Take My Copy of Twitterville
2009 September 21
Yes, it’s true. I want you to take this book out of my hands. I’ve read it, it’s great, but now it should be yours. As I’ve written before, I won this book from Beth Kanter and the author Shel Israel, with a promise that I’d pay it forward. So it’s your turn to elbow and claw your way through the throngs of hungry readers with your insightful comments, but first a few reflections to whet your appetite:
- While I’ve loved Shel’s previous work, I did expect this to be a well written “capitalize on Twitter’s exponential growth” book. In fact, it’s incredibly insightful, with great profiles of people and companies using Twitter in really creative ways. It stretched me. It’s also completely accessible to beginners. A fine line that Shel seems to have walked perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised.
- It challenged some decisions I’ve made – decisions that were strategic and thoughtful when I made them. For example, using the organization name and logo instead of the person’s name and photo, even when they are tweeting for the company. I’m still chewing on this one. In the meantime, I’ve edited @DarimOnline to show that it’s mostly, not entirely, Lisa at the keys. I’m curious how others think about offering this “human face” and transparency while still promoting the brand and, perhaps most importantly for many small organizations, creating continuity if/when staff turns over.
- I was reminded that you can start small and casual. As one guy from Ford is quoted, “Twitter was… the country store, where people came in and out and shared their gossip, and there I was, sitting by the pickle barrel.” (pg. 85)
- It’s more about listening than about talking. It’s so counter intuitive to so many of us that it can’t be said enough.
- One person in the organization can actually lead major change. So many examples were about one person in a large organization using this little tool in their remote cubicle, and it seeped into company culture because it was so darn useful.
So… that leads us to the question: How is Twitter useful for you? Alternatively, you can share your best piece of Twitter wisdom, or a Twitter-related question you’re wrestling with. We’ll choose our winner around Sukkot. And… please leave your Twitter username with your comment so we can check you out!
8 Responses
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Great post, Lisa! I like the fact that I not only am entering a contest, but actually got some good information to think about as well. I too have struggled with the human face on our Grinspoon Institute Twitter profile (@gijp). For now, it’s the logo, but I’ve thought about having pictures of each of us who post in the background as well. Maybe the book will sway me one way or the other.
We have found CoTweet (www.cotweet.com) to be invaluable for managing our account. It allows multiple people to update one Twitter account. You can schedule future accounts, you can link it to an organizational bit.ly account for shortened URLs/stats, and you can even assign tweets to other users. Hootsuite is another service that allows you to do similar things, but so far we have found CoTweet to be easier to use and more functional.
You can also find my personal tweets at @kmartone. However, with a couple of other nonprofit accounts, I find myself using my personal account less and less!
Kevin
Personally twitter is a way to connect with folks and act as a connector/maven in an easy and concise manner. For the JCPSC and free loan, it allows us to build presence, expand the knowledge base of our services and keep in touch with folks in ways facebook/e-mail do not…
@saulomite @jcpsc @jewishfreeloan
A prize is an incentive to comment! And we could certainly use some coaching and new ideas as we move into the twitterverse. At BJ we have only just begun to tweet and have 2-3 staff people involved.
There are so many questions that come up in deciding what to tweet on behalf of an organization. Who is “speaking?” So far we have taken a fairly conservative route, tweeting informational bits about upcoming events or news.
It’s also difficult when you don’t get feedback about what readers (are any of the large number of followers actually reading our tweets?) like and want. Maybe we should explicitly ask for this?
One tactic I’m trying is tweeting about different activities or program areas within BJ with a link to our online Annual Highlights or our Annual Guide, which we publish using ISSUU. These are beautifully designed pieces, in a great display mode, that really give a sense of who we are and what we do. Hopefully these tweets are sending people to the right place to learn more about us.
I’ve been using Hootsuite, which is great, though I can’t compare to Cotweet. When I keep it open in the background, which I should do all the time, I find it convenient for setting up future tweets through the workday on the fly.
Lastly I’ll just note that it would be great to get more staff involved in tweeting form the BJ account. But it a major challenge as well. concrete suggestions for how to do this would be welcome.
Please do check us out @bjnyc
we have not yet begun to tweet – we are doing a lot of thinking about how to use social media generally. There is a slight fear of how the organization’s image will be presented since we have been so formal till now – we really need to change our culture.
maybe this book will help!
We are going to experiment with using Twitter as a tool for Torah study at the 2nd Annual Conference of the Alliance for Continuing Rabbinic Education (ACRE). We will be facing several challenges. The first is that we have some/many? participants who are resistant to the idea of using Twitter. We are certainly not going to “force” people to use it. We also are not going to spend valuable time teaching people how to use it during the Limmud session. We also have to make sure that Twitter is not the center of the Torah study, but a tool which can help to expand the hevruta discussions which will take place. And, then there is the concern/dread that I face trying to make sure that the internet feed is reliable.
Having raised all these challenges, I am excited about the possibilities
Great comments, everyone. Some really useful ideas and questions here. I’ve been tweeting with Shel about Co-Tweet and how to “humanize” a “branded” account. Watch for a future blog post about this as I pull together input from various sources (including your comments!).
Denise – While you might not be getting direct feedback from your followers, you can set up a search (and save it) for “BJ” and “B’nai Jeshrun” (might do one w/o the ‘ too) so you can see what people are saying when they are talking ABOUT you, even if they are not talking TO you.
Steven – I’m excited about your event. I think by projecting on the wall you’ll be educating people right there. Will be interesting to see how much more participatory it is at the 3rd annual conference once they’ve experienced it at he 2nd. What are the dates? Are you using a specific hashtag? How could the rest of us help you (either before or during the event)? Want to offer a “how-to” webinar for the Rabbis in advance?
I’ve just entered the twitter world, but I’ve been thinking about (and experimenting with) tweeting links to interesting articles/things in the news that are related to topics we think about with the teens in the summer. I think that’s part of ‘creating Genesis’ online identity’ and that it should be clearly connected to the work we do in the summer. Also, this is the first comment I’ve ever made on a blog – the contest (and more importantly, the book) is what intrigued me enough to make it..
I am glad you brought this up. I have been very confused about the use of twitter in a business setting and have not yet figured out why anyone would want to know what we are doing on such a regualr basis. I know I may be a dinosaur, but I really just don’t get it (yet).
On a local community basis, it could be fabulous for learning opportunities and we hope to incorporate it into a new culture guide we are building in Dallas. I would love suggestions. Maybe that is the best use, to help each other with ideas.