Location-based Services, Social Media, Technology

Location-based Services in the Travel Industry

On Thursday, we held our weekly Twitter #LBSchat and discussed opportunities for the tourism and travel industry. I’ve compiled some of the most interesting points of the conversation and added a bit of my own commentary here.

Question 1: How can Foursquare drive foot traffic to travel destinations?

As I mentioned here, it’s obvious Foursquare is moving toward a Whrrl-like model with it’s new 2.0 upgrade, which places To-Do’s and Tips in a much more prominent role. This change is the first of a two-step process:

Foursquare will take a main-stream tactic by spoon-feeding its users. First, Foursquare is introducing the core users to the idea of tips.
Second, Foursquare will implement more updates that will personalize and categorize the Foursquare user experience. Right now, tips are a dead end. If you leave a tip at a location on Foursquare and someone else completes your tip, you get no notification when happens. Whrrl has completed this loop with its influence scores and societies, but hasn’t yet penetrated past the iPhone platform.

Question 2: If you could only take one location-based app with you on vacation (domestic), which one would it be?

Dan Parks raised an interesting point here. Once Foursquare starts mining the To-Do and Tips data, they will be able to show which Foursquare users are more influential in certain verticals. The sushi expert’s tips will be displayed more prominently on location pages for sushi places. Same for wine connoisseurs, mommy-bloggers, urban socialites and more.

Question 3: How can an online travel sites like Orbitz and Expedia integrate LBS? What about drive revenue?

Alicia Collins raises an interesting issue here. When the reality she’s talking about comes to fruition, we will have real-world affiliate marketing. Right now, affiliate marketers get paid by how many clicks they get on certain links, or how many Amazon purchases are tied to their designated link. In a short while, affiliate marketers will be paid based on how much real-world action they are driving.

Question 4: Mobile application EpicMix lets skiiers track physical activity on the mountain. What’s more beneficial: specialty apps like EpicMix or LBS like Foursquare?

I have long been preaching the fact that location elements will become common features across almost all media, especially mobile media. In a few years, we won’t think about what location-based app we’re using. When we’re drinking beer, we’ll check into Untappd (and Foursquare along with it). When we’re running, we’ll use RunKeeper. You get the idea. Every app we use will have a location tie-in.

Question 5: How can LBS help travel marketers and content providers deliver audio and video content?

[Disclosure: One of my freelance clients was curious about the topic and asked me to include it in the chat.]

Maurice Rahmey’s point at the end is a good one. There are content creation companies already involved in LBS, or looking to get involved in LBS, but have no way of delivering their content on the LBS platforms! That’ll come soon, I think. SCVNGR will be one of the first. Stickybits is already dabbling in video and audio.

Discussion about Facebook Places

As per usual, #LBSchat skewed off onto a side discussion about what the hell that Facebook Places thing is supposed to be.

Question 6: Gowalla is partnering with Four Seasons to offer $100 gift certificates for users who complete local treks. Success or failure?

Here we have two opposing sides to the issue, and yet, I agree with both.

Want to join in #LBSchat? Head over to Tweetchat.com and plug in the #LBSchat hashtag on Thursday nights at 9pm EST. See you there!

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October 3, 2010 1 Comment Short URL Future, Marketing, new media, Social Media, social media marketing, tech Location, Technology

How Facebook Can Solve The Duplicate Venue Problem

I’ve been thoroughly confused by location-based services that allow the users to create venues. Many times, this practices leaves the LBS with a ton of duplicate venues. Facebook just announced they have partnered with Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah to bring the location experience to the world’s largest social network. The Places feature on Facebook will allow businesses to claim their Place and merge it with an existing Facebook Page. Okay. Cool. But what happens when there are duplicate venues that already exists not just within a single platform, but across platforms? (Facebook answered a lot of questions in its FAQ section on Places, but this one remains unanswered.)

Here’s what Facebook has the potential to do. It can solve the duplicate venues problem once and for all.

At point A., if Facebook allows business owners and managers to merge multiple LBS locations with a single Facebook page, it can solve one of the biggest problems in the location industry. That would allow the location-based platforms to better track and merge duplicate venues.

But another issue occurs at point B. What happens if not every location has a Facebook Page? Do they have to make one? Some corporations don’t allow franchisees to manage individual Facebook Pages for their branch. What happens to those locations on Facebook? Is the corporate site allowed to merge multiple Facebook Places into a single Page?

To be honest, I’m a little overwhelmed by the Facebook press conference tonight. I may have missed the answers to these questions, but then again, Zuck did say, “There’s a lot we aren’t doing…yet.” The possibilities are there. Will Facebook and the LBS networks follow them up with actions? And if so, when?

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August 18, 2010 0 Comments Short URL business, Future, new media, Social Media, tech Marketing, Social Media

I like MyLikes

I was asked to do a little research writing sample for a job application. Basically, I was supposed to find a few new developments in social media technology and write up a feature piece on them. In the process, I stumbled across an interesting service called MyLikes.

I decided to give it a shot. If you’ve been seeing me tag some recent tweets with “[sponsored],” that’s why. So far (after two sponsored tweets) I’ve made $1.12! Not much money, but it’s more than the usual $0 my other tweets make. If you want to join, they gave me a referral link:

Anyway, here’s the feature I wrote:

Media Type

MyLikes is a hybrid of earned and paid media. There’s a small part of it that’s paid media because the advertiser controls where sponsor links lead. It’s earned media because since every member can only promote one paid link per day, the advertisers are competing for relevancy and product or service superiority. That competition is happening in the earned media/social media space.

Description

MyLikes pairs advertisers with influencers and allows those influencers to promote links and get paid by the click. It’s affiliate marketing gone social. I’d argue it’s an improvement on affiliate marketing because it focuses on relevance. There should be no surprise that it was founded by a former Google product manager and a former Google engineer.

MyLikes is an open social network. Members build profiles and establish interests by promoting or “liking” products and services. There is a selection of sponsored links they can choose to promote on various social networks, but they are only allowed to promote one of those per day to prevent users from spamming. MyLikes works with advertisers to match the best influences with their marketing needs, and those advertisers invite the top targeted users to promote their products. The member revenues flow into a PayPal account.

Content Flow

Content surrounding MyLikes is cyclical. The advertisers create landing pages and then buy clicks to those landing pages. The MyLikes members choose which links to promote and create content (which can be positive or negative) to frame the link within a certain context. Users who click on the links from MyLikes members through Twitter or Facebook are then taken to the landing pages.

What’s Valuable

MyLikes connects advertisers with influencers. There are a ton of people who have built up a following online for whatever reason: their video blog (about beer), their personality, or the cool stuff they do with their business. An endorsement from those influencers could be more valuable than paid media or owned media because of the simple fact that people listen to people. They are increasingly skeptical of brands. That’s part of the reason why I believe the future of marketing lies with people; not with brands pretending to be people. MyLikes also just secured some Seed funding this month. Robert Scoble also jumped onboard as an advisor, so it seems the folks at MyLikes are truly living their brand.

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May 11, 2010 2 Comments Short URL Advertising, new media, Social Media, tech, transparency Advertising, Social Media