Why Twitter?

Leaving aside the business aspects of @Twitter, how about explaining it to non-users?
Not long ago on my feed I asked my followers how they explained to people why they used it. Because you know, you still have to explain. I know many of the people who are fortunate enough to work on a team in social media or online marketing don't have this problem, because they see and speak to people every day who understand. It's their job. They have an excuse.

For the rest of us, no such luck. Articulating the basic value of Twitter is so challenging, forget describing my follow philosophy or why things like @klout will probably be important in the future. For those who have yet to adopt Twitter, no argument or description seems to sway them. I sometimes passionately describe the many current and potential benefits of Twitter to someone, only to have them look at me vacantly and say, "...yeah but I don't know why I need to leave Facebook for that." This prompted me to tweet "Facebook is the gated community where I keep all of my Twitter illiterate friends."

It feels like that. Every day I get news hours, sometimes days, before anyone else I know. Long before traditional media outlets. Why bother with CNN when you can follow feeds on Twitter while they are sourcing the material from photogs and on the ground reporters? No editing, no punditry...bliss. I describe Twitter as the world's best living magazine or newspaper where you are the editor in chief. It's great to have followers, but if you are a consumer of information, Twitter is heaven.

My ratio is always off, because I will read and interact with those I follow and with anyone who follows me, so I am careful to limit who does. It seems backward right? Conventional wisdom says I should be doing the opposite, spreading my message, trumpeting it to the world, attracting hundreds if not thousands of followers. I have things to say. I say them all day long in response to what I read. I give feedback, elevate valuable content, make connections between all that I see and share my conclusions. I have a viewpoint and a love for people and their stories. Twitter would be less for me if I could not enjoy the back and forth of conversation and quips. The instant friendships over topics that live completely in the mind. But the minute it becomes a monologue, it's lost any appeal. I don't want to pontificate, shill, or be a one liner girl. Though I confess I follow several people who are quite adept at popping out the one liners and I admire their talent. I'm just not that funny. I have a wry wit, but I'm a little too earnest for it to ever work for me.

About a year ago I taught a group of women returning to college how to use the Internet to be more successful students. This was 101 stuff for me. How to search effectively, how to protect your privacy on Facebook, how to set up and manage a group page, or run a blog. I finished my presentation with "Why Twitter?" I was already a serious advocate and no one was buying in Roanoke, Virginia. I teased them with comedy feeds, God and AlmightyGod, (Satan has few followers and is kinda boring), the Mars rover, celebrities, news, the cows on Twitter, the haiku account, every glitzy gimicky thing I could think of to see if I could register any interest. I showed them how whatever their research topic they could find an expert writing about it real time and follow them. I finished with what I think is the killer app of Twitter. That's the search and trending topics functionality. I demonstrated how it could be used to zero in on hotspots when something was happening in the world. How you could immediately start reading the words of people at the scene or those who were experiencing a cultural event. Finally, it started to connect.

So when people ask me now about Twitter, I skip all  the light razzmatazz and go straight to the point. I just tell them it's about the ability of almost everyone on the planet to be instantly connected in conversation. A kind of global consciousness. My twitter feed knows no nation. I talk about how it helped Egypt start a revolution. I talk about the rapid response to Libya and how the on the ground commentary and images streaming from twitter played a role in that. I point out that it is in its infancy and it's already had this kind of effect. Imagine what will happen as more and more people begin to embrace it. I've seen this before. People say they won't ever, and then 2 years later the adoption rate is through the roof. Email, the web, Facebook...I heard the same things from people all along the way, so forgive me if I don't believe them. I know the feeling of something that can cause a fundamental shift and Twitter is one of those things.

Even so, as I told the followers who queried me in return...most people eyes glaze over before I finish.
Ah well. One day.

How do you explain to people why you like @Twitter or why you think it's important?

The Currency of Influence

It’s no secret that the latest tool in the marketer’s toolkit is Social Media. The only fly in the ointment so far has been how to prove to the companies that are footing the bill for these initial programs that their money was well spent. They can count “Likes” on a Facebook page or see how often a viral video has been viewed, but until recently no one has been able to really quantify the “Twitter effect.” Now there are scores of tools that are trying to provide all kinds of insight to companies to help them understand what is happening, moment by moment and day by day and how it might be affecting their brand.

This is important for a number of reasons. The first for me being that the more we understand about a medium, the more creatively and effectively we use it. Second, I think it’s imperative that Twitter keep growing and for that they need funds. Using tools to demonstrate its value in ways that corporations understand can only help that continue to happen.

