Twitter Not Helping Me Much…Maybe???

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter to broadcast my scanlation releases and looking at my blog analytics, Twitter is completely ineffective.  Of the 69 sources of visits to my blog, Twitter accounted for 1 out of the over 2000 visits to my anime and manga blog last week.  Most of the visits to my blog originated from the popular manga websites, Google searches, links from other people’s blogs, or people directly going to my blog.

And here comes the VERY BIG BUT

There is a big unknown, though, with respect to Twitter.  I often don’t directly “follow” people on Twitter because I don’t want to broadcast to the world or the person that I’m following them, so instead I pull an RSS feed of the tweets into Outlook.  Clicking on link from Outlook gets counted as a “direct” visit to my blog.  I don’t know how to get information on pulls from RSS feeds, so I have no idea who pulling RSS from my Twitter or my blog.

Soooo….now a simple comparision:  there’s a BIG jump in visitors from the popular manga sites on days when I release compared to days in between releases.  On the days that I release, 70 – 80% of traffic comes from those sites.  On the days in between most of the traffic comes from Google searches and direct visits (about 50% combined).    I tweet the release at time of the release, so from this I conclude, that Twitter is most likely ineffective and the best way to get the news out about my scanlations is to go where the audience is and that appears to be the popular manga websites and their forums.

I don’t know how Twitter is working for other people who are trying to promote themselves or their products.  But this is my story and I imagine it’s not an uncommon one.  What does this mean for Twitter?  Well, it may not be the best tool for advertisement as hoped, but I think it needs more time and some serious studies to make a conclusion either way.   As always, its good to know where your audience is and to tap into those sources.  Following that logic, if your audience isn’t on Twitter, you certainly aren’t going to bring them there and it’s probably best not to waste your resources on maintaining a Twitter account.  A good way to find out if people are tweeting about you or your product is do a search of Twitter and see what comes up.  I did is for myself and my “product” and not much came up.   As for my future on Twitter: the experiment continues …

Wow, GM, Wow…

Uh … perhaps it’s not a good idea to so boldly put the name of a competitor’s car in your advertising …”Accord” is so big.  Do you have any idea what this car is?  Uh, …, Is a “compromise”  a bad thing? For me a compromise  is a win-win solution for all parties.  Wow … looking at this ad, I take away the Accord is a good value, maybe I should check it out.  It doesn’t help that the car’s styling is vanilla in the current style of the Accord and Camry …Wow …

And the second ad:

Uh … so is GM apologizing for the styling of this vehicle by implying it’s an “AppleCart?”  The redness of the vehicle reinforces this notion.  Yeah, yeah, we’re supposed to think the car “upset the apple cart” — so why not say that?  And call it an “AppleCart” instead of an “apple cart” makes me thing “AppleCart” is a brand name.  Wow … that’s something GM …wow…

Both of these ads suffer from mixed messaging that doesn’t reflect well on the GM brand, and, in the case of the Accord ad, may turn a potential customer to a competitor immediately.  I know the intention was to be ironic, but the mental and visual cues are doing the opposite of what may have been intended.

On top of killing the Saturn brand, it makes me wonder whether everything is okay at GM.

Magazine Publishers Prepare Themselves for Tablet Readers

Here’s an interesting article from Ad Age about how magazine publishers are trying to get a leg up on iTunes before the anticipated release of the Apple tablet.

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Not to disparage Apple (because iTunes is very easy to use and the pricing is right for the content), but I would love to have a device independent version of “iTunes” to purchase content.  I think Amazon is very well suited for that.   The magazine industry, however, wants their own storefront so they can control distribution (pricing) of their content.  Hahaha! Well, I hope publishers don’t get greedy and make their content so expensive that people turn to piracy or don’t get the information at all.

It will be interesting to see what the next generation of tablets are like.  As of now readability is a issue with LCD screen and some of the e-reader devices have resolution and color limitations.  Again, I can’t wait to see how laptops and e-readers will converge, both in terms of screen technology and usability.

I have seen some interesting Flash based e-magazines that could serve as prototypes for future e-readers.  I especially like those e-magazines that allow for zooming in and links to other content.  With schools looking harder at e-text books, I think we may be approaching a tipping point where e-reading begins to become the norm.  I am eager to see what will happen with all of this in the next 5-yrs.  How will this change “brick-and-mortar” bookstores (especially used book resellers)?  Will this be end the “periodical” as we know it? Will be see micro-targeted  advertisements in everything we e-read? And what will happen with books, newspapers, and magazines when reading becomes a shared experience through social networking?    It’s a lot to noodle on and I’ll more to say about it after I digest things for a bit.

Teens are Not Driving Twitter Growth

Thank goodness someone is finally debunking the myth that children and teens drive all technology movements!  Forgive me, but teens are NOT all that tech savvy.  Here’s an interesting article about how adults are driving Twitter adoption while teens stick to texting over mobiles.

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It is interesting that the teens interviewed for this article said that Twitter is for professionals and that Twitter is redundant with texting.  I think the important thing, and this sorta gets glossed over in the article, is the one-to-many nature of Twitter.  Teenagers’ lives revolve around their friends.  I recall, as a teenager, people outside of my immediate clique were non-existent.  So it makes sense to me that teens would want to stick to ways that maximize connections within their clique and texting over a mobile is probably the best way to do that now.

I also think it’s a good thing kids and teens are not adopting Twitter en masse.  About 90% of the folks that try to follow me are either people peddling porn or people peddling some sort of get-rich-quick scheme.  For me, the number of people I have to kick off my Twitter almost makes it not worth doing.  I think most kids are smart enough to stay away from unsavory people, but at the same time, people can disguise themselves as normal and “Twitter Stalk.”  Thinking about children’s safety, I wouldn’t want some unsavory people stalking kids over the Internet.  (I think, though, that starts with teaching kids about the dangers of the Internet and technology, rather than banning or limiting use.)

As for the “professional” aspect, I can sorta see that.  I mainly use Twitter to “advertise” my manga activities and the people I follow are mainly “advertising” too.  I could see teens following a string of “advertisements” they want to know about, but I don’t see them actively Tweeting into the vast ether.

Anyhow, it is an interesting article and one that I will probably mentally chew on for the next few days.

Mommy Bloggers Confront Ethics

Hahaha!!!  It didn’t take long for greed to spoil “Mommy Blogging.”  Here’s a little article from CNN about some of the upcoming self regulation and  government regulation coming for blogging.

Link

Well, I don’t know what to say other than greed is human nature and offering folks free stuff subtly corrupts.  But to me it comes down to the question of whether blogging a life supporting career?  For me, getting paid to generate specific content is the difference between blogging and freelance writing.  I think as soon as a writer is paid (either by cash, items, or services) to generate content, then that person is an employee and, as such, he or she should disclose they are doing a job for an employer.   It’s as simple as that for me.

Haha!!! Aside from that, a brilliant thing has happened here.  The professional news folks,  for years now, have been trying to discredit blogging and here’s the perfect ammo.  Have at it guys!  It’s a really good argument.

So where does this leave the advertisers?  In the same place as always — despised by everyone, but somehow still prowling around for the next convenient dupe.

As for Mommy Bloggers:  choose whether you are blogging or starting a career as a freelance writer or freelance advertiser.  Be clear with your audience as to which you are and all things should be fine.  However, if you choose to be a freelance advertiser, don’t be surprised if you find yourself despised and not believed.  I think this follows for all of us writing on the Internet, including me.