Twitter is not a set-it and forget-it kind of medium. The Twitter community is active and interactive, full of champions and critics and if you’re going to enter their arena you better be prepared to do more than keep up with the Jones’.

If you’re considering entering the Twitter-sphere you first need to ask yourself: What are my goals? Polling users and engaging end users? Interacting with other professionals in my industry? If you’re thinking ‘I just want to have a presence’ Twitter is not for you.

It could still be for your business if you find that someone else in your company is more suitable and willing to engage with your Twitter followers; but of course this raises other issues about voice and the persons ability to be an ambassador for your company but I’ll leave that for another post.

To be a successful Tweeter you need to read as well as write. Since it’s the interactiveness and responsiveness of users, some of whom are highly regarded professionals representing large corporations, that draws people to Twitter you couldn’t participate to any great effect without reading and responding to tweets by others.

You’re also going to want to be interesting. Instead of inundating your followers with constant sales pitches you need to show them (or tell rather) why you’re passionate about your industry, offer company news and insights. Let your followers become insiders – share who you’re meeting with or what exciting new projects are coming up, offer sneak peeks and solicit opinions.  Try engaging followers with thoughtful questions about areas of mutual interest, read the responses and respond back – take an interest in your followers and they will have more interest in you.

You might be thinking, as the business owner/operator/manager, all this has the potential to take considerable effort on your part, and you’d be right. And what does it offer in the way of pay-offs? Certainly nothing is guaranteed but you could argue that a more engaged user base would be more loyal and the easier you make it for your users to spread the word, say by re-tweeting your latest post, the more often it would happen and more people would become aware of your business.

Clearly for businesses contemplating joining Twitter there is more to consider than the buzz surrounding it. Some people adapt and excel naturally and for others it becomes a chore. Do yourself a favour and seriously consider all the implications before jumping in with both feet.

Stop the Meter on Internet Usage-Based Billing

Metering the internet is wrong at any price, let me tell you why.

Under any form of UBB (usage-based billing for internet service) consumers would have no ability to make informed decisions when choosing when and where to “spend” their allotted amount of internet.

Anyone can receive cap-bustingly large attachments in their email at any time without their express permission, every computer operating system and many programs need access to an unknown amount of internet to download necessary software security patches (for example Microsoft releases software updates once a month, which you may not realize if you’ve selected auto-updates on install), and many websites sell advertising space which today can include not only large images but also animations and video that would be a huge draw on any cap.

In each case it is impossible to predict how much of your allotted amount of internet would be used, and in the case of email attachments and auto-updates sent to you also impossible to reject the data transfer, completely eliminating your right as a consumer to choose when/what/where to purchase or more specifically in this case use up your limited allotment of internet.

Clearly, metering the internet is wrong at any price.

The good news is that you can easily Stop The Meter.

Visit the OpenMedia website and send a handily pre-written message (although feel free to edit the message for yourself) directly to the CRTC calling on them to reverse the previous UBB rulings and allow independent ISPs to choose their own customer billing solutions.

Need more background information on UBB or the Stop The Meter campaign?

Try this previous entry I wrote to sum up the usage-based billing problem. Visit the OpenMedia website to find out more or get started right now with these simple steps:

1. Send your Message to the CRTC,
2. Sign the ‘Stop The Meter’ petition,
3. Like OpenMedia.ca on Facebook and share OpenMedia’s Posts with your friends on Facebook,
4. Follow @OpenMedia_ca & Tweet about ‘Stop The Meter’ on Twitter, and
5. Educate yourself and others, for example share this YouTube video: George Stroumboulopoulos takes on UBB.

1. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved Bell Canada’s request to initiate usage-based billing (UBB) in 2009.  Check the Source.
2. Under UBB there is a flat-rate for a set amount of Internet usage, plus usage charges for any additional use to a certain amount and a second usage charge for any additional over use. For example here is Bell Canada’s “Performance” package for Ontario:
   • Flat-Rate Charge: for a download speed of “up to 6 Mbps” you can download 25 Gigabytes (GB) for $31.95 per month. (aprox. $1.27/GB)
   • UBB Charge #1 “Usage Over Charge”: $2.00/GB to a maximum of $60
   • UBB Charge #2 “Extreme Usage Charge” (beyond 300GB): $1.00/GB
     Check the Source.
3. Netflix has stated that charging “for each extra gigabyte of data makes no sense when the cost to transport that gigabyte, for telecom companies, is often less than a penny.” Check the Source #1. Check the Source #2.
4. Unlimited Internet packages will be completely eliminated in Ontario & Quebec as of March 1, 2011. And in these two provinces, ultimately, there is no other option – if you have Internet, you’re a Bell Canada customer, directly or indirectly, through smaller Internet Service Providers (ISP). Check the Source.
5. I know, you don’t live in Ontario or Quebec and neither do I but according to Tom Copeland, the chair of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers: “In the marketplace here in Canada, it’s monkey see, monkey do”. Check the Source.

