twitter

My Twitter has been hacked, what do I do?

October 9, 2012 by LStacey Leave a Comment

Every now and then, Twitter seems to get hit by what we in the business call “phishing” attacks. This is where your Twitter account is taken over by a remote source that sends out links via your profile (often by direct message) which in turn infect other accounts.

The first rule is of course not to click on any suspicious looking links. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to tell but if you are sent something that looks a bit odd, send a message back and ask if it’s legitimate. If you don’t get a response, chances are, it’s a phishing attack.

Along with phishing, there are a few other exploits that can lead to your account falling into the hands of other parties. The result is usually the same; your account being used to do things not sanctioned by you.

If you’re unfortunate and you do find your account hijacked, it’s not the end of the world as long as you act quickly. Follow the steps below and you should be OK.

1. Change your password

To change your Twitter password, log into Twitter as normal; then click on the gear icon in the top right corner, click “Settings“.

On the left hand side of the page, click “Password“.

On the password page, fill in the form as directed to change your password.

2. Revoke application rights

Remaining in the settings area, as directed above, click “Apps” on the left hand side of the page.

On the right hand side of the page you will see a list of applications that you have given permission to access your Twitter account.

From the list on the right hand side of the page, identify any app that you DO NOT use and click the “Revoke access” button for that app.

It is better to err on the side of caution here and revoke anything you don’t recognise. You can’t break anything. The worst that will happen is that if you revoke the access rights to something you do use, you will be asked to re-authenticate next time you use it.

If you can’t even log in to your Twitter account, click on “Forgot password” under where you put your login details, then put in your email address as requested. This will email you a password reset request. Follow the instructions therein to reset your password, then proceed to step 2 above.

If for some reason you still can’t seize control of your account, you will need to contact Twitter support. Follow the link on the password reset page.

Feel free to ask in the comments below if there’s anything you’re not sure of.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: hack, hacked, hijack, password, phishing, reset, twitter

Should all brands engage on Twitter

October 7, 2012 by LStacey 2 Comments

With social media in its autumn years as a “thing”, most brands in English speaking countries are finding their way on to Twitter, and quite rightly too. It’s a party you just can’t afford to miss. Unfortunately, it feels like one of those dysfunctional parties where nobody really knows anyone. Some are there with an agenda and some are quite clearly just there because it’s where all the cool kids are.

This is all well and good but the disparity leaves the audience feeling confused. Some brands want to sell things to you, some want to be friends with you and some want to help you. Unfortunately, unless you go to a brand’s Twitter page and have a good long look at their profile, you can’t really work out why they are there until you’ve followed them for a while. In some cases you might want help with something and find yourself disappointed because they aren’t listening to you (see below Tweet to Reebok).

They didn’t respond…

Right or wrong?

There’s no absolute right way to do it. In my opinion, it’s OK to be an information feed and it’s also OK to be a sales or support channel. That said, just because there’s no absolute right way to do it, it doesn’t mean there’s no wrong way to do it. There are plenty of wrong ways to do it. Going back to the party analogy for a minute, let’s look at those that turn up to the party without an agenda. They’re there just because they think they should be. More often than not, these are the ones getting it wrong.

Flitting between awkward semi-engaged conversations, sales pitches and pictures of cute kittens etc. While nobody really minds this, it can be a little confusing to the very people they’re trying to engage. Is this brand pretending to be my friend just to try to seel me things? Of course it is. This feels dirty, and what results are they getting anyway?

I think the key thing here is to be clear and consistent with your messaging. And yes, you’ve probably heard that a million times but there are still so many brands not doing this. They are, without doubt, getting it very wrong.

Examples

I’m not going to name and shame (not in this post anyway) but I will give you some examples of brands I believe are getting it very right.

@FirstCC – First Capital Connect

First Capital Connect are a rail company in the UK whose Twitter account serves purely as a customer support channel and they do this very well. They have named operators running their account and nearly always respond with helpful advice when a customer complains. I say “nearly always” because they get a lot of abuse (even from me) and of course, it’s usually best not to respond in these cases.

@mashable – Mashable, Social Media (and other) News

The Mashable Twitter account is nothing but a news-feed. You’ll never catch them responding to an @ mention. They don’t engage. They produce content and fire it out over Twitter. And that is that. Is it bad that they don’t engage? No, it’s fine because you know exactly what you’re getting. It says quite clearly in their bio what they do and gives details of another account (@MashableHQ) to use for sending questions to the staff.

