Twitter did it this year. They’ve been there for a while but finally became the biggest phenomenon on the net since blogs came up. Even facebook is slowly changing into a mini twitter with their “feeds”.
Anyway, do you tweet? If so, who do you follow?
I’m very interested in seeing if people follow local companies. I try to look them up, and I’m following most that are active, but there are some interesting results out there.
The first local corporate account I found on twitter is Wataniya Telecom http://twitter.com/WataniyaTelecom and they started in July. They must get credit for being there and being active instead of proactive like most companies are. It is also one of the most active and most followed account I found, especially compared to the other two telecoms – Zain / Viva. Wataniya has 107 followes and 121 tweets so far. Viva http://twitter.com/vivatelecom has 84 followers but only 7 tweets since July! Zain http://twitter.com/ZainTelecom has 6 followes and 5 tweets. Another thing about Wataniya is that they are active in their twitter account and actually have interesting things to say, not just announcements. The main flaw is that it still is one way communication and no dialogues with customers.
This is where Gulf Bank http://twitter.com/Gulf_Bank have done a great job! They have been tweeting since the end of August and already have 284 followers and 122 tweets and have kept a nice dialogue going on with twitter users. For example they asked people for input on the new banking hours and so on. What is annoying with their account is that they repeat the same things over and over.
NBK just started an account http://twitter.com/NBKPage earlier this month and it probably is the best looking account of all of them and has been active with almost daily tweets.
On the media side, AlWatan is the only account that is active. Sadly, AlQabas is probably 20 years behind and I doubt they even know that it exists. AlJarida had an account which was active for 1 day and four tweets.
One comment about all these companies is that none of them have their twitter account details on their main page.
I am sure there are more corporate accounts but I would be interested in knowing about them and knowing how many of blog readers use twitter. Any input?
i dont
and will not
.
Ma6goog told me it’s haram to tweet and so I don’t.
I do .. and I love it ! It’s so much fun
Well + many others (friends and companies) I follow u .. and that’s how i get to know about ur new post
good luck
Nope. I blog.
I find twitter and facebook and the like to be entertainment based and did not achieve the openness the blogging has for two main reasons:
-Blogging is open to all internet browsers and the others only to registered users
-Blogging has elevated to a platform to discuss social and political as well ideological matters while the others are contempt with personal things and entertainment
Of course they all have great their pro’s and con’s but blogging has a “greater good” element to it.
It’s fun and totally pointless for me. I don’t follow any corporate tweets.. only friends and a few deranged comedians like Sarah Silverman and Tracy Morgan
But this one takes the cake… http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays
No Tweet.
I’ve never tried it. I don’t know how it works, and I don’t even know what it is exactly! LOL I’m not interested in finding out.
I’m an avid reader of Kuwaiti blogs, and I’m a regular user of facebook. I also own a mobile phone (believe it or not)! LOL ‘Connectivity’ has already gotten out of hand by my standards, and has been a source of frustration for me!
I need to cut back! Less hours on the ‘net and more phone ‘switch off’ time is my project.
I definitely don’t need Twitter to add to my misery!
والله يبيله
ma6goog, you will.
Shurouq, ilshaikh ma6goog will be converted.
SHOOSH, glad your following and that it got you here
KLC, I disagree with you on this one. The political power of twitter surpasses that of any blog by miles! It is a collective effort happening at the same time. It is how the world knew about Iran’s election problems, it is how the Iranis arranged their demonstrations for this. There are many more examples, and I think just as blogs evolved to become more focused and specific with time, twitter will improve in this sense.
zaydoun, for me twitter now is my main source of new, i subscribe to the news I want from the sources I want and I get the updated news wherever I am. As for corporate, its more of an experimenting time now I think. And that shit is funny! LOL!
عيد
I dont think you can escape it, its a matter of adapting to it. Switching your phone wont solve anything, it will make ur friends annoyed *hint*
راعي تنكر
فوقه؟
I tweet hehe and I’ve got you on my list as well, my list consists of Bloggers/Twitters/Companies/Actors/and more hehehe it’s cool and weird
I like it. I think that it’ll be hard to monetize and think that corporate accounts need to find out how to best use their accounts like most new services offered online.
I just like making fart jokes and jabbing people ……
Twitter and companies is a very grey area that you dont want to be over bearing then people will just start unfollowing you.
The NBKPage just spams they have no real content or actually attempt to communicate with people. I really cant see how you see it the better than Gulf Bank. Gulf Bank’s twitter account is a much better implementation of what it means to be on Twitter. They are asking questions, sharing links that are not related to their profit margins.
I think they actually read my post on how to use twitter: http://www.2by4.org/content/2009/05/07/making-money-via-twitter-in-kuwait/
Personally this will all end within a year. It was fun a year ago and just riding the wave now. The main issue is that Twitter is showing its slowness. I think within the next 2 years we will see a more real time infrastructure.
Jacqui, any specific companies you’re impressed with so far?
KTDP, I agree and I think thats the most exciting thing about that field, not knowing exactly where you are and how to benefit! And it wouldnt be the same without the fart jokes now would it?
nibaq, I was hoping you’d comment. I think your input is most valuable for many reasons. First regarding the companies, like I said in the post the best thing about Gulf Bank is their interaction with their community, and the same goes for Wataniya to a certain extent in terms of providing useful links and so on. NBK’s page is probably the newest of them and the fact they’re on twitter is a good start and it will take time to adapt to using it. My main issue with Gulf Bank is the repetition of the same tweet every day over and over, which is more like spam than NBK’s.
When you say this will end, what do you mean with ‘this’? The twitter phase or Kuwaiti corporates in twitter? Explain plz.
the scientific center is on twitter too “scicenterkw” follow us
Twitter as a web app has a couple things against it. First its proprietary and second is server issues with huge loads. Sooner or later people are just going to get annoyed with it and move to something more open and works.
Their are other clones like identi.ca and others but dont have the name power of Twitter.
The thing that annoys me the most is that its slow. Two years ago it felt fast when people responded to you within an hour. Now I feel its slow when they respond within a minute.
Personally I feel we are going to go back to IRC. In the honest sense it is exactly like twitter with groups, users and such. Also its an open source that is a bunch networked servers. Then the killer feature its fast! What you type is immediately posted and you have a response in seconds. Also the way mobile data is going as well as their devices it is very possible to IRC from your phone.
The only thing needed is well defined rules so you dont get overwhelmed from the first day.
For your other question about Kuwait companies and the social media. Simply they are too old to get it. Compare them to independent operations in Kuwait and see how they interact with their customers on all fronts.
The bigger companies just know they need to market themselves online but dont know how to use it. The younger one already on it and using it to market themselves. You simply can’t build it and they will come. You got to work on it a bit.
Very informative, thanks for your opinion!