Cultural Resolution

Very excited to see the 2-page spread in Comunicas magazine featuring me talking about Twitter.  Now if only I could read Spanish.

I’m a bit hungry, even as I write this post.  It’s 11:00, and all I’ve had this morning is coffee, no real breakfast.  But a few steps away is a fridge with plenty of food. I’ve been, at times in my life, flat broke, struggling to pay bills, worried about finances. There were times when I clipped coupons, ate tinned soup or boxed macaroni & cheese because it was a really cheap meal. But I’ve never experienced the kind of hunger that comes with true poverty.  For that, I am thankful.  And so today, I’m lending my support to a campaign aimed at providing food to those who have not been so fortunate.

The Pledge to End Hunger was designed to both provide meals and help shine a light on the very real problem of childhood hunger by asking concerned individuals to be a part of the solution. By visiting the website and pledging your support (to donate, volunteer, or just help spread the word), you can provide 140 meals (donated by Tyson). 

Find out more, take the pledge, write a blog post, send a tweet or an email, help Tyson make this campaign a success, so that lots of others like it will follow.

I’ve talked about what a great tool TweetDeck is in my previous posts about Twitter (Twitter Tips for Newbies, Twitter Stage Two, and Advanced Twitter).  Clearly, I’m a big fan. So when I met TweetDeck founder and developer Iain Dodsworth at the London Social Media Cafe (also known as Tuttle) in early January, I felt a bit like a groupie meeting my favourite rock star.

I caught up with Iain again yesterday at Tuttle, and he gave me a quick overview of some of the new TweetDeck features I’d missed in the latest update. So I thought it might be helpful to share them here, in case anyone else missed them too.

First, for anyone who is on Twitter but not yet using TweetDeck, stop reading right now and download it.  If all you know of Twitter is the Twitter.com interface, you’re depriving yourself and stunting your own Twitter development.  TweetDeck transforms the Twitter experience from a series of unrelated tweets to real conversations.  It makes everything easier and more intuitive, adds additional features, and makes it possible to manage larger following/follower numbers without being overwhelmed.  Okay, enough evangelizing, I’ll move on to the newest cool features. I’m just going to highlight the ones I find especially useful to me, but you can get a complete overview (including a how-to video) on the TweetDeck blog  (you can also find the video here).

New “Other Actions”

Most of the new features are accessed via a new icon for Other Actions, which can be found in the spot previously used by the Favourites icon. Hover your cursor over the photo/avatar box on any tweet, and it’s the icon in the lower right corner. Click the icon and a box appears with a list of functions you can do right there.

• Follow/Unfollow -  Previously, you had to click on the ID and open the Profile in order to follow or unfollow. You still can, but this is handier.
• Email Tweet – This is really useful if you want to share a tweet with someone not on Twitter. By clicking here, an email window opens with the tweet in the message, so all you have to do is address it and send.  So if you were monitoring for tweets that mentioned your company, and came across a customer complaint, you could easily email the message to the person who can address the problem.
• Translate – This opens up a whole new world of Twitter for me.  Since I have contacts worldwide, I follow a number of people who tweet primarily in languages other than English. So even if they use English when they send a message to me, I’ve been missing out on everything else they tweet. Sometimes there have even been tweets which referenced or retweeted me, that I couldn’t read, other than my own name.  Now, all I have to do is click Translate, and it automatically determines which language to translate from and translates it to my designated language.  Like any computer translation, it’s not always grammatically perfect, but the translations are good enough to get the message across.  I’ve only begun to experiment with this, but I love it already.  You can also translate your outgoing tweets into another language (see below).
• Add to Group – Perhaps the most useful for me, since I waited far too late to start utilizing TweetDeck’s Group function.  The Group capability is the best way to manage large Follow numbers. I’ve got a group I call “Top Tweeps” that includes a handful of people who I want to catch every tweet.  I’m also starting one for fellow IABC members.  Anyway, now it’s very simple to add people to groups directly from any tweet.
• Search – This feature is the answer to the question I frequently hear from Twitter newbies about how to see conversations.  Say you read an intriguing tweet that is clearly part of a bigger conversation. By clicking on this Search button, TweetDeck opens a Search column on this person’s name, which means you see both their tweets and all the tweets sent to them.  Now you can see the whole conversation. It’s a quick and easy way to get to know more about someone, and to find other interesting people to follow.  It would also be useful in situations where more than one person in a company might provide back-up for an official Twitter account, to keep a search column open on that ID all the time.

