Some new academic research is looking once again at measuring how influential a tweet – and individual tweeters – can be.

The research, published by Illinois-based NorthWestern University, and echoes previous findings that the largest number of followers does not equate to the most influence. So before you go chasing that huge follower count read on. Read More »

It’s very rare that I get excited about a brand I become a customer of. I’m one of those people who really doesn’t engage with marketing. I’m probably not alone. And yet this is my territory, my metier – I work very hard to create engagement strategies for clients that can be demonstrated to work. I am, as it were, my own worst enemy.

So how do you, as a brand, engage me, as a disengaged person with what I’d consider to be better things to do with my social time than talk about your brand? I’ve been thinking about this in the context of two recent occasions where I have actually felt like praising a brand in public. The first occasion: on the way to a meeting I spilled coffee on my shirt. I was in the city, and I spotted a TM Lewin. I went in, bought a shirt, explained my predicament, and the manager arranged for the shirt to be pressed, in the shop, there and then. I went for a walk for five minutes and hey presto, new, unwrinkled shirt. Read More »

The Wall Street Journal reports that Twitter is selling promoted tweets for as much as $100,000 a time having given away some initial test efforts to those who first trialled it.

Interesting to see a figure put on what advertisers are being asked to pay after more than 30 big brand firms, including Coca-Cola, Virgin America and Starbucks signed up to test promoted tweets. Read More »

The AOP has published its latest Content & Trends Census highlighting what its publishing members see as the most important issues facing the industry. The survey highlights mobile and tablet computing as the biggest opportunities and the BBC and the economy as the biggest threats. Read More »

Media blog Beehive is reporting ComScore figures on further falls in web traffic at The Times with readership down by another 120,000 in the last month.

It says unique users fell again in its second month behind a paywall dropping 7.6% in August to 1.459 million from July’s 1.579 million. Read More »

Jason Schwartzman demonstrates The New Yorker iPad app in a spot directed by Roman Coppola.