A Vodafone employee posted an offensive message this afternoon which read “Is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver”
This was sent out to Vodafone’s 8,663 followers. Vodafone has since apologised to its followers and says the employee in question has been suspended.
Vodafone are not the first company to be embarrased by their twitter account
Habitat returned to Twitter in September last year with a message, “We’re back. Sorry it took so long. This time we want to get it rightt. Tell us what you want to hear from us and we’ll mark suggestions in our favourites.”
Habitat was criticised for using Twitter site to spam the community back in June. It used hash tags, which help users track conversations on the microblogging site, to promote marketing messages that had no relevance to the topics used. Habitat’s defence was that the campaign was a mistake and the posts were made by an intern.
However, HabitatUK, was putting out marketing messages such as ‘Our totally desirable Spring collection now has 20% off!’ on Friday, using tags such as #mms, #Apple, #iPhone and even used an Iranian election hashtag #Mousavi.
Although all the messages were replaced with sales and marketing tweets, the damage had already been done. Many Twitters already saw the messages and tweeted their annoyance.
This is a classic example of how a big brand such as Habitat was unable to execute a social media idea successfully. They jumped on the twitter band wagon too soon without truly understanding the full damage it could do if implemented incorrectly.
There are over 160 social networking sites covering various countries and topics at the time of writing this blog.
Social networking sites can drive seo traffic to your site. People can share links talk about the site with their friends and family. They can also talk about your site on their own blogs.With twitter they can easily follow your site. What is social networking you might ask? Well it is is the grouping of individuals into specific groups. It is like having your own little community but on line.
Most people use these social networking sites to:
Communicate with people in their extended social network
Stay in touch with people they already know (support pre-existing relationships)
Research suggests that most SNSs primarily support pre-existing social relations
Facebook is used to maintain existing offline relationships or solidify offline connections
All have common offline element – eg went to school together
Not used to meet new people
Facebook users search for people with whom they have an offline connection
Don’t tend to browse to meet complete strangers
91% of U.S. teens who use SNSs do so to connect with friends
Social networks are growing in populartity and the social networking sites took over email in global reach at 68.4% in Feb 09. The reach is highest in Brazil (80%) but fastest growing in Germany (from 39% – 51% in one year). Facebook popular in UK and USA. According to facebook there are more than 30 million active users, not bad for a company that was originally set up for Harvard College students. However, Mixi is the leader in Japan, Orkut in Brazil, Stayfriends, Wer-kent-wen and StudiVZ top 3 social networking sites Germany. Twitter gaining popularity, grew 131% between Feb and March 09 to 9.3 million US users.
Twitter is a micro-blogging site which has taken off in the UK since March 2009 but has been around since 2006.
It allows you to stay in touch with all friend and family in real time. You can leave “tweets” which are short messages, no longer than 140 characters anytime. Some say Twitter is the SMS of the internet. You will begin to have “followers” who are updated with your tweets.
“Should I join Twitter?” I hear you say. Well it is free and easy to set up like any social networking site. Only join it if you have the time to update your “tweets” and if you have interesting messages to leave. However, celebrities who have also been bitten by the Twitter bug often leave just random comments. Stephen Fry and Lily Allen are just two of the many celebrities who have joined Twitter and who have a lot of followers.
Here are a few reasons to use Twitter:
1. Push traffic to a site.
You can use Twitter to drive traffic to your site or your friend’s websites. Post a link on your page and start discussing it with other friends and you will notice an increase of visitors.
2. Network
You can meet many people in the same industry using Twitter. You can start following other twitter people and vice versa.
3. Friends
You can also meet people on twitter who have similar interests, and you can even make friends.
4.Work
Twitter can be used to find work and also freelancers to work with you.
So you never know what is out there till you try. Go on, get your twit pic today.
They seem to have sprung up all around us and now the internet is flooded with them. What is a social networking site (SNS)?
Well they are an internet based service that allows users to create profiles about themselves and interact with other people on the site. In short, they are a way to communicate with friends and family on line. You can post photos and videos of and share them.
One of the most popular sites for University students and those in full time employment is facebook. Since infiltrating the UK market in February 2007, it has grown to over 175 million active users. MySpace users are a younger profile, mostly aged from 14 to 18 years old who are still at school or college. MySpace has been used by many people in the music industry to promote themselves, Lily Allen found fame through MySpace. She now uses another social networking site as well called Twitter. Many celebrities are using this site which is third position behind MySpace and facebook. Users can update their own blog with “tweets” , posts of up to 140 characters and you can subscribe to be part of their updates.
You don’t need to put all your information on these social networking sites as this can lead to identity theft. It is recommended to set your profile to private so that only your friends who you know can see your photos. And be careful when updating your profile, don’t do it during work hours especially with comments such as “I am bored” or “I have such a bad hangover”. Your boss could be reading this and decide to show you the door. Be careful when changing your relationship status as these appear on the home page feed of facebook and people may be rushing round to congratulate or commiserate you.
The best thing about SNSs is to have fun, share photos and videos and don’t take it too seriously.
Social networking sites | Jo Turnbull | 
February 5, 2010 4:12 pm | 
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