Coffee on the Keyboard

Robert Pondiscio started a great discussion on Twitter in the classroom over on The Core Knowledge Blog. In particular, I’m interested in one of his comments:

If someone invented a 21st century hammer it wouldn’t dramatically change the training and experience a contractor would need to build a house. Nor would anyone suggest that “tool fluency” is now the soul of carpentry. And so it is with information literacy. It dramatically expands access to information. It doesn’t change how we process it.

The emphasis is mine. Now, whether tools like Twitter or Today’s Meet are useful in classrooms is a broader discussion than I want to deal with right now*, but here’s a more specific question: does the way we access information alter the ways we process it? Continue reading

If I could’ve sat down with Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton six months ago and asked them one thing, it would have been: “Who, exactly, are you marketing to?”

There has always been a small thorn in my paw about social media marketing. It’s the same thing that bothers me when people come on TV and promise to help make you rich. All you have to do is… sell a book that promises to make people rich! It’s the same feeling I get when I read Problogger and wonder: “Do I want to listen to advice from a blog about blogging? Would I do better to listen to someone like Jeff Atwood?” Continue reading

There is an op-ed floating around Twitter today: As a social network, Twitter is a dud. Is it ironic that an article deriding Twitter is being spread on Twitter? Irony is so ill-defined.

Twitter is not for everyone, and I respect that, but the author, Alex Groves, seems to be basing his entire point of view on Ashton Kutcher. Alex claims (and this may well be true; I don’t know since I’m never on Facebook) that “[t]he only problem with all this twittering by celebrities and politicians is that they are on Facebook much more often.”

Based on this, Alex argues that Twitter is an “unnecessary” alternative to Facebook walls and warns that “[b]y spending more time on social networks and the Internet than we need to, we enable ourselves to become reclusive, sheltered from family and friends.”

What Alex is ignoring is that most people are not (just) following celebrities. If we look at the number of “following” relationships—even relatively inactive people often follow 30 or 40 others—the 1 million “follows” of Mr. Kutcher seems much, much less impressive.

What occurs to me, the more I see Twitter on newspaper websites and on the Today show, is that there are multiple communities within a larger community like Twitter.

On the very smallest scale, you may have a “community” of family and friends that are mostly following each other. You may have a TweetDeck group set up for them. That kind of mutual relationship leads to what Clive Thompson of the Times called “ambient awareness“. I would encourage Alex to read Mr. Thompson’s article, it might answer his question: “How does one know if his friends are OK?”

Now, Alex is absolutely right that spending too much time on the internet can take time away from other meaningful activities, like “enjoy[ing] a crisp, clean-smelling spring morning.” (With my allergies, I don’t think I have ever “enjoy[ed]” that.)

But the same could be said about almost any aspect of life. Too much time at work causes you to lose time with the family. Too much time away from work can make you lose your job. Too much time using computers can give you carpal tunnel.

On the large end of communities, I think you could classify several, such as “people interested in social networking,” “people interested in marketing,” “people interested in programming” (I’m in all three of these communities) “people interested in celebrities,” “people interested in news,” “people interested in <insert your special topic here>.”

I would argue that these communities reflect real-life relationships the same way the small communities do. A person who is more likely to read Us Weekly is probably more likely to follow more celebrities. A person who enjoys Britney Spears’ music is more likely to follow her. Just as I am more likely to make a joke about the word “const” on a construction sign, I am more likely to follow John Resig.

Alex asks, “[w]ith all the good we can do online, including disseminating information and spreading knowledge, why do we become obsessed with Britney Spears tweeting about playing with the boys on tour?”

I contend that the people Alex is really criticizing (surely many of the newest users) are the same people snapping up People at the checkout lane and watching TMZ in the mornings. Furthermore, he fails to recognize the rather large community of users that uses Twitter to share information and resources, follow the lives of people who may be emotionally, but not physically close, or generate other types of value.

The complaints he levies could—arguably should—be equally directed at Facebook, MySpace, several websites, magazines and TV shows. Alex is confusing “Twitter” with a culture of “celebrity worship.”

