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Best Kiwi Tweets of June 2014

Compiled by @takapunani

Thanks to Cate Owen for allowing me to collate this month’s tweets. WELCOME TO JUNE EVERYBODY! It was a fun month for us. We learnt more about ‘the beautiful game’ thanks to the 2014 FIFA World Cup . I personally learnt that if you call it soccer on twitter you get yelled at. Colin Craig kept on Colin Craiging. And love continued to evade many of us. Thankfully Tinder filled that gap * check with Cate if I can make a joke about Tinder filling my gap*

Working hard or hardly working…
@Nightwyrm Managed to press pause and not reply to an email with “ARE YOU ON FUCKING CRACK?” #winning
@rafaelmagu “No, I swear the beer was all over my desk before I got here.“

Dogs have owners, cats have staff, chickens have..?
@ColeyTangerina Our chicken comes inside as we have cooked chicken on the bench and I’m all OMG HIDE THE FOOD. What is wrong with me!?
@DawgBelly “What’s that?” “Oh nothing Dad” *pockets underwear stuck in doggy door*
@nina_mcsweeney My little kitty bites too much, has anxiety issues, and needs to be medicated. So pretty much exactly like me.
@sarabeee A thing Tilly offered to help with today: dispose of toenail clippings #evenlittlewhitedoggiesaregross

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself….
@guywilliamsguy What do you mean you’re going to try and bring back the Moa? WHY DON’T YOU FOCUS ON KEEPING THE BLOODY MAUI DOLPHIN ALIVE!
@AndreAlessi The Tea Party is bullshit. They don’t even know the difference between English Breakfast and Earl Grey.
@MegaPope Another day of not being blocked by Judith Collins. Martyn Bradbury’s block is really low value, I’m just not feeling it.
@shacklemore If Maui dolphins want democratic representation, they can damn well donate to National like everybody else important does.

All’s fair in love and war
@hungryandfrozen lol just added a thing about my cookie business on my tinder profile for I am a savvy business woman.
@Becs Sometimes I read a book or a poem or listen to a song & I think they wrote my heart.
@ghettoanger Left swipe. Right swipe. Right swipe. Left swipe. Right swipe. Right- wait a minute, what the hell is my WIFE doing on here? #shortandtweet
@jog__on “Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher had a romantic dinner date this weekend” and I ate 3 cookie times. A great weekend was had by all.

NZers. Winning at life since ages ago.
@Dovil Got in empty lift that someone was using to store all the world’s farts in. Got out to crowd of waiting people. May have to leave town.
@RachelRayner Huh so this is what @kfcnz tastes like when I’m not hungover. #WhoKnew
@MarquisedeSark Riding my bike home today, a young boy of around 10 while passing me, stood on his pedals and thrust his crotch at me several times. WTAF
@Lozalock Indian and Gilmore Girls. Yeaaaaaaaboi
@TomTremewan Ugh I went to New World but left my Fucking Clue at home. You should never go to the supermarket at night without a Fucking Clue.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.
@AnnaGConnell Would going back to bed with salmon dip and a baguette be gross? The intention is to eat the dip and the baguette.
@Vegrandis Got 2 T-Bone steaks for me and my lover tonight , so that’s 1 steak for me, and….. 1 more steak for me
@SarahMcMullanNZ I just saw a woman eat half of a #MrsHiggins cookie, then put the rest away FOR LATER. So she’s obviously an evil witch right?
@ohsarahrose There is Moccona coffee in my cup. I have done nothing to deserve this. Nothing.
@antsgardiner McDonalds has released a Brazilian burger. It is mostly free of pubes. Unlike their other burgers.

Sportsing
@TheTamari I didn’t know that guy off the “get a perm” instant kiwi ad was an all black.
@MicheleAnn_ ‘Do the goal thing! The thing where you get one!’ – Encouragement I am giving Argentina.
@spat106 The All Blacks don’t do anything shameful as biting as the only things they’re allowed to bite into are official food products of the ABs’

 

z-energy Winner – I choose @TomTremewan because maybe he can use the vouchers in case he leaves his fucking clue at home again.

