I saw Nate Westheimer and Anthony DeRosa (Soup to some) blog about the difference in where they publish content. Nate says his blog innonate.com is for the more serious stuff while Tumblr is for his low brow/brilliant things he finds on the internet.
I do the same thing and know others that do it too. This blog I use for one type of content and the other places on the web for others. Out of the top four places I put content on, here they are:
Social Cocktails: This is my blog. I use it for more professional thoughts about social media/PR/internet/tech etc... Sure, I'll stray away sometimes but I try and keep it professional here. (Note this blog is moving to Wordpress shortly. Goodbye Blogger. You've been great but I like Wordpress better.)
Tumblr: As I say on the sidebar, "This is where I dump all of the fun stuff from the Internet." It's true. I post songs, random photos of my walking through the city, funny quotes...you name it. It's a place to dump the crazy stuff we all find.
Facebook: I'm still trying to figure this one out. I've imported Twitter and Tumblr to both and hate it. I guess I use it to post photos, but not all photos because I don't want every picture of myself from nights out on the Internet. I use it as a stalking mechanism. I'm not going to deny it and come on, neither should you. I use Facebook to keep an eye on what people are up to. Who got married. Who has a kid. Who got fat. If you haven't done ONE of these things I'd be shocked. I'm just being honest here! I also use it to get some content from the posted items, but I'm really using it to keep up with friends I don't see on a regular basis.
Twitter: This one is interesting. I'd like to say I'm completely professional on this, but I'm not. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I'm myself. I'm a mix of my professional life and my personal life. I don't tweet about my dating life or real personal issues, but I do put my personality out there. Plus some cool links. I also share where I am on Foursquare if I want to and some Yelp reviews. So be it.
What about you? Do you use different platforms for different types of content or do you keep one presence across all?
July 26, 2009
July 22, 2009
"I have 2,189 followers!"
When thinking about Twitter followers, I am instantly reminded of a story back in college. I was at my friends party and this tiny girl walks in. She smacks her hand down on the make shift bar and yells "I weigh 98 pounds!" All of us looked in horror at the girl not sure who she was, why she was there and most importantly, why she was telling us that she weighed that much. There was no context behind the statement and no reason as to why that would matter to the group. We were all having a good time and didn't care much for her issue at hand. (Luckily she left quickly, grabbed more punch from the party and went on her merry way.)
I get the same feeling when I think about the conversation around the number of Twitter followers people have. Imagine if I walked up to someone and in my introduction said "Hi! I'm Kristin Maverick and I have 2,189 Twitter followers!" I would get CRAZY looks!
I think it used to matter. People cared about numbers as a benchmark to how influential they were within the network. Thousands of people "listening" meant that they were "interested" in the important 140 characters that were sent out on a daily basis.
Now? I think it's changed. When Twitter opened up and celebs became really active on it, more followers started coming my way. I don't even talk with HALF of them. Heck, 3/4 of them. I took a look this morning at some of my followers. A TON are spam. Some are PR related. (I get that as I'm tagged with PR messages) Some are bots that pick up on key words and instant follow. (Example: I tweeted about Smoothie King this morning and now I'm being followed by @smoothieweb---COME. ON.) The number just doesn't matter to me. I value the 463 people I follow and how most of them follow me back. I enjoy that conversation. I don't want to use Twitter as a way to publish my content. People can do that, sure, but don't go boasting about numbers here. Not when 1,000 of these "followers" are in fact computer bots.
Numbers are numbers but if you're not interacting with the right people in a smart matter, what's the point? Quality over quantity. I'd rather people I don't talk with stop following me than follow me. I want to look through the ones that follow me that can offer some interesting conversation.
What do you think?
I get the same feeling when I think about the conversation around the number of Twitter followers people have. Imagine if I walked up to someone and in my introduction said "Hi! I'm Kristin Maverick and I have 2,189 Twitter followers!" I would get CRAZY looks!
I think it used to matter. People cared about numbers as a benchmark to how influential they were within the network. Thousands of people "listening" meant that they were "interested" in the important 140 characters that were sent out on a daily basis.
