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Friday 30 December 2011

2012 Predictions - A Year to Digitally Disengage and Plant Vegetables?

Well at least the headline was catchy but you get my drift; any digital or social prediction for the year ahead needs to be prefaced by the financial realities that our world will be facing.

Bricks and mortar establishments will continue to struggle in shaky economic times and these trends will impact on employment and consumer purchasing patterns. Money will be tight and a lack of resources will make it difficult for many companies to fully assess and capitalise on digital and social opportunities.

Election year in the USA will see political compromise to garner support from the electorate, which may result in the Stop Online Piracy Act becoming law.  If it does, it will have a dramatic effect on any form of content creation.

Control
Authoritarian governments will have the ability to monitor all electronic communications in the near future as it becomes increasingly cheaper to do so; "every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner" says a report from the The Brookings Institution.

"Plummeting digital storage costs will soon make it possible for authoritarian regimes to not only monitor known dissidents, but to also store the complete set of digital data associated with everyone within their borders. These enormous databases of captured information will create what amounts to a surveillance time machine, enabling state security services to retroactively eavesdrop on people in the months and years before they were designated as surveillance targets. This will fundamentally change the dynamics of dissent, insurgency and revolution. "

eCommerce
2012 will be a year of continuing financial uncertainty which will affect business confidence and reinvestment.  Paradoxically these conditions also present opportunistic for those willing to take a calculated gamble and we will see more mergers and the ongoing growth in eCommerce.

Crowdsourcing
These platforms will show strong growth and provide opportunities for micro-economies to circumvent the challenges of the global macro economy. Examples include Quirky, which takes submitted product ideas, filters through community engagement and produces them, letting the idea creator 'cash in' at the end of the manufacturing and sales process. Kickstarter which is a funding platform focused on a broad spectrum of creative projects is such another example.
Ideas to Revenue using Crowdsourcing

MicroPayments
Sites that promote 'design to product' will increase.  Examples such as Zazzle and  RedBubble allow the creative amongst us to upload a  digital file while they take care of all manufacture, shipping and customer service.

Browsers
Google's Chrome browser will continue its rise and surpass IE as the #1 ranked browser

Gamification
The design and interaction lessons learnt in online gaming will become increasingly mainstream appearing as social apps in your mobile device and browser.

Influence
Converting digital influence into business value will remain a challenge but platforms such as Klout and the new kid on the block, Kred, will be there to provide some guidance.  However, the focus for the year ahead will be less on the measurement and more on how to achieve greater online influence with a variety of techniques and tools.

Social
Taste Graphs (things a consumer is actually interested in) rather than a person's social connections will provide better insight for marketers engaged in social commerce.  This will give rise to the use of 'tastemakers'  -  experts who are recommended to a consumer.

Twitter's growth and revenue will continue rapidly in 2012. This will mean more Twitter 'Promoted' ads appearing with some experts predicating an 80%+ revenue growth as a result. The proviso is that Twitter doesn't fall prey to an acquisition takeover and that Google+ does not perform better than expectations.

Social Burnout -  Facebook growth is slowing and people are already starting to question their own social existence and activity.  It could be a question of too much of a good thing when it comes to social and digital activity in 2012.  Users will be re-evaluating their social lives with issues of privacy being top of mind.

Quantifying the true value a business creates for online clients will remain one of the biggest challenges for companies in 2012.

Media
Trans-media campaigns such as the Jello Pudding / Twitter / billboard will increase in 2012 further expanding the definition of the term "social".

Sharing
Social sharing capitalises on the fact that social networks have 'turned people into bragging machines' (as David Armano has so eloquently expressed it).  The integration of social sharing opportunities on corporate and brand web sites will gather pace in 2012 as more businesses seek personal endorsements of their products and services across personal networks. Adding sharing options to content ensures better status in search results and a greater number of page views.

Television
Social TV will take off in 2012 predicts the Harvard Business Review. Socially integrated shows such as the X-Factor, where people voted using Twitter, point the way to what will be happening more frequently.  The TV's themselves are more likely to be of the 3D variety particularly if you are in Asia, although those in the USA still prefer the cheaper, lower spec'ed models.
70% of video is consumed on Internet connected devices so revenue models for television advertising will change.

