Shh…. The Media are Listening

I responded to a manifesto by Devin Coldewey at TechCrunch today, asking:

Why do you, or why don’t you, use Twitter?… I only forbid one answer: “because everyone else is doing it.” That’s the same reason people wore Hammer pants.

In short, my answer was that I use it because it’s part of my research to do my job effectively, and to stay on the cutting edge of my industry.  (Go here for the long answer.)

That all led me to wonder how my tweets were being used by others… if at all.  I know what value I am getting, but what do others get out of my 140-character banter?

Sure people retweet what I say or converse with me via my public lifestream at @sherrymain.  But is all the noise I make actually worthy of anything other than building my online-ego?

I came across an LA Times article from May 21 that quotes my tweet verbatim (down to the hashtag!), and associates it with my full-time profession:

Gun scare at UCI serves as test for text-alert system

…Reports also spread through campus through hundreds of messages on the microblogging site, with students sending tweets about helicopters hovering above campus, swarms of police and apparent lockdowns. “For those reporting on #UCI incident, evidence that UCI’s ZotAlert system works, and Twitter helps to spread the word beyond,” wrote Sherry Main, a communications director at UCI.

Someone is listening!  The media are listening, especially  because I wear a communications hat.  So in fact, the primary reason for my tweeting maybe to research the medium, but a by-product of that research is that I represent not only my private self, but any and all organizations that I am affiliated with.

In such a public forum, I must always be “on” – whether I tweet about my restless night at 3 a.m. or the hair in my lunch – people (and the media, which include major papers, bloggers, etc.) are listening and looking for quick, easy ways to obtain and retool information.

I’ve always been consciously aware that anyone can read what I write, but being consciously aware that someone can reuse what you write, is something completely different.

What starts as research quickly turns into addiction – ahem, Twitter and Facebook – especially when my interactions with the respective communities grow.  But the value in this addiction lies in the ability to filter out the noise and extract lessons for both my life and more importantly to carve a career path and expert niche for myself.

Clickable Now – Interactive Twitter Backgrounds

Twitter backgrounds can now be interactive… [Correction: Works on any browser!  See comment  from ShiftComm below.]

Installing and activating your page with Clickable Now is good practice.  Your followers, customers, and constituents may be using either browser, and this is just one more step that will help ease the process for people who want to interact with you on the Social Web.

Install the add-on or script into your browser from here, then give Clickable Now access to your Twitter account.  Once you do, it’s pretty simple (See the screen shots below):

1. Click on the “New Link” button.
2. Drag the link box to the portion of your sidebar that you’d like hyper-linked.
3. Resize to fit the area to be hyper-linked.
4. Enter the email or Web site information, and choose the highlight color.
5. Save settings.

That’s it!  Although this only works on Firefox browsers, and for those who have installed the add-on, it’s a big step forward.  We’ve been wanting the Twitter backgrounds to be interactive for a long time.

You can see below what we’ve hyper-linked @INCULINK or on my personal page @SherryMain.  We’ve added live links to our logo and URL, personal blogs, personal Twitter accounts, and to our Facebook fan page.

Perhaps one day, HTML will go the way of Photoshop layers and allow us to upload custom HTML backgrounds behind the Twitter feeds.  But until then, this will do…

Hat-tip to Todd Defren (@tdefren) of ShiftComm.com.

#Aardvark Opens to the Public

Check Vark out on Sunday’s New York Times… Congrats, Vark Team!

A few months ago, I wrote a post introducing Aardvark (aka Vark) – a service where your question is broadcast to those mostly likely able to answer it within the Aardvark community.

Vark has been really useful because I can broadcast a specific question without clogging Facebook or Twitter feeds, and count on someone with at least a basic knowledge of my query, to point me in the right direction.

Today, I got an email from CEO Max Ventilla:

Since you’ve blogged about Aardvark in the past, I thought you might be interested in some exciting developments…

…Anyone can join now at http://vark.com using their Facebook account. (We’re integrating with other social networks very soon.)

[Fan them on Facebook too.]

This is a great move on the part of Aardvark.  They’ve really come a long way in the last few months, partly thanks to the growth in number of users.  Once it reaches critical mass, it’s value will increase exponentially.

Five more suggestions that I think will make their tool and brand name powerful are:

1. Allow my Vark Q&As to be published to social network feeds, particularly on Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed.
2. Facebook app that can also be a tab within a profile where friends can see your Vark profile, and question/answers.
3. iPhone app (this is already in the works)
4. And if an exact or very similar query has already been answered, to automatically “reuse” that answer for faster responses (with a like/dislike option).
5. Vanity URL to profile.  (I’d like “vark.com/sherry”.)