Do you have any idea “how much Internet you use”? Seriously, in gigabytes (GB), how much per month do you consume? If UBB comes to your city/province/country you’d better find out and fast so you can limit yourself or be prepared to pay through the nose.

Now here’s a point that I haven’t seen anyone else bring up… There is no way for an end user to tell how many GB any given site will take up before loading the page, meaning as the consumer under the UBB system you’re forced to “buy” before you’re able to evaluate either the product or see the price tag. In effect there is no way for you to change your Internet viewing habits before they gouge you at least once.

The folks at OpenMedia.ca have spearheaded a fantastic campaign at StopTheMeter.ca. Here’s what you can do to Stop The Meter on your Internet service:

1. Sign the ‘Stop The Meter’ petition,
2. Like OpenMedia.ca on Facebook,
3. Share OpenMedia’s Posts with your friends on Facebook,
4. “Attend” the ‘Stop The Meter – National Day of Action’ on Facebook,
5. Follow @OpenMedia_ca & Tweet about ‘Stop The Meter’ on Twitter,
6. Educate yourself and others, for example share this YouTube video: George Stroumboulopoulos takes on UBB

For those with a little more time here’s the whole problem as I see it:

My concern is not paying for what I use. I’m deeply concerned about the very low usage limits and unfairly exorbitant fee schedule considering Internet consumers have no way to measure, manage or control how much of their limit will be used by visiting any particular site, and the related problem of the misunderstanding of the term ‘downloading’.

Many websites sell advertising space filled with audio, video or flash animations, some have enormous images where small images will do, some websites like Facebook host image and animation intense games that could be a significant draw on any monthly allowance, all of which can be a large percentage of the total gigabytes downloaded.

And it doesn’t stop there if you use services like Netflix or iTunes, do any online gaming either on your computer like on Second Life, Blue Mars, or Facebook (FarmVille, CityVille, Mafia Wars, Bejewelled Blitz, Restaurant City etc.), or on consoles like the XBOX, Playstation or Nintendo, or view Photo Galleries like on Flickr or Facebook or anywhere else, watch YouTube videos, podcasts or TV shows online you’re in for a terribly rude awakening. These activities are some of the most usage-intense things you could choose to do online.

Downloading is not just something you do when you want to save a file from the Internet to your computer. With every website you visit everything you see on the screen, the images, text, advertising etc, and even things you don’t see like ‘cookies’ (which track your user behaviour) must be downloaded to your computers’ temporary Internet files in order to build the representation of the site on your screen.

Now that you’re starting to see the size of the problem, are you ready for the real kicker? There is no way for an end user to tell how many GB any given site will take up before loading the page, meaning as the consumer under the UBB system you’re forced to “buy” before you’re able to evaluate either the product or see the price tag.

This is clearly unacceptable. Here’s your chance to stand up and do something before it’s too late. To Stop The Meter on your Internet service here’s what you can do:

1. Sign the ‘Stop The Meter’ petition,
2. Like OpenMedia.ca on Facebook,
3. Share OpenMedia’s Posts with your friends on Facebook,
4. “Attend” the ‘Stop The Meter – National Day of Action’ on Facebook,
5. Follow @OpenMedia_ca & Tweet about ‘Stop The Meter’ on Twitter,
6. Educate yourself and others, for example share this YouTube video: George Stroumboulopoulos takes on UBB
7. Contact your Local and Provincial and Federal Government Representatives about your concerns, and
8. Otherwise help get the word out – here are some ideas just off the top of my head
   1. Talk about UBB with your friends, family and coworkers.
   2. Wear a Stop The Meter t-shirt or a Mind The Cap t-shirt.
   3. Take out an ad in your local paper.
   4. Write to mainstream news sources and urge them to investigate the UBB issue.
   5. Attend any physical Stop The Meter events in your city (why not make yourself a witty sign now so you’re ready when the event is announced)
   6. Make a Stop The Meter poster and paper your neighbourhood – remember the classics like telephone poles, abandoned buildings and fences but don’t forget to ask store owners to post one in their windows and neighbourhood corkboards like at coffee shops, grocery stores, libraries and community centers.
   7. Choreograph a Stop The Meter interpretive dance or call up the old flash mob for one last hurrah.

