Twingly Blog

Dagens Nyheter (DN), Sweden’s biggest morning newspaper, has been one the first Twingly partners to integrate our widget solution into its website, back in early 2007. Today, five years later, we spoke with Björn Hedensjö, Head of Digital at DN, about how Twingly worked out for them, his view on the importance of blogs and comments as well as about what’s next for DN regarding social media.

DN was Twingly’s first client and integrated the widget in February 2007. What was the impact of that partnership and with what thoughts do you look back on 5 years of having incoming blog links showing next to your articles?
I started at DN in 2009, but the people working with digital there before me did a great job, and the Twingly partnership is a good example. The impact was big then and today we’re still a very natural environment for bloggers, and it’s important for us to put the incoming links in prominent positions on the site.

How has the role of the blogosphere changed for DN during the past years, and how important is it today?
I think it’s as important or more important today than it was a few years ago, despite the “competition” from microblogs and Facebook. I really feel blogs contribute in a unique way when they’re at their best, with in depth coverage of current issues.

How much do you at DN actually work together with the blogosphere? What ways do you see for the future to leverage blogs even more for your site?
I wouldn’t say we work very actively with the blogosphere, but we link to blogs in articles when it’s relevant and of course all editors read loads of blogs. Also the Twingly partnership is important when it comes to tying us closer to the blogosphere. A senior editor of ours, Hasse Rosén, has recently started working with social and interactivity issues and eventually we’ll see some exciting results from that.

How valuable are reader comments for your?
Very important. Without them any news site get a certain, uncanny PDF feel.

If readers want to comment on one of your articles, they need to login with Facebook, OpenID or a DN.se account. Do you find that to be the best solution to keep the quality of comments up?
It’s not the best solution, but it has proven to be a step in the right direction for us, I don’t think there are any easy or general solutions that fit all. We have plenty of ideas in the backlog, one being a rating or ‘like’ system, where users rate each other’s comments. That has been very successful on other news sites. Recently we also started working actively to encourage good comments by highlighting them, perhaps writing new articles based on them. But many things could be done to make it better.

How do you see DN develop in the future in regards to social media?
A closer Facebook integration is not an unlikely next step.

How will that look?
A little bit too early to say!

While there hardly seems to be anybody without a Facebook account nowadays, Twitter is still only a niche phenomenon in Sweden. Do you think that will change in the near future?
No, I think Twitter in Sweden is pretty much established as a meeting place for a tiny, influential minority. It hasn’t changed much since I got my Twitter account in 2008.

How much time do you personally spend with social media while at work?
Depends, if I have a not so busy day, which is rare, I allow myself to just enjoy them. Other days it’s strictly work, but I check Twitter and Facebook regularly.

What are the biggest trends in online journalism that you especially look forward to be able to work with at DN?
Open data services and quick, simple and direct ways to broadcast news. A colleague of mine recently shot, edited and published a very professional clip from a bus accident in minutes, all via his iPhone.

Sweden’s four biggest newspapers, Expressen, Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, might be different in many aspects, but they have something in common: Their websites all use Twingly to connect readers with the blogosphere.

So which articles did create the biggest buzz and engagement within the blogosphere in 2011? We had a look at the stats! Here is a list of the top 5 articles from each of the 4 newspapers which received the most incoming links from blogs.

Note that on each article page you’ll find the Twingly widget where you can see what the blogosphere said. And sorry, but it’s all in Swedish.

Aftonbladet
1. Missa inte Vilgot
2. Minst 85 döda i vansinnesdådet
3. ”Inför ny skatt för feta”
4.  Juholt föreslås bli partiledare
5. Här är ditt nya stjärntecken!

Expressen
1. Billström gav samma svar – 17 gånger
2. Usama bin Ladin är död
3. Nobelfesten 2011
4.  Ministrarna ville begränsa flyktingvåg
5. Marcus Birro: Lärdomar? Lita aldrig på små flickor i rullstolar,som ber dig om något

Dagens Nyheter
1. Usama bin Ladin dödad i USA-attack
2. ”Demokrati inte så viktigt för dagens unga svenskar”
3. ”Privatiseringar i välfärden har inte ökat effektiviteten”
4. ”Arkelsten förfalskar historien”
5. Norsk polis: Minst sju döda i explosionen

Svenska Dagbladet
1. SvD rapporterade direkt
2. Ministrar ville stoppa våg av irakier
3. Muslimsk högtid kan bli helgdag
4. Sluta straffa våra patienter
5. Brottslighet bland invandrare borde oroa alla partier

New design

New design

Old design

New design

Nyligen berättade vi att vi köpt Bloggportalen av Aftonbladet. Nu kan vi stolt berätta att vi idag flyttat Bloggportalen till våra servrar och att vi gett sajten en uppfräschad design. 

