Archive | twitter RSS feed for this section

Your Own Site Matters More Than Ever

By on July 20, 2011 in Life Online, twitter

In under a month and still in beta, Google+ has attracted 18 million users, or 2.4% of Facebook’s base (per Business Insider). That’s a fairly impressive figure.

Time is a finite resource. The time people are now spending on G+ (or turntable.fm, or Namesake, or any other hot new service) is, almost certainly, time taken away from Twitter, Facebook, etc. You’ve probably spent a considerable amount of your own time building and engaging on those services. And now your fans – and you – are turning at least some of their attention elsewhere.

You can’t be everywhere at once. Neither can your customers, fans, clients, etc. You can try… but in spending so much time trying to build and maintain your presence on the various social services you can end up neglecting your own site.

And that’s a danger.

Your own site is the one place where YOU control the content, the context, and – perhaps most importantly – the list. If your Twitter or Facebook or Blogger account were wiped out tomorrow, could you easily reach or recreate all those followers and fans? No.

Even with apps to help, it’s just much easier to tweet than to blog. I get that, and am as guilty of it as anyone. The social services make it incredibly convenient to post a photo, thought, or video. Apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite make it even easier by letting you post to multiple services at once.

I’m not advocating that you stop doing that. In fact, I’m a big proponent that businesses, artists, etc. should be, within reason, where their fans are, and not try to force customers to come to them. Having said that, there will always be another service, another app.

Your only constant online is the content that YOU own and control: your site, your mailing list. Reward those who do visit your site/blog with exclusive content or offers, with being the first to get exciting news (via your blog, RSS, mailing list) before you post it elsewhere. Make sure the content there is as rich and valuable as what you post elsewhere, and you’ll always be able to reach your core base regardless of whatever services they (and you) use.

What are your strategies for managing the shifting social media audience? Please add them in the comments below.

Comments { 2 }

Interesting Links of the Day

By on March 29, 2011 in Links 'O The Day, Privacy, twitter

Herewith my links of interest for March 29, 2011:

  • Mashable gathers ten of the most extraordinary Tweets ever, from the very first one (by co-founder Jack Dorsey) to a marriage proposal to the infamous 2008 single-word tweet “Arrested” that arguably first brought Twitter to the mainstream media’s attention.
  • Many people choose to follow a vegetarian/vegan diet for political reasons (animal cruelty, big-business farming). But the best reason might be the one uncovered by the The China Study. This multi-year research undertaken by Oxford and Cornell found, quite simply, that people who eat a plant food diet and avoid animal proteins and fats will minimize and/or reverse the development of chronic diseases. Sound good to you?
  • This Skittles commercial is either really clever or really bizarre. Maybe both, actually.
  • Del Harvey, the leader of Twitter’s trust and safety team posted a brilliant, succinct piece on the importance of using strong passwords, and using different passwords for different sites. Too much trouble? Probably not as much trouble as getting your online banking or email hacked. And those Facebook memes that have you put your birthplace as your status? That’s a no.
  • The most interesting thing to come out of SXSWi, as far as I’m concerned: Hashable’s info-packed infographic on the who, what, when and where of people connecting during the show.
  • Enrique Iglesias is going on tour with Britney Spears this summer. Oh wait, no he’s not.

 

Comments { 0 }

A Klout Conundrum?

By on February 27, 2011 in twitter

I’m a fan of Klout, which (if you haven’t heard of it) calls itself “the standard for [online] influence.” I’ve been the recipient of some Klout Perks, and – unrelated to that – have recommended Klout to a client. I display my Klout badge on my blog (over there to the right; it’s not difficult to notice!). And I recognize that Klout is just one factor to consider in assessing someone’s “influence.”

But one aspect of how they measure has me a bit flummoxed.

Namely: your Klout score is determined, in part, by how actively your followers engage with you. That is: how often they reply to you when you post, address questions or comments to you, retweet you, add you to lists, etc. The more actively your followers engage with you, and the more of them who do so, the more influential you’re determined to be.