Tablets and Ultrabooks
Android vendors are continuing to challenge the dominance of iPads and Apple's premium pricing for its products. 2012 will see an increase in tablet computer sales but more likely a dramatic rise in sale of  Ultrabooks which are powerful laptops with the advantage of being thinner and lighter than their competition.
And while we are on the subject of Android, I predict that the sale ofAndroid mobile devices will surpass Apple's iPhone in the coming year.  Web sites will be optimised for Tablet and Ultrabook use as mobile commerce will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 39% through to 2016 (Forrester Research).

The Rise of Ultrabook - Google Trends
Augmented Reality
This adds a virtual experience to the real experience of our world and we are about to see exponential growth for Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) according to Mashable's Lance Ulanoff. Visiongain predicts that the the advent of MAR will have a profound and lasting impact on the way that people use their mobile devices. It will push the telecoms industry towards ubiquitous computing and a technologically converged paradigm.

Big Data will be Big Business for Small Business
At the moment much data is still contained in silos. Storing data in the Cloud and using systems such as Bime will put the necessary tools at the fingertips of SME's (Small to Medium Enterprises). They will be able to get a clear and consistent query model across all of their data.

Marketing departments will be employing analytics experts who can monitor real-time data from web sites, social media and industry-leading news feeds but simply monitoring will not be sufficient.  They will be expected to provide accurate data on visitation to web & social media sites, what content people are engaging with and how quickly they get to the product, service or messaging that the company is pitching. Human language interpretation of unstructured conversations will help this process.

"Companies will need to centralize Business Intelligence to feed every aspect of the business – marketing, product, innovation and customer service. Only then will BI help companies transform themselves into true social businesses.” Brian Sollis.

Publish or be Damned
Businesses will increasingly bypass traditional media outlets and go directly to their target audiences themselves by creating branded niche media properties. They will not only publish their own content but also disseminate it themselves predicts Sandra Fathi of AffectStrategies.

Freemium at a Premium
One hopes that in the year ahead other companies will see the value in building business, by offering a free option of their product or service, albeit with less functionality than the paid version.  Mailchimp is an example of this digital strategy. People who like the product and embed it in their daily use are more likely to upgrade to the paid version with all the bells and whistles.

Scheduling
This will increasingly be on the Cloud using platforms such as Schedulicity. Founder believes that the traditional pen and paper appointment book is dead in the water. "Over the next two to five years, the physical appointment book will be gone altogether and replaced with online counterparts".

Some companies are already using scheduling options to great effect and dispensing with more traditonal methods. Emerson Salon for example is sourcing up to 75% of its business from Facebook, Twitter and its blog.

Text Messaging
Text messaging is growing quicker than most have predicted and is highly prevalent in 19 of the 21 countries surveyed by Pew Research, with a majority of mobile phone owners regularly sending text messages. Many use their mobiles to record personal videos and this growth trend will continue.

Deal or No Deal
Deal and coupon sites mushroomed in 2010/2011.  However, as business realise they cannot manage their offers and cover all the coupon bases, we will see a rationalisation of these platforms with the likely outcome being that the major players such as Groupon will gobble up the smaller fry.  Deals by mobile which don't require a pre-purchase are likely to grow at the expense of those that do.

Business Process
Faced with financial challenges and the impact of social business, companies will need to restructure and refocus. Those that don't will whither on the vine.

"Companies of all sizes will need to transform their business and existing infrastructure, and reverse engineer the impact of business objectives and metrics. Businesses will have to embrace all of the disruptive elements, such as mobile and social technology, in a new, cohesive organization that is focused outward and inward." Brian Sollis

Bernie Borges believes that 2012 will be the year that more organisations embrace the convergence of employee personal branding and corporate branding through content marketing strategies.

Web
While the Internet itself remains robust, the World Wide Web will suffer as further as consumers and general users move on to dedicated platforms that deliver their personal preferences better. This trend will accelerate, although the company web site will remain the bedrock brand statement and the place on which many depend; as the definitive source of company information.


Social Media Content Marketing Predictions 2012

Reference:
2012 Social Marketing & New Media Predictions (Awareness)

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Wednesday 28 December 2011

Social Commerce Psychology

There are six universal heuristics or learning methods that have been seen in shoppers and are now being seen in social commerce according to studies by psychologists.

Or as Paul Marsden of Socialcommercetoday puts it, "Understanding why it makes commercial sense to help people to connect where they buy and buy where they connect provides businesses with a strategic advantage; the opportunity to reap the rewards of a powerful insight-led social commerce strategy,  as opposed to merely deploying social commerce as a set of tactical tools."