Measurement

Measuring your success is the next step, and while I won’t go into detail about that here (because it’s quite a broad topic) I will say that it’s certainly a lot easier to measure success if you’re 100% clear about your purpose for being on Twitter in the first place. If you’re on Twitter to sell stuff, measure sales. If you’re trying to gain brand awareness, measure share of voice & sentiment. Set clear KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and tweak your communications to better serve them.

I will follow this post at some time in the near future with an analysis piece that will hopefully put some figures behind all this stuff and highlight the right-doers from the wrong-doers. In the meantime, if you’ve got any particularly outstanding examples of brands getting it right (or wrong) I’d love to see them so please drop me a comment below.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: brands, engagement, firstcc, mashable, reebok, social media, twitter

Twitter acquires Posterous – the end of simple blogging?

March 13, 2012 by admin 4 Comments

I’ve been using Posterous as my main blogging platform for several years and in my opinion, because of its simple interface, ability to post via email and share everywhere, it’s the best and most social blogging platform around. In case you hadn’t noticed, this very blog is powered by Posterous.

The acquisition

Last night I learned that Posterous had been acquired by Twitter. The announcement on Posterous’ own blog says that “Spaces” (this blog is a Posterous Space) will remain open but they will be creating a process for export, should anyone wish to take their content elsewhere.

While they did effectively say it would be business as usual, they didn’t say how long for. This concerns me. I have a horrible feeling that this very blog will end up homeless soon…

Speculation

Of course, at this stage I can only speculate and who knows, Twitter may keep things running in a way that suits me; though I doubt it.

At this stage I’m hoping Twitter will use the service “as is” but bring it into their platform. As long as the link structure stays intact, I’m fine with that. I’ve put a lot of effort into making this platform work for me and it’s worth a lot in terms of SEO (search engine optimisation).

That of course leads me to the “what if”. What if they do shut it down? Sure I’ll be able to export my content but will there be an easy way to preserve my link structure? Will I lose all those years of hard work?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Keep this frequency clear.

The above image was stolen from @Documentally

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: blogging, Category: Social media, posterous, search engine optimisation, seo, speculation, twitter

To err is human; to follow divine – guest post by @Loudmouthman

May 23, 2011 by admin 6 Comments

The worn out and trite epitome of simple marketing suggests that “People buy from People”, although a quick google for this phrase suggests it may not have a single author to its credit.

Rarely has anyone ever said to me “Google tells me this is an excellent product”, instead recommendations come in the form of ‘I’s and ‘they’s and often the qualification of a single show or celebrity to add to its endorsement.

So it came to pass that search engine marketing , a now bloated and waddling exercise in flagulation by phrases, has peaked and the overflow of eager and frankly ill informed <QUOTE>consultants</QUOTE> seek a new revenue stream and opportuntiy.

Enter the Social Media Guru, the Social Media Manager and the Social Media Expert. Consultants and salespersons whose core skill sets is to hear the jingle jangle of the bandwagon passing and leap unabashed onto the jockey box to proclaim their skills and expertise in guidance and direction.

They have a distinctive characteristic and it is one you would do well to look closely for lest P.T.Barnum be proved right yet again. The characteristics to be wary of are often at an inverse to your expectations; Lets look at a few classic examples.

Twitterers

On Twitter they appear with profiles exclaiming ‘Social Media Expert or Guru’ and when you look closely you see that despite Twitter’s lifespan they have only been using Twitter for the last few months. Quite possibly they have a large amount of people they follow and few following back. Although their conversations tend to be self promotional they find a network of similar thinking “professionals” with whom they self promote and congratulate. Often they link to their own blogs ( see bloggers ) where they repeat many trite and obvious idioms all the while encouraging you to call their number and get their advice.

Facebook

Indeed as with twitter so with they have just arrived ( how long has Facebook been going ? ) and they have friends ( who suspiciously also attended the same ‘how to be a social media schill’ course ) who also post and ‘like’ and share the same articles and tripe that they keep churning in the hope they gain credibility.

Bloggers

Similar to their twitter histories these experts have blogs which go back only months. quite possibly with incomplete “about me” pages or just as possibly with incomplete blogs created as tacked on afterthoughts to their own website, which no doubt has a 20 second Flash Splash page intro, possibly with kittens. Rarely do you see any examples of ‘media’ usage beyond the desire to overpopulate their sidebars with plugin after plugin after plugin.

And thats about it.

You are unlikely to see these ‘Social Media’ experts with posterous accounts running alongside their projects or flickr and instagram accounts highlighting conferences, tweetups and events they have experienced. You wont see them curating and collating content in Youtube or Vimeo and as for podcasts or Audioboos? Suffice to say you might start seeing them from today since they have seen this post but until then it simply has not occured to them to use and promote these tools for themselves or their clients.

