Archive for twitter

The Value of Buying Twitter Followers

06/27/11 Bill Handy Comments (10)

Twitter FollowersThe last few weeks I’ve seen an increase of twitter followers to an account I own but has been dead for almost two years. Three of the new followers were Oklahoma businesses which caught my attention – that and the huge number of followers for what I would consider to be a relatively small business with a small clientele.

I’ve reviewed their accounts and found the following:

  • They’ve since un-followed me likely because I didn’t follow them back.
  • They are adding about 250 – 500 followers per week.
  • Each account has almost identical stats of following and followers.
  • Tweet streams of their followers bear similarities which would make sense if the businesses were in the same industry, but they aren’t.
  • Most of the accounts’ tweets are promotional in nature (hey, buy from us! with a link back to the main pages) with little engagement of their followers.
  • One account with 19,000 followers hasn’t tweeted since Dec. 1, 2010.

My assumption is these businesses have hired a company to handle their social efforts and the client (and perhaps servicing company) has little understanding of the platforms and how they can be used to benefit their organization. I don’t know the objectives so I can’t comment on whether they are being met.

The stats look impressive – 20,000 followers and growing by the day. Their followers’ tweet stream, a new feature offered by twitter, paints a possible different picture and reminds us that size of followers has little to do with value. It’s all about targeting, engaging, and providing value (a few other elements could be tossed in but you get the point). For this Tulsa Doctor, these new followers will likely have little value when you consider they can only have clients who can make it to their office or place an order to be shipped within the U.S.

The bigger issue
The client has likely been sold on an idea which has no real value and is well documented – the number of followers alone has little value to a business. In the PR/Advertising industry, we have a code of ethics which prohibits us from engaging in this type of practice so I can only assume it is someone outside the industry. However that doesn’t stop it from hurting our industry in the long term. In the end, when the client realizes they have received no return on their investment, those of us who abide by ethical standards will be lumped into the same category of shysters.

The value of buying Twitter followers:

To the client – little to nothing. Yes, the followers are impressive. But for the money spent, it is doubtful you will ever see a return.
To the firm providing the service – The immediate value of payment but long term they will lose the client and possibly gain a bad reputation.
To the PR/Advertising industry - Nothing and such practices actually hurt us all.

My conundrum - what to do? I suppose I could call out the company or contact the client and tell them to beware. I wonder if I could get a hat and sidekick to ride along with me on this quest. It wouldn’t be the first time I have battled windmills. I suppose sharing my thoughts here, in the hopes small business owners will trip across this post when they Google “How to increase twitter followers”, will be the end of my quest.

Thoughts?

p.s. I’ve deliberately blurred defining elements of the above twitter account. If something was missed please let me know and I will re-edit. If you are the owner of this account and would like for me to remove it please send me a note and I will be more than happy to replace it with one of the other accounts mentioned above.

Updated – 6:39 p.m. to correct typos and grammatical errors. Really need to proof read a bit more before hitting update.

 

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Categories : "public relations", Advertising, marketing, PR 101, Social Media, tips, twitter
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Who do you trust? It’s not social media.

02/16/11 Bill Handy Comments (3)

There have been a lot of studies which pertain to trust, the most famous probably the Edelman Trust Barometer.  If you haven’t read that stop reading this now and spend your morning being truly enlightened. If you have, then please read on.

A few weeks ago during what seemed to be a crescendo of online banter about Quora and how awesome it was to answer all your questions I became frustrated for two reasons:

What was once a great question site was quickly becoming spamish and narcissistic or dumbed down with ridiculous questions to which the answer could only be, ” it depends”, “yes”, or “no”.

For whatever anomalous reason several tweets and online comments crossed my desk with a common theme that everything you could ever need to know could be found on twitter.  I can only imagine the person was simply sitting back and letting 140 characters at a time pass by absorbing the all-knowing information. My snarkier side  wondered what these people would think about a surgeon with the same philosophy, “trust me everything I know about heart surgery I learned on twitter.”

I was curious about who would people trust to answer a very specific question of importance. So I put  together a very nonscientific survey  which simply asked the question, “If your job depended on getting the correct answer to a question which would you trust more?” The options, in no particular order, were twitter, blog, Prof. (with PhD), textbook, Wikipedia, Quora  or a friend.

RESULTS
By a landslide  textbooks were the winner. A Professor and Wikipedia tied for second and Twitter, blogs and friends barely made a mark.Quora, by the way, didn’t get a single vote.

