Category / Twitter

by adam

Top 5 Reasons Social Media Requires Commitment

Social Media is a commitment.  It's not something individuals or businesses can dabble in and expect to be successful.  Here are some top ways that I've found Social Media to require commitment.  Chalk this one up to both lessons learned personally and bordering on the obvious to folks who have been leveraging social media for awhile.  1. […]

Commitment Social Media is a commitment.  It's not something individuals or businesses can dabble in and expect to be successful.  Here are some top ways that I've found Social Media to require commitment.  Chalk this one up to both lessons learned personally and bordering on the obvious to folks who have been leveraging social media for awhile. 

1. Blog Frequency

Best practice often suggests that while maintaining a blog, the author(s) should post new content 2-3 times a week at a minimum.  This keeps readers engaged and setting a regular pattern will keep them coming back.  For anyone whose main responsibilities have nothing to do with blogging, it can really be a challenge to keep up.  There are lots of strategies, from keeping a queue of posts and topics drafted, to scheduling regular time to dedicate.  What helps most of all is having an author or authors who are passionate about the topic.  Those folks will find a way to make it work, but long term dedication is a major factor in a blog's success.

2. Personal (or Professional) Brand Management

Once you have a blog, a twitter account, an account on Friendfeed, etc – you need to keep up with those who comment and respond.  It takes time to search twitter results for posts with your name buried in the middle, blog posts and other tools for people to keep up.  I sometimes stumble across a valuable response to a comment I made days earlier and regret not addressing it right away or capturing the RSS feed for that comment train.  A great aspect of these social media tools is that the information lives on, but much of the conversation takes place in a short time.  You can miss a window to participate with the primary group if you don't take time to keep up.

There are lots of free tools to leverage for this, including search.twitter.com, Google alerts and Technorati among others.  Our agency recently partnered with Radian6, a social media monitoring package.  I'm still learning about it, but so far I would compare it to robust web analytics packages – with a major advantage that you can gain insight not just to your own brand, but competitors.

3. Ubiquitous Content

The beauty of RSS is the distribution of content.  Social networks are proliferating.  New blogs are cropping up, and new tools are adding to the way we can share information with each other.  Frankly, there is so much valuable information to digest it's hard to keep up with it all.  There also is plenty of less than valuable content to sort through.  I use Google Reader and at times feel like I have to declare "feed bankruptcy" and mark everything as read, and I'm sure I miss valuable content in there.  Imagine if everyone you know had a blog, was connected to you on Friendfeed and was on Facebook.  Even apply this just to your company, or your industry.  Would you be able to really keep up with all of the content?

4. Relationship Building

I mentioned before that I use LinkedIn and Facebook regularly and recommend scrutinizing your social media connections.  These are great tools to keep up with friends and colleagues, but also to build relationships with contacts from networking events, business meetings and other settings.  Setting up a profile is a one time event for the most part, but truly using these tools to build upon relationships takes effort and consistent usage over time. 

5. Participating

Regardless of whether you have a few dozen or a few hundred connections, tools like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and others require dedication to participate in conversations, answer questions and 'consume' the media.  Uploading and tagging photos, booking trips on Dopplr, checking out events on Upcoming…  When you start to interact with other folks, there is almost an informal contract you sign jumping in to participate.  You license people to reach out to you and they expect a response back, otherwise they may move on.  It takes a long term commitment to get the most out of these tools.

When people ask me for advice about social media, I often start with, "It's a commitment – are you ready for it?"  What other ways do you see social media needing commitment?  A logical next question – what advice do you have for folks trying to balance the commitment with everything else they have to do?

Photo credit: eschipul via Flickr

by adam

Is there such a thing as “too social?”

When I talk to clients and colleagues about social networks, most think of LinkedIn and Facebook.  A few more familiar with social media will talk about Twitter and other bookmarking tools like Delicious and StumbleUpon.  Lately, I am seeing niche social networks pop up through Ning and other tools.  With the profileration of community building […]

Diluted When I talk to clients and colleagues about social networks, most think of LinkedIn and Facebook.  A few more familiar with social media will talk about Twitter and other bookmarking tools like Delicious and StumbleUpon.  Lately, I am seeing niche social networks pop up through Ning and other tools.  With the profileration of community building online, is there a danger that communities become too diluted?

Take the following examples.  I was recently recruited by the business folks behind local Boston sports personality Jerry Remy to join Sawxheads.com, a community for passionate Red Sox fans.  Within minutes of joining, I had a few dozen connection requests from complete strangers – our only bond a passion for the good guys.  The community allows "friending," blog posts that are proprietary to the network, and the equivalent of Facebook wall posts.  The Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association has also changed up how folks interact with the site adding many social features, like ""friending" and wall posts as well.  (It's actually pretty slick – if you are a member please feel free to connect with me.)  Not too shabby. 