:: Thanks Ms Punani – there’s some Z-based goodies for both you and Tom – send me your address 🙂 – Cate

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Five tips for a great digital campaign

Digital campaigns are interesting because they’re so instantly measurable – and yet so unmeasurable. Moreso when you enter the social space. You can drown in data, but how much of it is actually meaningful? Sure you can get 10,000 people ‘talking about’ you on Facebook – but what does that mean, and does it even matter?

The following are five topline tips to keep in mind when planning a digital campaign.

1. Know your end goal and work backwards
Look at where you want the campaign to go, then add milestones from the end back to the start. You want users to be positively contributing to your website? It’s not as simple as displaying a call to action and then sitting back and waiting for the compliments to roll in.

2. Research your target audience
Learn about your audience. Which digital platforms do they prefer and why? What are they using those platforms for?

If your Facey page is getting a lot of viral action, but it’s happening amongst 50-year-olds in Texas, and you’re a children’s dentist in New Zealand, it’s not really doing the trick. You will focus on the wrong things if you’re looking at the wrong metric.

3. Keep it flexible
You can plan, plan, plan as much as you like, but digital media is about context. Social media even more. If everyone is talking about a tragic event, and you bulldoze your brand in there, you’re going to cause some damage.

This is also a key when researching campaigns from outside your culture. You can’t roll out a plan from overseas and expect the same results in the local market.

Always have a plan B. And C. And D. If something doesn’t work with your audience, don’t force it. Change tact.

4. Think about the environment
With digital marketing, you can buy great reach for very small cost. The temptation is to stick your ad in every available cheap space, but you need to think about it in terms of partnerships. Just as a TVC can add weight and legitimacy to your campaign, so can digital ads in various spaces.

Also if you’re putting video advertising into a space people are likely to be accessing via mobile or while at work – tread with caution. No one wants to use their expensive 4G data on your ad, trust me. And if they’re sneaking around when they should be at work, having your ad blaring at them is probably not what they were hoping for either. But later on, at home and on wifi, you can go for your life.

5. Help your fans become advocates
Advertising is like a baby. You think yours is the best, the cutest, the smartest. It’s probably not. You need to give your fans a better reason than that to share it, or to get involved. And you need to keep it simple!

An easy way to help pave the path is to demonstrate the behaviour or action you want fans to take by showing someone else doing it – better still if that someone can be a community leader, celebrity, or aspirational person from the demographic.

All of this, though, comes down to one basic principle: Know your audience. Take your marketing eyeballs out and really think like a person in the demographic you’re trying to reach. Don’t bullshit about the state of the market, your ad, or get caught up in the Next Big Shiny thing. Audience first and center.

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Meet Todrick Hall: Your next top YouTube star

If you like Disney, and you like pop music, it’s time to get amongst Todrick Hall – if you haven’t already!

The first Todrick Hall video I ever watched was Beauty and the Beat. No, not the Nicki and Justin song. This is much, much better.

Then there’s CinderFella, featuring Janice Dickinson and Lance Bass. Hello!

Inspired by Beyonce’s Pepsi commercial…

His Once Upon A Crime series is funny, but this one is the best: (NSFW)

So subscribe and enjoy!

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#MeanNats are the only political tweets you need to read this year

The hashtag de jour, ladies and gentlemen, is #MeanNats, and it comes courtesy of one @_surelymermaid.

It began simply enough

Gold.

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Best Kiwi Tweets of May 2014

Compiled by Kat Jenkins

[Keep reading after Kat’s made her pick for tweet of the month because there’s a special something going on that I don’t want you to miss out on! – Cate]

Domestic gods and goddesses
@TophHooperton I fixed the dishwasher. I pulled it out of the thing and I followed the cable and I wiggled it and it works. #HellaManly
@josiecampbell Being a woman with multi-tasking abilities is awesome. I just simultaneously burned toast and let the fire go out.
@beekaynz 4pm me is super grateful to 9am me for having put dinner in the crockpot. I’m going to make 7pm me an apple crumble as a reward.