Before you blast  the results let me say again this was not a scientific study and most professors (one did) would challenge the question as not being valid. I agree and would add my sample was likely biased (most likely PR folks), etc. but it does give an interesting snapshot.

The uptake to all this, if you truly believe in the crowd, don’t trust them when your job is on the line and go buy a textbook.

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Categories : Education, Public Relations, Research, Social Media, twitter

14 predictions about everyone’s top 10 predictions about social media

12/08/10 Bill Handy Comments (6)

Apocalypse prediction - 04

About this time we see a flurry of top ten predictions about social media. Some are legit but most are simply predictions made by those who are experts on social media – both kinds, Twitter and Facebook.* I have lots of predictions about social media and 2011 and I might share some of them later but right now I want to share my top forteen predictions about most top ten predictions about social media in 2011. To add credibility to my top ten list I am adding percentages…

87% of predictions will be made by “social media gurus” and by gurus I mean someone who had or has a career in a field not related to strategic communications but has a computer and an ounce of technical ability to create a twitter account, Facebook page and blog.

98.37% Won’t review their predictions from 2009 (Please note, I carried my prediction percentage to the second decimal which gives it more credibility) for a variety of reasons but most of all because of their ridiculousness.

74% of PR/Marcom/Adv firms, etc. prediction blog posts will be written by someone other than the person who wrote their 2010 predictions because that person is no longer there.

100% of PR/Marcom/Adv firms who made predictions last year but don’t make predictions this year won’t do so because the person who wrote their predictions last year is no longer there and they didn’t hire a replacement.

98.2 % of all top ten social media predictions blog posts will get less than 100 unique visits per site.

100% of those who got 100 unique visits will consider that a successful blog post.

96% will include some overused social media term about people

97% will include the term revolutionary. Please note, this is a 3% decrease from last year since word is getting around that all these platforms and tools are truly revolutionary.

89% will talk about social media the same way a football player dances in the end zone after scoring a touchdown… for the first time.

57% will predict that Facebook is the new Google, 57% will predict that Google’s new social effort will dominate Facebook and 14% will somehow predict both.

142.3% of social media predications will illustrate by example that the person making the predictions fundamentally doesn’t understand mathematics in general and percentages in particular

87% will make a prediction with worldwide implications based on a random sampling of 1 (themselves)  or something they read on twitter.

0% of the social media predictions will reference Subservient Chicken, Skittles, or that stupid Spy Twitter game… whatever it was called. 23% will reference the Old Spice Guy and whatever Old Spice product he was promoting.

92% of predictions won’t really be predictions at all but simply the observation that evolution is alive and well in the field of communications as predicted by true experts in the communications industry back in the 1940′s and earlier in some cases.

There you have it and if you have a prediction about the 2011 social media predictions please post them below.  I will mark my calendar for December, 2011 to see how we did.

*I stole that line from @mattgalloway who also contributed to this post – mainly the stuff you didn’t like. Everything else is mine.

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Categories : "public relations", Advertising, Awkward, Blogs, Crap!, facebook, Fun, Random, Research, Social Media, tips, twitter

Chris Brogan will do anything to get me to follow him on Twitter

03/02/10 Bill Handy Comments (0)

The other day Chris Brogan tweeted the following:

When I saw the tweet pointed out to me by a friend I joked that Chris Brogan will do anything to get me to follow him. Truth be known, he won’t and his tweet is just part of who he is, a very cool guy. Full disclosure, that @mattgalloway put him up to the tweet but that’s the kind of guy Chris is, really would do just about anything for his audience, especially someone right in front of him.

In a continuation of my full disclosure, I don’t follow @chrisbrogan and he doesn’t follow me, not on twitter at least and that, snarky headline aside, is what this post is about.

I stopped following Chris about the same time I stopped following a lot of other folks on Twitter. My reasons for the mass un-following of a few social media stars and a few hundred other folks are my own so I won’t bore bother you with the finer details but let me just say every time I looked up, my entire twitter stream was Chris and a few others. That’s the way he rolls and when someone has tweeted 62,340 times you have to expect… domination of your feed. Multiply that by all the other A-listers and I was loosing contact with the folks I wanted to stay in contact with.

Let me assure you though, I still follow Chris Brogan. My weapon of choice? The old fashioned RSS feed. Chris is on my weekly reading tab for folks I follow but don’t read on a daily basis. I should also point out that Chris is also listed in my social media syllabus as a follow and three of his articles are part of a must read before the students start blogging. I also encourage anyone starting out to follow Chris in some fashion, not just his new stuff, but go back to some of his sage advice over the years.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that his tweets still come across my stream by way of those I follow. I let them do the dirty work of filtering out the best of the best and do click those links.