Now? I think it's changed. When Twitter opened up and celebs became really active on it, more followers started coming my way. I don't even talk with HALF of them. Heck, 3/4 of them. I took a look this morning at some of my followers. A TON are spam. Some are PR related. (I get that as I'm tagged with PR messages) Some are bots that pick up on key words and instant follow. (Example: I tweeted about Smoothie King this morning and now I'm being followed by @smoothieweb---COME. ON.) The number just doesn't matter to me. I value the 463 people I follow and how most of them follow me back. I enjoy that conversation. I don't want to use Twitter as a way to publish my content. People can do that, sure, but don't go boasting about numbers here. Not when 1,000 of these "followers" are in fact computer bots.
Numbers are numbers but if you're not interacting with the right people in a smart matter, what's the point? Quality over quantity. I'd rather people I don't talk with stop following me than follow me. I want to look through the ones that follow me that can offer some interesting conversation.
What do you think?
July 16, 2009
The tools---they are obsolete my friends
Well said. Great post by Curtis Hougland at Attention PR. This snippet nails it on the changing of the PR industry, with simple proof.
The press conference is becoming obsolete for two basic reasons. The media has become more distributed, fragmented. The news cycle has changed. The people that spread word-of-mouth often cannot or do not attend these events, and the news is invariably already being discussed by the time of the press conference.
Rachel Roy (client) proved this point through a one-hour Twitter press conference, which cost $1 (Dina on our team wanted a Poland Springs water), and effectively reached both top-down and bottom-up media.
It is time to change the tool set.
The press conference is becoming obsolete for two basic reasons. The media has become more distributed, fragmented. The news cycle has changed. The people that spread word-of-mouth often cannot or do not attend these events, and the news is invariably already being discussed by the time of the press conference.
Rachel Roy (client) proved this point through a one-hour Twitter press conference, which cost $1 (Dina on our team wanted a Poland Springs water), and effectively reached both top-down and bottom-up media.
It is time to change the tool set.
July 2, 2009
Why social media makes things worse than they really are.
Do you remember bad news always being THIS BAD? Think about bad things that happened in the news a few years ago. (I don't think I need examples) You saw what happened by watching CNN or picking up your newspaper. Then blogs came up and would post recaps. You could comment and add your 2 cents and you'd be able to find more information by doing a search based on your own interest for the cause.
But now, with Twitter especially, news (and especially BAD NEWS) gets spread around to a point of over exposure almost making the news sound catastrophic.
For example, the latest in celebrity deaths was extremely overwhelming. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. Billie Mays. Each announcement alone was a shocker in its own right, but when multiple people in your online stream are constantly posting, commenting, tweeting---it makes it even bigger because the news continually repeats right in front of you.
No longer are you able to back away from the news. It follows you everywhere. People are writing about the same things as part of a new news cycle across social media. This continuous repeating of the news makes small things bigger than usual and more important than it really is.
Great example: Yesterday, Tumblr went down for about 30 minutes. You go to Tumblr, it's down. Fine. I won't be able to check it out but I can move on with my life and get back to work. You then go and check Twitter and EVERYONE is writing about how Tumblr is down! Alone, it's not really a big deal but together with a critical mass of content about the same thing: IT'S INSANE.
What do you think? Does social media make things bigger than they really are because of the opportunity to spread it and repeat it?
But now, with Twitter especially, news (and especially BAD NEWS) gets spread around to a point of over exposure almost making the news sound catastrophic.
For example, the latest in celebrity deaths was extremely overwhelming. Farrah Fawcett. Michael Jackson. Billie Mays. Each announcement alone was a shocker in its own right, but when multiple people in your online stream are constantly posting, commenting, tweeting---it makes it even bigger because the news continually repeats right in front of you.
No longer are you able to back away from the news. It follows you everywhere. People are writing about the same things as part of a new news cycle across social media. This continuous repeating of the news makes small things bigger than usual and more important than it really is.
Great example: Yesterday, Tumblr went down for about 30 minutes. You go to Tumblr, it's down. Fine. I won't be able to check it out but I can move on with my life and get back to work. You then go and check Twitter and EVERYONE is writing about how Tumblr is down! Alone, it's not really a big deal but together with a critical mass of content about the same thing: IT'S INSANE.
What do you think? Does social media make things bigger than they really are because of the opportunity to spread it and repeat it?
