Posts Tagged ‘social media’

T-Mobile UK dipping into social media, finally

Wednesday, October 29th, 2008

Anna and Will from NixonMcInnes are working with T-Mobile UK to bring them into the 21st Century.

And it’s a good job they are.

For a long time, T-Mobile have been the proverbial arse-in-the-corner, ignoring the blogosphere because it’s, well, unknown.. and filled with.. er… the great unwashed…

For any organisation accustomed to broadcasting to customers and potential customers, the utter shock at being held accountable and having to — one way or another — respond to questions from the great unwashed, well, it’s understandable.

Most marketing and public relations folk in big companies such as T-Mobile are doing correct thing and reading a lot about it, attending conferences to get good case studies and constantly doing their best to put off the meeting with the Communications Strategy meeting with the Chief Executive. Most CEOs these days love the concept of communicating directly.

It scares the hell out of most public relations people who’re used to rules. And proper ways of doing things.

The key point with the blogosphere is that it’s populated by people. Real people who, in the case of T-Mobile UK particularly — are actual customers. Or wannabe customers. Or potentially interested.

And when you come across big lumbering giants like T-Mobile, of course, you know it’s going to take them fooking years to understand and get comfortable with the new medium.

There’s no excuse for it. There’s no need. They should be hot footing it right into the blogosphere hot tub rather than standing at the back wrapped in a towel shivering.

T-Mobile’s Marketing and PR chaps have dipped a toe. And that’s a good thing. But they’ve done it with a plausible deniability safety-net.

If Will or Anna screw up, the Marketing Director can hang them out to dry.

I’d like to see some bollocks on the line. Not for any particular reason other than I — and most of you reading — are actually interested and — if pushed — rather passionate about T-Mobile. I’d like to know what’s going on. I’d like to ask questions. I’d like to hear from their directors. I’d like to tell them how to take more cash off me.

So I say right-on to T-Mobile UK for taking tentative steps. Well done for hiring NixonMcInnes — one of the best agencies to handle this sort of thing — but I’d like to see more, soon.

If you’d like to follow T-Mobile UK on Twitter — you can — SHOCK HORROR. The username you want is TMobileSharing.

Vodafone’s step into social media with Facebook

Monday, September 8th, 2008

I’m rather impressed to see that Vodafone has taken the jump into the social media space properly, with the launch of a Facebook application that lets you send text messages and have the cost of doing so billed to your Vodafone account.

Stuart Dredge over at PocketPicks caught this and points out that it’s not just for Vodafone customers — anyone (I think, in the UK) can use it. You can buy credits from the system — the cheapest rate is 7p per text, giving you rather a good saving over the standard 12.5p rate most Vodafone customers pay out of bundle. Still quite steep. Particularly when you can send your friends a ‘free’ Facebook message.

But the utility of being able to send messages directly to someone’s handset still generally wins, doesn’t it?

It’s good to see an operator getting stuck in with what looks like a solidly built application. It worked first-time for me and I now have 25 credits to blow!

You can add the application by visiting this address: http://apps.facebook.com/connecttofriends.


Powered by Interactive Energy | Sign up to The Application Review newsletter