Put simply these “bandwagon jumpers” these gurus, experts and ‘professionals’ are not going to help your business or your projects. They do not know how to take risks. They do not know how to go out and explore the internet and live on the frontiers of change and live as the outriders of opportunity. They are sharks and buzzards feeding only where the shoals and masses congregate and picking at the flesh of business the chunks they can get away with.

Do not rely on them to take you places where your customers maybe or for them to climb the mountains of competition to view ahead into new pastures for your business.

For more on the humanity of good social media take a listen to the first half of ‘Social Media White Noise’ Episode #62 Cloud Trouble where Nik Butler rants about the tendency of these experts to use tools over experience to appear professional.

About the author

Nik Butler (@Loudmouthman) was on twitter in 2006 and has been blogging since 2004. He makes no claims to being an expert, guru or professional but likes to be known as ‘A Digital Roadie’. He has tremendous expertise in getting things done and has the client testimonial page to prove it.

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: bandwagon, blog, bloggers, blogging, Category: Social media, consultants, facebook, guru, loudmouthman, nik butler, social media, social media white noise, twitter

Social media science and statistics will kill our creativity (please retweet)

April 16, 2011 by admin 1 Comment

Yes, the topic of this blog post (and probably the content of the tweet you followed to get here) are completely loaded, horrid, spammy and designed to go after easy traffic. The thing is, and we all know this secretly, these things work. Along with the attention grabbing headline, I’m also begging for twitter users to retweet… something I hate doing but sadly something that also works.

Why would I do these nasty spammy things?

There are two reasons for doing this. Firstly, I wanted to share social media scientist, Dan Zarella‘s “Science of social media” video with you because if social media marketing (or personal brand posturing) is your thing, you’ll do well to listen to what he has to say if you want to get your message out there. A lot of it you’ll already know but won’t necessarily like. Don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself:

Secondly, I actually have an issue with these techniques. Sure, they work, and they work well but does this make it right? By doing this are we just upping the noise level? This actually relates nicely to the mini blog post I wrote yesterday on cutting through the noise. Not only does it up the noise level but if we start applying too much formula to our marketing message, it can become a little dry… but who cares if it works, right?

Related blog posts

Follow Lee Stacey (@LStacey) on Twitter

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Category: Social media, dan zarella, hubspot, marketing, noise, retweet, science, social media, twitter, video

Do we cut through the noise or take advantage of the quiet?

April 15, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

This is one of those blog posts where I make an observation in the real world and apply my thoughts about it to social media. I’m not going to bother you with lots of statistics or tell you that your Twitter or Facebook marketing strategy is wrong or that I know better than you, at least not today. Today I will just leave you with my thoughts and let you work the rest out for yourself. Please share any thoughts you have in the comments area below the post.

My thought of the day

This evening I was walking through my home town of Burgess Hill and a plane flew over, I’m guessing it was at around 10,000 feet. I heard the plane coming and looked up. Nothing funny or odd about that at all. I heard a plane, I looked up, I saw a plane. There were two other people walking on the same street that did the same.

Earlier today I was walking through London to work, just happened to be looking up and saw a plane fly over at what I’m guessing was about 3,000 feet. There were literally hundreds of people on the same street as me and not one person looked up, at least not that I noticed. One thing that was different was that I couldn’t hear the lower plane because London is a lot noisier than Burgess Hill. London is noisier because (once you get to the root of it) there are more people.

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Follow Lee Stacey (@LStacey) on Twitter

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: aeroplane, aircraft, Category: Social media, facebook, marketing, social media, thought of the day, twitter

Mobile apps – the process must change | #Android #iPhone

April 2, 2011 by admin Leave a Comment

Twitter’s recent(ish) developer crushing announcement got me thinking. While a lot of independent developers might not like their new rules, Twitter do have the right idea in as much as they want to deliver a consistent experience across all platforms and devices. Shame there’s no sign of that in their own mobile & web apps just yet but that’s another conversation.

Consistency

These days I’m an Android user, not by choice but I’m going to live with it for now. I used to have an iPhone and since switching I’ve (where possible) downloaded the same apps for my Android that I had on the iPhone, only to find that they are in every single case so far, completely different. Why are they not the same? Where is the consistency? Why should I have to learn how to use something all over again? I shouldn’t. The same app, even if offered on a different platform should offer the same user experience.