Både serverflytten och det nya utseendet är första initiativen för att skapa Sveriges bästa mötesplats för bloggare och bloggläsare.

Vad händer kring Bloggportalen under 2012?

För att skapa den bästa ingången till den svenska bloggosfären, kommer vi ge mer plats åt bloggare på förstasidan och kategorisidorna. Det är väldigt bra att ha tillgång till listor på mest bloggade nyheter, men vi tänker att på Bloggportalen ska bloggarna trots allt stå i centrum.

Vi kommer att skapa ett nyhetsbrev för de bloggare som finns registrerade på Bloggportalen och vi kommer att återuppliva Bloggvärldsbloggen där Anton Johansson (dvs jag =) ska blogga om allt som har med bloggande att göra. Jag har genom Twinglys och mina egna bloggar bevakat den svenska blogosfären och mediebranschen sedan jag vet inte hur länge och det ska bli roligt att få ta hand om Bloggvärldsbloggen.

I Twinglys kommande Bloggrapport för 2012 kommer vi även att inkludera resultatet av en undersökning som vi skickar ut till bloggare som registrerat sig på Bloggportalen. Det kommer vara frågor om hur, varför och när vi bloggar. Är det någon särskild fråga ni vill ha med i undersökningen är det bara att höra av sig i kommentarerna nedan eller på Twitter!

Kolla in det nya utseendet på Bloggportalen här när vi är klara med flytten!

In December we announced our acquisition of Bloggportalen from Aftonbladet. Today we’re proud to tell you that we’ve moved Bloggportalen to our own servers and that the site now has a new look and feel.

The move to our servers and the redesign is the first step towards making Bloggportalen to the best meeting point for bloggers and blog readers in Sweden.

What’s happening around Bloggportalen during 2012?

To create the best entrance to the Swedish blogosphere, we’ll provide more space for bloggers on the frontpage and the category pages. An overview of the most blogged news articles is great as well but we think that the blogs should be in focus on Bloggportalen.

We will also start to send a newsletter to the registered bloggers at Bloggportalen and restart the Bloggvärldsbloggen where Anton Johansson (yes, that’s me!) will blog about all things related to blogging. I have been writing about the blogosphere and the media industry for years both for Twingly and on my personal blogs and I’m looking forward continue doing so in Bloggvärldsbloggen.

On the upcoming Twingly Blog Report for 2012 we will also include the results of a survey we will send out the registered bloggers at Bloggportalen. The survey will have questions about how, when and why we’re blogging. Is it any particular question you want us to have in the survey, let us know in the comments or tell us on Twitter!

Check out the new redesign of Bloggportalen here!

We are always very happy when we can announce another e-commerce partner that connects with the blogosphere with the help of Twingly. Only a few days ago we could welcome Yves Rocher to the Twingly family, and today Nelly.com is joining us with its integration of the Twingly widget.

Nelly.com is one of the largest online fashion stores in Northern Europe, offering more than 750 brands throughout a growing number of countries, among them Germany , Austria and The Netherlands.

The integration of Twingly means that on each and every product page on Nelly.com, fashion shoppers can immediately see what bloggers have written about the specific piece of clothing (like here for example, in Swedish). They can click on the links to the blog to read the full post. For bloggers this is a great way of getting additional visitors by covering a product on Nelly.com, linking to it and pinging us. Instead of pinging us, bloggers can also add the link to their blog posts directly inside the widget on the product page.

The Twingly widget at the bottom to the right

Fashion blogs represent a significant chunk of the whole blogosphere, and fashion bloggers passionately and regularly write about clothes they love. Online fashion stores using our solution can leverage the power, expertise and feedback from the blogosphere and add value to their offerings.

Welcome, Nelly.com!

Click here for the English version!

Der Tatort ist die in der deutschen Twittersphäre am meisten und intensivsten diskutierte Fernsehsendung. Stefanie Aßmann und Nicole Greiner haben vor einiger Zeit in einem Blog damit begonnen, die Twitter-Resonanz auf einzelne Episoden auszuwerten und zu analysieren. Im Interview erzählt Stefanie, wie es dazu kam, was twitternde Tatort-Fans bewegt und was als nächstes kommen könnte.

