Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
Most Twitter users try to ignore messages from robot accounts. But maybe we should be putting bots to work for a more noble cause—democracy.
One estimate holds that 75 percent of all Twitter traffic is generated by the most active users—about 5 percent of Twitter accounts. One-third of those active users are believed to be machine bots tweeting more than 150 times a day. Because some bots generate fewer than 150 tweets a day, the actual number of bot-held accounts is probably higher. In fact, as many as one-quarter of all tweets made in an average day may come from bot accounts.
Most of these crafty bots generate inane commentary and try to sell stuff, but some are given political tasks. For example, pro-Chinese bots have clogged Twitter conversations about the conflict in Tibet. In Mexico’s recent presidential election, the political parties played with campaign bots on Twitter. And even an aspiring parliamentarian in Britain turned to bots to appear popular on social media during his campaign. Furthermore, the Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan governments employ their own social media experts and pay small amounts of money to large numbers of people (“50 cent armies”) to generate pro-government messages, if inefficiently.
During the Cold War, Western diplomats smuggled fax machines to the democracy advocates behind the Iron Curtain. For a while now, we’ve been sending satellite phones to activists leaders who need help organizing supporters. But we aren’t yet taking advantage of Twitter robots. Let’s put those tools to work promoting democratic values, expanding the news diets of people in other countries, and critiquing tough dictators.
The way Russians, Iranians, and Chinese use their social media in different ways, so there needs to be care with messaging and targeting. The Iranian blogosphere is full of poets. The Russian blogosphere has lots of nationalists. So our democracy bots need to be engaging, and promote stories about what life is like in countries where freedom and faith coexist. Or the tweets could provide links to news stories and cultural content that engages particular social networks. The task of such bots would not be to send pro-Western messages to the accounts of anti-Western tweeters. Instead, it would be to send links about life in countries with peace, order, and good governance to moms blogging about their parenting troubles, students getting caught up in the Eurovision contest, and government workers reading online news from sources outside their country.
It would be toughest to turn our bots on Chinese Internet users, most of whom are not linked up to global information infrastructure in the way the rest of us are. This makes it difficult for large amounts of content to flow between China and the rest of the world. Most Chinese use QQ and Weibo, the Facebook and Twitter equivalents. Accounts on these sites have to be validated by a real person before they get permission to launch pre-formulated messages on a programmed schedule. So someone in China might have to take personal risks in letting democracy robots lose. Or a hacktivist would have to exploit some zero-day vulnerability—we know there is a market for information about those secret vulnerabilities.
Inevitably, this will result in some sort of Twitter war of the robots, some promoting democracy, some decrying it. I suppose anti-democracy robots can target their own citizens at home or abroad, but they would probably have little impact on the people living in democracies. Sure, maybe this will clog up Twitter a bit. But we need a strategic response to 50-cent armies and the existing authoritarian bots. Not putting the robots to work for democracy is the more dangerous strategy.
How does a business owner track their results? Are there tools or software that can show true return on investment numbers to meashure their social media? Example: Google Analytics is one great tool to identify online traffic by impeding a code within your website or blog. What other tools are on the market?
If you currently use social media analytics software tools, how much do you pay on a monthly or yearly basis? Can you identify the software brand as well?
If you currently use social media analytics software tools, such as Buzz, Brand Reputation monitoring, and/or social media marketing campaign tracking, how much do you pay on a monthly or yearly basis? Can you identify the software brand as well?
If we wanted to market a specific person (ie to raise their celebrity status) what social media platforms (eg blogging, interactive website etc) would you suggest and why?
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Recently recieved a job offer but am unsure about the title? It is in market research and involves primarily social media marketing but also other online PR/marketing strategies. What are some typical formal job titles for people doing similar jobs in this field?
and what impact will it leave in the future? positive or negative?
Yes, social media provides new marketing methods and all, but then again, most of the entertainment business’ revenue comes from advertisers. so, social media might be an ally and an enemy at the same time.
and i dont believe selling DVD’s or songs help, as final customers tend to find ways of getting them for free. and making laws and regulations against it will hurt the relationship between the suppliers and these final customers.
I have a job interview this week at an ad agency and one thing they asked was that I demonstrate my knowledge of social media and online media. I have a lot of experience online through twitter, facebook, blogging, etc. But I need to show that in person, and most likely without a computer. I have a few ideas that I’ve started, but want to see if anyone has any creative suggestions or advice?
I am doing research for my blog and I am looking for as many social media websites to be included.
When Facebook tops Google in traffic, you can only wonder if social media is the new way of doing business on the web. What is your take on this matter?
I am considering going to a conference about Social Media and Business and it’s kinda costly so I want to see how important social media is in business and if it will be worth the money to go. Thanks in advance!!
I am looking for some help on how an international consultancy firm that assists companies to set up business in a foreign country can use social media. Do you see social media having a benefit for them? What do you could possibly harm them? How can they go about maintain the very fine line between social interaction and professional interaction? The fact is that they deal with information, connections and other services of that nature instead of a consumer product. Thus I need some insight into strategies and platforms that could benefit them and how to maintain their audience interested.
Thank you.