Cross platform is an after thought

I suspect the reason for this lack of consistency is that going cross platform is an after thought for most developers. A developer will make an app, say for iPhone and if successful will then go about creating an Android version or getting someone else to do it for them and so on. This leads to two (or more) completely different apps which share one commonality, their name.

Getting it right

Getting it right by creating a consistent experience across devices isn’t going to be easy because the development platforms and the physical limitations of Operating Systems and their associated SDKs vary so much but that shouldn’t make it impossible. Surely it’s just a case of sitting down and planning your app first with all options in mind. Think about how each feature or function would work and what you would have to do to achieve that same experience across all platforms.

Am I wrong?

I’m certainly not an expert in mobile app development so I’m happy to hear any comments from those that are and wish to put me right on this one. I’d also like to see some examples (if they exist) where there is complete consistency across devices.

Like this? You may also be interested in some of my other posts:

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: android, apps, Category: Mobile, development, iOS, iPhone, mobile, twitter

Is sharing really caring?

March 15, 2011 by admin 9 Comments

When I hit the “Publish” button on my blog post”Social media suicide – the conclusion” the other day I thought I was done with that topic. I had found out what I wanted and it was now time to move on… that was until I found myself sat on the train tonight, reading my feeds and sharing the stuff I like with my Twitter buddies, such as I do.

Sharing is caring

On my phone I have this great app called my6sense which by way of clever algorithm surfaces content from my RSS feed subscriptions that is most likely to be of interest based on what I’ve previously shared using the app. I scan, I read, if it’s good I share. The more I share, the more the app knows about the kind of stuff I like. It’s just full of shareable win. In fact today, it would appear that it was a little more full of win than normal as my good friend and colleague Hamid (@HSirhan) got all excited and came as close as you can get on Twitter to looking like something from Dawn Of The Dead but with a hankering for links rather than brains. This was what got me thinking… he was loving it but was everyone else?

Like it or lump it

Prior to my social media suicide experiment I took the view that if someone didn’t like my content, they could simply unfollow. If they are not interested in what I like, they aren’t interested in me and that’s fine. No skin off my nose. I really didn’t care at all but now my network is smaller and the relationships I have with those that are a part of it is essentially stronger, should I perhaps reassess this? Perhaps it’s time I dropped that ridiculous, egotistical attitude. While I know I can’t please all of the people all the time, I could probably do better in trying not to piss them off. Because my followers aren’t all 30 something male tech geeks with a passion for social media and digital marketing, chances are that when I spray Twitter with links that interest me, most of them are probably of no interest to most of my followers and in some cases may even flood their timeline. This would piss me off if I were in their shoes.

What about those that do like it?

Amongst those that I’m connected to there are a few (Like Hamid) that really do like the links I churn out and there are even a few folks that follow and engage with me because we have those things in common. If I were to stop sharing these links, they would be missing out on the cool stuff I really enjoy sharing with them. Often it’s a conversation starter and that’s where the real value in all this social stuff really is, right?

I have actually been here before

It’s not the first time I’ve had this little moral tug of war. I’ve been here before. A while back I even set up a Twitter account exclusively for sharing links and sharing links only. Conversation over here and links over there. Everybody’s happy. Of course, it didn’t work because the content and the conversation actually go hand in hand. It was a silly idea.

The solution

I’ve not really got a solution; that’s why I’m writing this rather rambly blog post. With a bit of luck you might leave a comment and help me out on this one. I will be doing a couple of things differently from now though. Firstly, I’m going to share a bit slower. Bombarding my timeline with links probably isn’t a good idea. Secondly, I’m not going to rage so much when someone I follow bombards me with irrelevant links. I now understand this and know that they are only doing as I once did.

The moral of the story is simple:

Treat your followers as you wish to be treated by those you follow yourself.

If you liked this blog post, you may also like:

Should I commit social media suicide?

Tweet silly!

A Twitter follower is for life

Blogging for normal folk

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Category: Social media, content, followers, lee stacey, LStacey, my6sense, sharing, social media, suicide, twitter

Social media suicide – the conclusion

March 12, 2011 by admin 6 Comments

Four weeks ago I decided to commit social media suicide by shutting up shop on my old, bloated Twitter account and starting afresh with a new one (I had to juggle a bit to keep the same username). The reason for doing this was to see if I would lose any value by cutting down those that I follow to just those I really care about or interest me in some other way and at the same time as take my following down to nothing. In theory those that really care or are genuinely interested in what I have to say would see what I was up to and follow the new account.