Wer bist du wieso bewegt dich das Thema Social-Media-Monitoring?
Meine Name ist Stefanie Aßmann, bei Twitter @miss_assmann. Ich arbeite bei VICO Research & Consulting als Consultant und beschäftige mich dort beruflich mit dem Thema Monitoring und Social Media. Vor zwei Jahren habe ich mich im Rahmen meiner Masterarbeit das erste Mal mit Social Media Monitoring auseinander gesetzt. Damals gab es nur wenig Literatur zum Thema. Für mich war das ein Grund, dies zu ändern und das Blog zum Thema ins Leben zu rufen. Außerdem finde ich es sehr spannend, wie die Nutzer online über Produkte und Marken diskutieren. Analysen zur Social Media Kommunikation ergeben immer sehr interessante Erkenntnisse.

Du befasst dich seit einiger Zeit damit, die Twitter-Reaktionen zum Tatort zu analysieren. Wie kam es dazu?
Wir haben auf der Arbeit montags über den Tatort gesprochen und uns darüber unterhalten, wie viele Leute doch auf Twitter darüber diskutieren. Da kam uns die Idee, das es lustig wäre, den Tatort anhand von Tweets nachzuerzählen. Mit Nicole habe ich die Idee einige Zeit später wieder aufgegriffen. Leider schaffen wir es zeitlich nur selten, den Tatort zu analysieren.

Wieso sorgt gerade der Tatort für ein derartig großes Echo bei Twitter?
Das ist eine gute Frage und ein gutes Thema für eine Analyse. In meinem Freundeskreis schauen sehr viele Leute sonntags Tatort. Da viele Freunde der Social-Media-Welt beim Fernsehen das Smartphone nicht aus der Hand legen können, haben sie wohl angefangen, den Tatort zu kommentieren. Das Ganze hat sich irgendwann verselbstständigt. In meiner Timeline ist mir der Tatort jedenfalls als erstes TV Format aufgefallen.

Welche Tools und Verfahren verwendest du für deine Analyse?
Angefangen haben wir mit der Twitter-Suche. Zwischendurch habe ich auch das Tool von VICO eingesetzt, um eine Tag Cloud zu erstellen. Anja von Twingly war nun so nett und hat mir ein Liveboard zum Tatort eingerichtet. Damit erhält man einen guten Überblick, wie viele User zu welchen Schlagworten zum Tatort twittern. Um die Tweets zu sammeln, nutzen wir aktuell die Twittersuche und Live von Twingly. Ideen für weitere Analysen habe ich genug. Mir fehlt nur die Zeit für die Umsetzung.

Welche Folge war bisher die mit den insgesamt positivsten Twitter-Kritiken und welche die mit den negativsten? 
Da wir nicht jeden Tatort analysieren, kann ich das gar nicht so genau sagen. Oft ist die Twitter-Tatort-Gemeinde zwiegespalten. Gerade der Tatort von Justus von Dohnanyi hat für viel Gesprächsstoff bei Twitter gesorgt. Entweder wurde der Tatort als Meisterstück gelobt, oder er wurde verrissen. Prinzipiell kann man auch sagen, dass bei manchen Tatorten der eigentlich Inhalt bei Twitter gar keine Rolle spielt. Manchmal sind gewisse Details im Tatort spannender als die Handlung selbst. Gerade wenn bestimmte Details im Film nicht logisch sind, wird gerne gemeckert.

Glaubst du, der Tatort wird immer eher eine Ausnahme bleiben, was das Social-Web-Engagement der Nutzer angeht? Oder werden künftig viele weitere Sendungen ähnlich viel Resonanz in den Social-Media-Kanälen erhalten?
Der Tatort war die erste Sendung mit so viel Resonanz bei Twitter. Mittlerweile wird alles mögliche – bespielsweise “Bauer sucht Frau” oder “The Voice of Germany” – bei Twitter diskutiert. In meinen Augen birgt Twitter bei der Analyse von TV-Formaten noch sehr viel Potential. Anbieter wie Couchfunk haben schon erkannt, dass man das klassische Fernsehen mit der Internetnutzung verknüpfen sollte.

Denkst du darüber nach, deine Analysen auf andere Sendungen auszuweiten?
Ja, da denke ich schon länger drüber nach. Allerdings habe ich noch kein Format gefunden, dass mich inhaltlich auch so interessiert. Mich würden hier generell amerikanische Serien reizen. Dort werden die verschiedenen Social-Media-Kanäle bereits jetzt schon verstärkt von den Sendern eingesetzt.

Hier könnt ihr das Interview auf Deutsch lesen.

The German crime drama series Tatort (German for “crime scene”) is the most discussed TV show among Twitter users in Germany. A while ago Stefanie Assmann and Nicole Greiner started to analyse the Twitter feedback on a couple of episodes. In our interview, Stefanie explains how that happened, what it is that gets the tweeting audience excited as well as what the next step could look like.

