The MoPR Blog

A recent study ranked the “Digital IQ” of all 100 U.S. Senators based on their presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter and the results may surprise you.

The study scores each Senator‘s online competence including his or her presence on websites, social media following and sentiment, digital marketing aptitude and search engine optimization skills. The IQ is measured by the presence on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, rating senators according to their number of followers, number of “likes,” velocity of Tweets or number of uploads.

The result? Based on this scoring system, GOP Senators have taken the lead on social media, leaving their Democrat counterparts in the dust. Though Senators up for re-election typically (and understandably) lead on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, it’s the Republicans who scored on average 5.5 points higher and have proven their social media savvy. IQ’s range from John McCain (R-AZ) who leads with the highest at 156, down to Thad Cochran (R-MI), who’s score of 52 places him last.

For example, according to the study, Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate in Nevada challenging incumbent Harry Reid, has 18,035 more Facebook followers (for a total of 29,322) and 46,515 more YouTube channel views (for a total of 196,576).

Senators scoring the highest were more aggressive users on their social network accounts- twittering more updates, uploading more YouTube videos, and actively commenting and updating their Facebook accounts and fan pages. Senators that received lower scores were noted as being sporadic social networkers- infrequently updating their accounts and pushing a lot of news at once, then going silent for a long period of time.

This social media IQ analysis relates directly to how successful PR campaigns incorporate social networking. Here at Mobility PR, we emphasize the importance of a consistent social network presence, which includes frequent attention to outlets like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others. If you’re going to use social networks, make them WORK. Updating your followers with relevant information habitually and building a strong online presence are paramount to social networking success.

And when it comes down to the debate between what political party has better social media savvy, Dean Guthrie explains that it isn’t about that anymore.

“This study underscores the reality that social media is not a toy, and that digital literacy and agility are powerful tools in today’s business and political arenas,” said Dean Guthrie. “It appears that U.S. senators are making their comprehension of the social media realm a priority and are using it as a way to engage prospective voters and mobilize grassroots efforts.”

Translation: social media isn’t just for frivolity. Both Democrats and Republicans are proving the importance (and reach) of social media.

Want to know how you can improve your social media skills? Check out these sites that map out useful tools and tips for ramping up your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube accounts:

• The Top Ten Twitter SEO Tips:
  http://mashable.com/2009/06/25/twitter-seo-tips/
• The Twitter Survival Guide:
  http://multisocialmedia.com/?page_id=48
• 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Brand’s Facebook Presence:
  http://mashable.com/2009/04/01/optimize-facebook-page/
• Ten Tips on Creating a Business YouTube Channel:
  http://www.bnet.com/blog/sterling-performance/ten-tips-on-creating-a-business-youtube-channel/6126
• 7 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn:
  http://mashable.com/2009/11/09/linkedin-tips/

There Really is an App for That

Consumers know that their smartphones can do just about anything. Shopping lists, sports scores, weather, videos, Facebook… There are thousands of consumer apps. But weren’t smartphones originally intended to be business devices? The cover story of this week’s “InformationWeek” magazine is all about the business applications of smartphones, and the innovative way corporate IT departments are putting them to use. In “What Goes Mobile” Mary Hayes Weier has written one the most comprehensive looks yet at the potential mobile apps will have in various business environments, from auto sales to health care.

In a companion piece in the same edition, Peter Rysavy writes about using the Mobile Web as an alternative to developing mobile applications. This theme is one that MoPR has hit on before with our own clients, such as Bitstream, the makers of the BOLT Mobile Browser. In “The Mobile Web Imperative” Rysavy speaks directly to IT departments and the developers building tools for businesses.

It’s the Year 2010: Still No Flying Cars

We’ve entered the season where writers and publications prognosticate about the trends of the coming year. You’ll see many articles with titles such as “2010: The Year of the _____.” “PC World” magazine has an interesting article which asks the question “2010: The Year of the Table PC?” Table PCs aren’t new. They just aren’t popular. Yet. But a lot of new features, such as touch screens, are reinvigorating the category. With pictures and videos along the way, writer Ian Paul walks us through the new landscape of tablet computers and makes a compelling case for why 2010 may be for tablet PCs what 2007 was for smartphones.