Summarised these heuristics are as follows:
  1. Social Proof
    The Rule: ‘Follow the Crowd’
  2. Authority
    The Rule: ‘Follow the Authority’
  3. Scarcity
    The Rule: ‘Scarce Stuff is Good Stuff’
  4. Liking
    The Rule: ‘Follow those You Like’
  5. Consistency
    The Rule: ‘Be Consistent’
  6. Reciprocity
    The Rule: ‘Repay Favours’
This infographic from TabJuice illustrates the above:
Click here for a larger version

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Tuesday 27 December 2011

The Difference Between A Brand And A Product

Brand (left)  & Product (right)
At the risk of sounding 'corny', it is still the same old cereal.

Thursday 22 December 2011

McLobster And L'Affaire DSK - The Best & The Worst of 2011

It's that time of year, a chance to look back over the preceding twelve months and review what  worked and what did not. And maybe, just maybe, take a sip of Xmas cheer to dull the pain.

Twitter has recently released details of its 2011 highlights and once again sports dominates the re-tweets per second ratio.

Tweets Per Second
In terms of actual topics, the year was dominated by political upheaval and natural disasters. Cairo, Egypt, Japan, Libya and Tokyo all featured in the top ten cities and countries list.

As the Twitter blog states, "from news of Mubarak’s resignation in Egypt to buzz about which McDonald’s restaurants serve McLobster, the top trends that emerged on Twitter in 2011 reflect the diverse things that matter to us in our daily lives.

Among other things, we saw history unfold in the Middle East, mourned the passing of Elizabeth Taylor, celebrated National Whipped Cream Day, and cheered for the Dallas Mavericks, Texas Rangers and Wayne Rooney.

We wondered about Charlie Sheen, speculated about the Sony NGP, and raved (or raged) about Rebecca Black. And we tYp3ed LyK tHi5."

Various luminaries put aside their aversion to social media and signed up to Twitter in 2011.  Each no doubt had a different motive for doing so.

Who Joined Twitter in 2011
In its Ten Worst Tweets of 2011 Time ranks the Anthony Weiner on ... Anthony's 'Weiner' as being the biggest faux pas tweet of the year.

Comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried made a complete 'twit' of himself by tweeting 'jokes' about the Japanese earthquake which included tweets such as "Japan is very advanced.They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them".  Not surprisingly he was fired from his role as the voice of the Aflac duck as the manufacturer of said product does 75% of its business in Japan.

Don't shoot the messenger or should that be 'elephant?  The largest U.S. web domain registry company, GoDaddy, received a massive backlash when its CEO, Bob Parsons, tweeted a link to a video of himself shooting an elephant in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile over at Facebook their "Memology" (a terrible piece of IT jargon if ever there was one) echoes many of the Twitter findings.

The Royal Wedding featured highly as did the deaths of bin Laden, Steve Jobs and Amy Winehouse.


There was some regional variation with the UK Riots coming in at #2 in the UK and two abbreviations (lms & tbh) ranking #1 & #2 in the USA.  The Aussies seemed to be more fixated on 'planking' which was their #1 while the French followed the seemingly sordid goings on of Dominic Strauss Khan with great gusto. 'Affaire DSK' was their top status trend.

Finally, Mashable reports that Twitter topped the  list of most-buzzed about social networks this year, replacing 2010′s most-buzzed network, YouTube.

"The annual rankings by digital marketing agency Zeta Interactive measure volume (number of mentions in more than 200 million blogs, social media outlets and online posts) and tone (comparing positive and negative buzz). The Zeta Buzz score is calculated by the volume ranking multiplied by the percent positive ranking divided by 10, using data pulled since January 2011."

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Saturday 17 December 2011

A Social World

The daily social activity of various social networking sites
Original Source: XKCD.com
Download a copy of the large version here.

As the article at DailyInfographic remarks: "Not surprisingly, the ubiquitous Facebook sprawls across the top of the map, dwarfing its neighbors, and leading to the “Northern Wasteland of Unread Updates.” A place I have been, many times."
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Friday 16 December 2011

Chicken Blood and The Geek Evolution

The humble origins of the term "geek" includes a reference from the 1500's to someone who could be regarded as food and three centuries later, to biting the heads of live chickens.