Here's the problem: I want to go to one place, one portal, to get all of my social activity.  I'd almost prefer the front end of Facebook as a single 'portal' that I can access from there, and to maintain contacts in one place.  Do we really need to perpetuate the YASN acronym?  Yet another social network?  I love the idea of connecting with other Sox fans, but I don't like the idea of another profile to update, another source of BACN with all of the connection requests, etc.  There is lots of proprietary content on Sawxheads, and maybe if I could RSS stream the activity to Google Reader it would be a lot easier to digest in one place.

There are startups looking to carry the torch on being content aggregators, whether it's merging activity streams to centralizing the management of profiles.  It seems a long ways off before the pain becomes so compelling that these services will emerge as mainstream…but I think it's going in that direction.  In some upcoming posts I am going to explore the functionality of some of these tools, thanks to some of the folks who have reached out to me to ask for a point of view.  This could be interesting – but hopefully each solves a fundamental problem of spreading out that social goodness too thinly.

Photo credit: cayusa via Flickr

by adam

A suggestion for the Twitter Lexicon

For months I've been trying to come up with a term to describe the experience of meeting someone in person who I had previously only known on Twitter.  Twitter is a microblogging platform that has a low barrier to entry in terms of finding and making connections.  I've written about several Twitter-to-real-life experiences, and have […]

HandshakeFor months I've been trying to come up with a term to describe the experience of meeting someone in person who I had previously only known on Twitter.  Twitter is a microblogging platform that has a low barrier to entry in terms of finding and making connections.  I've written about several Twitter-to-real-life experiences, and have would like to float this suggestion out to the Twitter community of a term to describe them:

Tmeet1 verb, tmet (pt and pp of tmeet), tmeet-ing, noun

— verb (used with object)

1. to come upon; come into the presence of; encounter, after interaction through Twitter: "I was fortunate tmeet @phillymac in Cleveland after knowing of him through Twitter"
2. to become acquainted with; be introduced to, after interaction through Twitter:  "I tmet @worleygirl at the Forrester conference in April."
3. to come together, face to face, or into company, after interaction through Twitter: "We tmet at social media breakfast" or "I tmet @warrenss over lunch last week."
4. to become personally acquainted, after interaction through Twitter: "When @RichardatDELL tmet @tobydiva, it "felt like [he] had known her forever."

Each time I tmeet someone there is that aura of familiarity that reduces the awkward barriers of first conversation – many times it feels like we're old friends already.  Chris Brogan points out that an avatar helps, especially when tmeeting someone in person.  Is it worthy of everyday Twitter vocabulary?  We'd all save many keystrokes (precious in 140 character limits) and remove the "met in person for the first time" "meet someone in real life" and all other similar phrases.  What do you think? 

1 Borrowed some format and language from "meet." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 14 Aug. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meet>.

photo credit: orinrobertjohn via flickr

by adam

Social Media Enhances Real World Relationships

Call me "Captain Obvious" for this one, but at a recent social media event it became clear to me that all of these social media platforms enhance real world connections.  I have made personal and professional connections that are stronger and more valuable to me as a result of interaction with social networks.  I will […]

Obvious Warning
Call me "Captain Obvious" for this one, but at a recent social media event it became clear to me that all of these social media platforms enhance real world connections.  I have made personal and professional connections that are stronger and more valuable to me as a result of interaction with social networks.  I will still continue to scrutinize who I connect to on each platform, but some recent examples of this:

  • Last week I set my Facebook status to indicate I'd be in New York City for a couple of days.  A few minutes later I received an invite from a couple of old friends I hadn't seen in more than ten years to join them for a reunion already planned that Wednesday night.  It was a blast, I have Facebook to thank – both for the reconnection to old friends and the facilitation of the interaction.  My college-aged cousins will laugh at this since they use Facebook like this all the time, many to actually coordinate most of their social lives.
  • Also last week at the Social Media Camp Boston event, Zach, Kate, Dmitri and I all marveled at how social media tools like Twitter helped make it easier to network, meet and share ideas – especially at social media events. Connecting online seems to reduce the barrier to entry and networking at events like that.  Social media also helps afterwards – my usual routine is to connect via Facebook or Linkedin to folks I meet at events, look to keep in touch, and perhaps down the road look for how we can be helpful to each other.  There is even a social media fundraiser in the works.
  • I've posted about the Twitter-to-real-life phenomenon before, but it seems to be happening more often.  I'm now connected to clients, business partners, co-workers and other industry folks on Twitter.  Months ago I struggled to find people I actually knew in person on Twitter, these days I have a network of professional contacts who I now now in person and can connect with in another way.  Last week I had lunch with Warren Sukernek (@warrenss on Twitter), who I had previously only met on Twitter – he was in the Boston area on vacation and agreed to meet.  Turns out we have a similar background in interactive marketing and roots in Metrowest Boston.