Tell us a bit about you.
My name is Stefanie Assmann, @miss_assmann on Twitter. I’m working as a consultant at Vico Research, a German full-service agency for social media, dealing mainly with monitoring and social media. About two years ago I learned about social media monitoring for the first time while writing my Master thesis. Back then there wasn’t too much literature on that topic, which made me eventually launch a blog about it. It’s fascinating to see how users discuss brands and products. Analysing their comments always leads to interesting insights.

You have started to look closer at what Twitter users say about Tatort episodes and to publish the results on your blog. Why?
On Mondays at the office we usually discuss the latest episode of Tatort (which is always broadcasted on Sunday evenings), and we found it impressive how many people were doing the same on Twitter during the show. Nicole and I thought it might be fun to use those tweets by people watching Tatort to re-tell the story of the episode. Eventually, that led to a couple of blog posts where we evaluated the Tatort-buzz on Twitter. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to do that regularly.

Why is Tatort the single regular TV show in Germany getting that much attention on Twitter?
Good question and food for another analysis. Many of my friends usually watch Tatort on Sunday evenings. It’s quite a popular series. And as it is the case for many social media enthusiasts, they can’t stop using their smartphone, even while doing something else like watching TV. So they started to tweet about Tatort. Now that has become some kind of “tradition” on Twitter. I remember that Tatort was the first TV show that appeared in my Twitter timeline.

Which tools do you use for your analysis?
We started with the Twitter search, and we also used a tool from VICO, my employer, to create a tag cloud. Recently Twingly was so kind to provide us with a Liveboard that helps to get a quick overview about the amount and type of Tatort tweets.

Are there any typical patterns or reactions that you observe?
Since we don’t cover each Tatort episode it’s a bit hard to say. But my impression is that usually the feedback is rather varied, with both positive and negative comments. So some people love an episode while others hate it. Often, the actual plot isn’t what engages users in the online discussion. Instead it’s specific details that make people tweet. If the audience perceives a detail as unrealistic or absurd, that would usually lead to a lot of complaining on Twitter.

You think Tatort will be an exception regarding its Twitter buzz, or will other German TV shows become equally popular on Twitter?
Tatort was definitely the first show in Germany to create this kind of engagement among Twitter users. But nowadays there are other TV shows as well that get lots of tweets. I think there is a lot of potential in “social tv”, and specific web services are popping up to build on that and to connect traditional TV with the web.

Do you plan to extend your analysis to other shows?
I would love to, but I have yet to find a show which excites me enough to invest the time. A US show would be fun, since there the stations themselves already actively use social media.

Yves Rocher has recently started to use the Twinly Blogstream widget to show incoming links from blogs to its product pages in the four Nordic countries. We are excited to have this renowned global cosmetics and beauty brand as a partner! Curious to get to know more about the role that blogs and social media play for the company, we spoke to Maiju Romppanen, project manager for social media at Yves Rocher.

You have recently added Twingly to your online shop’s product pages. Tell us what you hope to achieve with showing which blogs have linked to your product pages.
To show links on the product pages is part of our SEO strategy. We hope to attract more links from bloggers when we link back to their blogs. We constantly strive to create interesting content to our product pages. A blog post could give some added value and it can often be the first step to try a new product. Many of the bloggers today have a strong influence on their readers.

What kind of importance does the blogosphere have for Yves Rocher?
Beauty is a hot topic in blogs. Majority of the blogosphere is touching either fashion or beauty. There is no question that being visible is important for any cosmetics brand. By being visible in blogosphere we are able to reach a target group of young females who are interested in beauty. Also, we get in contact with top influencers.

Apart from the Twingly widget – which other activities have you done in the past involving bloggers?
During the fall 2011 we launched a major campaign, The Waterproof Challenge, which involved the most prominent bloggers from each Nordic country. The campaign allowed users to test waterproof make up in a new, engaging and fun way with the help of some of the most popular bloggers in the Nordic countries. We believe that bloggers played a crucial role in this campaign. They are often role models for other girls and they give more credibility compared to traditional marketing methods. Another ongoing activity is the Yves Rocher Review project which involves selected bloggers who has a chance to test Yves Rocher products and review them in their blogs. It is important that the blogger can relate to Yves Rocher’s values and be a good ambassador of the brand.

When opening up to the blogosphere, that means becoming transparent and highlighting both positive feedback but also criticism. How do you prepare for that?
It is important for us to know what our customers think about our brand and products. That is why we are auditing, following and listening what is said and written about us in the social media. To be able to meet our customer’s questions, opinions and even criticism we have created internal processes to manage this effectively. Our goal is to be as transparent as possible towards our customers regarding information and ingredients. Transparency leads to credibility.