The evolution of the term is therefore a mystery as the modern Geek tends to fuel up on snacks and Cola, forgoing the primeval pleasure of chicken blood dribbling down their chins.

The first reference to technology and the cultural context came in the 1950's as this chart from Flowtown reveals.


Unfortunately though there is a serious gender imbalance in this infographic and female geeks are not acknowledged.
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Tuesday 6 December 2011

Time Wasting with HTML5

Daniel Puhe is a freelance creative developer based in London, with a love for cutting-edge interactive experiences.

If you in the middle of a long and tedious telephone conference call perhaps a 'play' with one of his creations might help.

The Sticky Thing
The Sticky Thing in HTML5 relieves the boredom.  Use the options to adjust the gravity and stickiness of the Pink Thing.

Or try out Space Noodles; especially for those who were fans of Op Art in the Seventies.

Space Noodles
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Friday 2 December 2011

There's Nothing 'Cheesy' About This App

Alex James, Blur bassist turned cheese maker has partnered with Microsoft,  Together they have launched "INTO" by Windows Phone, an innovative new social rewards programme for UK Windows Phone owners, their friends and family, and anyone who wants to share and get rewarded.

Launched alongside the availability of Windows Phone 7.5 (codename Mango) and recent handset announcements by Nokia and HTC, "into" by Windows Phone adopts the mantra of Windows Phone, putting people at the centre of their phone experience, by helping them.

By doing all the regular, daily things on their Windows Phone, such as interacting and sharing with their friends, consumers can unlock an array of exciting offers and experiences.

In the opening weeks following the launch of into by Windows Phone, fans and others who want to get involved will be able to view exclusive content from Alex James and other guests and unlock special offers from the likes of Coggles, the designer fashion specialist.

In addition, they’ll also have the opportunity to win an arctic adventure for two people to Finland (plus two new Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phones) and tickets to the debut into insider social – an unforgettable evening hosted by Alex James on 5th December 2011.

So..whatever your INTO, this is the app for you. Click on the video to learn more.



Sponsored post

Tuesday 29 November 2011

Just When Is The Internet Awake?


The circles above are sized according to the number of broadband subscribers in each country, as measured December 2009 - June 2011.

See the full interactive presentation here.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Social As In Social Responsibility

Social responsibility in business and the Community is very much in vogue. Even rock stars such as Jon Bon Jovi are returning something the community, in his case through a restaurant that serves gourmet meals to the hungry.

In turn they can volunteer on community projects without the stigma of visiting a soup kitchen. Paying customers are encouraged to leave whatever they want in the envelopes on each table, where the menus never list a price.

With troubled times upon us customers are finding life a struggle and its is beholden on companies to be open to this reality.  It also offers any company a great opportunity to promote social good as well as their products and services.

Companies such as the T Shirt start up Sevenly give away $7 to a charity for each sale they make and have a charity of the week.



Social Media for Social Change is an organisation that aims to reach out to a wide range of technology/social media/PR professionals & active users who care about doing more with their knowledge of tools and platforms like Twitter and Facebook.  They match up such organisations with nonprofit & cause-based organizations that need effective, dynamic ways to connect with their communities but may lack the budget, time or know-how to stay “up to the minute” with those same tools and platforms.

Social responsibility is not just about outward project of a company brand or activities.  It is also an inward activity fostering humanity within organisations and social media can play a key role in facilitating this.

Jesse Stanchak of SmartBlog reminds us that becoming a human organization is hard mostly because you’re going against centuries of tradition that have a track record of success. Using social media to humanise a company cannot be achieved by forcing through change.

As he explains: "Use it as an opportunity to make shifts in the way you do things. They can be small or subtle at first - requiring less approval for blog posts or comments on social networks, for example. As the social media get more active, you might have to change other processes internally, down to things such as how you structure and facilitate staff meetings to ensure the right people are sharing the right information at the right time".

Neither is social responsibility simply a corporate activity.  Social media allows individuals to make a difference for causes they believe in.

Take the case of Danny Brown whose casual observation of an old lady in a restaurant triggered the development of the 12for12K Challenge which to date has raised in excess of $100,000. See video below.


.


Whether it be a corporate or individual initiative the aim is to engage, promoting how well the cause campaign is developing; the amount of funds donated, how much awareness you have created, the size of your network and its growth and how many have benefited from you social responsibly project/s.