I thought I was already following you

One thing that I find is happening quite a bit recently is that I’ll engage with someone I’m following and they will somehow notice that they aren’t following me anymore. More often than not, this causes a little confusion. In some cases I’ll point them to my original blog post, in others (because it’s how I roll) I’ll just say nothing and see if they can work it out for themselves. Usually they don’t. It appears that several of the people that used to follow my old account didn’t see any of the announcements I made about this experiment or any of the blog posts I published via the old account before I killed it off. There are two probable reasons they didn’t see any of it:

They follow too many people. There is a good chance that if someone following you also follows a lot of other accounts, your tweets will wash away from their timeline in seconds. The more accounts you follow, the less value you get from each one.
They don’t use Twitter often enough. Not everyone is plugged into Twitter all of the time so if you tweet something while one of your followers is away from Twitter, they are unlikely to see it as their timeline will move on.

Increased engagement

Since taking the plunge, my own engagement has increased. I now miss a lot less due to following less people. Although previously I used to filter my timeline only to show those that I cared about, this added an extra level of inconsistency to the stream and clearly meant I missed a fair bit. Some of those that I followed on the new account said they felt a stronger bond with me because I was following fewer people.

My own influence

You would think that by being followed by less people, in many cases people with less followers themselves would mean that I have less influence. According to various “industry standard” influence measurement tools such as Klout and Twitter Grader this appears to be the case but this is where I can say I have first hand experience that shows the contrary. I get no less clickthroughs on any links I post and I get no less hits on any blog posts I write. I can safely say that my own influence has hardly changed at all. The “industry standard” tools are wrong.

What about the stragglers?

There are still quite a few folks with whom I used to share a mutual following on the old account that haven’t followed back on the new account. There are a couple of possible reasons for this:

They are completely unaware of my experiment and new account due to one of the two reasons above.
They have no interest in what I have to say and haven’t bothered to follow.

I’m fine with both to be honest. If it’s down to reason 1, they will work it out eventually because I’m probably engaging with them on a regular basis anyway. If it’s down to reason 2, I’m happy to no longer be polluting their timeline and lowering the value of their stream.

Final summary

As a reader you will get more value from each person or account you follow if you follow less accounts.

As a publisher you will get more value by building your following slowly and organically with real people. It’s worth knowing that people who follow less accounts are more likely to see what you have to say and take notice of it.

If marketing via social media is your thing, perhaps you should think about targeting those with less connections rather than more. You should also be aware that these people prefer to engage rather than be marketed to.

I’m here for the conversation. What are you here for?

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Category: Social media, conclusion, followers, grader, hubspot, klout, social media, social web, suicide, twitter

Social media suicide – and what about influence?

February 16, 2011 by admin 3 Comments

Influence is a funny old beast and I’ve got to admit, narcissistic as it may sound, losing my influence was one of my biggest worries when deciding whether or not to take the plunge and start again with a brand new Twitter account. The funny thing is that I really don’t think I have lost any at all. It would appear that even though I currently have 1/75th the number of followers (200) that I had before (wow, that’s a big difference), I’m still getting about the same number of retweets, mentions and clickthroughs on content I post.

Lstacey-twitter-followers-twittercounter

So how does that work then?

Echoing the sentiments of Nik Butler (@Loudmouthman) in the latest Social Media White Noise podcast, influence isn’t quite as simple as “he who has the most followers has the most influence” in fact it’s a lot more complicated than that. In the podcast he goes on to explain that a person with less followers is more likely to see and pay attention to what you post and therefore more likely to amplify it, this means someone followed by more of those kinds of people is more likely to have more influence. To me that makes a lot of sense and goes some way to explaining why traditional celebrities accounts have more impact than those that are simply big in social media.

Still missing a few

I’m still missing a few of my old followers that I really want to stay in touch with and it should come as no surprise that most of these are folk that work in social media and/or digital. Chances are that they are following so many people that they’ve missed this whole experiment… or they simply don’t care enough. Either way, I’m not going to give up on them which is why I’m still going to tweet a link to my new account once a day from my old account.

Last night a colleague of mine (@rcownley) asked “Doesn’t promoting @LStacey with the old account defeat the point of leaving it in the first place?” In a word, no. The only people that will click on the link, read the blog post and follow the new account are those that are genuinely showing an interest. These are the people I want to stay in contact with. One simple but solid rule will remain in place: I will only follow people that I engage with or that interest me in some other way.

In case you’re wondering, it still feels good!

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: andy white, Category: Social media, followers, influence, loudmouthman, nik butler, rcownley, social media, suicide, twitter, twittercounter, white noise

My Twitter has been hacked, what do I do?

Mobile apps – the process must change | #Android #iPhone

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