Translate Outgoing Tweets

You can translate a tweet you have just typed into any of about 40 languages.  Just click on the icon that looks like a conversation bubble, located next to the hashtag icon at the lower right of the tweet box, then next to it click the tiny arrow, which opens up the list of languages. When you select one, it will translate your tweet.  I’ve tested it in several languages and asked native speakers to tell me if they can understand my tweet, and in every case, the answer is yes, but it’s not perfect grammatically. That’s good enough for me. I’m not even perfect in my own language.

Hashtag Helpers

Two new features make it easier to use hashtags:

• Automatic hashtag in replies – Now when you reply to a tweet that includes a hashtag, the hashtag will automatically appear in the message (you can delete it if you wish).
• Recent hashtags – If you use hashtags regularly, especially while at an event, you get tired of typing it into every tweet.  Now with a click you can open a pull-down list of recent hashtags you’ve used and insert it into your tweet.  The hashtag icon is located at the bottom right of the tweet box (next to the Shorten and Twitpic buttons). It will hold up to 10 hashtags.

Auto-complete for IDs

This feature is really useful if you want to send a direct message or @ message and can’t remember the exact ID. As soon as you type either a “d” plus a space or the @ symbol, an auto-complete box appears, and as you type, a list appears with possible IDs. This feature, by the way, was added after the others as a separate update, and wasn’t automatically pushed out, so if you want it, you’ll need to download the latest update.

There’s more, including some changes in the Settings choices, so it’s definitely worth watching the video and reading the TweetDeck blog.

My love of TweetDeck just keeps growing, and I’m not alone. According to TechCrunch, TweetDeck is the second most popular Twitter application, and it’s certainly the top Twitter desktop client.  As I’ve said before, I couldn’t do all that I do with Twitter if it weren’t for TweetDeck.  Love, love, love it.

I tweeted this announcement from Orlando last week, as soon as it was officially announced on the IABC website, but I still want to take a moment to talk about my selection of Neville Hobson, ABC, for the 2009 IABC Chairman’s Award.

Neville (also known as @jangles on Twitter) was one of the first IABC members I met after moving from the US to the UK six years ago.  I served under him on the IABC Europe/Middle East Region Board, and we’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of things together.  As Shel Holtz, ABC, mentioned on his blog, Neville has a long history of dedicated service to IABC. But I have to confess that my selection of Neville has at least as much to do with how he has influenced me personally as on his greater contributions to the association and the profession.  I have learned so much from him, from his tweets and blog and podcasts and presentations, and I’m not alone.  I think it’s safe to say that Neville has influenced our entire profession, but his influence on my understanding and use of social media has been profound.  Since I was well behind the early adopters, I’ve had a lot of catching up to do.  It would have been easy to say, “It’s about time,” or been critical of my fumbling, but instead, Neville guided and supported. He generously shared information, answered my questions, encouraged my efforts.  He’s helped make me a more effective IABC Chair and a better communicator. 

So on behalf of IABC and the communication profession, and myself, I want to say thank you to Neville for his leadership and mentorship.

Granted, when I get really into something I tend to be a bit of an overachiever, but my progress with Twitter seems amazingly fast.  It’s only been seven weeks since I considered myself a Twitter Newbie and posted my tips for fellow Newbies.  A week later, when I was up to 800 followers, and felt like I’d reached a new level, I promoted myself to Dilettante (a lovely word that means amateur), and posted my Stage Two tips.  The snowball has continued rolling (you can really see it here), my follow/following numbers are both over 3000 now, and it seems time for a promotion (though I’m having a really hard time coming up with a title for this stage), and to share more tips and learnings. 

First, I should say that nothing I say here should be taken as “rules” for Twitter, it’s all just based on my personal opinions, preferences, and what I want out of Twitter.  As someone pointed out last night, the beauty of Twitter is that you can use it in any way you choose.