Bottom line - have you made a difference in your local or the global community?
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Saturday 19 November 2011

Password Puffery - Do Any Of These Look Familiar?

According to a recent study release by SplashData, an American password management data application, the 25 ‘worst’ internet passwords you can choose to use are:
  1. password
  2. 123456
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. abc123
  6. monkey
  7. 1234567
  8.  letmein
  9. trustno1
  10. dragon
  11. baseball
  12. 111111
  13. iloveyou
  14. master
  15. sunshine
  16. ashley
  17. bailey
  18. passw0rd
  19. shadow
  20. 123123
  21. 654321
  22. superman
  23. qazwsx
  24. michael
  25. football 
So if any of the above ring a bell you may wish to quickly change them.  You can also try any prospective password by running it through this test. I tried a new password out and was gratified to learn that it would take some 39,000 years to hack!

Word of caution: I would not however try out any existing passwords on a third party site such as this as you can not be sure how secure the site itself is.

Related articles
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Friday 18 November 2011

Beta and Beta

Here's the rub; Google Music was launched around the world yesterday with much fanfare but trying using it and you will join the majority of the global population in getting this message.

Google music offers some 13 million songs to the lucky few who can access it but does not have affiliation with one of the major labels - Warners.  Despite this, it aims to gazump Apple and Amazon and take the lead in the online music market.

It will be up to Google's Android services to match iTunes as music is stored on the Cloud rather than on your own device.  As a user you can can store up to 20,000 songs on Google's cloud servers and you will be able to share any songs you have purchased with friends on the Google+.

The cost of a song is US 99 cents and if you are an artist you can create your own space on Google Music and sell direct to the public.  That is, if they are in the USA.




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Tuesday 15 November 2011

Are Search Engine Ranking Pages Becoming Irrelevant?

If you felt secure in the knowledge that your web site ranked on the front page of Google or Bing search results and would therefore result in click-throughs, think again.

A recent survey from Slingshot clearly demonstrates that users are now far less inclined to click through and these rates have tumbled.

Back in 2006 a number one ranking equated to 42% of clicks and a number two ranking was worth about 12%. By May of 2010 these figures had dropped to 34.35% and 16.96% respectively and in December of last year Optify found that there was a 36.4% CTR for the number one result in Google and 12.5% for the number 2 ranking.

The most recent Slingshot survey charts this decline. A Click-through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of users who click on a given domain after entering a search query. In this study, CTR is calculated as total visits divided by total searches for a given keyword over a stable period.


Key Findings from the Slingshot report:

  • By studying user behavior through click-through rates they  emphasised the importance of ranking in the top ten positions in search engines. A higher ranking results in a higher click through rate.
  • For Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), the observed Click Through Rate (CTR) was 18.20% for a No. 1 rank and 10.05% for a No. 2 rank.
  • For Bing SERPs, the observed CTR was 9.66% for a No. 1 rank and 5.51% for a No. 2 rank.
  • Relative CTRs across each position in the SERP reveal the importance of an increase in rank.  With an average CTR of 18.20% for position 1 and 1.04% for position 10, this staggering difference shows that a change in rank from 10 to 1 will generate approximately 1650% more traffic and associated sales.
  • Slingshot observed that there was a significantly higher CTR curve for Google than for Bing, which suggests that Google’s organic results are more reliable, as many users abandon searches.  They went on to say thought that this was simply an interesting implication from their CTR studies, as they do not have actual bounce rates for the search engines
The direct correlation between these findings and the growth of social media is also an interesting one. As I wrote in an earlier article, for many people online in 2011 Facebook is the internet and viceversa.  They are increasingly finding the content they need through social media rather than relying on more traditional web sites and this change extends to search habits.

So while search remains a vital part of any online strategy, total reliance on search engine page rankings, as this report proves,  is no guarantee of online exposure to business prospects.


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Saturday 29 October 2011

First A Wave And Now Barely A Ripple

How was your Google+ post shared and  how influential was it?

Google have just introduced Ripple which graphically displays how Google+ post activity unfolds.


Another nice touch is the ability to see how these conversation develop over time by clicking on the 'watch the spread of this post' icon.

Towards the bottom of the screen are the influencer and demographic charts.

To get started, just find a public post that interests you, and select “View Ripples.” From there you can replay its activity, zoom in on certain events, identify top contributors and much more. Remember a public post has to have been shared to create a "Ripple"

Here is another method, albeit more convoluted than the above. Follow these steps:
  1. Go to your post and select "link to this post"
  2. Copy characters after "/posts/"
  3. Go to this url: https://plus.google.com/ripples/details?activityid=HotNjLexB1u and replace activityid parameter value with your post id.



