• #HitmanisBack

    Friday, November 23, 2012

    Boxing great Ricky Hatton MBE has been away from the ring for three years - and this weekend is the moment fans have been waiting for as he stages his hotly-anticipated comeback. And as well as causing a stir in the boxing ring, @HitmanHatton has been knocking out the competition on Twitter too.

    Ahead of his bout with Yvacheslav Senchenko on Saturday night, Hatton’s been using the support of almost 200,000 Twitter fans to help him build up to the clash. Back in October he changed his Twitter name to reflect his nickname in the ring - @HitmanHatton, and has taken his army of fans with him on his journey from retirement back to competition.

    This morning Hatton exclusively revealed his newly designed shorts, complete with his Twitter handle sewn into them:


    When he dons his kit on Saturday night (designed by Suzi Wong @suz1wong), he’ll become the first ever UK athlete to compete in a major live televised sports event adorned with his Twitter handle.

    Hatton admits that after three years in retirement, it’s been a road back to boxing which has had its ups and downs. During that journey his Twitter followers have been first to see breaking news, have taken part in Q&As with Ricky using the hashtag #AskRicky, and have seen behind-the-scenes pics as he prepares for his big day.

    He also used Twitter to break the news of which TV network the fight would be on:
    And in a boxing first, Tweets sent to hashtag #RickysCorner have been made into posters and placed on the walls of Hatton’s gym to motivate him in the final days before the fight. He’ll be signing the posters and giving them to the person who sent the Tweet. You can see a gallery of the motivational #RickysCorner tweets here.
    Graeme Harrison (@graeme_harrison), Head of Digital at @FastTrackAgency, has been working with Hatton on his comeback. He said: "Ricky always has and always will be a boxer who is close to his fans. However, Twitter enabled Ricky to engage and build deeper connections.

    “Throughout his comeback campaign, everything that we did was aimed at creating a greater interaction with his fans and redeeming Ricky in the eyes of the general public.

    "#RickysCorner allowed us to take something "virtual" (a Tweet) and make it physical (a poster) which Ricky would then sign and send back to his fans. This gives his fans something that money can't buy, a set of posters that motivate Ricky and helps communicate Ricky's key message to fans and the wider audience."

    There’s still time to follow @HitmanHatton ahead of the fight, and cheer him on using the main hashtag for the event: #HitmanIsBack. From all of us at @TwitterUK, good luck Ricky. We’re definitely in #RickysCorner.

     -- Lewis Wiltshire, @LewisWiltshire. Head of Sport, Twitter UK

    Posted by @ at 1:34 AM

  • #OutOfTheBlue

    Wednesday, November 21, 2012

    Even after a disappointing 3-0 defeat at Juventus last night, Chelsea parting company with manager Roberto di Matteo came out of the blue for most fans this morning (Wednesday November 21).

    The news broke on Twitter at around 9am when @ChelseaFC tweeted simply:
    At the time of writing, the Tweet has had more than 5,000 retweets or favourites. The UK’s most prominent football writers have spent the rest of the day clarifying exactly when and why Di Matteo was fired. Fans and journalists also began to speculate on who his replacement would be, and break news about potential candidates.
    Over the last 24 hours we have seen more than 2.5 million mentions of the story on Twitter, starting with their game against @JuventusFC on Tuesday night through to Wednesday afternoon, when speculation about the new manager's identity reached fever pitch. Other highlights included:

    • The peak in mentions of the story on Twitter came at 9am UK time when Chelsea broke the news on their own Twitter account
    • The most popular term was the word ‘Chelsea’ which was tweeted over one million times 
    • Tweets flooded in from all over the world including the UK, the US and Indonesia, where Chelsea have a dedicated Twitter account @chelseafc_indo
    • The topic was also dominating Twitter trends on Wednesday with up to five different trends about the story appearing at the same time in the UK
    • The story also trended worldwide

    Chelsea’s main @ChelseaFC Twitter account is the second-most followed of the @PremierLeague clubs, behind London rivals @Arsenal. Chelsea have more managerial news to tweet about than Arsenal - the new manager will be their 8th since Twitter was invented. Arsenal have had the same manager since 10 years before Twitter was born!

    The day was summed up by @Lord_Sugar in a single Tweet: 
    Follow @ChelseaFC for the announcement on Di Matteo’s successor, which could come as early as today.

    Lewis Wiltshire, Head of Sport, Twitter UK
    @LewisWiltshire.

    Posted by @ at 9:39 AM

  • Announcing the new Archbishop

    Friday, November 9, 2012

    Twitter brings you closer to the things you care about, and for many people around the world that's religion.

    Today was a significant day for members the Anglican faith as the Church of England (@C_of_E) and Number 10 (@Number10Gov) announced the appointment the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. 

    And it was fitting that they selected Twitter as the platform on which to make this historic announcement, sharing their decision instantly with congregations across the faith's 16,000 churches and 1.7m regular churchgoers.

    The official announcement was made by @Number10Gov, the Twitter account of the office of the Prime Minister:
    There was also an official hashtag (#newabc) so that Twitter users could join the conversation. Over the last 24 hours there have already been more than 40,000 mentions of the news on Twitter.