A Map You Can Step Into

I know, I know, the title of this column is “Weekend Reading” not “Weekend Viewing.” But one of our favorite writers, Jon Fortt at “Fortune” magazine has a video that showcases some of the cooler developments in location based technologies. Not coupons for the coffee shop around the corner from where you’re standing, but interactive maps unlike anything you’ve yet seen. Take a look:

In Case You Missed It: Cell Phones Cause Cancer… or Do They?

Throughout 2009 there were several stories about studies that showed a link between cell phone use and cancer. Not good news for those of us who not only are power users of our mobile phones, but also work in the mobility industry. In “Mobile Enterprise” magazine, Michael D. Cole looks at the results of a study released last week, an exhaustive 30 year study conducted in Scandinavia which concludes that there is no such link between cell phone use and cancer. Wait, don’t breath a sigh of relief just yet. Read “Study Refutes Cancer-Cell Phone Connection — But Rancorous Debate Persists” and judge for yourself.

As always, we invite you to share your comments.

Will Twitter get down to business? Twitter is free for now but will the recent hiring of a Director of Mobile Business Development mean they might start charging or setting up a premium service?

According to Twitter’s blog: “Twitter receives a crushing amount of partnership opportunities on a regular basis—it’s a good problem to have yet until now there has been nobody on staff dedicated solely to business development. Things are changing.”

And, according to Telephony, “Twitter has floated the idea of some pay-per-use, premium services. But it risks losing users to other still-free services such as FriendFeed – not to mention telco-provided SMS.”

It will be interesting to see where this is headed – Twitter needs to eventually start making some cash – just preferably not from us.

The ever changing media landscape. We flinch every time we get a newsfeed about some newspaper or magazine cutting staff, shutting down or scaling back frequency. Though we have no intention of turning Weekend Reading into an obit section for publications, we feel the need to let our readers know about the landscape and how this polar shift affects our industry tremendously.

Newspapers and their current business models are sinking – that’s a given. Some, like The New York Times, are experimenting with alternative ad models, such as putting ads on the cover page. It’s not really that dramatic and has been done, but not with a paper of the Times’ caliber. It gets worse – one pundit claims the Times could no longer exist as a newspaper as early as this spring.

Change is painful but it also brings opportunities. Blogs sprout up everyday. News is getting hyper-localized; information is open and free [which has its advantages and disadvantages] and newer business models are flourishing. News isn’t a commodity anymore with sites like Twitter and its users scooping mainstream media stories. Just this week news about Steve Jobs stepping down and the Hudson plane miracle were both reported on Twitter first – with a dramatic photo directly from the crash scene posted on a Twitter user’s account.

Robert Niles in the Online Journal Review lays out some hard rules on these changes and shifts in media and how the new landscape might look. Here’s one that caught our eye:

The old rule: You can’t cover something in which you are personally involved.
The new rule: Tell your readers how you are involved and how that’s shaped your reporting.

MoPR is a company that works hard to tell its clients’ stories to their audience and this kind of transparency and honesty resonates with us. That’s why we’re increasingly having more open, two-way conversations with reporters and bloggers – and laying all the information on the table so to speak. From there, we let the reporter tell their side.

As the media landscape shrinks – and at the same time expands – we will always be looking for ways to make sure our clients get heard. It’s like a Disneyland ride – we’re cautiously looking at the next turn but we’re also excited about where the industry is headed.

American Idol Text: Fail? Are you on AT&T? Did you get a text on your mobile phone earlier this week promoting the season premiere of American Idol? You weren’t alone.

According to various news sources, the carrier sent the text message to a large portion of its subscriber base – many of whom were not very happy with it.

From The New York Times: “AT&T is defending the text barrage, claiming the messages weren’t spam because they were free, and because customers could opt-out of future ads. The ads were sent to frequent texters and to customers who had voted in the past, AT&T says.”

Social network sites growing on adults. The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8 percent in 2005 to 35 percent now, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey.

While media coverage and policy attention focus heavily on how children and young adults use social network sites, adults still make up the bulk of the users of these websites. Adults make up a larger portion of the US population than teens, which is why the 35 percent number represents a larger number of users than the 65 percent of online teens who also use online social networks.

Most, but not all adult social network users are privacy conscious; 60 percent of adult social network users restrict access to their profiles so that only their friends can see it, and 58 percent restrict access to certain content within their profile.