If it doesn't enhance a real world relationship in some way, isn't it just spam?  Okay, many folks build businesses exclusively through their online networks but for the majority of the folks using social media tools, would the tools be as popular if some sense of value wasn't being realized?  Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the value these tools are providing and get caught up in the buzz.  How has social media benefited you recently, and what advice would you recommend to others?

For reference on the growth of social media, Len Devanna recently shared this presentation from Universal Mccann on how popular things are getting.  

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

View SlideShare presentation (tags: socialmedia research social media)
Photo credit: photosam1000 via Flickr

by adam

Choose Wisely: Scrutinizing Your Social Network Connections

Last week I conducted an overview of social media for a client.  After the meeting, I executed my usual drill: I followed up by taking business cards and checking if all the meeting attendees I hadn’t met before were on LinkedIn and Facebook, and sent out a series of thank you notes through those tools and requested […]

Last week I conducted an overview of social media for a client.  After the meeting, I executed my usual drill: I followed up by taking business cards and checking if all the meeting attendees I hadn’t met before were on LinkedIn and Facebook, and sent out a series of thank you notes through those tools and requested connections.  In an email response, one of them asked me flat out, “So tell me how you stay in touch with 500+ LinkedIn folks??”  That got me thinking about how I leverage these tools personally.


Everyone has a different level of scrutiny on who would be a suitable connection in social networks.  LinkedIn has an army of folks who refer to themselves as LION – LinkedIn Open Networkers.  I’m clearly not one of those and try to ‘filter’ connection requests a bit.  While people in some professions, like recruiting, may value hoarding connections and “friends” on these tools, I’ve tried to stick to a guideline depending on the tool.  The following chart shows how I use some of the major networks out there, with the size of each circle representing the relative number of connections I have in each as of this post:


Social Media Tools



Set Parameters For Using Social Media Platforms


I primarily utilize 3 tools the most right now: Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Friendfeed is growing on me too. I could see that changing over time and have played around with many others for different purposes, like Dopplr, Plaxo Pulse, BrightKite, Upcoming, and others.  For now I’ll compare my daily usage, scrutiny of connections and number of connections on each of the major social networks I use.  I’d be interested in what works for you and whether you have set a “guideline” for using the same tools.

  • For LinkedIn, I prefer to keep the connections to people I know personally or have met in a business context.  Lately I’ve been meeting many in the social media space through events in Boston, but I will use LinkedIn like a rolodex that maintains itself once I connect.  I have many connections who are colleagues from the past and present, business partners and many clients as well.  I check the site regularly, but not much interaction going on.  I like to ask and answer the occasional question but there isn’t too much else that is sticky for me.  It is a great way to keep up with friends who change jobs over time, and I value that 98% of my connections are people I really know and could refer someone to down the road.  I’ve been a LinkedIn user for many years and like the direction the site is taking with adding more “Web 2.0” features.
  • For Facebook, I use a similar guideline – although there are many more people I know in a non-business context there including high school, college, elementary school and especially summer camp.  I do check Facebook regularly and am amazed at the velocity of new joiners.  There are more conversations happening in groups and commenting on photos, and the “stickiness” is improving.  I ignore many of the application requests out there unless I’m investigating how one works (or talking the occasional Red Sox trash).  I do value the interaction greatly but more in a friendly context and less so (although still relevant) for business purposes.
  • On Twitter, I have a much lower level of scrutiny on connections – I will block a spammer or someone with a high following to follower ratio, but if someone has something interesting to say, I’m happy to follow.  I find that Twitter has a very low barrier to entry, not to mention great tools for finding people, searching conversations for folks with similar interests, and learning about the platform.  The value is in the conversation, sharing of information and the constant flow of information.  I try to share and contribute there but it can be very time consuming if time management isn’t a strong suit.
  • Friendfeed is helping me to not chase down the same people across many Web 2.0 services.  I like it, I connect to someone with the same level of scrutiny as Twitter, but I haven’t spent enough time with it yet to become mainstream for me.  I also haven’t taken the time to build up connections yet.
  • Honorable mention is Plaxo Pulse (not going to share my link but feel free to find me).  I just can’t get into Plaxo – of hundreds of connections, a handful there are unique to that site.  I am already connected to people on LinkedIn or Facebook.  There’s something about the UI I just don’t like, but the sharing of feeds is helpful and “Friendfeed”-like. 