Makes sense, right?

But what happens when followers abandon or rarely use their accounts? According to ManageFlitter.com, a whopping 510 Twitter accounts that follow me (but that I don’t follow back) haven’t tweeted in at least a month. And if they haven’t posted in a month or more, they’re not interacting with me or with anyone else.

In other words, over a quarter of the accounts following me are highly unlikely to interact with me, regardless of what I tweet. But there’s nothing I can do to stop them from following me, unless I go through and manually block each of them.

So even though I have no control over who follows me, the fact that 27% of my followers aren’t really using Twitter likely counts against me (or you, or anyone else in a similar circumstance) when it comes to measuring online influence. If I could somehow remove the inactive accounts from following me, the percentage of the remaining followers who DO interact with me would be a larger piece of the pie, and (in theory) my Klout score would increase.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not hung up on my Klout score. Mine’s actually pretty good, as far as I’m concerned. I’m raising this as more of a general question about whether there’s a fly in the ointment if Klout (and similar influence measurement services) hold users accountable for the actions of their followers, even though users can’t control who’s following them.

Do Klout and its competitors figure this into their algorithm already? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

 

 

Comments { 6 }

3 Tips For A Better Skirball Conference

By on February 20, 2011 in Life Online, twitter

After attending a fair number of media/tech conferences at LA’s Skirball Center, I recommend that all organizers of events held there heed the following:

1. Include Twitter names on the name badges. Not everyone tweets under their real name (some use nicknames, some tweet under company names). Not everyone uses a headshot as their Twitter avatar. Having an (optional) Twitter name as well as a real name on the badges will enhance the networking your event purports to foster.

2. Provide ample charging stations/power strips. Will press and bloggers be there? Do you want attendees to live-tweet? Then make it easy for everyone in the general seating area to charge phones, laptops, etc. (not just those at the perimeter tables). Batteries won’t make it all day; you’ll either lose the exposure you’re seeking, or lose your audience as they flee to an outlet. The 140TC conference had power strips under every row of seats back in 2009 (thank you, Steve Broback and the Parnassus Group!), so it’s clearly doable. Just. Do. It.

3. Don’t compete with your own show. The Ahmanson auditorium is not sealed off from the hallway dividing it and the lobby; lowering the mesh curtains between them doesn’t block out sound. DO NOT SET UP PRESENTATION TABLES IN THE HALLWAY, OR PERMIT CONVERSATIONS THERE, WHILE THE CONFERENCE IS UNDERWAY. The audience can hear you (quite clearly, in fact). The speakers can hear you. It’s distracting, it’s indiscreet, and it’s disrespectful.

Come to think of it, points 1 and 2 apply to organizers of any social media-related event. (And all this, of course, builds upon my Attention Conference Organizers post of a year ago.)

OK, rant over… unless you, dear reader, have something to add? Leave it in the comments.

Power Switch photo by Tom Raftery. ‘Shh’ photo by (cup)cake_eater.
Comments { 0 }

How To Stop The Quora Emails

By on January 4, 2011 in Privacy, twitter

Tired of your inbox being flooded with Quora new follow notifications? Here’s how to stop ‘em.

Login at Quora.com. Click on “Settings” in the upper-right nav bar.

On the Settings page, look for the section on the left called “Email Settings.” Expand each area by clicking on the blue “view settings” link next to it, and uncheck everything for which you don’t want to be emailed. (There are lots of boxes to uncheck, needless to say.) Make sure you click Save when done.

All of the auto-follows aren’t a best practice, needless to say; nor is the automatic population of email notifications. Both should require affirmative user consent. But unless and until Quora rights those wrongs, this should help stem the tide.

Of course, you could also just delete your Quora account altogether… I haven’t taken that step yet, myself, but may get there soon.

Comments { 1 }