Jennifer Frahm Collaborations

  

So it’s been just over 100 days of active Twittering, and as I have promised here is my contribution to the twittering about twitter.  And I would very much like to acknowledge the very wise Amanda Boland Curren (@auntie_abc) who opined something along the lines of… ”Twitter won’t become useful until people stop twittering about twitter”. She’s right. Spot on in fact. However, I’m getting asked daily about it - so here are my thought, caveats, and humble opinions for what it’s worth.

While I had heard about Twitter probably about 18 months earlier, I didn’t get active with it until a visit from IABC chair Barbara Gibson (@barb_G) who is one of the most enjoyable evangelists of Twitter.  My initial reaction was sceptical: The emperor has new clothes.  A common enough reaction, see @rohitbhargava ’s 5 stages of Twitter acceptance. But I like new things, I like technology, and I love communication as a field. And I respect @barb_G.  I really dislike dissing some thing unless I understand why I am dissing it, so I committed to full involvement for a minimum of 3 months to get a sense of where it was useful, how I could use it, and where I didn’t see it fitting.

So, in short, should you twitter?

Depends. Context matters.  Here’s some thoughts on in which context Twitter is useful.

Home alone.

Twitter is tremendous for those who freelance, contract, work from home, work independently, and are isolated from normal (or 20^th century working organisation). From a sociological perspective, I would argue that Twitter’s popularity has arisen in response to the increased % of the population working from home, telecommuting, and engaged in technology driven entrepreneurship. There is still a need for social organisation.

 In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnum wrote of the decline of social capital in the US, with the title alluding to the statistic that showed while bowling leagues had decreased, the number of individual bowlers have increased. Twitter provides a way to increase or invest in social capital (Linden dollars anybody?). Twitter provides you opportunity to connect regularly during the day (the virtual version of water cooler conversations, passing nods, heads popping into your cubicle, around your door). The small irritation that escalates when you work alone and have no-one to vent to can be reduced quickly in 140 characters or less.

A quick scan of my followers, and those that I follow, reveals that the majority are in careers where they by and large work alone / independent of a large organisation. The exceptions are those that who work in new media, or technology driven businesses. This leads to my second point.

Industry matters.

 If you are in an industry where speed of information counts, then Twitter is terrific (for instance, news, PR, online publishing). However, there are limitations. Sure Twitter ‘broke’ the news of the Schipol plane crash 15 minutes before main news depts. did. But it also ran with alot of speculation over fatalities, and numbers involved. Caveat Twemptor. Let the follower be aware. 

Likewise if you are in customer service and bad word of mouth has a bottom line cost to you, Twitter is the place to be. Many companies are using Twitter to stamp out negative customer experiences. Within minutes of me griping publically on Twitter about my mobile phone provider and the 18 minute queue and subsequent dropping of me out of said queue, I was contacted by two of the provider’s twitter folk to assist.  I really appreciated that. If my history with the provider hadn’t been saturated with chronic bad customer service and incompetence, it may have made a difference.  Similarly, another twitterer that I follow tweeted a negative story about my internet provider (iiNet) who I think are AWESOME. I jumped to their defence! Twitter is a fertile customer service ground because of the potential of your network’s reach. For better or for worse.

Impression management.

If you have an impression to manage (heh, heh and who doesn’t), but seriously, if it is important to your business to be seen as a ‘thought leader’, then Twitter offers you potential to get your ideas, and content out to a greater reach, than previously, by linking to blogs, articles etc . The practice of re-tweeting provides you with pretty immediate feedback as to the value of your thoughts.  Having said that, there is a very thin line between providing thought leadership and rampant self promotion. I get nervous every time I provide a link to one of my blog entries that I have crossed it. But maybe that is more a matter for me and my shrink, than you dear reader ;). I also get a giggle every time some-one (myself included) tweets “back from gym workout / run  / off the treadmill”, like saying look at me, I’m really not stuck hunched over the computer all day long, I really am a rounded individual. Yep. Sure. Gotcha. I much prefer the raw engaging honesty of @melissadark’s “Chardy time”.

Professional Development & New Knowledge.

I have had the most exciting and satisfying professional development in the last 100 days, than I have in ages. Being exposed to thought leaders has led to a huge learning curve, and increased time reading up on new ideas, new opinions, and new ways of making things work. I have bought quite a few books in the last few months based on the twittering community and being pointed to blogs / reviews that I wouldn’t have seen before.  And for those on the selling side of books, yes, I did feel more inclined to buy a book from some-one on Twitter who followed me or had engaged with me in some way. When I take on a new client now, I do a search on their industry, and start following folk within that industry. It is a very time efficient way of getting up to speed with a new industry, the key issues, and great sources of information. A case in point - a client asked me a question, he wanted some illustrative examples / case studies of what others in his field where doing overseas. I tweeted it and got six responses within a couple of hours. The Twitter community is very, very generous.