I argue that the people creating value off Twitter (and Facebook) are the same people creating it on Twitter. If all you follow on Twitter are celebrities, you obviously aren’t contributing much to that community’s conversation. On the other hand, if your community is broad, and includes peers, friends, family, then you have a unique opportunity to both benefit from, and provide benefit to, that community.

Fortunately, the way Twitter works, I don’t need to follow those celebrities. And neither do you, Alex.

A little while ago, I criticized a local newspaper, Lansing CityPULSE, for their use of Twitter. They were following the spammer model: follow hundreds of people, then post nothing but links to your own site.

I’m happy to say—though I’m a bit late in saying it—that @CityPULSE has really turned around and started making great use of Twitter.

They’ve been interacting with the community, been very restrained in how often they link their own site, and been sounding much more human. They could share more good links, but then, so could I.

The best thing @CityPULSE has been doing is using Twitter to live blog the Lansing City Council meetings. This is a great way for a local, weekly paper to do up-to-the-minute news. My only suggestion: hash tags so we can find all your council meetings tweets in the search.

Keep up the good work, @CityPULSE. And if you’re from the greater Lansing area, or a smaller newspaper, give them a follow.

Try these strategies to lose followers and waste your time on Twitter.

1) Have no name, photo, bio, or website.

Avoid looking like a real person at all, in fact. If you arbitrarily capitalize and ignore the 140 character limit, you can look even more like a robot.

These are at the top of your profile. The only things I know about you are your profile info and your last 20 tweets (last 4 or 5 if you don’t convince me to scroll down). That’s not much time to grab my attention and sell yourself to me. Don’t waste that precious “above the fold” space.

2) Follow 3,000 people before you bother updating.

This goes back to number 1. Bot-like behavior is definitely appreciated. It’s even better if you follow completely disparate people, like you just grabbed all the users off the public timeline for an hour.

If you have no followers and no updates, there’s no compelling reason to think you actually listen to any of those followers.  When you follow thousands of people, you’re devaluing every one of them. Yeah, there are some broadcasters who make a point to follow most of their followers, but getting @chrisbrogan’s attention is nearly impossible.

3) Never reply to or retweet anyone.

Make a point to ignore everyone you follow, especially if you follow thousands of people (see #2). If people think you’re listening to them, it gives them power over you.

If you think of Twitter as a one-way medium, you’re missing out. Interact with people and have conversations, or you’re slightly less interesting than a radio DJ. At least they take requests sometimes. Yeah there are broadcasters, @nytimes comes to mind, but if you think you’re the New York Times, you’re too delusional for me to care, anyway.

If you’re lucky, I’ll see 7 or 8 posts at the top of your profile. If none of those are replies, you might as well not not have any. Keep the dialog going.

4) Include Your URL in Every Tweet.

The two best uses of Twitter are to promote your own stuff and to drive up your Google rankings. Make sure every tweet has a link to you!

I will unfollow with extreme prejudice if I think your only goal is to drive people to your site. Twitter is not push marketing. Twitter is a community and a network. I will not visit your site, and Twitter puts rel="nofollow" on links. It’s a waste of time and its annoying.

Don’t share the same link over and over, don’t only link your blog, and don’t link yourself constantly. Do share good, new content, whether it’s yours or not.

5) Definitely Be Inconsistent.

Don’t post anything for two weeks, then dump seven or eight tweets in the space of an hour. It’s your job to keep your followers on their toes.

Whether I’m following you for fun (@dr_crane) or for information (@mashable) resist the urges flood and to go dark. Don’t be afraid to go to that meeting, take that long weekend away from the computer, or whatever it is that you do, but please don’t fill my entire stream when you come back. You really should keep some of those little tidbits in your head.

If you honestly discover 6 great things in 10 minutes, and want to share them all, then go for it. I’ll thank you. Short of that, try to rate-limit yourself.

That’s why I unfollowed you.

Why would you unfollow somone?

Update: #6. You sent an automated Direct Message after I followed you.

If I want bots, I’ll follow @nytimes. I don’t really care if it’s a “thank you” or a pitch: bots are annoying. Chris Brogan is right.

Twitter creates a powerful opportunity: no matter who you are, or how big your business, you can put a human “face” on Twitter.

