Twitter sending traffic to online media but not retail.

A couple of stand out paragraphs:

“One consequence of its phenomenal growth is that Twitter has become a key source of traffic to other websites. During May 2009 Twitter was the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK, accounting for 1 in every 350 visits to a typical website. Over half of this traffic (55.9%) is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment websites. However, only 9.5% of Twitter’s downstream traffic is sent to transactional websites (i.e. travel, business and finance sites, plus online retailers). By contrast, Google UK (the country’s biggest search engine and source of traffic to other websites) sends 30.7% of its traffic to transactional sites, while for Facebook (the UK’s most popular social network), the figure is 14.7%.”

“The key to having a successful Twitter presence is to engage the community. Twitter is a great viral marketing channel, and for many users the aim is to have their story ‘retweeted’ – i.e. passed on by other users – as many times as possible. Although all of the newspapers have multiple ‘official’ feeds, these tend to be bland and have very low ‘retweet’ rates. Where journalists themselves are ‘tweeting’ themselves and engaging with the Twitter community, they typically have more success in creating viral stories.”

It’s like any channel, make the experience engaging and genuinely worthwhile and you will see the rewards… And if you aren’t really sure why you’re using a channel like Twitter, then don’t expect your audience to work it out for you…

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My interest is not in these latest recruits, all with their own eccentric ways (Pants Man – need I say more). My intrigue lies with Mr Sugar and one half of his dynamic duo on the show, semi-retired PR practitioner, Nick Hewer.

Drafted in by the big man himself at the very outset to assist with a “small” television project, we are now five series down the line and have seen, over time, more of his characteristics and personality bubble out.

Quirky facial expressions are his trademark, but I think it took a lot more than these simple twitches for Sir Alan to trust him with the public relations side of his multi-million pound organisation, Amstrad. Nick understood the needs of Sir Alan very early on and knew how best to handle his technological empire over the years, cementing both their professional relationship and friendship and ensuring the trust was of high priority.

This should always be the backbone characteristic of any PR practitioner – to have the ability to successfully communicate with his or her client in a way that seems unforced and fluid. Without telling every PR practitioner in the business how to suck eggs, it’s something that in this digital age of doing PR needs to remain as top priority.

Looking how we can maintain this in the 21st century Tweeting and Facebook communicating ways, we need to constantly ensure the client is happy and getting the most out of their PR. So, even if it’s just a simple phone call to see how everything is going, it could swing the relationship in the right way.

However, if there’s one thing we may have underestimated about Nick, it’s his apparent effect on the opposite sex. As noted by glamorous Apprentice finalist, Debra Barr appeal to the ladies – although I’m sure that wasn’t one of the main reasons why Sir Alan appointed him as a ‘close aide’.

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So, whilst I’m feeling like a foreigner in this cyber world trying to learn a new Twitter language including tweets, hashtags and tweetups (I have definitely moved on from the days of learning GCSE French), I have been looking at its obvious benefits and hidden gems as to what is now being perceived by the industry as a key online PR tool.

Ultimately, it provides any PR agency with the ability to monitor, participate in and initiate conversations for your clients. Okay, so you’re limited to writing up to 140 characters in the text box at a time to shout out about the latest updates, but surely that’s what good PR is all about – grabbing your audience’s attention in the opening sentence.

So, as you’re spreading the word about existing clients and their fabulous new products and services, it’s a great opportunity perhaps to chase up on some new business whilst you’re logged in.

A great new buzzword that will be gradually swarming the PR Twitter scene is a twitch (a Twitter PR pitch) recently made famous by Confused.com’s PR Manager Kelly Davies. The whole notion of pitching online to a client gives a clear indication of Twitter’s vast potential. Riding on the back of an ever increasing desire and commitment to making communication more and more immediate, it’s no exaggeration to say Twitter could play a major role in, and perhaps revolutionise, the way in which public relations agencies operate going forward.

I’ve only scratched the surface of online PR and Twitter as one of the many platforms that can be utilised for this cause – surely there isn’t much else out there, is there?

HRO’C Public Relations are on Twitter and can be found at: http://www.hroc.co.uk/pages/pr/

Image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten.

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Earlier this year we launched our new website. With updated web standards alongside some of the latest web functionality and technologies that we have been building into our clients’ sites for some time, this new site offers a significantly improved experience. In fact, it has been a breath of fresh air not only for HRO’C as an agency, but for our clients too.

And now we’re taking things a step further with the launch of our new blog. We’ve taken our time with this because we wanted to make sure we got it absolutely right.

Moreover, although it’s a first for HRO’C as a company, a number of us have been blogging for some time, so we are not without experience. David North, Head of Technology, and I (Kevin Rapley, Interface Developer) have been active on the Birmingham social media scene since its conception, attending blogging meetings and engaging through commentary on blogs and conversations on Twitter, Flickr and various other platforms.

Social media, for a good while now, has been a proven advancement not only in keeping current on a topic and documenting experiences and news in a particular field, but also as a way of engaging with web visitors and customers. We have been showing our clients just how this power can be harnessed. Most notably, with best selling weedkiller brand, Roundup.

So, this is the HRO’C Blog. Practicing what we preach. We will be blogging here about our own experiences, what’s new at HRO’C, some in depth knowledge of how we bring value to our clients and some wider discussions on the marketing industry as a whole. We will be reactive, subjective and honest. We hope that you will keep the conversation going with us.

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