Who swears the most on Twitter?

A BBC study this week revealed the UK regions with the most colourful language on Twitter. The ‘profanometer’ – measuring the number of swear words used in Tweets sent from mobile devices with geo-location switched on – found that almost 8% of UK Tweets turning the air blue had originated in Redcar in North Yorkshire. The top 10 areas included three in Scotland – Clackmannanshire, East Ayershire and Falkirk – while the least likely to offend were the polite Orkney Islands, Shetland Islands, Oxford, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.

In a world of social media and Wi-Fi it is essential for hotels, airlines and tourist boards to get online and interact with their followers. People rely on social media posts from other travellers to pick out their next holiday destination and this has been made even easier with the use of hashtags. Ensuring not to miss out, Visit Denmark have joined the hashtag band wagon with signposts in 50 popular places of interest around Denmark with a location specific hashtag encouraging travellers to share images online. The images uploaded using these hashtags are then displayed on the Visit Denmark website as well as on the various social media channels of the travellers.

The ROI of Twitter is often defined by a few online stats and figures – reach, engagement, impressions and of course, web traffic. But retailers will soon be able to track sales generated through the microblogging site with the introduction of a ‘Buy’ button. Followers of a brand will be able to click and buy an item directly from the message. The tests will be run with a few users and a limited number of commercial partners. It’s an interesting development and one which could potentially help in shortening the customer journey to purchase – something all retailers will welcome as they attempt to ‘keep the attention’ of consumers through the complicated online journey from initial interest to product purchase.

What happens when fashion meets messaging apps? If this question has been on your mind then ponder no more as film director/artist Miranda July has teamed up with Prada off shoot Miu Miu to create Somebody. It’s a social messaging app with a twist. The twist being that you can’t simply message a friend, when you send a message you have to pick ‘somebody’ within the vicinity of your friend to deliver it. The sender can also include stage directions or personal touches to the message such as a whisper, a scream, a kiss and so forth. While we’re hesitant to be cynical, given everyone on the tube fastidiously avoids eye contact, human contact and even speaking to one another, we can’t see Londoners leaping aboard ‘Somebody’. But hey, prove us wrong!