The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Twitter

Twitter Is Dead!- Long Live Twitter!

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The rule of four is a law that establishes the number of social media platforms that a person can be upon. Said law was developed due to time constraints and an understanding that until the 32 hour day is created there simply isn’t time to participate in all of the available opportunities.

Long before I created said rule I had one that maintained that there wasn’t time for Twitter because it took too much time to maintain multiple blogs and I didn’t see how Twitter would add value.

Some time passes and in December of 2008 I determine that I cannot make an educated decision about Twitter without trying it out.

Hello ...

In less than two weeks I am convinced that Twitter is not only great fun but an excellent resource for making friends, gathering information and for promoting blog posts.

And for quite some time it was nothing but unicorns and rainbows for me- until it wasn’t. That is because we got lazy and started pumping out more links and engaging less.

That we isn’t the royal “we” it is you and I.

Yep, I include myself because when I took advantage of certain tools and resources I added to the chaos. In the midst of that I noticed that I wasn’t engaging as much as I used to. I didn’t have as many conversations and I began to wonder if we had killed Twitter.

Yep, the original Karate Kid and I once exchanged tweets. Pretty nifty stuff.

Anyhoo, a while back some blogging buddies told me that they also wondered if we had killed Twitter so I decided to conduct a little test to determine the truth of the matter.

I asked the Magic 8 Ball if Twitter was dead or alive and it told me that I should ask later. Well that doesn’t fly with me because as an all powerful blogger I am used to instant gratification so shook that sucker silly and found out that Twitter isn’t dead.

It has to be true because everyone knows that the Magic 8 ball doesn’t lie, unless we are talking about that time in college where it told me that the next girl I asked out would say yes. Or the many times it gave me the wrong numbers for the lotto.

Aside from those two situations it is always reliable, really.

Long live Twitter.

Is There A Benefit To Paying for Twitter Followers?

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listen to ‘Is There A Benefit To Paying for Twitter Followers?’ on Audioboo

Reciprocity In Blogging Part II

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One of the most effective ways to drive traffic and increase comments on your blog is to blog about blogging. I sometimes think that there is no other topic that bloggers love to write about than blogging.

It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a dad blogger, tech blogger or business blogger, write about blogging and the comments will come.

One of my favorite examples of this is a post called Reciprocity in Blogging. Every day without fail my stats show that tons of people are reading it. Today I am going to write about it again but with a slightly different twist. Today we’ll talk about other social media platforms.

But before we do that let me reset the table with an excerpt from the first post:

Many bloggers are fans of reciprocity in blogging but I am not one of those. Commenting on my blog isn’t a guarantee that I will read or comment on yours. The converse of that is true as well. I don’t expect that every blog I comment upon will lead to a comment on mine.

I haven’t changed my position regarding blogs and blogging. However when I look at Twitter I take a very different approach. On Twitter I expect more interaction and engagement. On Twitter I expect people to respond to Tweets that I direct to them just as I expect to respond to those that are directed to me.

The nature of the platform and the way that it works is different than on a blog. I don’t call myself a social media expert or a guru but after all these years I know a few things about it.

Social media is about being social. It is about engagement and interaction. It is about discussions, dialogue and thinking. It is about people. Twitter works better when you use it for dialogue than strictly for broadcasting messages.

If all you do is post links you end up creating a lot of noise that people begin to ignore. On a blog you can wax rhapsodic about various topics and you have a greater chance of creating engagement than on Twitter.

I attribute that to the difference in character limitations. When you only have 140 characters to work with there are some messages that don’t translate well. A blog isn’t limited like that. There are other challenges but that is not one of them.

Twitter is formatted to be similar to a giant conversation. That is why it doesn’t work as well for the link broadcasters. They don’t engage and consequently people begin to ignore them. They remind me a bit of the people on the bus/subway who sit there talking to themselves.

They may be normal. They could be wonderful but the impression they give scares others away.

If you want to make Twitter work for you start talking with and not to others and good things will happen.

What do you think?

Man Fired for ‘Thoughtless’ Tweets

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Never forget that the words you blog, tweet or and or post online can come back to haunt you later.

(CNN) — The Aflac duck lost its voice Monday after the insurance giant fired the comedian behind the commercial quack for tweeting jokes about the earthquake and tsunami that has devastated Japan.

The Columbus, Georgia-based company fired Gilbert Gottfried less than an hour after discovering the tweets, according to a news release from Aflac.

“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” Michael Zunda, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

 

The Great Twitter Experiment

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The premise of the great Twitter experiment is simple. Reach out, engage and interact with all of my followers and the people that I am following. Social media is all about being social. Let’s see what happens.
[cincopa AYAAtdqE1INj]

Twitter’s Follow Friday- The Rules You Need To Know

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Download now or listen on posterous

16 Ezekiel 25_17.m4a (1615 KB)

The Best Part of each Friday is when I log on to Twitter and see 52 links to posts about the rules for using social media. Many of these posts are written by self proclaimed Social Media experts who claim to make their living by advising businesses and people on their social media strategy. Color me dubious but I don’t think that most of these experts are earning a living through their social media work.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe more than a few people have managed to capitalize on the social media gold rush. Maybe some of these experts have figured out a way to leverage the interest into something that pays. It wouldn’t be the first time that I have been wrong, but judging by the ongoing posts by mommy bloggers about a desire to be paid for their work there is little evidence to suggest that I am.

It is probably unfair to poke fun at those who designate themselves as Social Media Experts but I almost can’t help myself. What sort of qualifications does it take to become an expert in the nascent field of Social Media. Are universities offering a B.S. in Social Media. Can you earn a masters or a doctorate. Maybe you can. Maybe I should google it and see what happens. A little research is often the difference between a blogger who has credibility and those who do not.

But we’ll save that discussion for a different day. Instead let’s talk about Follow Friday and whether it serves a purpose or not. As indicated by its moniker Follow Friday is a weekly event on Twitter. In theory it is a way for your followers to find new people to follow courtesy of the recommendation that you offer by promoting them in your twitter stream. The real question is whether the theory translates into a practical and useful application.

During the past year or so I have read a number of posts by people who think that it doesn’t work anymore. The central tenet of their complaint is that Follow Friday has turned into a time in which people churn out lists of names without supplying a reason why people should follow them. I can’t say that I completely disagree with it. Sometimes when I review my stream it is nothing but names.

I am not pressed for time that works for me. I’ll click on a name and review their profile to see if they’re someone that I might be interested in following. But given a choice I’d much rather see a reason for following than just a name next to the Follow Friday hashtag. The extra effort lends more weight to your recommendation. It makes it a little bit more credible and enhances the likelihood that I’ll follow them.
But I wouldn’t say that this is a rule for using Twitter because I see Twitter the way that see most social media. There are no rules to refer to. At best there are guidelines that you can follow or to use tired business jargon, Best Practices.

For me it all comes back to a question of whether I am making effective use of Twitter and other social media tools as they relate to my personal goals. I am not sure that the current practice of tweeting lists of people for Follow Friday is doing that for me. It has some use for building a communal feeling among the daddy bloggers, but beyond that I am skeptical.

What do you think?