Three Digital Things – 18 October, 2013

Hiscox’s Group Digital Manager – Ronnie Brown, shares the latest hints, tips and things you should know when it comes to your digital business life.

This week – Twitter introduces scheduled tweets; the mystery of ‘social business’; and, how’s your death metal knowledge?

#1: Twitter offers scheduled tweets

The folks at Twitter have added the ability to schedule future tweets (external link). To any of you running Facebook pages, you’ll know this functionality has been available on Facebook for years, and it’s a welcome addition to Twitter.

#2: Becoming a social business: why it often fails

There’s been a lot of talk in the media recently about being a ‘social business’. Too often a business will align this ambition with buying a piece of software like Jive, Yammer, or Confluence and conclude that ‘we’re now social’. In reality, many social business programmes fail (external link). The truth is that to be a social business requires a permanent cultural change within an organisation and tends to deliver on softer metrics. There’s no quick fix here and financial returns can be difficult to attribute, especially in the short-term.

#3: IKEA or death

Late last week, a quiz developed by a US agency swept across the internet. It compares the names of IKEA products to death metal bands. Have a go here (external link). The exciting thing is that it isn’t officially connected to IKEA. The ‘old school’ brand reaction to this would be ‘there’s a copyright infringement, take it down’, but brands have now wised up a little. While they might not embrace this kind of thing, they soon realise the value of this ‘free’ exposure. Perhaps next week it will be revealed as a cunning publicity plan by IKEA, I sincerely hope not though.