Just another WordPress weblog

I thought to comment on an interesting inadvertent mistake that happened the other day, and how having a decent twitter stream or a competent method for a person to communicate to would have fixed this very quickly..

So what is the example?

The other day, a friend of mine on twitter @vaughndavis spotted an awful ad serving disaster whereby a TVNZ article which had the news of the day about some parents who had raped their young son for the purpose of teaching him sex.

This story is in itself an absolutely awful story, but what has made this much worse, is that the ad detection program has worked out from the the context of the page, that this news article was related to losing of virginity, and this program decided to feature an ad for a website which cheerily encouraged you to submit to a map where exactly you lost your virginity..

The concept of this website in itself seems a bloody weird site to start with, but who am I to comment on the oddness of a website’s concept (given that my website is dedicated to the obscure art and science that is ADSL troubleshooting)

Now they have a “ contact us ” page, but with 13 compulsory questions including my sex, my age group etc, means that it is much easier for me to blog about this small mistake, and hope that they hear about it through other news sources rather than picking up the message, and getting it fixed.

Someone really should do something about that I think.

What could this have looked like? What would have been a different twitter model?

Well the model of @johnjcampbell is one that I find awesome, and for me personally as a result of the way that he interacts, it makes me feel that he is my friend, and that I have a real personal connection with him.

He tweets regularly, not about serious / branding related topics, but about the stories he has covered, and in a very real way and makes a real point to reply when you send him a message.

And it is funny cause through no one telling me to do anything, I have quietly started watching John rather than flicking between him and and that other-guy-with-the-moustache-who-doesn’t-tweet.

So in summary, TVNZ – get some real people with intelligence and authority who are able to reply / interact to your Twitter and move away from the one directional shouting of news to a 3 dimensional human interaction with the audience you are communicating with, and you might find as a result that people like me suddenly have a real connection with a real person and develop a real brand loyalty over and above the output of your reporting.