A few other points:
The first time I ever twalked to Chris was when I was in a “discussion” with my sister regarding cloud computing and whether any large organization was actually using the cloud for all their needs. I asked the question on Twitter and Chris was the first and only to respond to the question including a follow up question – all on a Saturday night at 9 p.m. Like I said, that’s the way Chris rolls and That interaction left an indelible mark on my opinion of social media and how some of the best use it.

A lot has changed since then, two years later Chris has 125,514 followers (Chris, size will be the demise of your community… oh wait, never mind) and I don’t. And I’m happy about that – both stats.

Chris’s tweet immediately generated a number of followers.  For you new followers (and for you long timers) stay tuned, I am about to take a major shift on this site and my presence on the web. I hope you enjoy but more important I hope you learn.

Finally, I’ve never met Chris but I plan to chat with him soon – Chris, you want to meet my social media class and share some of your wisdom?  Oh, and if you keep tweeting that I am the greatest prof in Oklahoma I might just follow you again…

p.s. Why the snarky headline? I learned that from Chris.

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In Social Media Communities Size Matters – Inversely

10/14/09 Bill Handy Comments (14)
Community

Courtesy of

When I work with groups on their strategic use of social media I assure them, “size doesn’t matter” and they look at me funny. We have been told our whole lives that bigger is better.  As it turns out, when it comes to building a community via social media and specifically when you amass a vague community with no clear definition i.e. followers/friends that isn’t always the case. I blogged about this a while back but a few recent studies I came across  and a short conversation on twitter led me back to the research.

At this point I would like to remind everyone of a very technical term I use quite often when talking about what strategies to use regarding  Social Media engagement, “it depends”.  It depends on your goals and objectives and for as much as we might want to create a cookie cutter process for the strategic and tactical use of social media, what I find to be the case with every organization I work with is, their efforts don’t come close to mirroring any other organization’s use. (note to self, need to blog about the reasons why I think they are so different)

This leads me back to size. Too many folks focus on and talk about the size of their twitter followers. It’s for obvious reasons:

  • It’s an easy metric to measure
  • We start out on Twitter for the sole purpose of finding people to follow in the hopes they will find us
  • Every added follower is… something, not sure what but we get warm fuzzies when we get that update email
  • Even “Twitter graders” give us kudos for the number of followers.  Twitter “elite” strive to hit the one million mark.

But I go back to the question of goals and objectives. Specifically how does the size of your community support them? Are you selling a book, just released a movie – maybe size does matter but I would argue these folks are most likely using twitter as an rss feed for one-way or at best two-way asymmetrical communication. Sure, they might “engage their followers” but what about their community which we all talk about being so valuable in social media.

If we look at our community as a true community, one of engagement and collaboration and created for a purpose (go way back to the days of the Mayberry analogy) then we find smaller might actually be better. But, again, it depends on so many variables. How are you defined in this community? How are others defined in this community? Are you the leader (hint, you might think you are but…) is it a hierarchical community? And so on. All critical questions which need to be asked as you set the stage for your tactical use of any community based social media tactic.

Still shaking your head and thinking to yourself, “strong words Bill but prove it.”  Here ya go -

Research (link provided to original source)
Effects of spatial distribution and information transmission over cooperation dynamics – “Our results show that spatial structures affect the cooperation dynamics under horizontal information transmission and in some structures, particularly Small World Networks, cooperation is more sensible to information transmission.”

Social Networks and Collective Action – “The analysis finds that some metrics for networks’ influence—size, the prevalence of weak ties, the presence of elites—have a more complex interaction with network structure and individual motivations than has been previously acknowledged. For example, in some contexts additional network ties decrease participation. This presents the potential for selection bias in empirical studies. The model offers a fuller characterization of the role of network structure and predicts expected levels of participation across network types and distributions of motivations as a function of network size, weak and strong ties, and elite influence.”