It’s important to set some parameters for how you leverage the tools.  What works for you? How do you choose who you connect to?  Do you have different standards in each network?  What are the pros and cons of your approach?

by adam

Using Friendfeed, Caught in a Social Media Turbine

I decided to check out Friendfeed, perhaps because of some of the outages of Twitter recently but also because I'm not an early adopter – but I'd like to be one day.  I think.  In a few short minutes I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it's probably because I'm not leveraging some of […]

I decided to check out Friendfeed, perhaps because of some of the outages of Twitter recently but also because I'm not an early adopter – but I'd like to be one day.  I think.  In a few short minutes I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it's probably because I'm not leveraging some of these tools properly.

Either way, here is what happened the last time I logged into FriendFeed, which is best read as if you are the guy from the MicroMachines commercials of the 1980s:

– In Friendfeed, I spot a Twitter post from a friend with a link to a cool blog post
– Read blog post, bookmark on del.icio.us
– Spot same blog post on Google reader 
– Share it on Facebook
– Facebook feeds automatically to my Plaxo account
– Get comment from Plaxo feed on how cool that post is
– I read comment in Gmail
– I respond in Twitter about cool blog post comment and go back to Friendfeed
– In Friendfeed, I spot a an annoucement about Friendfeed mobile
– I try Friendfeed mobile and send a txt message to my Facebook status, which updates in Twitter and posts on Friendfeed and syncs to Plaxo which sends me a notification email that my Friend's Tweetfeed shared a link on Googletwit… suddenly I'm in one of those awful AT&T commercials and I find myself in Googleplaxifacetwhirlfeediliciouseesmic.

Now I think I will go check that in as my location on Brightkite.

by adam

From Twitter to Real Life: Making Connections

Over the last several months I’ve experienced a phenomenon that has yet to be named:  Meeting people in person who I had previously only known through Twitter.  It started by meeting folks at social media events in the Boston area (thanks to breakfasts organized by Bryan Person @bryanperson and an evening event sponsored by EMC […]

Nicetomeetyoualfredn2_2Over the last several months I’ve experienced a phenomenon that has yet to be named:  Meeting people in person who I had previously only known through Twitter.  It started by meeting folks at social media events in the Boston area (thanks to breakfasts organized by Bryan Person @bryanperson and an evening event sponsored by EMC and Len Devanna @LenDevanna).  I’ve met numerous folks, all I would describe as "good eggs" – from Ami Chitwood @achitwood, leading internal knowledge management at a large consulting firm to the Twitter gurus of the Mzinga crew including Aaron Strout @astrout and Jim Storer @jstorerj to most recently meeting Amy Worley @worleygirl, Director of Interactive Marketing for H&R Block, at the Forrester Marketing Forum.

Here’s one story that jumps high in the "coolness factor" of that twitter to real life experience. 

Months ago when I started on Twitter, I spotted Phillip Zannini @phillymac, an enthusiastic video blogger, Red Sox/Patriots fan, talented interactive designer and all around good family guy.  This week, we both posted that we would be heading to Cleveland.  On Monday, I found out he has accepted a position working at Brulant, the same company.  <cue shameless plug>  I am a partner in our Consumer Product and Retail vertical, focusing on clients in NJ and Michigan while working to expand our presence in the Northeast.  <end shameless plug> One area I have not been as involved in to date is recruiting and staffing in the interactive marketing side of our practice.  Phillip started on Monday and actually used Twitter to DM me once we started to connect the dots:

DM string:
adamcohen:  What’s up in Cleveland? I’m flying there tomorrow AM for a couple days
phillymac: Start my new gig at 9:00am, flying home Thursday evening.
…later…
phillymac: I just started working for Brulant. Are you the same Adam Cohen that is in their directory?
phillymac: Ha! You are! I just checked your blog again and it’s the same picture. That’s just TOO funny.
adamcohen: Dude, are you serious about Brulant? Y, I’m a partner there but based in Boston. Are you at Park East in Beachwood?

I was able to grab some time to hear about his background and his experience plugging in with our team.  For me this is my best story about moving from Twitter to a building a much more personal connection.  I look forward to having Phillip as a great part of our team and we’re fortunate to have him aboard.  Last thing I expected was to have someone hired by my company who I had met through Twitter – without me knowing.

Have a good twitter connection story to share?

Photo: AlfredN via Flickr.