Which other social media channels do you use to reach your target group and which are the most important or effective ones?
The most important social media channel for us is definitely Facebook. It allows us to have a conversation with our customers in a totally new way. Today there are almost 300 000 people who are following Yves Rocher brand on Facebook globally. The Nordic Facebook pages were launched pretty recently, so we still have much more to do. However, we can already now see positive results from using social media as a media tool especially when it comes to conversion, viral effects and reaching a new target group.

The Twingly integration is available on your websites in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Do you notice any significant differences between each country’s blogosphere?
The Swedish blogosphere is definitely more developed and larger in terms of the amount of bloggers compared to the other Nordic countries. We can also find more niched blogs in Sweden which is probably the result of the variety and the popularity of blogging in Sweden. However, we can see the same trend in the other Nordic countries that blogging is gaining popularity and interesting blogs are popping up continuously. One thing that for sure is common in all countries is that young girls are dominating!

Yves Rocher is a French company. How closely to you work together with the headquarter in France?
We get a lot of support from the French headquarters and many of the actions are synchronized all over the world. We meet our international colleagues regularly to change experiences and best practices, which is very helpful even though markets often have their differences.

Happy New Year to all of you! We hope that you are as excited as we to see what 2012 will have in store. If the upcoming next months will only be half as eventful as 2011, there really won’t be a shortage of news! Let’s do a quick recap about what happened during the past year at and around Twingly.

January
We started the year with preparations of all the good things to come, with introducing a few websites within the public service and public sector that use Twingly as well as with a comprehensive overview about media monitoring companies from around the world that have partnered up with us (part 1, part 2).

February
We were happy to announce CisionWire as new Twingly partner. We also launched a new version of Twingly Channels that focused on group communication and microblogging. And journalisten.no, a Norwegian website covering the media industry, described how blogs have gained power in Sweden, mentioning Twingly as one of the reasons that supported this development.

March
Two trainees started to work at the Twingly office in Linköping, Charlotta Baltazar and Peter Lindblom. It was great to have both aboard during the two month they were staying with us. Meanwhile here in the blog, we published interviews showing how much e-commerce sites can benefit from the Twingly solutions.

April
Since April, the two largest e-commerce sites for books in Sweden, Adlibris and Bokus, are using Twingly Blogstream on their websites. It was great to see that kind of connection between the blogosphere and booksphere – and it still is! Another thing that made us happy were the great articles about Twingly by Thomas Dahlquist, Internetworld Sweden and The Next Web. And for all conference goers we posted this handy list of major tech and social media events in Europe.

May

Twingly celebrates its 5th birthday

As every year in May, we celebrated our birthday. This time it was the 5th – for an Internet startup that’s a very special number, which we honoured with an amazing party. Check out the photos here. We also traveled to the Next conference in Berlin, Europe’s new startup hotspot.

June
Beauty Planet, a leading Swedish online store for perfume, makeup, skin care and hair care, launched its Twingly integration, and we gave an overview about the APIs Twingly offers to media monitoring businesses.

July

TEDxAlmedalen 2011

We co-organized the TEDxAlmedalen 2011 event at the Swedish island of Gotland. Twingly was also part of the jury for the “Almedalens blogger of the year” award. Lena Lid Falkman won the price for her blog coverage of Almedalen Week, an important forum in Swedish politics.

August
For the third year in a row, we sponsored the Sweden Social Web Camp unconference and attended the popular event to mingle, discuss and be inspired. Meanwhile, the Swedish business website affarsliv.com published an interview with Twingly CEO Martin Källström, and we highlighted the top 7 most beautiful integrations of Twingly Blogstream.

September
The number of Twingly partners grew again by 3, and with the Cathedral of Lund we could welcome the first church to the Twingly family. Apart from that, we released a ranking (in Swedish) listing the 10 Swedish publishing houses that are getting the most links from bloggers.

October
At least in Sweden, the mobile app of the year 2011 was the Wordfeud, a scrabble-like game for iOS and Android. To help Wordfeud addicts to win and to animate them to donate some money to Doctors without Borders, we launched a little web app called Wordfeusk. And while Wordfeusk was hit by a lot of traffic, two members of the Twingly team attended conferences in October: Anja was at the Research & Results in Munich and Kristoffer went to London to visit the FOWA conference. You can read about his experience here.

November

Twingly Insight launched

November was a big month: We rolled out a new front page, launched Twingly In