New Twitter (again)

Twitter's recent blog post tells you everything you need to know about what's wrong with the latest version of the iPhone Twitter client.

Mobile clients should be self-explanatory and intuitive. If you need a manual (or even a blog post) to explain how basic UI features work then you have a problem...

I use Echofon which is vastly superior in my view anyway (not least because you can mute specific hashtags and remove tweets containing them from your stream... for example #XFactor), but the changes to the official Twitter client seem to me like a big step backwards.

Twitter predicts a riot?

Social media has received a lot of press coverage over the last few days in relation to the riots and looting in various parts of the UK.

Either it fuelled the riots via BMB (yeah... thanks for that RIM, first you launch a tablet with no native email client and then this!) or helped co-ordinate the clearup... Most probably both are true.

It has also created a lot of uncertainty and worry about what is (or might be) going on where.

I followed this phenomenon for most of yesterday afternoon... reading tweets which stated that crowds were massing in the square by our office (er... they weren't) or that Debenhams in Liverpool One had been set on fire (promptly followed by a rather surprised tweet from someone who was currently having a sandwich in their coffee bar noting a distinct absence of flames).

There were also some (non-existent) burning buses in a street which is clearly visible from our office.

Twitter seems to have become almost useless as a guide to what is happening on the ground unless you restrict your attention to the official feeds like @MerseyPolice. As I type this their latest tweet is a reassuring:-

As of 7.38pm today, there are no disorder incidents or related road closures in Liverpool or Wirral.

At best this is just annoying, but it could cause a great deal of fear and upset for anyone who thinks they (or their families) are about to be overrun by a mob of looters. I also wonder whether tweeting that "there is going to be a riot in xxxxx" runs the risk of being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Why don't we actually make these reports on Twitter useful by using a simple hashtag system rating your report from 1 to 3:-

1. #Eyewitness means "I am there and I can see it". Should be accompanied by a picture unless this would involve you in personal risk.
2. #Verified means "Someone I know and trust is there and can see it (and has sent me a picture)".
3. #Reported means "None of the above. This may well not be true and I have no way of verifying it".

The key part of the system? If your report is #3/3 then do everyone a favour and don't bother tweeting it. Be honest with yourself and admit that all you are doing is adding to the noise in order to grab yourself some attention.

Twitter has the potential to be a vital source of information in situations like this. A system like this would still be open to abuse, but hopefully it would at least get people to think before tweeting out unverified rumours?

Say hello to CubeSocial

Holidays and post-holiday work mountains have curtailed my blogging recently, but I wanted to post a quick review / plug of a new Social CRM service I have been beta testing called CubeSocial.

It has recently (today?) come out of beta and is worth a look for anyone using Twitter for business purposes (lawyers or otherwise).

The concept is simple, but well executed. You simply plug in your Twitter account and the CubeSocial web interface pulls in your Twitter contacts and matches up any other social profiles or services they use like YouTube, LinkedIn and blogging platforms. Statistics show what percentage of your contacts use the various platforms (useful for deciding where to focus your social media energies) and you can also add other contact information and notes if you want to use it as more of a CRM system.

CubeSocial also archives the history of your conversations with your various Twitter contacts so you can refer back to them (which is useful as the history which Twitter provides is fairly limited).

You also have the ability to have multiple users on the account, which seems to be a great way to coherently manage a number of Twitter accounts Tweeting in convoy without having to resort to a corporate account with multiple authors which can seem rather anonymous.

Contacts can be tagged with categories (or whatever you like) and there is also a social search function to help monitor social media buzz about your brand. At the time of reviewing this only covers Twitter although I hope it will be expanded in due course to cover a wider range of platforms.

I have been following the Connectegrity team who are behind CubeSocial on Twitter for quite some time and it is great to see their Social Business Intelligence project emerge into the light of day.

I'm not sure what the pricing structure will be, but you can sign up for a free trial on the CubeSocial site.

Social media for franchisors

A few weeks back I had a problem with the local franchise of a national pest control company.

Basically, they made an appointment, but failed to show up... without any explanation.

This is the kind of thing I will often moan about on Twitter... even more so if the company has a Twitter account which I can name and shame, which they did. I'm going to call it @BugZappa2000 as the real company did make an effort so sort out the problem and it seemed to be a genuine mistake.

