Posts tagged Tweet
Why the Twitter ‘Who Gives a Tweet’ Researchers are Wrong
Feb 2nd
A recent study by Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech researchers found that 25 percent of tweets aren’t even worth reading, according to participants. They believe better filters will help. Actually, they have it all backwards.
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Think Before You Tweet, And Other Good Advice From The Experts
Jan 30th
Officially, Sree Sreenivasan is the dean of student affairs and a professor at Columbia University’s Journalism School, but for many he is the curator of Sree’s Tips, a Tumblr blog crammed with how-to social media information, as well as a leading figure in the social media movement. This past weekend he was also the point person for Columbia’s Social Media Weekend in New York.
What follows is a recap of some of Sreenivasan’s best advice for better utilizing Twitter from the weekend, as well as nuggets of information for doing better social media that were culled from the more than 50 speakers. When talking about social media, Sreenivasan tends to stress connections over self promotion (although being connected tends to lead to better promotion). He was also quick to stress throughout the weekend “We’re all learning here.”
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Think Before You Tweet
Sreenivasan says he spends an average of three to five minutes thinking about and composing every tweet he sends out, which is a lot of time for a guy who pumps out half a dozen tweets on an average day.
It’s even more time considering that Sreenivasan concedes that “most people will miss most of what we send” through social networks. Still, Sreenivasan says what he tweets tend to have the biggest impact, and are therefore worth the extra care.
Content Is King
On Sunday, Sreenivasan pulled up his own Twitter page, which had tweets full of links, hash tags and mentions of other users. An @ mention insures at least one person will see your tweet, while links add value to the tweets you put out into the world.
“See all that blue?” he said, referring to the links. “All of those are connections or potential connections.”
Indeed, several presenters stressed the importance of not only including content, but presenting content in a way that encourages click-throughs. Erica Anderson, Twitter’s manager for news and journalism, said when sharing articles, try to find an interesting quote or tidbit from the story instead of simply tweeting the headline.
Anderson also said photos and video had also become more important since Twitter’s redesign late last year. In particular, they have become popular among reporters embedded with the presidential campaigns, who have been sharing candid moments. “People love photos on Twitter,” Anderson said.
Overhaul Your Twitter Profile
Sreenivasan pulled up the Twitter profile of New York Times reporter Brian Stelter and noted that he included two phone numbers, an email address, a Web site and a description of what he covered for the Times (as opposed to just saying he was a reporter for the paper).
Sreenivasan said that despite having more than 100,000 followers, Stelter has never received a prank phone call.
Stelter, who is as close to being a social media expert as one can get in journalism circles, also uses his full name on his profile. Users who just defer to their Twitter handle, a company name, or nick name risk not being found by people who want to follow them, Sreenivasan said.
Finally, Sreenivasan directed people to look past the number of people following Stelter and look at the 2,500 Stelter himself follows. That, Sreenivasan said, is the real value for using social media in journalism and other fields: by seeking out people to follow, we’re seeking more information, he said.
“Whatever you have as a number in that ‘following,’ space, it’s not enough,” Sreenivasan said.
Be Safe
Anderson spent a portion of her Saturday morning talk stressing security. She gave a plug for multi-platform manager 1Password and said people should get in the habit of checking their browser’s address bar for https:// as opposed to http:// before logging into Twitter and other sites.
Anderson also recommended using a company email account when signing up for Twitter and other sites where social interaction is encouraged. That can prevent hackers from accessing personal email accounts, which may have more sensitive personal information.
Keep Reading
One blog post is not enough to digest a weekend’s worth of info sessions. Some of the best tips have been curated under the hash tags #smwknd and #smwkndcool.
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Why Writers Should Tweet
Jan 11th
The long overly romanticized idea of the writer holed up in a cabin off of Walden Pond, furiously writing by candlelight and drinking warm whiskey until the wee hours is so. freaking. over. The writer of today is busy tweeting away on the Internet, connecting with like-minded folks while writing their next. big. novel.
“If I am having a crappy day writing, I will on occasion send out a goofy tweet on Twitter to see how others are doing,” Oak Park-based writer Gint Aras tells me via phone. “Then it will help me get through a period of blockage – but I don’t think that’s any different from getting on the phone and talking to a writer buddy.”
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Writers are solitary types. Many work from home, only seeing the light of day if they run errands or go to the gym during the day. Some may keep wonky schedules, depending on if they have a day job or do other types of work. Twitter can be an important way to connect with other writers, or just to stay involved in community. But online community isn’t the only reason writers tweet.
