Blog
June Roundup
July 5th, 2010
Summer has finally arrived and KTN social media activity is still as lively as ever, with some interesting results!
The top three KTNs for June 2010 are;
Joint 1st: Creative Industries and Electronics
3rd: Materials
For the first time, we have joint winners this month, with the Creative Industries KTN and Electronics KTN sharing the top spot of first place – both with a 22.9% share of all social media activity. Materials have dropped a place, and are now third after being in second place since April, who had 17.3% of activity.
The top five places this month were actually all pretty close, which goes to show that more KTN’s are actively using social media, which is shown with these higher results. This is especially impressive seeing as though these results are from the start of the summer season, which had been expected to be lower than previous months.
The most popular social media platforms this month stay in the same order as always;
1st: Twitter
2nd: Blogs
3rd: Flickr
Tweets made up less of the overall percentage this month than in May with 71.9% of all social media activity recorded being via Twitter. This is in part to an increased use of Flickr as well as more blog posts being posted.
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May Roundup
June 4th, 2010
Summer is right around the corner, and activity amongst the KTN’s is hotting up as ever, with the most social media activity recorded in any one single month yet!
But, let’s get down to business. The top three KTNs for May 2010 are;
1st: Electronics
2nd: Materials
3rd: Creative Industries
Again, for a second month running, Electronics remain in the top spot with a total of 35.4% of all social media activity. Materials also keep hold of their spot from April and remain in second place with 18.9% of all activity, with the Creative Industries KTN knocking Postion, Location and Timing off of the leader board and join in in third place.
The most popular social media platforms this month stay in the same order;
1st: Twitter
2nd: Blogs
3rd: Flickr
Tweets made up a whopping 77.2% of all social media activity recorded.
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KTN Marketing: Twitter
May 12th, 2010
There’s no doubt that Twitter has proved itself as a very good communication method and marketing tool. But are KTN’s using it right? Granted not everyone is a Twitter and Social Media expert, but there are some basic and clear no no’s that the Twitter audience just don’t like or appreciate – and what you certainly don’t want is to start pushing away the very audience you’re trying to engage.
So, below are 5 do’s and don’ts for KTNs using Twitter
1. Automated Updates
Yes, automated updates from other services maybe very useful and time saving for you, but they become just plain annoying to your followers – especially if they contain repeated or similar information over and over again. Even if a follower doesn’t unfollow you for it, chances are they’ll start to ignore your endless automated tweets with links, making them ineffective. When you actually do post a relevant or important tweet, it too may become ignored because they’re in the habit and just assume its another automated boring link.
Now, this isn’t to say automated tweets don’t have their place – when used properly and effectively they can be very useful, such as with services you infrequently use – for example; automatically informing a follower of a new YouTube video you have posted for the first time in a month. You have to ask yourself; do all your followers really need – or want – all this information!?
2. One Sided Conversations
Hello? Can you hear me? Are you there? – Twitter is all about making a conversation and a one-sided conversation isn’t very useful or helpful to anyone. If you’re using Twitter, you must take the time to look out for other users tweeting and interacting with you – and respond back. You wouldn’t have a phone in your office that you never answer even though people were leaving voice mail messages would you?
3. Watch the tone!
Many KTNs have grown up to be very formal affairs. This is great for the boardroom – but who wants to engage in conversation with a twitter account if all it’s going to do is spout out management or marketing speak?
Twitter provides you with a face for your KTN – so rather having followers talking to a formal brand which isn’t very helpful or interesting, and dare I say dull – make your tweets personal and more informal – just like a normal conversation. Offer insightful information and ‘behind the scenes’ details to your followers and have an approachable, honest tone – not a nonsensical marketing one. People in turn will feel more connected and will associate themselves with you better – and that’s what we’re all after right!?
4. Don’t over promote
What’s that you say? You have an event? An Event? An EVENT?
OK ok… I heard you the first time – repeating yourself over and over isn’t going to get me any more interested than I was before – if anything it’ll put me off attending as it will just start to seem desperate – not to mention annoying your followers by clogging up their twitter stream.
Say it once and move on – if you must, you can tweet one a few weeks before the event and again on the couple days leading up to it – but if someone wants to attend they will, badgering them into coming isn’t going to help you fill those seats.
5. Long URLs
www.thisisaverylongurlwhichisntverynicetolookat.com – why put your followers through that? And – why put yourself through that? After all, you only have 160 characters – so every letter counts! The answer? Use a URL shortening service like bit.ly – not only will it make your link super short, but also make people more likely to click it – and – give you more room to explain what the link is about in the remaining characters of your tweet!
Hopefully you found some of these useful and helpful for your marketing campaigns.
Views, comments, more suggestions? Just leave them below!
Posted in Hints & Tips | No Comments »
April Roundup
May 3rd, 2010
Another month has passed and it’s that time again to get a full low down of the social media activity which was conducted during March. So without further ado;
The top three KTN’s this month were;
1st: Electronics
2nd: Materials
3rd: Position, Navigation & Timing (part of Digital Systems)
Out of all social media items over the past month, 43.4% of them were posted by the Electronics KTN racking up a total of 75 posted items; all of which were via Twitter which puts them in first place knocking the Materials KTN down to second place ending their 8 week reign at the top.
Position, Navigation & Timing – who came in third place overall – managed to post the most amount of items over the widest array of different platforms.