Learning to Cooperate: Learning Networks and The Problem of Altruism – “Learning networks determine the spread of successful strategies; a larger,more connected population with more overlapping clusters of relationships averages72% mutual cooperation in our simulation, a 12 percentage point gain over the 60% averaged by the smallest, least connected, least clustered population. Larger populations and more contacts both increase the chance of learning from successful retaliatory strategies and hence increase the growth of retaliatory strategies whenever selection favors cooperation. Thus larger populations with more developed learning relationships should on average exhibit higher levels of cooperation. This would suggest that cooperation across longstanding cleavages would develop more rapidly in larger interactive legislatures, larger more established policy arenas, and larger integrated immigrant communities—in the latter case, however, analytic results for finite populations suggest that at some point larger populations may impede the  evolution of cooperation unless interactions are restricted into structured game networks.”

A few points:
To clarify some of the research above, there are cases when the size of the community is beneficial but very specific variables need to be considered and implemented.  I also find it interesting but self explanatory that most studies which involve or can be related to social media are geared toward Biology, Political Science, Anthropology, Mathematics, Psychology, etc.  What I find interesting about this is, in a social media world (PR/Mass Comm/marketing)  where we preach collaboration, seldom do we venture outside our comfort zone regarding research. Finally, there is one other study I am tying again to find. It is recent, within the last two months and from Europe and spoke specifically to mass communication and communities. It was dead and if I can find it I will add it to this post.

So what now?
No reason to start over but do ask yourself a few questions:

  • Why am I tweeting? What larger goal or objective does it support?
  • If I build a community, what kind of responsibility do I have to this community?
  • When you visualize your community what does it look like?
  • Now look at your followers and those you follow – what do you see?
  • Insert a few dozen other questions which should be asked when building a community.

I can tell you what I am doing. For experimental reasons I am starting over from square one. Following no one and no one following me. I am taking into consideration so much more than when I first started tweeting. You won’t likely find me, especially if you are looking for folks who are also focused on a very small niche. I will continue to use Bill Handy for a number of reasons but I am also changing how I use this tool. If I want a community then I need to truly build it so, based on the research above, it can be successful.

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Saxum Social Media Summit in review

08/26/09 Bill Handy Comments (0)

I couldn’t attend the Saxum Social Media Summit but I followed along, while I could, on Twitter. The chatter seemed to be positive and as I scrolled through the tweets I ran across one of my favorite OKState students and Saxum Intern, Mindy Robson. Since Mindy was there I asked if she would mind sharing what she learned over the course of the morning. She agreed and her thoughts follow (thanks Mindy for your time and effort. I hope I can attend the next one):

People are talking about your business

It’s interesting how one can think they know social media, but because it is ever evolving there is always something new and interesting to discover.  I learned new things about Twitter, Digg and Delicious and how businesses can benefit from being engaged in social media from Jim Quillen and Renzi Stone at the Saxum Social Media Summit.

Here is a summary of some tips and tools I took away from the summit:

  • I didn’t know that the purpose of a Tweetup is to network with people you follow on Twitter but may never have had the opportunity to meet and talk with in person. This is a great way to pull social media and face-to-face interaction together.
  • I discovered that CoTweet is a way for a business to have multiple users on one account. CoTweet will identify who from the company Tweeted by putting a carrot symbol ^ and the initials of that person at the end of the Tweet.
  • Business people need to create a LinkedIn account and make sure to thoroughly fill out the profile section.
  • Digg is a tool you can use to customize articles of interest (news, videos, etc.) on an account you can access from any computer.
  • Delicious is a tool you can use to bookmark sites on an account, rather than bookmarking sites on a personal computer and trying to remember the url to those sites when you’re away from that computer.

Business owners and employees need to realize that people are talking about their company and those people aren’t likely to pick up the phone and call the customer service hotline to let you know how they feel. Today, that’s too much trouble.  It is wise to find out what people are saying and engage them through social media because people love to talk about their experiences; the good AND the bad. The businesses who are engaged (Zappos, Comcast with comcastcares, Dell Outlet, etc.) are reaping the benefits. I don’t know about you, but I love great customer service. Engaging customers through social media will leave you with pleased consumers.

If social media is something you want to incorporate into your business and you need guidance on how to do it strategically, I recommend contacting Saxum Public Relations.

In case you’re wondering what the Saxum Social Media Summit (#saxumsms) was all about, watch this video and look to attend a social media summit in the future.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhvQRtMsGEY&feature=channel_page

hbsstw3n9p

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Categories : Media Relations, PR 101, Random, Social Media, twitter, Uncategorized, Weblogs

Free Software Every (PR) Student Should Have (Fall 2009)

07/17/09 Bill Handy Comments (1)

The beginning of another school year is right around the corner and I have a feeling it isn’t just the students who are financially strapped this year. Parents, take notice, you might not need to shell out several hundred dollars for software this year – although I would suggest you purchase a smart phone for your child with the money you save. But I digress.