General Thoughts About Following and Followers

• It’s all about the conversation.  I’m not interested in just being broadcast to or marketed at.  At this stage in my Twitter development, I’m no longer following the gurus (except for the few who actually follow me back).  That’s not to say I don’t admire them and think they have lots of great information to share, but I can go to their blogs or subscribe to their newsletters for that. Or even just drop in directly to their Twitter page. 
• Follow liberally. There’s no risk to following. It’s not a commitment, not a statement of friendship or an endorsement. Think of it as if you’re at a big networking event, working your way through the crowded room. Following someone is like stopping to listen to or join in a conversation. You may be drawn by what they’re saying, or who they’re talking to, or by something random that catches your attention.  And you can just as easily walk away (by unfollowing) if the person turns out to be boring or creepy or just not of interest to you. 
• Clear out the non-mutuals regularly.  In a tweetstream last night, I used the word “culling” and someone said that sounded really harsh, but since Twitter imposes a limit to the number of people you can follow, if you’re trying to grow your mutual connections, you do have to be pretty ruthless in cutting out those who aren’t engaging with you.  But again, it’s not a big deal. You can always follow them again later, and next time they might follow back.
• Don’t forget to follow back.  At the Newbie stage, I tried one of the auto-follow-back applications.  But I found myself spending a lot of time unfollowing spammers, so I stopped using it.  Now, I’m finding it difficult to keep up with checking out new followers and following back, so I’m considering it again. 

Who I Follow

• Real people. My general policy (with a few exceptions) is that I don’t follow companies or logos or anonymous Twitterers.  I look for a real first and last name, a location, a bio that tells me something about who they are, and a photo. 
• People in my profession. In my case, this is strategic, because of my role as IABC Chair. I want to keep growing my contacts within the communication profession, both IABC members and non. I want to know who the big thinkers are.  I want to know what issues are hot.  I want them to see that IABC is on Twitter.  So if you’re a PR or comms professional, I want to follow you.
• People who make me laugh.  Just today, when I clicked on a new follower’s page, the first tweet there made me laugh out loud. I followed back immediately (BTW, it was @dayvision, and the tweet said: A computer beat me at chess once. But it was no match for me at kickboxing.)
• People who make me think.
• Or share a common interest.  It’s funny, these don’t show up in bios usually, but come as a result of dipping into the tweetstream and following someone else’ conversation.  Or they find me in a similar way.  These are the frivolous tweets, like what’s for dinner, or when I live-tweeted Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and people were singing along.
• PR/Communication students.  I am really happy to help them begin to put their social networking savvy to use in a business networking context, and of course, I want to help lure them towards IABC for the future.
• Journalists.  I started following several just to see how journalists were using Twitter. What I found was that they’re often my favourite tweeple.  Funny, smart, and laid-back.  I think many of them are wary of PR people who might try to pitch them via Twitter.  But since I don’t do pitching these days, they can relax with me.  And sometimes they come to me when they’re looking for a source, and I can quickly find them one from my real-world network.
• Anyone who engages with me.  If I get an @reply from someone, I usually click on their ID (which in Tweetdeck pulls up their bio and recent tweets in a side column), and if they meet my other criteria, I’ll usually click the follow button.
• People in other professions or geographic markets.  I just thought of this today, but my new goal is to follow lots of doctors and lawyers and other professionals, so that if I ever need advice, I’ll have a resource.  And I want to make sure I have contacts in key markets around the world, in case I’m ever stranded in an airport or need a local resource, I’ll have someone to turn to. 

Who I Probably Won’t Follow Back

• No photo or avatar.  And I have to say that I’m not especially fond of cartoony avatars, so it might depend on my mood.  I do try to give newbies the benefit of the doubt, for awhile.
• Following 2000, Followers 12.  Anyone who has hit the 2000 initial follower limit with almost no followers and updates is a soon-to-be spammer, trying to build their numbers quickly through auto-follow-backs.  They’re the reason Twitter has the limits.
• People without a bio.  Or whose bio tells me they’re not the kind of people I want to follow (terms like MLM, wealth-builder, etc. are big red flags to me).
• Scary or sexy photos.  When I was still using auto-follow-back, I was getting lots of gorgeous, shirtless young men. Too distracting in the tweetstream.