Some concerns.

Ratio of personal/public tweets.

 This is a really tricky one for me, mainly because I tend to be some-what erm (rigid?) in my boundary setting. Facebook is for friends (real friends, e.g. the type of people I would have a coffee, or chardy or 3 with and NOT talk work), Linked in is for people I have worked with, or would like to work with, Twitter is for people I find interesting.

So given these boundaries, I don’t particularly feel comfortable tweeting what I am cooking, what my workout was like, what I am listening to. I mean who really cares?? Certainly not some-one who doesn’t know me.   I’ve tried it, but I squirm when I hit enter. But the counter argument is that those little elements are those that others can relate to, and get to know you.  Trust, credibility and social capital are built when you establish commonalities. So I think that’s something I just have to get over. I think it helps to be reflective over what the ratio is of your personal v professional tweets are.  Or at least that’s more my definition of what I look for in some-one to follow.

Cult of cyber celebrity.

Twitter can be so much like being back in primary / high school. The in-groups / the out-groups. So and so ‘unfollowed’ me, why??? But here the social order is reversed and the geeks do inherit the earth. There are a number of cyber celebrities out there that others speak breathlessly of.  He/She who have the most followers win. “Oh [insert cyber celebrity] of choice just responded / retweeted my tweet!!” Does it matter? Yes and No. Sure a cyber celebrity with 10000’s of followers implicitly endorses you when they engage or retweet with you to a very large network. However, I think what matters is ”do you perceive value in following some-one?” I have unfollowed the cyber celebrities that I didn’t perceive value in. There are hundreds of ‘how to increase your followership” articles out there. Not for me. But I’m the person who culls her facebook friends every time they get over 50.  

Resilience - dancing at the party alone

You need to be surprisingly resilient with Twitter. It can be quite discouraging when you tweet and nobody responds, and then after a twitter or two you have the opportunity to meet in real life but are ignored. “Join the conversation says Twitter”. But you can try, and try, and sometimes you just are not that interesting! (Hmmm maybe that is why you need to increase your followers so you increase the odds of at least somebody responding). I think it has been described before, but it is a little like you are at big party where you don’t know anyone and you end up in the corner dancing alone. The hype around Twitter sets up an expectation that you will be having exciting conversations with new folk instantly. Twitter enhances my existing relationships, cements new  face-to-face introductions but to date with a few exceptions, isn’t so fantastic at developing new relationships which transfer from Twitter world to real world. So, all of that to say set the bar low on your expectations, and you will probably be delighted.  

Managing the noise.

Twitter can be very noisy! You can get information and sensory overload. Some tips from me on this one.

1. Use an aggregator (I use Tweetdeck). It’s not perfect - but it does allow you to divide your followers into groups. Slow down your API settings and experiment with the colours to find a display that is more comfortable for you to look at.
2. Use some of the twitter apps to find out about whom to follow. I use Mr Tweet. It tells me how many tweets the person does a day. If they are over 10, they are probably too noisy for me. They dominate my feed and irritate me! There are some exceptions…
3. Same deal as checking email. Don’t have Twitter on all day running in the background. Check it at certain times of the day, and using the group functions or the search functions check-in.  But check back out again.  It can be highly addictive if not and suck the life out of your day.
4. Don’t auto follow. Be mindful about who you follow and why.

Twitter highlights

So what have been the twitter highlights for me?

Easy - I’ve already blogged about the #2013 issue, that was awesome, and found @bradjward really useful and generous. Have also got to have terrific conversations with the likes of @hollyrae who is a really smart lady, and again very giving of her time (and to be credited with the ‘twuth’ title’

I have secured new clients and new work because of the time spent and knowledge I have developed through Twitter. Twitter has opened possibilities of new products for me. As a return of investment on 100 days, that’s pretty cool.

I have had complete laugh out loud moments thanks to @tsand tweets, and crave the originality of @arjunbasu tweets.

So who are the best of the best for me?

@problogger - one of the cyber celebs who does respond, and even replys to emails. You learn heaps.

@zen_habits - for daily reminders : )

@tsand - funny fellow, find the link on his @chrisbrogan parody

@mumbrella - on topic on social media /advertising /PR / marketing, really useful

@chrisbrogan, a cyber celeb, who offers so much value in his tweeting

@auntie_abc - v wise one, and is really using Twitter well. Watch how she does it.

@barb _ G. Naturally ; )

In sum, the twuth is out there - but it is your personal twuth. You probably do need to engage with it for a period of time to work out how it fits for you, and where there is value in. For me it is supplementary.  I don’t see Twitter replacing anything in the ‘real world’, so if you don’t have the time or inclination to be on Twitter, then I wouldn’t feel overly anxious. Ask me again in another 100 days ; )

@jenfrahm