You can read the original post here so I will forgo my lesson on the value of being poor and get right to the point.  Below is an updated list of tools I think every (PR) student should have. Best of all, they are all free.

Computer – File the following under cloud computing. It won’t stress your hard drive and if you go this route you can grab yourself a smaller computer which, brand new, will only set you back a few hundred bucks. Hang out on campus and soak up all the free internet service provided and you have a fully functioning system. No reason to load software, all the following is hosted elsewhere for your use and, best of all, free.

Just about everything you need – Google Docs will give you everything you need to make it through four years of college. Document (word), Form (access), Spreadsheet (excel) and Presentation (PowerPoint), forms email, calendar, tasks and a long list of other new features.  Google even gives you space to store your documents. By the way, I will require all my students to submit their work using google docs to avoid those pesky computer crashes, which apparently happens a lot when final projects are due. If you download gears you can work offline as well. (registration required)

Presentation software – Looking for a new presentation software which will blow your teachers (and everyone else) away, check out Prezi. Very easy to work with and you can upload/download PowerPoint presentations if needed.

Photo storage – Flickr is still the name of the game. Don’t forget to check out their Creative Commons when you need a photo for a presentation (registration required).

Video – Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler and other online video sites will take on those ginormous files you really don’t want to keep on your hard drive and let your friends and family, if appropriate, see your hard work. (registration required)

Wikis – The most important addition to the updated list is the inclusion of wikis. Not sure why I left them off the last one since I have been a die hard wiki users for years. Wikis can be used for all kinds of collaborative work but also for website creation. In fact, I am seeing more and more sites created on a wiki platform which allows for an equally dynamic social media experience. My free favorites include Wetpaint and PBWorks (formally PBWiki). Registration is required and ad-free sites are available for educators or with the purchase of an upgrade.

We are leaving the clouds and what follows is software which must be loaded onto your computer. All of it is still free and free, my friends, is good.

E-mail – If you really don’t like Google (what is wrong with you, Google has changed my life!) for your email then try Thunderbird as an alternative to outlook. Made by the people who brought you Firefox (an alternative to Explorer) it has the same functionality as Outlook and Outlook express with so much more.

Office applications – Open Office – want the same products as Microsoft Office and don’t trust Google, download Open Office and get to work. Every element of office is here. I used open office for a week just to test and never ran into an issue where it couldn’t perform the tasks at hand.

Project Management – Gantt Project Management, Open Project or one I recently started using, Open Workbench – Project management is key to any successful PR campaign. If you aren’t using this, start. It takes a bit to wrap your arms around it so don’t wait until the night before your project is due. As a side, I don’t see this often taught at the college level but used often at most successful PR Firms. Set yourself apart from your doppelganger and use this when appropriate.

pdf Creator – need I say more.

Video Editing – Avidemux will take care of our basic video editing needs although if you are using Windows Vista or Mac OS you should already have software for basic editing.

Social Media – If you are into Twitter, facebook and other social media sites be sure to check out TweetDeck (now also available for your iphone) and Twhirl. Moving back to the clouds People Browser is an awesome visual dashboard for all your online identities.

Dashboards - Speaking of dashboards I have always been a fan of igoogle but there is a new kid on the block. Netvibes which has a killer look and feel to it. In my opinion much more dynamic than igoogle and all the apps seem to be interchangeable. I should also mention Windows Live.

Break time – Now take a break and visit Win Chess to play a game of chess. Even if you don’t know how to play, you will look smart with it on your screen. And, as I learned yesterday, smart people are hot.

Music – For those in need of musical inspiration there is Pandora and  Last.fm. The arguments about which is better could last for days so check them both out and make the decision for yourself.

Misc –

Sugar Sync – sync multiple computers, phones, etc. Note, not free after 45 days.

Text Wrangler a great text editor for general purposes or programming.

Not seeing what you need, check out Sourceforge.net, one of the largest listings of open-source software. Click on the “Find Software” button and check out all the categories. If you use any, feel free to make a donation to the creator.

One last item – not free but worth it. Grab yourself a good Flash drive. They are always handy to have around for those moments when you need to share a document or take one on the go. Also good for backing up your backup just to be safe. One word of advice, the first file you should save is a text file with all your contact information for when you leave it behind. No guarantee you will get it back but at least you will have a chance.