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Friday 28 October 2011

How to 'Socialise' Your Brand

It not a question of simply regurgitating your content into social media. As this infographic shows, the top brands create original content for their social media.

A recent study by Weber Shandwick and Forbes Insights shows that internal focus and consistency of vision are areas where substantial improvement must be made by most brands.

Most executives are still looking outwards to external forces - winning the approval of the right media, achieving a target number of “Likes” on Facebook and dominating coverage of certain topics.  As a result most organizations still struggle to build a brand with a distinctive social identity.

Global brand executives believe that sociability is growing rapidly as a contributor to a brand’s overall reputation, from 52 percent today with a projected estimate of 65 percent three years from now, according to the report.

Yet, a large majority (84 percent) report that their brand’s sociability is not yet up to world class brand standards, despite the fact that nearly all of them (87 percent) say they have a social media brand strategy.


Key Takeaways:

  • Put your brands in motion: World class companies do more than build an inventory of social media tools. They apply their tools in more social ways than the average global company. For example, they are 44 percent more likely to offer brand-related mobile content, 43 percent more likely to participate in “check-in” apps, 41 percent more likely to do proximity marketing and 40 percent more likely to have their own branded YouTube channel.
  • Integrate or die: World class organizations are much better integrators of brand personality — they are nearly twice as likely as other organizations to have a consistent brand personality across all social and traditional media channels and are much more likely to include a social media element to their traditional print or broadcast messaging.
  • Make social central: 61 percent of world class brands have a dedicated social media strategist or manager, vs. 41 percent of all global brands. According to one global executive respondent, “The most important thing we can do is to centrally plan social media activities across all channels to amplify key messages.”
  • Listen more than you talk: World class companies fine-tune their messages to customers and integrate what is on their fans’ minds into their brand stories. Nearly twice as many world class brands have changed a product or service based on fan recommendations compared to the average global brand.
  • Count what matters — meaningful engagement: World class brands place more weight than other brands on their number of contributors when measuring social media effectiveness. Social contributors are ranked #1 by world class companies but #6 by other companies as a key metric.
  • Think global: Executives managing world class brands consider global reach as important as customer service as a driver of corporate reputation while the average global executive ranks global reach last.
  • Go outside to get inside: World class companies are nearly twice as likely as average global companies to engage outside support to measure their brand’s social performance.
  • Be vigilant: To protect their social brand integrity, world class brands are always on high alert. They are 85 percent more vigilant since Wikileaks has been in the news and are 58 percent more likely to be concerned about privacy violations.

View the report's Executive Summary
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Friday 21 October 2011

Swearing to Do Good

Most people who who live in a family situation are very familiar with the concept of a 'swear jar'. Being hit in the pocket tends to rapidly focus language away from the profane. Here's a clever adaption of this principle.



Charity SWEAR BOX


The brainchild of James Dow and Jay Gelardi, Charity Swear Box aims to convert the foul to the beneficial. It is a decidedly novel way of using Twitter content and converting it into a not for profit donation.

Charity Swear Box is constantly on the look out for naughty swear words on Twitter. Simply enter your Twitter name in the search box on the site's homepage and they will check all your past twitterings for any sign of a swear word.

These are added up and and Charity Swear Box then suggests an amount to donate to your favourite charity.


Recipient charities currently include UNICEF, PETA and WWF amongst other worthy causes, and they are on the look out for more to add to the list.

There are those who believe that swearing the workplace is a positive thing. In 2006 university research culminated in a paper "Indecent influence: The positive effects of obscenity on persuasion".

Apparently dropping an expletive at the beginning or end of a speech significantly  increases the "persuasiveness of the speech and the perceived intensity of the speaker".  It does no damage to your reputation either, according to the report's authors.

What could these findings mean for business tweets I wonder, and by extension, the coffers of the Charity Swear Box?

Most social media does not have a check-box to report swearing in posts, or to filter out the profane.  Facebook's former reporting screen was one such example. Twitter also shies clear of make any judgment on swearing.

Facebook
Twitter
Maybe the final word in the swearing debate should go to Mark Twain who said "Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer".

Have Your Say: Is swearing acceptable in social media?

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