The most popular platforms this month were;
1st: Twitter
2nd: Blogs
3rd: Flickr
Twitter was the most popular again with 72.5% of all social media activity recorded occurring on the platform. We are aware of KTN’s making use of Facebook which we are currently not monitoring – however this is currently in development and hopefully will be live soon and will be included in future stat roundups – for more information on this just ask.
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New Feature: Item Pages
April 26th, 2010
A new feature of the site which was quietly introduced the other week and after a successful trial run has now been launched officially. What is this new feature I hear you ask? Well, it’s single pages for items.
From today, by clicking on the avatar (logo) of each item, you will be sent to a permanent individual page just for that tweet, blog post etc (so it will still be available once the item has become too old to show in the stream!). The benefit of this is that you can now direct people directly to the item in question, and for people who like sharing stuff via social media – we’ve included quick and easy share buttons for Facebook and Twitter!
What’s more it will enable us to develop another new feature which is RSS feeds – which are currently in development and which we hope to launch soon!
Let us know what you think!
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A picture is worth a thousand words
April 7th, 2010
Taken by Axel Bührmann
We like photos; they help to show people what is happening in the world and can put your message into context far greater than just plain old text. That’s why the KTNs site is ready and waiting for your next photo spree!
Any images posted using Twitpic via Twitter will be automatically displayed along with your tweet in the steam on both the homepage and your individual KTN page!
Or why not upload all your photos from your latest event to your very own Flickr account? As well as being a perfect outlet for your members to recap on the events of the day, if your Flickr account is linked to your ktns.co.uk account – your latest photosets will be published right along side your tweets and blog posts!
If your KTN has a Flickr account, or you have any comments – just post a link or message below or email hello@ktns.co.uk
Posted in Flickr, Hints & Tips, Services, Twitpic, Twitter | No Comments »
March Roundup
April 1st, 2010
Throughout March, as always, we’ve been monitoring social media usage by the KTN’s, and the time has come when we add up all of those tweets and blog posts and see which KTN came out on top!
The Materials KTN was again, for the second month running, the most active KTN out of all the networks we monitor; publishing 56 items in total, which accounted for a massive 53% of all social media activity conducted by all of the KTNs – an increase of nearly 20% month on month. This is an impressive number, and just shows that the Materials KTN is making the most of social media in delivering it’s latest news and information to it’s members.
The second and third place positions have switched around this month, with Position, Navigation & Timing, part of Digital Systems (previously known as Location & Timing) coming in second place, with third place going to Creative Industries.
Even though Creative Industries dropped a place this month, it has to be noted that they are currently, to our knowledge, using the widest range of social media sites out of all the KTNs and truly embracing the meaning and purpose of the services – including Twitter, Flickr and their blog.
Out of the services we monitor; the most popular medium again this month was Twitter, however it’s percentage dropped from 98.5%, down to 73.3%, with the rest being made up of blog posts and Flickr sets. This change can easily be explained by many KTN’s moving over to the new web platform during March, which in turn saw an up take in each KTN making use of their new blogs.
So, a congratulations goes to the Materials KTN, and a worthy applause to the Creative Industries KTN’s efforts. We wish all the KTN’s good luck with the following month, hopefully some taking some inspiration from the activites and efforts demonstrated during March.
Posted in Stat Roundups | 1 Comment »
Welcome to KTNs.co.uk
March 30th, 2010
Well after a few months and a lot of time spent working on the site during the evenings and weekends the KTNs site is ready to be let out into the wild for you folks to explore, test and give us your valuable feedback!
Why has it taken so long? Well I’ve worked on this site solely during my spare time, which at times can be hard to come by – and there have been several big coding changes throughout its development, either to improve usability and page loading times – to just keeping up to speed with the developments of the new KTN platform currently being introduced over at http://ktn.innovateuk.org
So what is this site all about I hear you ask?
Well, to put it simply; the site’s main purpose is to monitor and gather all of the social media activity conducted by the UK’s KTN’s into one place! The site currently monitors several KTN accounts on Twitter, Flickr and their blogs on the new KTN website platform – with their updates being posted upto every minute on this site as and when new items are posted!
The site is structured in a way which should be familar to KTN members. Each KTN is listed on the homepage (and the networks page), and then sub groups of each KTN are listed on each individual KTN’s page.
For example;
www.ktns.co.uk – All main KTN’s updates
www.ktns.co.uk/networks/digitalsystems – Updates from the Digital System KTN’s main accounts
www.ktns.co.uk/networks/digitalsystems/locationtiming – Updates from Digital System’s Position, Navigation & Timing group.
Future
There are many more features and updates planned to be launched over the next few weeks – to get a sneak peak at what they are; I’ll be posting a blog post later with details!
More
If you want to know more about the site as well as answers to questions like ‘why are not all the KTN’s are currently listed?’ – Please check out the FAQ section.
If you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to leave a reply to this post – or – send me an email using the contact form on the contact page.
Posted in Development | No Comments »
February Roundup
March 7th, 2010
Even though the site wasn’t live through February, the tweets and blogs were rolling in from across the KTNs, and we were here to watch them, record them and tally up those all important stats.
The Materials KTN was the most active KTN out of all the networks we monitor; publishing 22 items, which accounted for more than 31% of all social media activity conducted by the KTNs.
Creative Industries came in second with 16 items, with 3rd place going to Location & Timing who had 15.
The most popular medium by far was Twitter, accounting for 98.5% of all social media activity.
*Please note, as the site was still under development during February and was not live to the public; the only stats we were collating were from Twitter and each KTN’s official blog.
Tags: stats
Posted in Stat Roundups | No Comments »