It’s more than just the future of the nerdy old Internet at stake; it’s your freedom to choose as a consumer, your open access to information on demand, and your ability to choose how/where to spend your time online free from worry of how much more it might cost you.

Do you want to know more?
Check out this fantastically in-depth article by Prof. Michael Geist posted this morning.

Our friends at the Meridian Hospitality Group asked us to put together a new look for the Lodging Boise website – your source for all things happening in and around Boise, Idaho’s capital city.

The website features all the restaurants, events and attractions any tourist would want to see from family fun at water parks and fun centers to outdoor adventures like white water rafting, shopping and cultural events like plays and art galleries, all of which are easily accessible from any of the Meridian Hospitality Group’s four hotel properties: the Caldwell Best Western, the Nampa Sleep Inn, the Meridian Mr Sandman Inn & Suites, and the Comfort Suites in Boise.

With four different hotels and all the area events and attractions the Lodging Boise website needed clear organization and navigation, while working with the custom back-end we built back in 2008.  For the home page we put together features for their four hotel properties, a photo slide show showcasing all the excitement Idaho has to offer, a short introduction to each city’s key features, a link to their Facebook page, and a newsletter sign-up button.  On the pages for events, attractions and restaurants we created a database for user generated content that allows for users of the site to post their own events, attractions and restaurant listings.  We also supplied a matching template for the new Lodging Boise newsletter.

We build websites tailored to your business objectives and processes – because shoehorning your unique business into existing solutions is often more expensive than building it right the first time.  Contact us to see what’s possible for your unique business.

My previous post Connect Your Website & Social Media, was the big test and I’m happy to report it worked perfectly: I logged in to WordPress, wrote the post, published to our website and one short hour later the post appeared on both our Facebook Page and our Twitter Page.  (the 1 hr delay has to do with set-up and happens in minutes afterward)

So how did I make it happen? I signed-up for TwitterFeed, which I chose specifically because it allowed me to connect a Facebook Page for a business, not just my personal Facebook Profile like the dozens of previous applications I researched, and a Twitter account.

Here’s the step-by-step How-To:

• Find the url for your blog feed (if you’re on WordPress it’s going to be ‘http://www.yourdomain.com/feed’.  Ours for example is: http://www.interfacemedia.ca/feed)
• Sign-in to your Twitter account
• Sign-in to your Facebook account
• Go to TwitterFeed.com and click ‘register now’ to sign-up for an account

• Enter your email address and make up a password then click ‘create account’

• Set-up your Feed:
• Give it a name, something you’ll recognize easily perhaps ‘YourDomain Blog Feed’

• Enter the url of your blog feed – the address you found in step 1
• Click ‘test RSS feed’ and you’ll see a green check mark beside ‘Feed parsed OK’, and if not check the help page
• Click ‘Continue to Step 2′ at the bottom of the page

• Connect to your Social Networking Accounts:

• Click Twitter and then on the big blue ‘authenticate twitter’ button

• It will forward to Twitter and ask you to ‘Allow’ or ‘Deny’ access to your Twitter account – click ‘Allow’
• When you are returned to TwitterFeed click ‘Create Feed’
• You’ll see a drop-down box below a message like this: “You are currently logged into your “Jenn Faccin” Facebook account. If you’d like to connect to another Facebook account, please Logout first.  Facebook Pages Choose a Facebook Page (you must be the page administrator) to publish your feed to it’s wall, or leave blank to publish to your Facebook account wall.”
  

• In the drop-down box choose the facebook page you want to connect to – I chose Interface Media Group
• Click ‘Create Feed’
• Click Facebook and then on the blue ‘connect with facebook’ button

• (It will pop up a window asking for permission to publish – click ‘Allow Publishing’ and you’ll be returned to TwitterFeed)
• Click ‘All Done!’ and you’ll see a Congratulations message that shows the details of the feed you’ve just set-up.
• Click ‘Go To Dashboard’ where you can monitor & manage your feed.

• The Dashboard shows 3 important things:
  1. Where your feed is publishing to (in our case Facebook & Twitter)
  2. A list of posts that have been published
  3. How many clicks each post has received on each platform

Congratulations!  You too are now a technological wizard and have connected your WordPress blog to your Facebook Page and Twitter account.  Happy Blogging!

P.S. If this is all too much for you just give us a call or contact us and we’ll set it up for you 604.415.0494.