The mainstream media is already beginning to take notice of the two biggest  influence measures out right now, Klout and PeerIndex. Each of these tools looks at your online activity and scores you from 1-100. The higher the score, the more influence you have over others. To put it another way, if your score is high then when you speak  more people listen. Klout and PeerIndex are using slightly different algorithms to measure your activity. I have been using both for a while now and while my numbers are similar, they are not the same. They both keep track of topics that they believe you are influential about. In PeerIndex’s case, this seems to be a longer list and slightly more accurate, though you can only display five on your profile. Klout on the other hand appears to be based on what other people talk to you about. They seem to choose topics based on those topics that are most re-tweeted or liked on Facebook, which means you can suddenly find yourself to be influential about the subject in a joke tweet that has been re-tweeted often rather than say humor, which is what people actually experienced. This is a small problem I hope they will figure out. It handicaps one of the strongest offerings they have, the +K feature.

Similar to the Google +1 feature, this allows you to give out 5 +Klout a day to the people on Twitter who influenced you the most. This is a wonderful feature and the mind leaps ahead to what widespread adoption can and will do to it.  i.e., the first  5 people who RT my x tweet will get +Klout for today. Weeks away at most. There just hasn’t been enough adoption for it to become a currency yet, but soon, very soon. So herein lies the problem. Someone influences you by telling a joke. You go to their Klout page and they are either influential about nothing or influential about something completely unrelated. What do you do? Make a note and hope they get humor as a topic soon, or just give them +K in whatever is available? If nothing is available it defeats the whole purpose, right? So topics definitely need work.

It’s an interesting experience to install the Google Chrome Klout and PeerIndex apps and then venture onto Twitter. This allows you to see each user’s scores simultaneously. It’s early days yet, so PeerIndex uses an estimate for many people. If you hover over the little yellow number, you’ll see more about the PeerIndex score. It will give you the breakdown of Authority, Activity and Audience along with the 5 topics they are displaying. If it only provides zeros, you know that the number you are seeing is an estimate. People actually have to check in to PeerIndex or Klout to get the most accurate read. The Klout app will simply show you the number. If you click on either it will take you to their profiles on either site.

Once you start looking at the numbers it will surprise you how much it helps you decide who to follow, who to forgo. I say this because Klout not only looks at the ratio of follows to followers, it looks at the quality of them. If you only follow 10 people but you are followed by 100,000 super active twitter users who spread every thing you say, you are going to be in the 80ish Celebrity range. Alternately if you follow 10 people and have 100,000 followers who are people who are never active, who ignore you and generally only shill ads, you are not going to get very far.  As in everything in life, it is quality, not quantity you are looking for here.  Numbers are great, but they need to be qualified numbers to get the most out of Twitter. That applies to individuals, small businesses and even large brands and celebrities.  I un-followed a large chunk of people after discovering this, many were inactive or weren’t even people and saw my Klout score rise.

When someone follows me, my follow backs are decisions. I’m now committed to reading what this person puts out there, interacting with them, re-tweeting them and having them “on-staff” at St.Jon’s Super Stylin’ Live Magazine. I’m the editor in chief and I can hire the best writing talent the twitter world has to offer in any field. I get my news before most anyone else with footage that rarely makes mainstream media. I read notes from the cameraman of my favorite show on TV, the bodyguard of one of my favorite celebs and interact with other fans from around the world. One great actor I follow is such a great tweeter he plays games with his followers and tweets frequent candid photos and video clips. His followers re-tweet every tweet. Some of the best writers of comedy, film and television muse, howl and generally vent to my great amusement and sympathy and I read their travails and sympathize as I sit and write alone. Yet I don’t feel that I am.

This is just the beginning of what is possible with Twitter.  Tools like PeerIndex and Klout can help eliminate some of the chaff that already has started to clog the system. The relentless marketing spam and the hunt for greater and greater numbers of followers. As measurement become more widely adopted, my hope is that some of those practices will fall out of favor. They don’t work, and they are incredibly pointless.
Right now @Klout seems to be the clear leader in the field and at the rate of adoption I am seeing it will be the gold standard. So check in, see your score and find out how influential you are.

In an upcoming post I’ll talk about how Twitter can be useful and effective for a brand without relentlessly marketing itself into oblivion.http://www.klout.com

Super 8

I went and saw Super 8 at a Matinee on Sunday and was unexpectedly charmed by it. Nowadays you expect to be slammed in the face with action so the slow intro to develop the characters confused me for a minute and then I remembered that this is how movies USED to be. You know, like when they made The Goonies, and E.T. You got to know and like the kids BEFORE they ended up in an action sequence. The quality of the film making here is not to be lightly dismissed. I'm talking about nuance, character development, and even the technical aspects of beautiful lighting, sets, shots and casting. And unlike some films it all comes together harmoniously. There are times near the end where I felt like I was in the middle of a good Stephen King book, you know  where all the action happens right before he blows the ending. (That man can NOT end a story. Who can blame him? You fall in love with his characters and don't want them to go.) You care about these kids. They're funny, and sweet and sometimes sad and broken but always loved. Set during the BMX bike era, it evokes a time when you stayed out until it was dark and no one thought anything of it. That mix of nostalgia, the bliss of ignorance and also its costs are woven throughout the film. A highly enjoyable summer film. Reminded me of nothing so much as going to "the picture show" with my family 30 years ago.

Which is a GOOD thing to remember.