Keep in touch with your parents by blogging (WordPress.com is still one of my favorites) or if you really, really want to stay in touch feel free to use Google Latitude.

Okay, that’s it folks, what did I forget?

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Morgan Stanley doesn't know bupkis about teen (JB4520 Alumni) Tweeters

07/14/09 Bill Handy Comments (7)

The recent Morgan Stanley Report regarding teen usage of social media has generated a lot of discussion. What caught my eye was twitter and the statement, “Teens don’t use Twitter because no one is reading their tweets. Twitter is totally different when you have thousands of people following you versus only a handful of your co-workers.”

This, in turn, got me thinking (never a good idea) -  I spent a semester talking to students about social media (JB 4520) and Twitter was a big part of the discussion. In fact, as part of an assignment they were, “required” to use Twitter.  If teens don’t like twitter, are any of these students still tweeting?

So I sent the class an email and asked them if they still used twitter. While I had their attention I tossed in a few other questions – a virtual, non-scientific focus group of sorts. The questions and answers, when applicable, are below (email went to 43 students, eleven responded. Additional responses will be added as they arrive):

You used twitter during your involvement with the social media class. Do you still use it?
Overwhelmingly the answer to this question was yes, at least to some degree. Of all the respondents only one wasn’t using twitter at all. Without giving anything away, this person dropped the class after the first few weeks. Perhaps the continual usage is the result of being taught how to use twitter to their benefit. Here are some of their comments:

  • Sometimes use it..i more use it for my internship at a tv station then i do personal use.
  • Yes. I use Twitter occasionally, but I recently used Twitter a lot when I went to Bonnaroo. (A music festival in Tennessee) I continually updated friends about the bands I saw and who put on the best concerts. I also used the Bonnaroo hash tag to find out what others where doing.
  • Yes, every day
  • Not on a regular basis
  • I use Twitter still, but in a different way. I used Twitter more to tell what I’m doing and to vent my frustration about summer school classes! When I was in the class I would use it more to communicate with the PR world (I’m trying to get back to doing that..)
  • Yes, but less often

What do/did you like about twitter?

  • Short and to the point messages. Moderate to high interaction with others around the world. Feeling like I have a voice where companies: corporations, nonprofits, etc. can listen and respond. A great source for searching and quick updated information in one place.
  • I like being able to see what everyone is doing and especially following celebs. I read my news now on Twitter, if I find an article interesting I just click the link.
  • nothing
  • Good PR advice, connects me with important people
  • I have found Twitter to be the fastest and easiest means of gathering news
  • I like can go to one place for me info. I also like how easy it is to communicate with a large group.
  • I like getting information that I feel I would be left out of the loop on. Pretty much all of the articles and studies that people link to.
  • easy way to keep ppl updated like esp with news stuff and columns its fun and interesting
  • Yes. I love it.
  • It allows individuals to spread snippets of information very quickly to a lot of people.
  • Reading everyone else’s thoughts, following the links they posted
  • Easy, cuts information down to vital facts, fun, get information/news/gossip very very fast, simple way to get yours or someone else’s message out
  • Quick, brief & effective. Learn a lot from others throughout world & others are willing to help you with any questions you have.
  • Somewhat…I’ve been busy this summer and it hasn’t been a huge priority. I still try to update and look around a couple times a week.

What do/did you dislike about it about twitter?

  • That its down all the time, and the spam
  • When people’s status updates aren’t entertaining or important- especially when I can’t think of any that are.
  • I haven’t found anything that I like about Twitter, sometimes I accept the wrong people to follow and his/her tweets can get annoying, but then i’ll just unfollow them.
  • It seems to still have some kinks…i.e. It says “Twitter is over capacity” frequently, and can be slow at times
  • I hate most of the celebrities. I don’t follow Ashton, Shaq, or John Mayer
  • it’s toooo traffic like…full of junk
  • i dislike people that follow me that are from trashy web sites. i also dislike people that use twitter only for their own gain. i don’t see it often but i know it’s out there.
  • compared to facebook there is no way of knowing if the person really is who they say they are. Usually happens in the case of celebrities. Oh and I don’t like that I have to remember people’s user names when I want to send a DM or reply. It’s almost too much of a hassle to look it up.
  • Almost everything. What once had potential to be something great has turned into a collection of billboards to feed their collective egos. It needs to separate the users into categories: Serious posts and questions, and the random people that feel the need to let everyone know they hate cleaning cat boxes but love green bananas.
  • If you don’t have Internet on your phone, you can’t keep up with the conversation
  • It’s becoming too jumbled with people’s random updates and seems to be less about networking, more about # of followers you can get.
  • I like the networking aspect of it. I had a job offer in OKC as a media relations inter from a follower, but wasn’t able to accept because of summer classes
  • Tired of being followed by companies who I have no real connection with. Examples: weddings, mattresses, calculators, etc.

