Social Media - Why Use Twitter?

Last week we looked at some tips on how to use Twitter, but not why. There are four main reasons, which we shall explore in turn:

1. Broadcasting
2. Following
3. 1-2-1 messaging
4. Searching and discussing

1) BROADCASTING

Whenever you send a message on Twitter, called a "tweet", this is a public broadcast (unless you send a private Direct Message, discussed below):

• People who follow you can see it
• If they "retweet" it to their followers, they can see it
• People who look at your profile can see it
• Anyone searching for a word or phrase in your tweet can see it

I say "can see it" as it is best to assume that a tweet will only be read by people who are logged into Twitter and reading their tweets within one hour of a tweet being posted. Regular tweeting, without being excessive or too repetitive, is therefore a good idea if you are trying to get a message across.  

Tweets are simple, short text messages no longer than 140 characters (140C). But you can include a link to a web page, a blog, a photo or video, or indeed anything else that can be linked. This makes it a powerful form of communication.

This is of obvious interest to any business or celebrity wishing to promote a product, book, show or blog. It is also a cheap, simple way of organisations such as IT companies or emergency services to alert the public to important information.

Individuals may also wish to broadcast their thoughts, photos etc to the world. Clubs, societies and families may wish to provide information to members, in which case you can restrict followers to people you approve.

You can set up multiple accounts for different purposes if you wish.

2) FOLLOWING

Many people have little to tweet, but may do so occasionally. For them the main point of Twitter is to follow interesting people, be they celebrities, organisations or other individuals.

Anyone can follow anyone else, though each account holder can "block" people they don't want, or can set their account to approve follower requests.

By following someone, this typically brings your existence to that person's attention, so can be a useful business marketing tactic.

3) 1-2-1 MESSAGING

Anyone can send a message to anyone else, unless they have been blocked, by putting their @username in the tweet. This can be someone you know, or a total stranger. You can send the message to more than one person, subject to the 140C overall limit.

Provided you talk in a similar way as you would to someone you'd just met in a pub, and don't overdo the number of tweets, most people will respond. Even well-known celebrities will respond on occasions, which can be interesting.

If someone follows you, you can send them a "Direct Message", which is private between you. Follow each other and you can hold a private conversation. Just start each tweet "DM @username" followed by your message. However the recipient can retweet your DM publicly, so privacy is not guaranteed.

Note also that non-DM messages sent to someone will appear in your profile. Also, if someone is following both you and the recipient, they will see the conversation in their main “timeline” listing of tweets. 

People use different software to access Twitter, and each has a different way of accessing their DMs and other tweets mentioning their username. Some software makes these tweets very obvious, others less so. Also not everyone accesses their account regularly, just like email, so don't expect an immediate response.

4) SEARCHING AND DISCUSSING

You can search for any word or phrase in tweets, if there is a topic you are interested in. You can also search for @usernames, which will display all tweets except DMs sent by that person and to that person. You can therefore see the tweets being sent into a radio/TV show or celebrity.

To aid searches, people put "hashtags" starting with the # symbol in their tweets. This could be their comments using #bcs10 for a conference called Business Cloud Summit 2010, or #scd for a TV show such as Strictly Come Dancing. The shorter the hashtag the better. Hashtags can be placed anywhere in the tweet, though often tagged onto the end of a message.

By following hashtags using a search, you can see what’s being said and contribute as much or as little as you wish to the debate - be it frivolous or serious.

IN CONCLUSION

So Twitter gives you the opportunity to broadcast, follow, communicate privately and join in discussions. As it is currently a free service, it can be a powerful communication mechanism.

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Escaping Excel Hell – Tips for Forecasting and Budgeting

When preparing a budget or forecast, especially if extra funds are being sought, the last thing you want is a major error. If it is found by the potential funder it’s one problem. Not spotting it at all is another. Unfortunately it is very easy to make a mistake using Excel, such as missing costs and getting links between sheets incorrect.

Excel is a great tool for one person preparing a budget for a simple business. As things get more complex, other tools are more appropriate to handle aggregation and use by multiple people. Some of these tools use Excel as the user interface, or a grid that looks somewhat like Excel.

Whatever tool is used, it’s important to remember:

• Cash flow is typically what matters, and this is not the same as the P&L account. There can be significant timing differences. Often costs have to be paid in advance, including capital expenditure, and customers may pay some significant time after a sale.
• Funders, especially banks, like to see projected balance sheets, against which the level of lending is assessed.
• As mentioned above, with Excel it is extremely easy to make a mistake in formulae or links.

To address all these points, it is vital that the forecasting model consists of three main elements:

• Profit and Loss account
• Cash Flow
• Balance Sheet

If these all balance, there can be some comfort in the formulae, although it is still necessary to check the model carefully.