Comcast (@comcastcares), JetBlue (@jetblue), Biggby Coffee (@biggbybob) and Starbucks (@starbucks), even Britney Spears (sorry, I refuse to link that one) have all shown up on Twitter with very real, human exchanges.

I’m not sure, behind the scenes, whether there are several people or one incredibly busy person at each of these companies, but they’ve decided to drop the corporate suit and engage their followers. They aren’t using Twitter as a broadcasting medium, but as a networking and conversation tool.

They get it.

Here is one of my favorite examples:

threeofus: @Starbucks Who actually types the tweets for Starbucks?

Starbucks: @threeofus Hi, I’m Brad, I work in the online team. How are you?

So what’s the trick? What did Starbucks/Brad do right?

• Use the First Person. “I,” “me,” “my,” all make your tweet feel more personal. No real surprise there. “We,” “us,” and “our” work, but not nearly as well. You sound like a spokesperson, instead of a person.
• Own the Conversation. By introducing and naming himself, Brad is taking ownership of the interaction. Even if Starbucks has 10 people reading and responding to tweets, threeofus can feel like she’s talking to one person.
• Engage. Read and respond to other users, especially @-replies. Read, retweet and share. If you’re only sending information one way, you aren’t part of the community. You can also use tools like Twitter search to find and respond to users talking about you or your company.
• Show Emotion. “This is so cool,” “Wow, long day” or even just “:-)” are all things that a person would say, but a press release never would. You don’t need to wear your heart on every tweet, but let some of your feelings come out—at least the good ones.
• Be Active. For most of us, Twitter is ambient information. You need to update regularly to get in to that stream.
• Don’t “Always Be Closing.” Don’t make every tweet a pitch or a request. That doesn’t mean you can’t pitch: I link my blog posts on Twitter, my friend @alecrj mentions his shows. But if every tweet sounds like an advertisement, then you sum up to an infomercial.

Here’s a comparison: Lansing’s alternative paper recently started twittering at @CityPulse. Right now, the biggest words in their tweet cloud are their URL, “city,” “pulse,” “check,” “out,” “pick,” and “up.” Every tweet is trying to drive me to their website or pick up a copy of the paper. They’ve sent no @ messages, used the word “I” once, and have gone a week at a time without updating.

And despite following almost 300 people, they’ve only got 100 followers.

This is what confuses traditional marketing about Twitter: the community won’t listen to you until you listen to the community.

Of course, there are robots on Twitter, too, and some are very popular, like @nytimes and @BarackObama. They are broadcasters, not community members. They perform very specific roles and are backed by very unique content. They add enough value that they don’t need to engage the community.

And yet, if they did, they would be even more powerful.

So do you and your company get it?

Google your name. Right now. I’ll wait.

Good. What came up?

Look at the first page of results and ask yourself these questions about each one:

1. Is it really me?
2. Did I create this?
3. Do I control this?

You need to be able to say “yes” to all of these for at least the top two or three results. (As I write this, the RSSmeme page repeating my Google Reader shared items has crawled above my blog, and I’m upset about it.)

Creating Identity

I’m lucky. My last name is very rare, so even if you Google just “Socol” I come in second—only to my father, and ahead of Wikipedia. You may not be so lucky, saddled with a name like Jones or Smith or, even worse, you might have the same name as a celebrity. You may have an uphill battle.

People with common names need to get creative. It can be as simple as adding an initial—my friend became Alec R. Johnston to distinguish himself. Something a little more creative—Lisa Bettany named her blog Mostly Lisa. Or you can geek out, like Ben Lew, who uses the name n0s0ap. (Those are zeros.)

Ben uses the name n0s0ap on del.icio.us, flickr, Last.fm, Digg, Twitter, etc. Lisa uses a combination of “MostlyLisa” and “LisaBettany.” I use a combination of an old name, “UrbaneExistance” (I know it’s spelled wrong) and “JamesSocol” for all new registrations.

But all of us, Alec, Ben, Lisa, and I, make sure our real names are linked to our identities. It’s no Clark Kent: n0s0ap is Ben Lew, with the glasses on or off.

Owning Identity

Do you own your own domain name? Why not? Go buy it. Now. Go!