Born this way
@aberopitini I finally found the courage to ask about LGBT acceptance in China and my new friends smiled and started singing “Born This Way” and I cried.
@not_friends “Do you want me to turn on the tv?” “No I just want to stare at you. I have strong love feelings for you.” #druggedFrith

The problem with 2014
@Megapope How the hell do you put the Facebook Android feed to most recent and why can’t I explode Mark Zuckerberg with my mind?
@giselledraws The year is 2014, I’m trying to buy envelopes on the internet but can’t because I don’t have a fax machine.
@lmfbs Earlier today I mocked a colleague about having a paper dictionary. Internet went down at work so I shamefully had to ask to borrow it.
@Robbo_Junior Autocorrect and I like to play a little game called Duck Duck Fuck.
@behathrills There’s a kid in Haeata’s class called Kale. Central Auckland, we need to talk.

You can’t choose your family
@annagconnell Dad just called me a wussy liberal pinko for suggesting that someone might let him in if he put his indicator on. Gonna be a long day.
@rosieiscool Miss 9 out of bed. “I’m getting a dictionary to see what porn is” Me: >___< Sit down, I’ll explain, it’s tricky. Miss 9: OK, what’s p.a.w.n
@Tweet_Ti My husband has run out of songs to entertain our demanding child during her bath. He’s currently singing Wilson Philips “Hold On”. Badly.

Procrastination
@nintendoug Now my desk is clean, I’m going to have to deal to this beard. Can’t write an assignment with a shabby beard.

Gluten is still a thing
@tobiasbrockie assuming “gluten tag” is a great joke among the bakeries of germany
@mcquillanatorz My gluten-free banana loaf is many things, but “delicious” or “cooked through” or “tastes like banana” are not among those ??

Stay classy
@Vegrandis I’m really glad pointy cone boobs aren’t in fashion this decade, my boobs only know one shape and that’s a parallelogram.
@Adr1anaDeMarco You ever do that thing after you have a shower, when you just casually laze around in a towel and surf the web. oh yeah ‘surf’ that web
@pinkdeedle I sat on my hand for ages and then picked my nose a bit and it was the weirdest feeling. Like someone else was picking it. The end.

Do I get to choose who wins the Z Energy voucher? If I do, I choose @TophHooperton because he might need some supplies to keep on being MacGuyverlicious.

– @katjnz

BNZ-Literary-AwardWell, about that… This month’s TOTM are brought to you by BNZ, more specifically the BNZ Literary Awards. The BNZ social media team love writing, they love Twitter, and want to encourage all you clever wordsmiths to think about entering the Literary Awards, which celebrate short story writing. To say thanks to our usual sponsors Z Energy, Kat and the Twitter community for letting them hijack this month’s TOTM, they’re doubling the prizes across the board!

BNZ also have a fun Twitter-related announcement coming next Monday morning so keep an eye out on their Twitter account @BNZ to find out all about it. I already know what it is, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and make choosing June’s TOTM that much harder!

Bring on Monday! x

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Why you shouldn’t trust social media case studies

Other people’s case studies are a staple of the social media guru. Regurgitating someone else’s work in lieu of your own is a key way non-experts endear themselves to the unknowing.

That’s some pretty harsh stuff I’ve written, but here’s why I think you shouldn’t listen to social media case studies without engaging your critical brain.

Beware of those who present others’ case studies

A person who didn’t work on the project has a very skewed version of events. It’s like Chinese whispers. So where did they get the case study intel?

Lets be frank: When a company presents a case study, they’re showing off. They’re probably not going to go over the stuff that didn’t work as well, and they’re not going to go over strategically important points – why share these with competitors?

Someone presenting another company’s study is a step removed again. I think we should be critical of case studies and treat them as interesting but not gospel – however in most of the lectures I’ve been to, speakers have presented the studies as fact.

The other way SMEGs get their hands on studies is to make up their own. I once read a blog about a high-profile social campaign I worked on written by someone who had nothing to do with it. They had a list of suggestions to make it better, but had no idea of the resource, targets, or research we had done to make the choices we had. The conclusions the writer had drawn were wrong, based on incorrect assumptions.

I’m not suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water – just that we put less stock in third-party studies and more into robust conversations with the people involved in the first place.

It’s trendy to go to social media-related events – even at the cost of thousands of dollars – to listen to speakers who have little to no actual experience themselves, and certainly not on the brands whose “learnings” they are presenting.

As an aside, there’s quite a few digital outlets calling themselves the top/best/leading social or digital agency in the country, and that gets regurgitated into conference pamphlets and bios across the web. Unqualified claims like that are a time a dozen.

Hell, I’ve even got it in my bio.