Do you use facebook?
The majority still use facebook but a few commented they don’t or for only certain reasons.

  • sometimes not as much as i use to
  • No, I canceled my account when they started changing it to look more like twitter. I may reopen my account someday.
  • Yes, but I only use it for pictures and chat

Do you use texting?
Overwhelmingly the students use text with only one not using it because of phone limitations (the horror).

  • all the time…my main use of communication
  • Yes, I work for AT&T and have seen a dramatic increase in texting, while at the same time a lot of people are decreasing their talk time. I have a customer who has four daughters, his 15 year old sent 26,000 + texts in may.
  • No. Phone doesn’t receive text.
  • 5,000+ a month

Do you have a smart phone?
About 70% have a smart phone and the kind used, when provided, was mixed among a variety of styles. Blackberry and Iphone were at the top of the list.

  • No, but i NEED one! If only my internship was paid!
  • Yes, the Blackberry Bold. Motorola just introduced a non-smart phone that is being touted as a social networking phone. It is called the Karma. It has Myspace, Facebook and Twitter pre-loaded.

Which do you use more, facebook, twiter or texting? (if there is another service/tool you use please include it here)
Texting wins hands down on this. What I found interesting was, for those who provided it, the criteria for which each was used.

  • texting
  • It depends on who I’m talking to. I text my close friends, tweet business and local folk, and use facebook for my more distant (emotionally and physically) friends.
  • For direct contact, texting. For interaction, Twitter. For catching up or getting to know someone, Facebook. I guess I use texting the most but that’s with a select group of people where as I use Twitter often but in conversation with people I don’t know and Facebook I use sporadically with good acquaintances and friends.
  • i think texting. then twitter. then facebook.
  • Texting and Myspace
  • Texting, but if I had a smart phone I would tweet more
  • Twitter/texting
  • I use texting most regularly
  • Probably texting
  • Facebook then Twitter.
  • Facebook and texting.
  • Texting, but facebook is used a lot, too.
  • I use texting the most to connect with close friends instantly, but I use the many services that facebook offers to connect with my extended group of friends.

Are you actively engaged in any other social media tools/tactics (i.e. blogging, friendfeed, linkedin, etc.)
For the most part they aren’t. Blogging, by the way, was part of another assignment for the course.

  • yes and no if i am its more work related then personal
  • no
  • Not anymore
  • i did have a blog for class. i havent updated in a long time but i want to start again.
  • I blog sporadically, am listed on LinkedIn, but I’m not very active. I also create Ning sites for different organizations for fun.
  • Every now and then I engage in linkedin, but not nearly as much as Twitter
  • No, not actively engaged. I have accounts on other services but rarely update them.
  • Faintly involved with myspace to keep up with my camp kids. Sporadic blogger
  • no
  • I blog for work, not much on my personal blog, but I would like that to change. I’m on linkedin, and I have friendfeed but I rarely use it.
  • I haven’t blogged since social media class was over, but I’m planning on using it once school starts again.
  • I have a blog but I read others’ blogs more than I update my own.
  • no

So, there you have it, from the mouth of teens. The one thing I took from it was this – they are engaged in all kinds of (social) media, including twitter, but how they use it probably has more to do with their knowledge of the tool than anything else. If they find value (which if you review their comments on why they like twitter you will notice almost all surround some kind of value to the user) they will continue to use it.No surprise there, just an affirmation of what we already know about human nature.

Tell me your thoughts.

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The Social Media Classroom

04/18/09 Bill Handy Comments (4)
Social Media Classroom

Social Media Classroom since 3/20 - 4/18 2009 Click image to view live graph

I’m writing fast and should be working on a few other projects but Matt Galloway sent me a graph, similar to his PSATuesday graph for #jb4520 and I need to get what follows off my chest so I can get back to those other projects. If I oversimplify please fill in the blanks in the comments section below – that, after all, one of the values of social media.

When I talk about social media I almost always try to fit into the conversation the value of collaborative and collective knowledge. My premise is simple, who is to say I, as the professor at the front of the room, have all the information my students might need about a particular subject. Some days, by the way, this is easier to prove than others.