Mystery writer Julie Hyzy tells me that she uses Twitter less for online community, and more as a way to promote other writers and stay in touch with her readers. I picture Hyzy acting the same way on Twitter as she would at a fancy book party launch. “You feel like everybody’s your friend and you can just jump in,” she says. “You don’t have to shake somebody’s hand with a wine glass in the other. It’s like a nice party conversation all the time.”
Writer Sherrill Bodine tells me that she only started tweeting because of her publicist, Dana Kaye. “The reason I started using it is because Dana made me, and the reason I tweet is that Dana made me.”
As we chatted more, she softened up a bit on Twitter. “I love the connection with the readers,” she says. On a recent trip to New York, she had an opportunity to view the Elizabeth Taylor private collection, and because of Twitter she was able to give her readers a sneak peek.
For Hyzy and Bodine, Twitter is most useful as a way to connect with readers, promote other writers and give their readers a peak into the creative process. Both of these writers have a publicist, however. Gint Aras, a self-published writer, finds Twitter useful for more than just connecting with other people who share the same interests as him. Despite receiving praise for his work in graduate school, after he got out Aras realized that publishing his book was going to be “virtually impossible,” and so he deduced to build his own platform, and Twitter was an important part of that.
“The bookstore out in Oak Park where I live, The Book Table, was one of the first bookstores I followed,” says Aras. “As a result of me following them and drawing attention to the bookstore, they started carrying my book. I’ve sold a number of books there that I’ve been.”
For Aras, Twitter is a way to keep his finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the world. But it can also be whatever he wants it to be. “Twitter is like the letter that you have in front of you, with a piece of paper and a pen,” says Aras. “You write the letter and decide who you are going to send it to.”
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Tweet At ‘Em All You Want, But Gen Y’s Are Still More Influenced By Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Jan 9th
A new report out from Sitel on social media and consumer trends implies that social media is key to reaching Gen Y (those born between 1980 and 2000), but the #s don’t add up.
While the Gen Y, or people born between 1980-2000, are in fact “digital natives,” that doesn’t mean they are actually most reachable via social media marketing.
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When looking at which types of decisions influence purchase decisions for electronics, 46.9% of Gen Y’s are most influenced by in-store promotions, 44.3% by word-of-moth marketing and 39.8% by Internet advertising.
Only 28.7% were influenced by social media, which makes sense given the fact that you are what you’re more likely to be what you “like” on Facebook, not “what your friends like.”
When it comes to what types of media influence purchases of apparel/clothing and grocery, social media still comes in dead last not only for Gen Y’s, but for Gen X’s and Boomers, too.
New research from Ericsson echoes the fact that while teens today are definitely digital natives, they still prefer face-to-face communication over digital means like texting and Facebook.
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[Interview] Judge Seo Gi-ho says “I’m not afraid to tweet my mind” – 한겨레
Dec 8th
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[Interview] Judge Seo Gi-ho says “I'm not afraid to tweet my mind”
한겨레 Seoul Northern District Court Judge, Seo Gi-ho, drew media attention for posting a message critical of the Korea Communications Standards Commission's review regulations of social networking services. Seo describes himself as a man … |
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Tweet Your Way Towards $1000
Nov 25th
Okay, time to get shopping today, at least according to all the merchants who have had their doors open since last night. But how about putting some of the retail therapy to better use? Apica, the cloud performance measurement vendor, is sponsoring a contest, and the first prize is a $1000 Amazon gift card. Certainly, we all spend too much with Amazon as it is, but this could go towards a new Kindle or a bunch of videos to bulk up your holiday collection.
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The contest has already begun and you have until the end of the day on January 3 to enter your own rap or 140-character rhyme about your best or worst e-shopping experience, real or imagined. As you can guess with the 140 characters, you have to enter via tweeting to @apicasystems, and include the hash tag #apicarap. So you have less than the full 140 right off the bat. The entries will be based on creativity, humor, and relevance.
In addition to the $1000 gift card, Apica will offer other Amazon gift cards for the runners-up.
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What a Tweet Can Tell You
Nov 17th
Imagine a tiny little sun, just bursting with heat and light, but trapped inside a hard metal cover with a few holes to let beams of energy stream out from inside. Now imagine there were millions of those little suns, maybe the size of basketballs or tennis balls, all rolling down an assembly line one after another, each with a unique pattern of holes and beams of light streaming out into the world.