"thanks for not showing up after I waited in all morning @bugzappa2000"

The results of these tweets can be variable. It makes me feel better, but companies who provide rubbish service offline tend to ignore their Twitter feeds too in my experience and on occasions I have even received a load of abuse back.

However, in this case I got a prompt response from someone at head office who pounced on the local franchisee and got them to call me with an explanation of the mix-up and an offer of a free extermination of the offending wasp nest.*

Score one for Twitter customer activism, but if you happen to be a franchisor what a great way of keeping tabs on customer service issues around your franchise network.

There is a a lot of moaning about customer service on Twitter (not just from me!) and by monitoring a few search terms you can tap into it directly without having to rely on franchisees to report issues.

What interests me is that franchise documentation doesn't seem to have picked this up.

Since this episode I have advised a couple of clients who were taking on franchises and the franchise documentation was totally silent about social media.

There are reasons for this of course. Franchisors need consistency across their network and they can't rework their standard documents every time a new social networking service launches. However, they are missing some important issues here:-

• Should franchisees be able to operate social media accounts for their business at all? Do you want @bugzappaWirral, @bugzappaCambridge and all the others or just one national BugZappa social media presence?

• If the franchisee can use social media what user names and avatars should be used?

• Do you need a social media policy for franchisees setting out how they should Tweet?

• Is there an obligation to delete the social media account(s) on termination?

These are just some provisions which spring to mind and I'm sure there are lots of others.

Too often the focus is on using social media for sales, but there are many areas like this where it could provide value to a business in a less obvious way.

Surely there must be some ways in which law firms could use social media other than in the obvious push for new client instructions? If you have come across any good examples please sound off in the comments!

* the wasp infestation trailed off in the end so no extermination was needed... Just in case anyone was worried about the poor insects!

What not to Tweet

I just finished reading Jay Shephard's piece on his Gruntled Employees blog about Cosmic Law in social media.

You should read it too, but the long and short of it is that you can put most social media related risks to bed by bearing in mind the simple "cosmic law":

that the wrong people
will see what [you] write...

This brought to the surface something I have been thinking about since I joined Twitter. When (if ever) is it right to tweet about a client or work you are doing for them?

There are some black and white issues here of course (from the perspective of a solicitor qualified in England & Wales, but I guess similar rules apply to most lawyers), but also a whole load of grey areas.

Stuff you mustn't tweet

You must keep the affairs of your clients (and former clients) confidential unless they agree otherwise. So tweeting anything which could possibly identify a client or their matter is out unless they agree to it.

Hopefully this will be absolutely self-evident to any lawyer worth the name.

There are also some restrictions under Rule 1 of the Solicitor's Code of Conduct 2007 which could apply.

For example, tweeting anything which might prejudice the administration of Justice (re-tweeting links to material which is subject to an injunction?) or anything which might bring the profession into disrepute.

Stuff you shouldn't tweet

Once you get past the absolute restrictions things get more difficult.

If I had a tricky contract negotiation meeting this morning (I didn't by the way!) then I could easily tweet about it without risking identifying the client or revealing confidential information:-

"Nightmare meeting this morning
other side are being really difficult"

or something equally exciting and witty. After all, there is no way that anyone reading that is going to identify who I am talking about.

However, this is where Jay's Cosmic Law comes into play. And this is why my own personal rules extend beyond the legal and professional restrictions.

The "worst person" in this context (and purely this context!) is the client in question. So my rule is never to tweet or blog anything which the client in question hasn't agreed to if they would realise it was about them if they read it.

In my view it doesn't matter if nobody else would know who it was about... how impressed is my client going to be to see that tweet?

You can get away with more if you blog / tweet anonymously and alter the names, locations and details to protect the innocent, but if you use your real name then this won't really help.

This rule is pretty restrictive.

The thing is though that your credibility as a professional has to win out over your "social media marketing strategy". Otherwise, what do you have left to sell?

Any lawyers have a view on this? Am I being too conservative and missing all kinds of social media marketing "ninja" opportunities? Or is this just an inevitable consequence of being a member of a profession?