Archive for the ‘ Musing ’ Category

1
12
Nov

Clarks, Nebraska.

On my way to Norfolk, Nebraska where I was going to be talking to folks in the Nebraska Tourism industry about Social Media, I had to pass through Clarks, Nebraska. I’m trying to find a way to write this post without coming across as a cheesy loser, but here goes.

As many might know, the founder of Twitter, Evan Williams, is from Clarks, Nebraska – population: 361 give or take.

I’ve been a sort of casual “fan” of Evan’s since I began using Blogger when it was still a part of Pyra Labs and I learned the founder was from Nebby. I say “fan” with quotes because I didn’t, you know, follow his every business move, but I loved Blogger and I love Twitter and I think it’s neat that Evan’s involved in both and I think it’s even neater that he’s from Nebraska (in fact, it’s one of the ‘hooks’ I use to try and interest my newsroom into using Twitter).

As I passed through Clarks, it really struck me that someone could come from this tiny tiny place and be innovative and successful. Oh sure, there are many well-known people who have come from small towns to make it big and I applaud them all, but Clarks is close to home. It sounds cheesy as hell, I know, but I had a little moment of inspiration driving through this small farm town.

1
20
Oct

Twitter is what you make of it.

So I’m frustrated by certain things when it comes to trying to convince some of my coworkers and small business folks to embrace the Power of Twitter. I wrote about that yesterday but in the comments, someone said that he is not finding very much of value when he uses his personal Twitter account. I’ll quote him:

Recently it seems more that I’m following a handful of famous people who interest me and it basically acts like another facebook status news feed, except for people who are too famous to be my friends on FB. I’m quite happy to accept that I’m doing it wrong, but I don’t really know how to do it right.

So, I thought I’d write about how I use Twitter – personally. I’ve talked about it benefits my newspaper, and I’ve gone on and on about how it can be a marvelous tool for any business. But I guess I haven’t really talked about how it can be used for fun as well.

Bear in mind, not everyone’s going to use it the way I do. Not everyone’s going to ever see any benefit to Twitter. Twitter is what you make of it. That’s my mantra. Twitter is what you make of it. But here are some ideas of how to make something fun and/or beneficial for anyone.

First, I have a lot of Twitter accounts. I mean, I have more than what is probably normal:

  • @UKMelia – My Twitter account that is all for me to do with and mold how I please. I follow only those who interest me (several celebs, fan accounts from books/movies/shows I like etc.), family, and friends there, as well as people I work with on the Buffy/Angel Between the Lines audio dramas I participate in. The majority of my tweets here are also mostly to my boyfriend and my daughter. I don’t follow a ton of people here and I don’t have a big follower list either but this account is tailored exactly to what I like. I also keep this account locked because I am not interested in huge follower/following counts, and I can tweet what I like.
  • @stephromanski – This is my professional account. I follow hundreds of smart, savvy journalists and news sources, some social media folk (I’m a bit choosy when it comes to that. I tend to prefer Social Media folk who work in my field, not the Marketing “Guru” folk because I’m not interested much in that.) I learn a lot from the people I follow here and it has been incredibly beneficial to me for sharing ideas, has expanded my interests and allowed me to network and meet others who enjoy the stuff I enjoy at work. The reason I keep separate personal/professional accounts is that this account is the one where no one gives a crap what I had for breakfast but on my UK account, my best friend might want the recipe for my awesome French Toast.
  • @CherryPop and @LiamTheZombie – These are character accounts for a book I’m trying to write. I’m using Twitter to expand the ‘verse my characters inhabit. The project waxes and wanes, but I’m gearing up for NaNoWriMo with these guys so there will be more activity soon.
  • @Doodurls – My pride and joy. My boyfriend and I created a website that solicits people Doodles, via Twitter mostly, and we run this account and the site together. These days, I think it’s almost essential that every venture like this  should have a Twitter account and facebook fan page associated with it to help grow the audience.
  • And then I have about 7 or 8 accounts for the paper that I manage.

When Twitter was still in the early stages, the idea for it was to allow a quick way for the cell phone generation to send quick messages to friends and family to stay connected, to allow them to answer the ‘What are you doing?’ question knowing only family and friends would be interested in that. Some people have turned their personal feeds into something humourous. They’ll post one-liners, or @shitmydadsays, or quirky observations. Some tweet inspirational messages. Some will actually tweet every minute detail of their lives not caring who wants to read that sort of thing. And believe it or not, there are people on Twitter who aren’t after huge follower numbers.

I’ll give an example of how I came to grok Twitter. Year and years ago I used to be an admin on a telnet MUD called The Chatting Zone. The admin had their own special channel to talk on and basically it became a place to spit out random thoughts in our heads. Anything from, “Good lord who told Posh Spice she should be wearing THAT outfit??” (Hey, I said this was years ago) to, “Well I’m about to cook spaghetti for dinner.” Lots of times even the most mundane, random stuff would become conversation starters. When Twitter came along, I immediately thought how similar it was to my old TCZ admin days and I discovered I kind of missed the random ramblings of my fellow admin.

It might be hard to not view Twitter as a stripped down version of the Facebook status updates. And for my commenter, Twitter might not ever be useful for him personally. I think, for personal accounts, it’s too subjective to say Twitter is superior to Facebook or vice versa. Twitter is what you make of it. Tailor your account to follow who interests you, throw in some friends and family, use trends and searches to jump into conversations that matter to you and you’ll meet more people.

And who knows, maybe you’ll care about what some of them had for breakfast.

8
19
Oct

Frustration level: High

“Who cares what I had for breakfast?”

I swear, if I see that line in one more article about the positives and/or negatives of Twitter, I will scream. It’s a classic example of what makes Twitter so hard to “sell” in my newsroom and my small community.

I attended a meeting recently with several community businessmen and women where I was there to give a ‘Twitter 101′ talk. The first thing they said when I finished touting the real-time benefits, powerful search bonus and the variety of ways it could benefit small businesses, was the oft-quoted cliché above. They couldn’t get beyond it and it almost makes me angry.

Here I am trying to convince my coworkers and folks in the community that Twitter is a good thing, that it will help them in so many unexpected ways. But the only thing many of them come back with is the fact that they believe it is useless and frivolous. No, useless and frivolous is playing Mafia Wars on Facebook on company time. To be fair, several of the journalists in my newsroom have come around and are doing fantastically well with Twitter. But some… aren’t (also, none of them are playing Mafia Wars on company time ;) ).

If you’re a journalist, you can learn a metric ton of information from the hundreds of other journalists using the service. You can crowdsource on a breaking story and provide complete coverage quickly. You can enjoy the benefits of having your community guide you to new stories, resources, tips and ideas.

If you’re a businessperson, the benefits to be explored for you are plentiful. You can find out what your customers are saying about you. You can direct specials and ads at them without the blowback you might get from shoving a banner ad in their face because they *choose* to follow you and see what you have to say. You can publicize events quickly – so many good things.

Have pity on those of us in the trenches trying to get people on board with this new direction. I think we can all agree Twitter isn’t really about what you had for breakfast anymore. Twitter is what you make of it. So can we stop using that tired old cliché now? Pretty please?