If you would like help in building a successful forecasting model, do ring me on 01628 632914 or send me an email.

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Performance Management – Garbage In, Garbage Out

Management information needs to be timely, relevant, clear and reliable.

Relevant and clear comes from the design of what information is presented in what way. Timely comes from ensuring that the information process is efficient and cost-effective.

But none of this is worth anything unless the information is reliable. Garbage in produces garbage out. Reliable information requires events to be recorded and transactions to be processed as accurately as practical.

In many cases information is reliant on analysis by department, region, product type or some other grouping.

eProcurement systems can make purchasing more efficient. They can also help to ensure costs are recorded against the correct department.

On the sales side, analysis is done typically in one of two ways:

• Analysis codes against customers, products etc are pulled into each transaction, where they can perhaps be manually adjusted, or are otherwise linked when a report is run
• Analysis codes are input to the system when each transaction is processed

In either case it is important that analysis data is entered accurately if reports that are reliant on it are to be in any way accurate. Fields left blank are an obvious problem, and it helps if values are validated, perhaps from a drop-down list. But this also means choosing an appropriate value from this list.

This may not always be possible – for example, the transaction is urgent and the information may not be to hand. If this is a common issue, it may be sensible to include “Unknown” as a value to choose rather than guessing. Such transactions can then be reviewed and a more appropriate value chosen.

In any case it is worth reviewing and correcting analysis codes before information is passed to people who will make decisions based on that information.

Setting up a reliable management information system therefore needs careful thought and design.

If you’d like to discuss this further, do ring me on 01628 632914 or send me an email.

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Cloud Computing - Issues to Watch

Last week we looked at the key benefits of cloud computing and how to select a SaaS (Software as a Service) system.

In this article we will look at some of the issues to watch out for when selecting a cloud system. These need to be covered by the end-user, though in many cases with help from and dependency upon the provider. Some issues are highlighted in the “Code of Practice” recently published by the Cloud Industry Forum, to which section references relate:

A.1.4: Provider going out of business: What arrangements are in place if the hosting company goes out of business or has a major technical malfunction? What if one of the other parties in the supply chain goes under? For how long will these arrangements run? What contingency plans can be put in place that could be used within these timescales?

A.2.1: Commercial Terms: Worth understanding not only the basics now, but what happens on renewal of periodic contracts? What happens at termination? (further details in section A.2.4)

A.2.7: Information Security: Are arrangements for user access, password storage, the use of encryption and other security issues adequate for the specific system and data?

A.2.8: Data Protection and Other Legal Matters: Are data storage locations acceptable for Data Protection and other legal reasons, such as access by foreign government organisations?

A.2.9: Service Continuity: Backup and disaster recovery arrangements are often better with cloud services than are achieved with on-premise systems. But what are those arrangements, and are they good enough?

Functionality: It is usually easy to trial a SaaS system. This is important as it is not usually possible to change the software beyond the configuration options offered. It may be possible to link to independent bolt-on software, but what are the possibilities?

Software Upgrades: Do you get sufficient visibility of upgrades, chance to test them, and chance to amend staff guidance before they go live? When do upgrades take place, and can you choose when?

User Access to Internet: Are there practical contingency arrangements in place should the usual means of accessing the internet malfunction?

System Speed: This is not usually an issue, but are response times adequate for the specific application with the internet access available? At all required locations?

Whilst the benefits of using a cloud system can be significant, they can only be consistently achieved if matched by suitable arrangements in all the areas above.

If you’d like further guidance, do ring me on 01628 632914 or contact me by email.

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News Update - Monday 20/12/10

Here's the pick of the last week's news stories that are likely to impact your business:

Upgrading to MSOffice 2010/Windows7: With many businesses expected to make the transition in the next few months, why is it so difficult? Why do we put up with such problems?

Alternatives to MSOffice: With Sun’s OpenOffice the only real desktop alternative, Sun’s acquisition by Oracle has resulted in the “Oracle Cloud” productivity software alongside GoogleApps, Microsoft’s own Office 365 and a few others in the cloud

Google’s ChromeOS: With devices that run Google’s ChromeOS operating system being launched as a pilot, be aware that the idea is to use cloud-based apps rather than load any apps on the device

Twitter – Follow or Tweet: Some interesting statistics about how usage of Twitter has changed in 2010 compared to 2009. Here are some further tips on using Twitter.

A final thought  - It’s all in the name: Looking at “To Skype”, it reminded me that names that also work as verbs have a distinct advantage in a competitive market. “To Google”, “To Hoover” and slightly differently “To Tweet” capture interest in a way that “To iTunes” and “To Bing” doesn’t. How do your business names fare as verbs?

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