Too many tweets... do not a news item make

Which is the brave move made by David Cameron. From stating that 'too many tweets make a twat', three years later Cameron has joined Twitter and been given quite the welcome. Of course it was unsolicited but it was a weekend, it was a fun story at the beginning of the Conservative Party Conference and it seemed someone thought it a good idea to submit question via Twitter. The #askdave went berserk, trending in hours. If anyone out there wants to find some witty critiques of Cameron, his cabinet, his government, his policies they are there. He made no attempt to crowdsource but the crowd appeared anyway. 

What is interesting is that there are no news items to be found in the mainstream UK media for #askdave, only the New York Times makes a wry comment. So despite the number of responses (though many are from John Prescott), the fact that it seems infamous in politico circles, it is simply a phenomenon within a bubble that encloses the politically-interested Twitter community. So, how democratizing is Twitter, does it shape the agenda; perhaps only when people say something that interests journalists, that shapes an existing story, but it is not a way to capture the attention of journalists with a story they do not want to report. A surprise in this case!

Head in the Cloud? How can we harness the wisdom of the crowd?

Is there any value to the idea of 'the cloud'? Problem-solving by posting a question 'out there' and seeing if a response comes? It could be the scariest experience to anyone who feels they need to gain advise from 'real' experts, or doubt there is any sense in what is sometimes known as the wisdom of the crowd. But don't we often do this anyway? If you rely on ratings on review sites when buying books, CDs, DVDs, choosing hotels, restaurants, bars (even wedding venues), then you are relying on collective intelligence. Reviews of cars, computers, B2B services, are said to be frequently used when seeking advise; how do we know any review is any more credible than another; furthermore can we really trust the 'expert' (paid reviewer) any more than the unpaid reviewer or is the latter inherently either more trustworthy or less of an expert? More interesting, how can the idea cloud be used. Are there bright ideas out there being untapped? Can they help organisations do things better? Or are we just inviting chaos into every aspect of life? Governments talk of organising groups that they can consult on issues, somewhere in the Big Society is an idea of collective action and wisdom - are there better ideas out there or would this just invite partisan commentary and negativity? Are focus groups ways of harnessing random ideas or only for testing existing ideas - having run them you often find that you cannot just ask what they think of 'X' but they insist on saying 'Y' would work better. Should more be done or less? Really interested in any thoughts on this!

Vodaphone's failed viral campaign #mademesmile

Its a great idea, you want to get a bit of positive word of mouth. You start an online campaign and so do a bit of crowdsourcing. You find an appropriate hashtag (the symbol which placed before a term allows searching and grouping of tweets) and invite Twitter users to say what 'makes them smile'. In theory it creates a buzz about the brand and gets coverage online and offline. More importantly, in theory, it associates the brand with the making people smile. Well this was what could have happened for Vodaphone in a parallel universe when they offered free phones to those who told the world what made them smile.

The major mistake was to not take into account the environment for the brand. If you are a brand ticking along just searching for a bit of positive coverage it can work fine. Tetley, the tea company, invite users to send in pictures of their mugs to 'The Gaffer' at @tetley_teafolk; it seems to be going ok but Tetley don't have enemies. Vodaphone face significant criticism for not paying taxes in the UK. UK Uncut, campaigning against cuts and tax dodging, invited their followers to hijack #makemesmile. Very soon it became a trending topic, the content said it all. See this article for examples.

Just like Labour's #changewesee, Vodaphone managed to attract opponents which shaped the messages at key times. Conservative/LibDem supporters placed a lot of observations of negative changes they saw on Labour's site. The lesson is that letting the online crowd have control over your message is a dangerous one, but the outcomes can be predictable. Basically if your brand is in trouble, possibly avoid giving your critics a space on your own website to say what they think. It can end up with your opponents getting the positive coverage and not you!