The graph to the right (click to enlarge) is what social media looks like when you bring it into a classroom (thank you Matt Galloway for being a humble caveman technologist), an inter-connectivity of students with professionals and other academics all sharing knowledge in real time but collected for all and for all time.

My JB4520 students and I use #jb4520 when posting information/links which might be important to others in the class – effectively expanding the hours we are engaged in classroom discussion and learning. Incoming students can review what has already been discussed and those students which have passed the course can continue to learn new trends, tactics, strategies, etc. being discussed in this class years after.

Then there are those individuals – professionals in the field -  who have, for lack of a better word, adopted this class simply because their interest are similar to what the students are studying. They can simply and altruistically engage the students by adding #jb4520 to their tweet which they feel the students might benefit from. I would argue I haven’t yet seen a tweet which the students wouldn’t. As an aside, often times these one way tweets of information are the impetus of students engaging that professional in an expanded conversation. I guarantee, without social media tools it would be very difficult to facilitate or replicate.

The greatest benefit of all, students don’t need to follow the tweeter and vice-versa to gain the knowledge they are offering – they simply need to follow #jb4520 or whatever key words they find of value. Again, look at the graph, @hetty4 is highlighted in red. Those folks who follow her are in yellow and those in purple don’t follow her but, at some point, have tweeted with the #jb4520 in their tweet (sharing information/knowledge) and, I would argue, follow the tag. What this chart doesn’t show are those students in the class or individuals elsewhere who also follow #jb4520 and benefit from this collective knowledge.

This is the first semester I have ever used twitter as a learning tool. I can assure you it won’t be my last. Bottom line, the tools are free but the available knowledge is invaluable.

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#PSATuesday Winners

04/15/09 Bill Handy Comments (1)

As you might remember I said, in my original post about #PSATuesday, I would “personally donate up to $250 of my own money to an organization or organizations which those tweeters I follow support and will do so giving the tweeter full credit.” I had planned on a more eloquent approach to announcing the winners but time isn’t on my side so I will just make it known with a little reasoning behind my decisions.

The first recipient of my money will be the International Center for Journalists, “a non-profit, professional organization, promotes quality journalism worldwide in the belief that independent, vigorous media are crucial in improving the human condition” (from their site). So many tweeted about this organization (part of the reason I choose them) I made the donation in the name of PSATuesday.  I supported this group for several reasons: 1) They were so dang organized and engaged – with others and with me, a true example of using social media as a way to communicate, not just talk.  2) They are an organization which hits close to home for me and, not being aware of them before PSATuesday, I am glad I am now.  3) They were the only organization which offered any quantifiable data that PSATuesday truly had an impact. You see, by the end of the day someone made a $100 donation referencing PSATuesday. If you would also like to make a donation you can do so here. (post note – within minutes of making my donation I received a DM from ICFJ. Now that is truly engaging your audience.)

The second organization to receive my money is One Voice Movement. They are, “an international mainstream grassroots movement with over 650,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers both in Israel and in Palestine, and 2,000 highly-trained youth leaders. It aims to amplify the voice of Israeli and Palestinian moderates, empowering them to seize back the agenda for conflict resolution and demand that their leaders achieve a two-state solution guaranteeing the end of occupation, establishing a viable independent Palestinian state, and ensuring the safety and security of the state of Israel – allowing both people to live in peace with all their neighbors” (from their site). @hetty4 was the tweeter of this organization and I decided to support it for a number of reasons: 1) I wanted to support an organization someone I followed also supported. Remember, part of the purpose was to somehow monetize twitter even if twitter doesnt’ get my money 2) I respect and value @hetty4′s tweets and she has been a huge resource to my class, #jb4520 3) One Voice Movement was started by just two guys and has grown to thousands using true grassroots efforts – the original social media. 4) Anyone willing to work hard for peace in the Middle-East has my support.

I have to say, there were so many great organizations tweeted about and many my wife and I already support (Public Radio, Animal Welfare, Breast Cancer Research, to name a few). My compliments and admiration to those individuals who heard about PSATuesday and took the time to actively engage their followers by showing their support of a message or organization important to them. If your organization wasn’t chosen, fear not, keep showing your support every Tuesday and you never know who might step up to the plate and make a donation as a thank you for the time you spend on Twitter.

If you would like to see a complete list of all tweets referencing PSATuesday you can find them on search.twitter.com.

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