That’s what Twitter is. Inside every unborn Tweet you can find infinite potential – someone will be in a place, with social context and they will say something, anything, and give that potential a form. They will say something and it will be instantly available to anyone in the world who’s subscribed. Each Tweet has more than 30 fields of metadata under the hood; the value populating each of those fields makes up the unique patterns of holes in the metal cover that lets the light out from inside. A company launched today that lets you control a robot that drills holes in the metal covers trapping the infinite potential of the sun inside.
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“One could spend months mining Twitter using @DataSift,” said Paul M. Watson, CEO of stream curation startup Storyful, today on Twitter. “Great balance of usability & power in the CSDL.” (Curated Stream Definition Language)
Were one to look into the screaming firehose of hundreds of millions of Tweets on Twitter and call out to the robot gods of data sifting, “Give me the Tweets by self-proclaimed South Africans, living in Ireland, with positive sentiment and that have been retweeted by data-loving tech investor Roger Ehrenberg!” Were one to dip into that river in search of a sliver like that, which may or may not exist (it does, Watson’s fits the bill), then the freshly launched startup Datasift would be the tool one would use to do so. It would cost you pennies, too.
Years in the making, Datasift launched today as the second licensed reseller of Tweets. The startup doesn’t just resell Tweets like yesterday’s news, though.
Datasift lets anyone parse the full firehose of Twitter messages with its simple Curated Stream Definition Language and see the resulting flow of messages that fit the criteria described.
You wouldn’t likely ask for all the Tweets from self-proclaimed South Africans living in Ireland, but you might ask for all the Tweets posted by women living in a particular state in the US and using any of a list of keywords. Market research, political monitoring, news reporting, there are all kinds of use cases. Whether the set of would-be customers intersects substantially with the set of people curious enough to think of the right questions to ask the data is a big question.
Anyone can say anything on Twitter, and with Datasift you can ask whether anything is being said. 80%+ of Retweets of @justinbieber are from Females, the company says.
Datasift just opened to the public today, so despite its best efforts there are still some kinks that need to be worked out. While the team attended its launch party, the preview rendering functionality stopped working for a little while. The pricing, while explained a number of different ways, still needs more clarification and development, founder Nick Halstead said today on Twitter.
The query and filtering tool isn’t as easy to use as the company would like it to be, either. “It is decidedly not easy to use,” says recent University of Washington Masters of Science in Information Management graduate and former ReadWriteWeb researcher Emily Cunningham. “I find their UI clumsy. Creating streams is confusing, not intuitive at all, hard to understand.”
But the potential here is huge. It’s a simple proposition, too: Twitter is now an incredibly rich source of information about all kinds of topics. “I learn about most things through Twitter,” DataSift’s new CEO Rob Bailey told Vator.tv this week. “I spend more time on that platform than I do on any cable channel . . . I’ve learned so much more about events like the occupy movement that cable news just wasn’t covering . . . and I was able to see that the RIM audience was getting more and more frustrated leading up to the outages they experienced. It’s such a powerful news source.”
Those are words that many of us can relate to, but Bailey now leads a team of engineers building a tool that aims to make it relatively simple for anyone to create filters to capture the messages about the events that we all catch wind of on Twitter.
Anyone who’s willing to pay for some Tweets, that is, even at a low low price. Datasift is intended for businesses users.
Can Datasift build a business serving a broad range of business users interested in juggling those spheres of light, filtering by patterns and in turn using that information to create new levels of value? Time will tell. It’s a very ambitious undertaking.
Disclosure: The author leads a stealth startup that works in the social media data space as well, more likely a Datasift customer than a competitor though.
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Twitter Settles Lawsuit, Gets “Tweet” Trademark
Oct 11th
Twitter and Twittad have settled their dispute over the word “tweet,” though Twittad will retain the right to use the tagline, “Let your ad meet tweets.”
Twitter has been trying to trademark “tweet” since Apri…
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Twitter & Bing Renew Deal, Tweet Their BFF Status Together
Sep 7th
Microsoft and Twitter are rekindling their relationship and telling the world about it on Twitter. Bing has chosen to renew their deal with Twitter, and the two companies announced the news via flirted messages back and forth in a casual conv…
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Pages That Display Tweet Buttons See 7x More Social Mentions
Sep 1st
In a recent report released by BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO company, stats were released showing correlation between social buttons and social shares. Data showed that pages that displayed the Tweet button saw 7 times more social media mentions than pages that didn’t feature the button….
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