I enjoy Vark because it’s (almost) anonymous social networking: I’m interacting with strangers to help them out, and vice versa.  If you use the instant messaging (IM) tool for Vark, the unexpected randomness of questions breaks up my work day.  Vark “interrupts” subtly by asking “Are you there?” and you can choose whether to engage or not by typing “sure”, “busy”, or “pass”.

Try it out… you’ll be surprised at how much you actually know.

Twitter Style Guide

Updated: Thanks to @zkiraly and @faseidl.

Just like print media and even blog posts, Twitter should have a style guide.  There are some tweets that I will never read because they just look plain ugly.

Many people tweet just for the sake of sharing what’s on their mind.  But if you truly want to call attention to what you’re writing, especially if you are promoting a corporate or personal brand, here’s a simple guide to help make your tweets “legible”:

• Use appropriate sentence case (please – this is a huge pet peeve). Typing in all lower case doesn’t gain you any extra characters.  And unless you’re fighting for space, use proper grammar.

• Give a brief description, or better yet, a teaser of what we’re about to see.  Think of it as a movie trailer, and you want people to follow-thru to the link.  Similarly, don’t just post a link.

• Know what you’re sharing. Simply tweeting a blog post or article title may not always be the best description.  Demonstrate that you’ve read what you’re recommending, by summarizing it creatively, and to fit your audience.

• Avoid multiple RTs (retweets). Simply RT the person you source.  If someone is interested in seeing who the original source is, they can click on to the person you retweeted, or do a Twitter Search of the phrase or link.  At some point, too many @usernames in a single tweet just becomes name-dropping.

• Via @username is OK.  You don’t have to RT everything.  Resummarize it in your own words, then give credit at the end.

• Use hashtags (#) appropriately, and sparingly.  Hashtags make it easy to search for topics, but they’re most valuable when you want to join a conversation.  Multiple hashtags in one tweet causes for clutter too.

• Leave enough space to be retweeted.  Somewhere between 15-20 spare characters will leave room for most all usernames.

And most importantly, if you’re representing an organization (or even yourself), if you want to get the most out of Twitter, interact with people who RT you or those twitterers that you find interesting.  It’s amazing to see what kind of conversations you might get into, and more importantly, what you’ll learn!

For a blog posting “style guide”, read 5 Rules for Blogging.

Photo credit: Delgrosso

#FollowFriday – Media Relations Resources

“Journalism is the first rough draft of history.”

-Philip L Graham, Publisher, Washington Post

I had several conversations this week about how Communications Directors and other media relations folks can use Twitter to interact with the printed press.   Interesting topic for a few reasons:

1. All indications are that the printed press is of the dying breed;
2. Using a 2.0 tool to connect with 1.0 media seems like an oxymoron;
3. New media communications is about getting information out quickly, and interactions surrounding it.  Print offers neither.

My colleagues and I stopped using news wires, primarily because of the cost associated with their services.  The same effort that it takes to write a press release and submit it through news wires can easily be used to broadcast yourself by serving as your own news service.

Communications needs have changed, as well.  I find more value in the interaction and feedback with our constituents on our blogs and social networks (primarily Facebook).

All this said, many journalists are adopting 2.0 tools in order to save their 1.0 business. Just this week, the New York Times appointed Jennifer Preston (@NYT_JenPreston) the New York Times’ first Social Media Editor.  Both the Times and Washington Post are doing a great job using new media and multimedia tools, and creating unique content using free resources such as Google maps and API calls.

So how do you find the reporters/journalists that best fit your communications needs?  Try these resources.  (If you have other ones, let us know by leaving a comment!)

• @muckrack – Muck Rack is the best repository of journalists that I’ve seen so far.  You can sort by beat, news outlet, or even recent tweeted photos.
• @wefollow – We Follow is a user-powered Twitter directory where Twitterers self-identify their areas of interest or affiliation through tags.  It’s not as easy to search by beat or outlet as Muck Rack, but you may find some unusual suspects here.
• Media on Twitter – In addition to U.S. journalists, Media on Twitter has lists of journalists and news media Twitter accounts in Australia, Canada, France, India, Malta, Mexica, Russia, South Africa, Thailand and the UK.

By the way, if you’re a major newspaper needing a Social Media Editor, tweet me @sherrymain.  I’m interested… and interesting!