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Best Kiwi Tweets of April 2014

Okay so TOTM is a bit late this month AND it doesn’t have a guest author. Long story short, I was going to try something special this month and I couldn’t pull it off. So, you get me. Wait, hang on. Let’s do this properly.

Compiled by Cate Owen

Hehehe, byline.

Okay, into it!

Better living, everybody!
@jordyn_amelia Tip of the day – if you don’t want strange people outside your house, don’t have a feijoa tree.
@_snozzberry_ Why wardrobe? Why not peacedrobe?
@geekboy73 Just requested a meeting with my boss. Set it up accidentally for 153 days duration. He turned it down. #disappointed #wheresthecommitment

Easter Happens
@twit_ash I think at least hardware stores should be able to open today. Hammers, nails, and wood are Easter necessities.
@wandaharland It’s our time to shine folks, the Easter eggs are on sale. I repeat: the Easter eggs are on sale.

A Prince visited
@L_To 20 “news stories” on what Baby George may possibly be doing today. Shitting, eating, sleeping. There I called it so bog off stupid news.
@liamdann A lot of people mistaking NZs Royals obsession for a backward colonial thing when in fact it reflects a very modern US style celeb fixation.
@NateNauer Please people focus on what’s important, like WRESTLEMANIA!
– more Royal tweets in a TOTM Special Edition (opens in new window)

Tech Tweets
@MoataTamaira Just unplugged and replugged our wifi router with my feet while holding the baby. #modernmotherhood
@Jacs76 Argh. Stuck in the bunnings playground with only one red bar on the iPhone.
@giselledraws I have a folder on my computer just for photos of birds looking beak-first at the camera. This is my happy place.
@BeccaBarnesCats My flatmate Snapchatted me a picture of my other flatmate Snapcatting me a picture of my cat.
@TophHooperton I think Buzzfeed’s investigative journalism might be taken more seriously if the rest of their site wasn’t just GIFs of Beyonce’s ass.

Stay Classy, New Zealand
@Tenani Neighbour just caught me dancing along the couch while I vacuumed. We made awkward eye contact. She laughed. I’m moving out.
@DrJared Man flu is worse than cancer. I feel I have the authority to speak to such issues.
@gemmagracewood Listened to some Americans last night talking Conscious Uncoupling. Told them NZ relationships usually start with Unconscious Coupling.
@Vegrandis One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life was a ‘Lifetime Supply of KFC’ swipe card.

 

z-energy

 

Thanks to our friends at Z Energy, and lack of guest ed, I have TWO lots of $40 vouchers for my favourite tweets!

Congrats to geekboy73 – I hope this goes some of the way to covering up the pain of your boss rejecting you, and one for L_To, because you really did call it.

Send me your mailing addresses! x

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Best Kiwi Tweets of March 2014

Compiled by @ColeyTangerina

March happened. It was kind of sticky and warm and not very autumnal. But hey I’m a ginger so I’m at home in cold weather where I can’t burst into flames as easily.

Your tweets were weird and delightful as always, so let’s get into it.

March Missives
@AceMcWicked: I imagine Leviticus was the bloke who sent the ancient equivalent of emails around the office complaining the kitchen was ‘a total mess’
@moscaddie: what kind of unforgivable monster would send a linkedin invitation to the critique my dick pic account
@BitchAboutDevo: Mum is scrolling down her Facebook timeline and every single person who isn’t Fijian appears to be at the John Farnham concert right now

Sexts
@bumwees: I’m your manic pixie 182cm bearded watching Tv in my pants eating chocolate guy
@utherlives:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Death is certain
@LizlovesSydney: I just don’t think NZ yet has the racial maturity or unity to break free and become a public. Australia almost does.
@fastercamels: How did men express they were able to think or feel before the ability to link to Louis CK videos?

Life tips
@guywilliamsguy: Tired or fatigued at work tell them you have diarrhea and sleep in the toilet. #lifehack
@Vegrandis: When you’re at your white friend’s house for dinner and you need to add 2kgs of salt and pepper to everything on your plate.