I have this conversation with friends all the time. Would you want someone signing your name on paper documents? Of course not, so why would you let them do the same thing online? I own jamessocol.com, jamessocol.net, and jamessocol.org, just so no one else does. Even if you do nothing but have it redirect to your social network of choice, you should own your name.

If your name is taken, reread the last section and get creative.

Now, about those social networks. You don’t need to be on every one, but get on a few, build a profile, and put your name on it. You can create and control your own Facebook and MySpace pages without knowing a single HTML tag. Once you’ve got a name, whether it’s your real name or something else, use it. last.fm/user/you. twitter.com/you.

Controlling Identity

The best way I’ve found to control what the web knows about you is to start your own propaganda campaign. Put your name on a lot of things, preferably with links back to your own site.

An easy way to start is by commenting. Blog comments help the most, since you spread that influence around the whole internet, but within MySpace or Facebook posting real, meaningful, interesting comments on profiles and walls will make sure people think of you when they hear your name.

If you have the time, try blogging. There are a lot of blogs with great advice, but you can always just “write what you know.” Once you find your voice, the writing flows.

What else? It depends what you like. If you take pictures, get a Flickr stream. Last.fm is a great way to share and find music you like. GoodReads is a similar site for books. Twitter is great for finding people with similar interests and building connections. LinkedIn is a professional social network, particularly good for people in marketing or new media. Blogger, while not the best blogging platform, has some good community features. There is a lot out there.

Be Yourself

Don’t let someone else be you! Own your own identity and be proud of it. It will help you build authority and when a potential employer or client googles you, they’ll get a good idea about you from the first page of results.

What else, 2.0-savvy readers? What did I forget?

To all my Twitter followers, and those not yet following me:

Twitter lets you change your user name, so I did. Instead of the very long and misspelled “urbaneexistance,” I am now @jamessocol.

Shorter, easier to remember, more meaningful.

If you were following me, Twitter says you still should be, no worries. This is one 2.0-mistake I can correct easily.

Jeff Atwood is a self-proclaimed amateur:

“It troubles me greatly to hear that people see me as an expert or an authority, and not a fellow amateur.”

“There is absolutely no reason any of you should listen to me.

But somehow, I have 75,000 RSS subscribers and over 50,000 page views/day.”

Assuming a moderate amount of overlap, there are probably 100,000 people reading and listening to Jeff every day. If you had 100,000 people listening to him speaking out a window, you’d call it a successful rally.

I don’t really think Jeff Atwood is an Italian dictator.

Jeff is, however, an authority. When Jeff gives advice like “Don’t Go Dark,” thousands of people are likely to follow that advice.

Wikipedia has been the biggest source of contention on what makes an “expert” or “authority.” Does someone with 10,000 edits have more say than someone with a PhD? If the article is about medicine, probably not, but if it’s about social networking or wikis, experience and research can both bring value.

Technorati defines your “authority” as the number of blogs linking back to you in the past six months. Twitter proudly displays your number of followers. LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace all tell you how large your network is, and want you to make it bigger.

Do 9000 people follow @chrisbrogan because he’s an authority, or do people consider him an authority because he has 9000 followers?

My wishy-washy answer is, of course, “both.” Chris and Jeff Atwood both produce intelligent, well-written material and provide valuable perspectives. Chris is an experienced marketer and Jeff an experienced programmer. But consistently large audiences make both authoritative. After all, why would so many people listen if they didn’t know what they were talking about?

Humans are social animals. We’re not particularly strong, or fast, but we are very good at forming groups and working together. When we see something or someone that is valued by a large group, we attribute value to it.

Don’t believe me? Fine, then explain why Paris Hilton is famous.

Authority does not make you an expert, but expertise can help you gain authority. You get followers on Twitter by sharing good links and starting good discussions; you get readers and subscribers by producing quality content and offering something of value.

Then something happens: followers retweet you, readers send links, bloggers write about you, friends-of-friends friend you. Your audience reaches a point where it begins to grow by itself. That audience makes you more authoritative to new readers, new followers. They jump on your bandwagon. It’s the same reason you see “Best Seller” on book covers.

So is Jeff Atwood an expert? As much as anyone in his field. An authority? Definitely.