Twitter Conversations: How to Do Them Effectively

This post is a response to Robert Scoble's (http://twitter.com/scobleizer) list of five reasons Twitter *isn't* for conversation.

In fact, Twitter can be a great source of conversation. I agree with Robert Scoble that people can abuse conversation on Twitter, and that this can be less than enjoyable. However, if you do the conversation correctly, you can avoid Scoble's problems with Twitter talk.

FIRST, WHAT'S WRONG WITH CONVERSATIONS ON TWITTER?

Let's examine Scoble's complaints:

1. If you get into something with one other person all your other followers will start complaining.

Not if you apply the rule below. Use this rule and your replies will seem like brilliant original thoughts. They'll have a way to jump in instead of being mystified.

2. You can't "thread" and "capture" a conversation.

No, you can't, at least not in Twitter itself. But why do you want to capture a conversation on Twitter anyway? Twitter is ephemeral, and I already have too many stored bits of data in email and elsewhere. I actually like that the conversations go away after a time, making new mental space for more thoughts.

3. Most people on Twitter that are joining lately are not people who participate.

Well, I haven't found that to be true. And even if it were, why should that negate the potential of having your own conversations?

4.Twitter's expected usage is "what are you doing?" Not "what would you like to chat with your friends?"

Not really. Even Evan Williams (twitter.com/ev), CEO of Twitter, says that the "what are you doing" headline is no longer appropriate for the posts on Twitter. In fact, I find the "what are you doing" posts the most boring: chats and resources the most interesting.

5. You can't bundle up a conversation and save it for later.

Maybe true. And I agree that Friendfeed and blogs offer a great way to archive conversations. If you want to do that. But Twitter is about the Twitterstream, dipping in and dipping out. It's valuable precisely because, like IM, it ISN'T archived. And as far as being able to archive some conversational threads, or follow those threads, this may be an enhancement of Twitter that will surely eventually come. It doesn't mean we should stop having conversations now.

SO HOW DO YOU CONVERSE CORRECTLY ON TWITTER?

The way to have a conversation is to make sure that every reply you post is recontextualized. Put in the proper subject nouns, avoid pronouns, and make sure that you re-reference the topic of conversation with each post. That way, others who see your post aren't lost and can jump in and take the conversation in new productive directions.

For instance:

Poster: I really love the Talking Heads.

Don't say:

@poster Yeah, they're great.

First off, no one knows who "they" are. Secondly, the reply is too oblique to let other people jump in. Instead, say:

@poster Yeah, I've got the first Talking Heads album at the top of my iTunes.

Or something to that effect. Reuse the subject ("Talking Heads") and add a thought of your own. Then anyone who sees this post can jump in knowing the topic as if you'd started the thread.

It may take an extra second, but once you get the hang of it, your followers will find your Tweets that much more engaging and useful.

Twitter for Peace

Interesting peace initiative by Jim Carlberg got a big push from none other than John Cleese. At the time of this post Carlberg had 46 followers (yours truly being number 46).

Carlberg has created a cause-based page populated only by tweets from people who care.

Definitely one to watch.

Israel Adopts Social Media Public Relations For Gaza War

You know that social media has reached an important threshold when a government starts using it to sway public opinion during a military operation.

Israel has opened two new fronts in its PR campaign about its operations in Gaza.

The first is a YouTube channel devoted to showing video of precision bombings from the war. The video channel also includes blog discussions by various IDF personnel explaining more informally what's being seen in the pictures. The point here seems to be to pre-empt the kind of grassroots efforts to drum up sympathy via stories of civilian deaths that circulated during the 2006 campaign in Lebanon. "Two can play at this game" Israel seems to be saying, though the effect of these videos on popular opinion remains to be seen.

On another front, the Israeli consulate gave a Twitter press conference yesterday, in which it responded to questions from the Twitter community: http://twitter.com/israelconsulate Interestingly, the 140 character limit of Twitter may be working in Israel's favor here, limiting both the length of questions and forcing a kind of pithiness to the response. Innovative, again, and the consulate has already received 1,400 followers.

Clearly, Israel feels the PR aspect of its operations in Gaza is critical to its long-term goals. And just as clearly, this demonstrates the coming-of-age of social media as a medium for disseminating critical PR messages.

Pitch Social Marketing With 9 Key Points

Got Twitter? By expanding my Twitter network I've been getting social media tips all day. Here's a good article being discussed today that offers your internal team and clients nine reasons why they need to be using social marketing.

Reason #9: ROI. With grassroots ROI you can multiply your return on investment faster than paid search and SEO.

Participate = Create.

