To Tweet or Not to Tweet ...

In the third in a series of “talks for smart people”, BlueTie tonight hosted “To Tweet or Not to Tweet” to an engaged and inquisitive group in Pittsford NY. In fact, if the audience had its way, the talk would have been a hour-long question and answer session.

Some hot-button queries were

• Why would someone follow over a thousand people?
• How do you find people to follow, or people to follow you?
• When should I follow, and when should I friend?
• Are the social networks converging?
• Is privacy an issue? Or a non-issue?
• Can Twitter be used a guerrilla marketing tool?
• How else can I use Twitter in my business?
  
  In between a battery of of questions, local Twitter guru Emily Carpenter walked us through the basics of LinkedIn, FaceBook, and, especially, Twitter.
  
  The Twitter portion of the talk focused on the dizzying number of third-party add-ins. One that caught my eye is Ping.fm. A point of convergence between the social networks is a status message or micro-blog. Ping makes it easy to update your status on one or more networks from a single dashboard. Of course, like most social network applications today, there are missing features, like post-dating messages, but it is still a sweet dashboard. I’ll be trying this one again.

As to the Twitter questions, I won’t try to speak for Emily, but here are my own answers.

Why would someone follow over a thousand people?

Mainly to get more followers of your own. People often reciprocate: if you follow someone on Twitter, they follow you back. To compensate, Peopleuse third-party Twitter applications to filter out the important feeds or likely tweets.

Personally, I only follow people that I actually want to read regularly. But, I have noticed that following someone usually leads to more follows, even if it’s someone like @TonyRobbins or @JohnTesh. If you want to be followed, follow someone else.

How do you find people to follow, or people to follow you?

Start by using Twitter’s Find People feature to lookup your friends and colleagues. Look at who they are following for other interesting feeds. Then goto to a site like CelebrityTweet and look for other people that interest you. Also try looking up your favorite authors. (I found @StevenRCovey that way.)

When should I follow, and when should I friend?

On Twitter, we follow. On FaceBook, we friend. On LinkedIn, we connect. On Twitter, you can follow anyone who is tweeting things you want to read. On FaceBook, it’s better to friend only people you actually know and trust, especially personal friends that you might join for dinner or drinks. On Linked In, it’s best to connect with professional colleagues that are connected to your career in some way. People that you might interview for or against.

The nice thing about Twitter is that it crosses the line between personal and professional. People expect Twitter to be a mix. Twitter’s a place where you can be a whole person, and not just the work-you or the home-you.

Still, the Internet is forever, so don’t tweet anything you don’t want the grand kids to read, even if they aren’t born yet

Are the social networks converging?

Yes, the network are adopting similar feature sets, and integrators, like Ping.FM, make it easier to reuse content between networks. Someday, there may one be one. But, for now, people tend to use LinkedIn to manage their resume, and FaceBook to manage their social calendar.

Is privacy an issue? Or a non-issue?

To older folks (like me), the amount of information teenagers are sharing on social networks is frightening. But, privacy is relative. The key thing to remember is that nothing you share on a social network is private, so don’t say anything you don’t want your mother, kids, or spouse to know. Personally, I hesitate to mention when I will be traveling, or where my kids might be at a certain time. Burglars and stalkers are no strangers to technology.

Can Twitter be used a guerrilla marketing tool?

Absolutely! Just today, SlideShare sent me this email: “We’ve noticed that your slideshow on SlideShare has been getting a LOT of views in the last 24 hours. Great job … you must be doing something right. ;-) Why don’t you tweet or blog this? Use the hashtag #bestofslideshare so we can track the conversation.”

There’s no reason why my SlideShare views should have spiked on Apr 1st. Even though I think it’s a marketing prank, still, I wrote about it. (And, fool me twice, I’m doing it again!)

Another instance is that we have a meeting coming up for the still-forming local chapter of the International Institute of Business Analysts . To get the word our for our next meeting, one thing we are considering is asking the members to blog and tweet about it.

How else can I use Twitter in my business?

Many people and businesses have Google Alerts in place to search for items of interest. There are Twitter applications that let you do the same thing with Twitter feeds. For example, I mentioned “bikinis” the other day, and suddenly Bikini Beat is a follower. (Don’t ask!)

By proactively searching Twitter for keywords, companies can target consumers or head-off consumer complaints. But, seller beware, in this age of transparency, be upfront and honest. On the Internet, we can Google, but we can’t hide.

Oh, and should you Tweet?

If you have to ask, then you should :)

But, only when you have something to say!