Smooth
@CherylBernstein: “Welcome to my fartwater, Captain Shitwhiskers.” The small guy to his 6yo sister, on getting into the bath.
@fuck_lupus: Cat comes inside licking his chops and smelling of perfume. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU LITTLE SHIT?
@Robbo_Junior: I can tell it’s a hen’s party because one woman is wearing a veil with penises all over it.
@Simonpnz: “It’s really considerate of you to but a house with a wardrobe big enough for me to stand in while you sleep.” – @simonjtapp keeps it cool.

PHIL101
@NicSampson: Did Robbie Williams not want a Rock DJ or did he not want to be forced to rock TO a DJ?
@anagrammaton: foucault you elusive motherfucker
@Rose_Matafeo: is it weird that I feel like Sylvester Stallone might be a lovely guy
@verslibre: I don’t know if it’s fair to put eggs and mayonnaise together. It’s like making cows eat other cows. It’s not, but it kind of still is a bit

THE WINNER: AceMcWicked. Have some shit. You’re pretty funny.

Also sorry (not sorry) for the Liz Shaw.

– Coley

 

z-energyThanks to our friends at Z Energy, we have $40 worth of vouchers for both Ace McWicked for his winning tweet, and Coley for compiling them! That’s a lot of pie. Message me your mailing address and I’ll get them out to you ASAP – Cate

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Best Kiwi tweets: The Royal Edition

The Royal Family have alighted from their jet and are in New Zealand and Twittererers have responded with all the grave dignity you might imagine they would. Here are some of my favourites.

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3 ways Facebook is failing us

I oversee a lot of Facebook pages. I’ve also been using the platform personally for around seven years, and have been suspended, suspended myself, grown pages organically, watched viral content go mad, built apps, placed a fair few ads, and met with Facebook employees to try and understand the platform as best I can. I want Facebook to have long-term success so our company’s efforts to build the environment are not a big fat waste of everyone’s time.

But as someone who relies on it as both a user and a customer, I’m hugely frustrated.

Don’t advertise my brand’s competitors on my page
I can’t believe this is has to be a point.

Facebook has announced it’s rolling out new-look brand pages so naturally I was keen to try them. I converted one of my pages, only to find THREE of our competitors page’s sitting in a new box of “similar pages” on the left hand side. I don’t want to advertise my competitors! What are you thinking?! Nope, nope, nope. [update: I have recently tried the new page layout again and the similar pages box has gone!]

You can also place ads targeting your competitor’s fans, or have your fans targeted. All that time and/or money you spent building up your likes has essentially created a custom audience for your competitors to use. Ouch.

Give us a truly chronological newsfeed
There have been rumblings for a long time over the painful algorithm that controls news feeds; with many brands gaming their status updates for likes and engagement. Sure, you can change the feed to “most recent”, but even then it’s mixed up and not showing everything.

This is one area Twitter has Facebook in a headlock. I follow a brand because I want to see it, even if I don’t want to engage with it. Social media is, in part, about quickly scanning a feed to gather information, and so you want all the information, not just the stuff you will click like on. Eli Pariser’s Filter Bubble theory does this much more justice than I ever could, but in a nutshell, Facebook relies on us interacting with a status to prove we’re interested in it, and that’s a dangerous fallacy.

The other problem is that if you’re managing a page that has had an engagement problem in the past and you’re trying to rescue it, without dropping a lot of money on the page, you’re stuck. When you have a page with 50,000 fans, and only 1,000 of them see a status update, it seriously makes you wonder if it’s worth just deleting the page and starting again. That, or you start putting off-brand memes everywhere and spam the shit out of everyone to fake the engagement until your reach is decent again. Rock, meet hard place.

We need reliable, consistent insights
How can I build a reporting system around metrics that might change out from underneath me? I think Facebook’s page insights are amazing. They’re super valuable and helpful, but it feels like all that could be gone in a heartbeat. Insights changed about 18 months ago, and everything prior to that was wiped. Please stop tinkering, or at least don’t grandfather the insights you were offering.

Not to mention that Page Insights seem to have been “unavailable” or plain unreliable a fair bit, especially lately.

Anyway, all this complaining is going to get me nowhere because, as the joke goes, we could always use Google+ Echo Chamber and see how far that gets us.

ghost-town

Like I said, I want Facebook to be a success. It’s New Zealand’s largest social network with 2.6 million active NZ accounts, and it doesn’t seem to be dying at any great rate of knots. But is it good for community managers any more?