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SuuurShaaaal Media (as they say in Ashington)

Well, as many of may know, Social Media is pretty close to my heart.  Today was a bit of a landmark as I reached my 5,000th Tweet.  Now, had you asked when I first joined Twitter and didn't have a clue what to put, that I'd get to this sort of number, then I'd have said you were mad.  But, here we are and I do really enjoy a bit of twittering - sometimes I can be serious, sometimes I can be funny, sometimes I can be winding someone up and other times I can be random.  Above all, I'm being me.  My thoughts and views might not be to everyone's tastes and some followers come and go, but I'm not one who gets excited about how many people follow me as that's not what its about - I'm just being me !

Facebook is a different animal though and despite running a well known bus company's Facebook page for quite a while (despite what other people may say in the trade press !), I was really sceptical of Facebook.  Despite the best efforts of a few mates to persuade me over a number of years, I was still saying no to Facebook.  However, eventually I gave in and I'm now on there, but I still don't really get it.  The banter can be good at times, but I'm not bothered that someone wants some sand to build their media centre in some city building simulation game !  The photo's are good too, but only because I follow some cracking train sites (yawning yet ?), but I'm still not really hooked on Facebook and I can't see that changing.  There's just too much negativity on it and how long I'll last on there is anyone's guess.

Back to twitter and I love the interaction and its instant.  Be it breaking news, deaths, sports results, family stuff, events to support, even the latest bread offers - it's all on there.  There's been some big events this week that I've learned outcomes on twitter - the new Pope & Chris Huhne getting sent down being the highlights.  There's been a few other noteable events that I've found out stuff on twitter - the death of Amy Winehouse (which was on my birthday), a well know Man Utd player playing away and lots of other stuff too.

But, its all about the interaction and that's why I don't understand some of the organisations who don't use it for the purpose that twitter seemed to be intended.  I've had a couple of issues recently with Durham County Council and have tweeted them quite a few times and I've never had a response yet.  The same with Asda as well as we had a problem with some food we'd bought and I tweeted them but have never had a reply.  It does make you wonder why they're on twitter, other than for marketing purposes, but surely the marketing message fails if a customer gets in touch and you just ignore them.  This will shock a few people, but when I was doing some research recently on market segmentation (I know, it shocked me too) one of the things that came across on growing a business was all in the quality of the customer contact and being consistent across your media.  So why these pretty large organisations just ignore people bemuses me as it just leaves a pretty poor impression and makes me a bit cynical as to why they're on social media, but even if it is just a marketing tool, then its failed as this customer feels a bit let down by the lack of customer contact and whilst I've no choice in my County Council (apart from voting for my councillors - a whole other blog on that one !), I won't be beating a path to Asda's door.

I still love me twitter and roll on the next 5,000 tweets !!!

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