Twitter followers have become the status symbol of 2009, but how valuable are they, really? I think we’re placing too much importance on the numbers and paying far too little attention to the actual reasons why followers can be valuable to us.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t want to have a lot of followers. I’m saying that you don’t want to have a lot of the wrong followers. There is nothing to be gained by accumulating “empty” followers. Why? Because they are not listening to you! Your core followers — those you who actually listen to you and interact with you — are the real value of Twitter, and that’s why you should never, ever automate your Twitter account to increase follower count. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been struck by the recent proliferation of audio microblogging or micropodcasting (or micro audioblogging?) apps out there. In addition to Jott (read one of our reviews) and Utterli, there is now Trottr, Chirbit and AudioBoo, just to name a few. While micropodcasting hasn’t yet taken off in the way Twitter has (what has?), I really do see the value in having the ease of both picking up a telephone and the automation of the upload of your recording as a mini podcast on the Web.
A quick rundown of the ones we haven’t mentioned before on WWD:
AudioBoo – Using an iPhone app, you can easily record a message or podcast. The sound quality is good. Ease of use, check. Upload time — not too bad, but keep in mind this is eating your data plan, so make sure you have a good one. Listen to a sample recording. Read the rest of this entry »
In an interesting business move, Socialtext (previously covered on WebWorkerDaily) today opened up its enterprise organizational collaboration software to smaller organizations with its new Free 50 offering for groups of up to 50 people. Previously, Socialtext did not have a freemium model (just a free trial), and instead offered its internal social networking, messaging and collaboration tools at a per-user price that put it out of the budgets of many smaller companies and groups. Now, with Free 50, virtual teams of web workers can sign up for a free version of the hosted SaaS.
What’s Included in Free 50
So what do we get for free? Most of the core features of Socialtext are offered as part of Free 50, including:
- the Facebook-like private social network.
- the customized home page dashboard.
- a collaborative workspace that blends wiki and blog functionality.
- Signals, the Twitter-like messaging system.
- Desktop, an Adobe Air desktop application that provides monitoring and access to Socialtext without having to constantly visit the Socialtext web site. ( I wrote about Signals and Desktop previously.) Read the rest of this entry »
There was as much grumbling about the Twitter-style format of the 140 Character Conference in New York this week as there often is about 140-character limit in Twitter itself. Anything new or different can drive some people up the wall. Others, however, embrace the newness and the challenge of doing something completely different, and that is where the conference broke new ground, or at least it felt like that to many of us.
Jeff Pulver, the conference organizer, credits Twitter with everything that made the event happen, from the positive feedback that led him to set a date for the event, to obtaining the majority of commitments from speakers and panelists, to publicizing it almost entirely via tweets and retweets.
In my post “How Twitter is a Communications Game Changer,” I talked about the random but significant changes Twitter was causing in terms of the way we communicate and the tools we use. The 140conf — as it was called on Twitter — was the embodiment of a Twitterstream; it was Twitter in the flesh. Here are some of my observations from the conference: Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve all learned that good news travels fast online, but bad news travels faster. Now, with social networks, blogs and microblogs, the speed with which bad news can travel online is staggering, as everyone can get in on the conversation almost instantly. What can any of us — individuals, organizations and companies — do to handle a social media communications crisis?
After publishing my 10 Golden Rules of Social Media, I’ve been asked by a number of people what to do when things go wrong in the social mediasphere. Anyone who is putting themselves out there using social media tools is bound to encounter moments of crisis — some as large as the Domino’s fiasco, others as small as an old-fashioned person-to-person flame war.
My advice is to plan now. Don’t wait for that communications crisis to take place before planning for how you’ll handle the fallout when something bad (inevitably) happens. Here’s a blueprint you can use for your own plan.
1. Pay attention. Whether you are using Google Alerts or Twilert or any other monitoring service to see when your name or brand name is mentioned, setting up “digital listening posts” is essential to help learn about not just the good things people are saying about you, but the bad things as well. Getting an early “heads up” can make all the difference in the world between crisis and total disaster.
2. Review context. Before you panic and jump the gun to respond to what might appear to be a crisis, dig a little deeper to make sure you understand what is being said and why. You don’t want to enter the conversation until you have a firm grasp on the issues being raised.
3. Address promptly. Timeliness is everything when dealing with and defusing the crisis. Every day, every hour, every minute you agonize over what to do — or ignore the situation altogether — is time wasted.
4. Acknowledge first. Once you figure out what has happened and what some of the emotions are behind it, make sure to address these issues or emotions in your responses. Like any good interpersonal communications, start with statements like “I understand you’re frustrated” or “We realize this is a confusing situation.” Give credence to the other party’s feelings and perceptions. They may not be correct, but they are valid in that they’re what they believe and feel.
5. Don’t overthink. Running through committees, endless drafts and approval processes to get a response out there can cause far more damage than good. As long as you have taken the time to assess the situation and can take a rational, respectful tone in your response, even an awkward response is OK to start with, and buys you time to continue to respond to the problem.
6. Be open. If you’re upset, nervous, worried, shocked — don’t be afraid to express that as well. People want to see a human response to a crisis, not an overproduced, formulaic or canned reply. When there is a crisis, there are people involved. Pretending there are no emotions mixed in the mess is a surefire way to lose credibility with others. Domino’s CEO responded pretty quickly and openly. However, check out his response to the crisis. The CEO never once looks at the camera. If you are going to be open and forthcoming in your response, at least look straight at the camera at some point. Even when reading from a teleprompter, you can set it up so your eyes are directed at the camera. Otherwise, you’ll look shifty and untrustworthy.
7. Fix the problem. If the crisis is bringing a problem to your attention, admit it, address it and fix it. If something is wrong and you can make it right, do it. If something isn’t really wrong but someone perceives that it is wrong, don’t dismiss their concerns. Take every exchange seriously, and do your best. That is all anyone can really expect. If you make sincere efforts and consistently take the high road, you stand to gain some goodwill, even if the problem is not entirely resolved.
8. Tell your story. Telling your own story throughout the “fixing” process is another good way of helping defuse the issue. Giving updates such as “We’re still looking into that bug that caused your data loss,” and “Please contact us privately so we can make amends to this situation” lets anyone paying attention to the situation see something is being done, even some of it has to happen “behind-the-scenes.”
What other things should we think about when it comes to crisis communications in a social media-powered world?
Every so often, a new app hits my radar that gives me that “Wow! Awesome! Right On!” feeling. Launching into public beta today, WatchDox by Confidela is such an app. If you want to share a document securely with someone, WatchDox can do that. But it also does much more, namely letting you specify permissions on the document, such as the whether it can be printed, copied or forwarded. Then you can track all the activity of your document so you can see all the places your document has been sent, by whom and when, who opened it and when, who printed it and when — a complete document activity audit. Yet its features are practical, sensible and uncluttered. Read the rest of this entry »
I know, I know — it’s a bit presumptuous of me to think I can write the “10 Golden Rules of Social Media.” Then again, I’ve been online since 1987, consulting clients on the Internet since 1992, on the web since 1994, immersed in working on and speaking about the web since the mid-1990s, so I do feel like I’ve paid some dues and learned some lessons along the way.
So here are my 10 Golden Rules of Social Media to embrace, debate, pass around and refine. Have at it. Read the rest of this entry »
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