Who Gets Un-followed

• Spammers of any kind. They’re usually easy to spot, but a few masquerade as real people (see above) and then send nothing but links to their website.
• Bleeping tweeters. I don’t mind swearing in real life, and do a fair amount myself at times, but it really turns me off on Twitter.
• Mean or angry tweeters.  I’m ok with debate and criticism, but I don’t like mean people.  Twitter is positive for me, I don’t want to follow those who are always negative.

 How I Manage It All

• TweetDeck is the best!  I simply couldn’t do any of this if the only way to use Twitter was through Twitter.com.  It’s a free application that you can download and have up and running in minutes. But frankly, I would pay for it if I had to — it’s that good. TweetDeck makes managing it all really easy, because everything is viewable in columns, without having to go back and forth between pages.  You can organize the columns to suit yourself, but here’s how I do it:
  • All Friends – This column shows the tweets of all 3000+ people I follow, I dip into it for a few minutes a few times of day, whenever I’ve got a few minutes and am looking for conversation or news. But otherwise, I ignore it. It’s not an inbox with a need to catch up. It’s a live conversation.  Back to the analogy of the networking event, trying to read all the tweets here would be like trying to get a transcript of every conversation going on in the room — on a 24-hour basis.  I love dipping it at certain times of day. For me, early morning means my Aussie friends like @jenfrahm are still online (because it’s evening there), then the UK tweeps come in, and I see friends like @jangles. Towards noon the US east coast wakes up, right on through until it’s bedtime for me and I can see my Hawaiian buddies, like @pbarton2.  Weekends it’s a completely different crowd and different vibe.
  • Direct Messages – This column is for private messages from people I’m following. It does get a lot of those annoying auto-messages saying “thanks for the follow” (by the way, I don’t think it’s necessary to acknowledge a new follower, and wish people would stop doing it), but it’s still easy to skim quickly, and I usually only get a handful of real DMs a day, so it doesn’t take much time to manage this column.
  • Replies (or @s) – This column is where the action is, because it picks up all replies to me, tweets that mention me, and retweets.  So this is where the conversation is.  But even with 3000 followers, this is generally easy to keep up with, and is only as active as I am.  If I’m tweeting, there’s lots of activity here.  If I go silent for several hours or sign off for the night, when I come back, there might be two or three tweets to answer.  So again, it’s really manageable.  I only spend time on Twitter when I want to.  If I feel like a conversation, with such a large base I can always find one. But if I don’t, they’ll get by just fine without me.
  • Search – I keep at least one search column active all the time, and use others when I’m looking for something specific.  The TweetDeck search column can serve as a real-time keyword monitor. So you can do one on your company name, a hot topic, or in my case, I like seeing every time someone mentions IABC in a tweet.  That allows me to welcome new members, see what’s going on around the world, and monitor for feedback or issues that need attention. 
  • Groups – I haven’t used the TweetDeck Groups function extensively yet, but Paul Barton promises a blog post soon to share his techniques for organizing his friends with it.

 Final Thoughts

• If I’m not following you and you want me to, just send me an @ and tell me.   
• I’m still learning here, which is why I enjoy it so much.  All the above is based on where I am at the moment.  It’s not right or wrong, and I may change my mind about it all by next week.  If so, I’ll let you know.
• Don’t be intimidated by Twitter. If I can go from Newbie to whatever I am now in just seven weeks, anyone can. I’m not techy or especially cutting-edge.  The only thing hard about it really is the clunky Twitter.com interface, and lack of instruction for Newbies.  But once you get going, it gets very easy.  If you need help, just tweet me.

I’ve always been big on New Year’s Resolutions.  Being quite imperfect, I love the idea of fresh starts, wiping the slate clean at the end of a year, sure that I’ll be better in the next.  I’m also a big believer in going public with your goals, because it helps you to achieve them.  That said, more than a few of my past resolutions have fallen by the wayside well before Valentine’s Day.  So it is with a mixture of hopefulness and trepidation that I set down my resolutions for 2009.  Here goes…

This year, I will:

• Write a blog post at least once a week.  See, this one’s already quite scary, since this is my first post in almost three weeks.
• Dress more professionally when I fly.  Because so many of my flights are 8+ hours or overnighters, I’ve fallen into dressing for comfort, and generally arrive looking like a refugee.  Todd Hattori’s recent post on the topic was the kick-in-the-backside I needed.
• Catch up on (and keep up with) other people’s podcasts and blogs.  As I write, I’ve got a backlog of several hours of podcasts that I really want to hear (including FIR, one of the best sources of information for comms professionals, by our very own Shel Holtz, ABC & Neville Hobson, ABC). And over the holidays I was really bad about keeping up with blogs.  If I’d just keep up, it would be more manageable. 
• Exercise 5 days a week (delayed start of 20 Jan).  This sounds really huge, given that I’m going from practically zero days a week, but I’m using a reasonable definition of a minimum workout time of 20 minutes, and by the end of January, I should have my new home gym all set up, so most of my excuses will be gone. The treadmill is scheduled for delivery on the 17th, by which time the room will be finished, and I already bought the all-important telly that will go in it (which takes away the boredom excuse).

Alright, that’s it. And no fair placing bets on how long before I abandon any of them.

Anyone else want to share their resolutions?  I won’t turn this into another blog meme chain, but if you do decide to do a similar post, please leave a comment with the link.  Maybe we can encourage each other to stick to them.

Update: Minutes after posting, I followed a tweet-link to a great post by Michael Allison on 5 Tips for Sticking to Your Web 2.0 Resolution.  It’s worth a read for anyone setting social media goals.

Warning: This post contains food and other frivolous content, which may incite readers to respond.

This morning when my weekly organic veg box arrived, I opened it with my usual curiosity.  Although it comes with a list of the week’s contents, the list doesn’t take into account any substitutions that are a result of one or more of that week’s items being on my don’t-include list.  And since I had excluded radishes (because I have a backlog of radishes), there was a substitution which would require identification.  Not always easy.  A couple of weeks back I finally gave up and called the provider, describing my mystery veg as looking “kind of like a brain.”  After much laughter and several tries, we figured out it was celeriac (which was delicious in the end). 

But today, when I was completely stumped by something that looked like a cross between a carrot and a potato, I really didn’t want to have to call them again. So I decided to see if I could tap the “wisdom of the crowd” that social media experts are always talking about.  I scrubbed off all the dirt (this is how you can tell the veg is organic, by the way), used my iPhone to take a picture, and attached the photo to a Twitter message asking if anyone could help me identify my mystery veg.

Immediately the suggestions started pouring in, and within minutes I knew my Twitter crowd had solved my mystery, identifying my nobbly little friends as Jerusalem Artichokes. And the tweets kept coming, some from people who clearly hadn’t seen that we’d solved the mystery (the most popular guess, by the way, has been yams), some from people offering recipes for preparing them. I’ve gotten more response from this than anything else I’ve ever tweeted.  And the photo has been viewed more than 80 times! 

I also happened to see a separate Twitter discussion between social media guru Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan ) and @jjprojects about how food-related posts seem to get the most response.  And I’d already noticed over the past few weeks that my own tweets about what I’m making for dinner get more response than anything else I write, and that those exchanges have resulted in ongoing Twitter relationships.

So it all got me thinking that there’s a communication lesson in all this.  Here’s what I think it is: It’s the silly things that bring people together, allow us to connect and develop relationships.  Frivolous things, like what’s for dinner, what we did last weekend or what music we’re listening to.  It’s why social media is such a rapidly growing phenomenon, because along with all the knowledge-sharing and thought leadership, there’s a human-level connection that is mostly missing in a lot of business communication.  

Food for thought.

Whether you have made the leap into social media yet or not, if you’re an IABC member (or especially a leader at any level), you should take a quick look at the IABC conversations happening on Twitter.  Follow this link, which is just a Twitter keyword search on IABC: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=iabc , and scroll through a few pages. You’ll see everything from leaders to students, promoting local IABC events, sharing info, networking. And that’s just the posts that actually mention IABC, not all the activity by IABC members.  We’re rockin’ on Twitter!

Maybe it’s because I put down in writing last week the things I’d learned about Twitter, but this week I began to feel less like a newbie, and more like a… well, not a pro, certainly, but more competent, more knowledgable.  I reached 500 followers last weekend, and that seemed like a tipping point.  So I changed my description on my Twitter profile from newbie to dilettante (because that sounds so much better than amateur, even though they mean the same thing). 