    Once the announcement had been made, @C_of_E and @LambethPalace went on to live-tweet updates from their press conference.


    Justin Welby is currently the Bishop of Durham and tweets as @bishopofdurham. He told the press conference that he plans to continue when he takes on the new role in 2013:
    Many took to Twitter to send their congratulations to the new Archbishop, including John Sentamu (@JohnSentamu), the Archbishop of York:
    Well wishes also came from other faith leaders including @BishopAngaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK:
    Even the @bishopofdurham’s daughter @KatharineWelby joined the conversation:
    Reverend Arun Arora (@RevArun), Director of Communications for the Church of England, told Twitter:

    “When we announced the last appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury ten years ago, Twitter didn’t even exist. Now in 2012, it is giving people all over the world the chance to connect with their faiths in exciting and inspiring ways.

    “We’re delighted to be using Twitter to share the news of the appointment of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. By embracing digital communication tools such as Twitter we hope to bring Anglican congregations around the globe closer than ever to their spiritual leaders.”

    -- Helen Prowse, @Prowseington

    Posted by @ at 12:01 PM

  • Follow #Election2012 on Twitter

    Monday, November 5, 2012

    Many commentators are calling the 2012 US election the ‘Twitter Election’ - and when you look at the numbers, it’s easy to see why.

    On election day 2008, we saw a total of 1.8 million Tweets. Compare this to the 10 million Tweets we saw during the first 90 minute debate earlier this year, and you’ll begin to get a sense of the seismic shift in the scale of US political conversation on Twitter that’s happened over the last four years. In fact, the number of Tweets sent every 48 hours in 2012 is the same as the total number that had ever been sent on Twitter back in 2008.

    We wanted to bring UK observers a roundup of the last few months to give you a sense of how voters, commentators and candidates across the pond have been using Twitter in the run up to polling day, as well as a guide to following the election on Twitter as it unfolds this week.

    Follow the Election on Twitter 
    If you’re interested in following the election day conversation, we’ve created an event page at twitter.com/#Election2012. The page curates Tweets from the candidates, their campaign staff, political insiders, news commentators, and government officials.  It's a great place to keep on top of the huge amount of information about the election on Twitter.

    Some of the other key accounts you may want to follow include:
    @BarackObama
    @MittRomney
    @JoeBiden 
    @PaulRyanVP
    @MichelleObama
    @AnnDRomney
    @Obama2012
    @Gov 

    Conventions 
    Twitter was used extensively during the Political conventions in August and September of this year, kick-starting the campaigns for both the Republicans and the Democrats. The most Retweeted message of the convention season was Barack Obama’s (@BarackObama) response to Clint Eastwood’s “empty chair” speech - which has been shared over 55,000 times:
     
    Debates 
    Whilst the conventions saw conversation about the election hotting up, it was the presidential debates that gave us the most Tweeted-about event in US political history. During the first Denver debate on October 4 we saw the record 10 million Tweets. As well as live commentary and analysis by voters and commentators, one of the major activities that took place on Twitter during the debates was real-time fact checking of what the candidates said, carried out by non-partisan organisations. Here’s a great example:
    Every debate since has seen a steady stream of commentary on Twitter, with the final debate on October 22 netting 6.5 million Tweets.

    The Twitter Political Index 
    Whilst big events like the conventions and debates create spikes in conversation, the Twitter Political Index has been tracking political sentiment towards the two candidates on Twitter on a daily basis.

    The service has been used by political commentators and observers to analyse the US electorate’s feelings about the Obama and Romney campaigns. For example, we can see that Romney’s score increased after announcing Rep. Paul Ryan (@PaulRyanVP) as his running mate, while sentiment increased in positivity for Obama after the final head-to-head debate.

    In recent weeks we have been able to break down our analysis by state to give more detailed insight into how different areas of the country and reacting to the political campaigns. At https://election.twitter.com/map/, you can explore the political engagement map for yourself. It’s fully interactive so that you can analyse the Tweets, topics, and states that most interest you.

    Ads 
    Candidates have been using Twitter as as way to share their messages organically with their constituents for some time, but we have also seen political campaigns using the platform's Promoted Products effectively as a way to join in the real-time conversations and amplify their messages in authentic and engaging ways.

    Rather than crafting TV commercials or billboards, campaigners have turned their hand to crafting messages that deliver their key election pledges in 140 characters or less.

    Whether it was Mitt Romney’s campaign buying the first ever Promoted Trend by a Presidential candidate, or Public Broadcasting System (@PBS) using Promoted Tweets to engage with consumers searching for the term 'Big Bird' (after the now-famous comments during the first Presidential debate) - both political and non-political marketers have moved to Twitter to engage in the conversation.

    140 Characters
    As @stephengmills set out in the Guardian, during the election campaign US politics has shifted ‘from a 24-hour news cycle, to a 140-character one’.

    Whether you’re rooting for @MittRomney, @BarackObama, or simply an interested observer, you can follow #Election2012 on Twitter to see the drama unfold this week, 140 characters at a time.

    Posted by @ at 2:46 PM