I saw an interesting video the other day on creativity in podcasting and it got me thinking. Dean Whitbread's piece focuses on the proliferation of inexpensive, easy-to-use technology and its corresponding effect on the ability to create content. Whitbread finds an ever-widening concentric circle of creators, empowered by new technologies, adding their voices to the collective milieu. And, he says, the gap between one's ability to have an idea and another's ability to receive that idea, is growing infinitesimally small. Each new Twitter, Facebook, iPhone, digicam, etc, expands the network and reduces the barriers to entry to the point where the line between participation and creation seems to fade away. In Whitbread's words, "the walls of the studio disappear".

In the old world, media was produced by creators and consumed by consumers, with very little overlap in the Venn diagram.

Today, more and more people are joining the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and the myriad new social networks that seem to pop up at every turn. Dragged in by friends or just feeling left out of the BIG conversation, new creators are minted every day, breaking news on Twitter, posting pictures of their new kitty cat, and everything in between. So the old paradigm of the few broadcasting to the many is being infringed by a new paradigm where everyone is broadcasting to each other, all the time. It may sound like a traffic jam but, somehow, it's not. It's working. Visualization tools like Friend Wheel show organic patterns that reveal the underlying order.

The new paradigm is unlocking the value of ordinary people; their personalities, opinions and input. The old way of thinking was that most people’s opinions were unrefined and had little value in the broader social conversation. Of course, the counterculture always contended the mainstream media was limited in scope and depth, leaving out great chunks of richness hidden within society. The continued growth of social media, a mélange of billions of comments, pictures, sound, video and links, indicates the counterculture is meeting mainstream, which is always a good indication we’re at an inflection point.

Perhaps we’re tapping the Social Surplus. Services like Facebook and Twitter have grown overnight, self-organizing networks that offer vast digital canvases where users can communicate collaborate and create, together. And when everyone is their own network with their own audience of followers, how do people who want to sell stuff reach them? And how much of our labor do we devote to our growing "audience"? Is there anything that can connect the two?

In other words, what's it all worth? And what does it mean for the demise of old media? Stay tuned for our post on the value of the Social Dataset and why 140 characters enables billions of other characters to communicate more effectively than ever before.

Publish to All Your Social Networks in Less Than Five Minutes

A personal blog is a great way to not only establish your personal brand, but also to reach out to your networks on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as to people searching on sites like Google.

Yet with all these social networks, how do we keep up? Isn't it time consuming to be hopping between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and your blog trying to keep up with updates?

Here's a quick lesson on how to set up your blog and have it published out to three key social networks, and get it all done in under five minutes.

First, find a domain name you like and register it at GoDaddy. You can do this for $10, $20 if you want privacy settings. Having a domain name of your own is a great way to start your personal brand.

Next, set up a blog on a free service. Blogger or Typepad are two that will do. I like Blogger because it's tied in with Google, meaning you can also get Google analytics plus instant visibility on Google searches. But other blog sites have great features to, so find one you like and go for it.

The blog site will make you first register a subdomain, something like mysite.blogspot.com. Don't worry about that. After you set up that first blog, go to the blog settings tab - the blog will let you enter your registered domain name from GoDaddy (you'll have to update the GoDaddy name server registration, but Blogger will walk you through that. It takes about 30 seconds.) Now you have a blog that really looks professional. If you want and have the time, you can even customize the look and feel. But don't worry about that yet: for now, get your content out to your networks.

Ok. It's now been two minutes and you have your domain name and your blog set up.

Now, how do you get your blog piped in to all your social networks?

Three key services let you do that.

To pipe your blog into your Twitter account, use a service called Twitterfeed. Just fill in a few fields of information and sixty seconds later, all your blog posts are posting on your Twitter account as well. Isn't technology grand?

To get your blog flowing into your Facebook account, install an application called FriendFeed. Go to the "Me" section and list your new blog. Friendfeed will flow all your posts right to your Facebook wall, and you'll get to see your friends' posts as well.

Want your posts on LinkedIn? Two simple steps: First, add the name of your blog as a blog listed in your "websites" area of your profile. Then, add the Typepad "Blog Link" application to your page. And voila! Now, your posts are on your LinkedIn page too. And you can see all your network's blog posts as well.

Wasn't that easy?

Now that you have a blog, what next? Well, start writing, of course.

And if you want to set up more advanced efforts in Facebook and other sites, such as custom applications that can have a viral reach, page content designed to attract specific audiences, our other custom web 2.0 marketing efforts, see a company like Juxta Digital who can help with next steps.

iBreakfast on Widget Marketing

Specter Arts attended New York's iBreakfast on widget marketing this week and we'll be posting some of our thoughts and highlights shortly.