I also realised that I had begun to use Twitter differently.  As a newbie, most of my posts were one-way; statements answering the “what are you doing” question.  Sometimes that would spark an exchange, but often not.  But more recently, many of my tweets were responses to others, including both people I know, and those I don’t.  It had begun to feel like the conversation that all the social media gurus talk about.  It was another ah-hah moment for me — I “get” Twitter on a new level, and it’s even better.  And that made me hungry to take it up another notch.  I’ve been in a learning and growth mode all week, listening, reading, connecting like crazy.  So I thought I’d share what I’ve learned, in case there are other newbies who feel ready for the next stage:

• First, a caveat: Don’t try this too soon.  There’s nothing wrong with being a newbie, it’s a necessary stage, and if you try to make the leap too early, you’ll either be overwhelmed or turn people off.  But if you’ve been actively twittering for a few months and have a couple hundred followers or more, you might be ready.

Gradually Expand Your View

• As a Newbie, you follow people you know or have something in common with (like IABC Members on Twitter), social media gurus, etc.  Gradually that list expands, but Newbies need to keep the list somewhat limited in order to be able to keep up and be able to learn from those they’re following.  At the next stage, you’re more able to scan and zoom in on things, so you’re ready to expand your view.  You need to find interesting people to follow.  Here are a few ways that have worked for me:
  • I started with what I call tweet-surfing, clicking through on names of people mentioned in @replies from people I follow, especially those I admire (like @shel and @jangles). Reading their profiles and recent tweets, if they looked good I clicked follow.
  • Next I began to pick up the pace, actually going to the Following lists of some of my most-admired Twitterers, and following some of the people they follow. 
  • Then I saw a tweet about a new tool called Mr. Tweet, and followed the link.  When you follow Mr. Tweet, it provides a customized list of people you might be interested in following, and it makes it easy. [Note: I don't recommend clicking on their Follow buttons, which then requires you to provide your Twitter password. Instead, click on the person's Twitter ID, which will open their Twitter page, and you can follow as usual.]
  • At this point, I had added almost 500 people to my Following list, which I would have thought would be overwhelming, but instead, it was leading to some great conversations.  So when I came across an article called “How to Become a Twitter Rock Star, Sort of” which mentioned a way to automate the process, I tried it.  Here’s a YouTube video that explains it better than I can.
  • The result of all this is that I’m now following more than 1600 people, and many of them are now following me back, which brings me to my next topic…

Build Your Following

• Lots of articles I’ve read, mostly by social media marketing types, focus on this first, as if the whole point of social networking is to have large numbers of people following you.  I’ve found that these are the kind of people I avoid on Twitter.  Once they have you as a follower, all you see is tweets marketing their latest e-book.  Don’t be like them.
• The easiest way to increase the number of people following you is to follow others.  Most people will follow you back, either because they use an auto-follow tool (which I don’t recommend), or because when they click on your profile, they think you might be interesting.  That’s why it’s so important to have real info in your profile, and your photo.  My new rule is I don’t follow-back anyone who is anonymous, or with whom I can’t see any commonalities.
• The other reason people will follow you is if you’re providing value.  While tweets that answer the “what are you doing” question are fine –and help people get to know you as a person — if that’s all you’re doing, it’s probably not going to get you a huge following.  But if you’re connecting people, sharing information, answering questions, re-tweeting messages and participating in conversations, then you’re creating value.  That is like a magnet.  That is why people like Shel Holtz, ABC, and Neville Hobson, ABC, have more than 2000 followers.  I wanna be like them when I grow up.

The Right Tools Make it Easier

• I really don’t think I’d be able to manage all this if I were accessing Twitter via the Twitter.com website.  It’s just too clunky.  I highly recommend Tweetdeck. Set it up in a 4-column format, with all tweets in the first column, DMs (private messages to you) in the second, replies in the third, and you can use the 4th column as a keyword search. I set mine so that I see all tweets (by anyone, not just those I follow) that mention IABC. I’ve found great people that way, and also get to see what’s going on with IABC chapters around the world.  You could also use that column to monitor mentions of your company.  The other thing I really like about Tweetdeck is that you can click on any @ID within any tweet, and it opens up a new column with that person’s profile, recent tweets, and a box to click follow. 

So that’s what I’ve learned this week.  I’m up to more than 800 followers, and I hope I’m providing value to them.  I know the people I’m following are providing value to me.