Sanders Says

Follow You Follow Me

One of the best ways (#2 to being helpful) to generating new followers on Twitter is to strategically follow others.  The general convention on Twitter is to reciprocate a follow (70% of the time or so). Often, you generate a relationship over time if your points of view resonate. 

Who to follow, though?  As I've said before, only an organic following is worth having -- people that actually care about your tweets and might click/RT or read them.  I avoid the Twitter Train apps that pick up scammers, self-marketers and robots.  The trick is to follow someone that you believe will be glad to follow you.  Think of it as the power of suggestion. 

Here are six follow-strategies: 

1.  Upload your address book to the Twitter tool every six months.  You may need to sync your Outlook with gmail or Yahoo mail to do this.  When you first signed up, you might have done this already.  Since then, however, many of your friends have climbed on Twitter, so you should do it again.  

2.  Follow anyone who mentions you (your @).  I use Tweetdeck for this, with the far left hand column tracking mentions.  You'd be surprised who RTs you or mentions you, yet hasn't started following you yet. 

3.  Setup keywords (again, using Tweetdeck).  For example, I monitor mentions of my books, my name or my company.  These are dedicated columns on my Tweetdeck dashboard.  Any hit on a keyword gets a follow and the follow back ratio is much higher (80-90%).  Also, it shoes proactive engagement on your part to respond to a product/company mention with a follow. 

4.  Follow Friday:  I follow my friends' advice on who to follow.  Often, I end up adding quality Twerps to my social stream.  

5.  Event Tracking: Many trade shows and conventions have an event hashtag (eg #ucialign) that all Twerps put at the end of their updates to organize the conversation.  As a professional speaker, I follow NSA, MPI and PCMAs annual or large regional events.  I also setup keywords (eg "meeting professionals international convention" for Twerps that tweet about events, but don't use the hashtag.  I follow all my potential partners or customers (I read the profile and stay somewhat selective).  It helps to post useful information at the hashtag because it shows you want to be part of the conversation -- usually, you'll see your follow back ratio much higher if you put in the time to be helpful. 

If you have helpful ideas on how to strategically follow for quality follow-backs, please post them in the comments.  For previous postings on Twitter, check out my social media channel. 

The Original Social Media Object

Last weekend I drove from Lubbock TX to my hometown Clovis. (Lubbock has the nearest airport.) Passing through Sudan TX on Highway 84, I noticed the above scene, so I had to stop and shoot a pic of it for you on the way back.  Who knows how long this sign/scene has been there.  Who knows how many thousand people a month see this sign and make a mental note RE Progressive Insurance's brand. 

This is an example of the original form of social media: Staged protest. In this case, the property owner has likely had a bad claims experience with Progressive.  He's using his platform (land, sign-making abilities and a hideously wrecked vehicle) to influence others in society -- in this case not to do business with Progressive. 

Social media can help people express their support of or hatred for a brand.  We write Amazon or Yelp reviews.  We create viral videos (United Breaks Guitars).  We twitter or rave/moan on Facebook. In the past, we created websites or sent emails to our friends. Go a little further back and you'll find the original social media object: A sign.  It could be a small sign, like a bumper sticker.  It could be a medium sign like a T-Shirt or yard-sign.  OR, like the one above, it could be a massive display on the side of a major road. 

I work with several leading brands on how to listen to social media to discover detractors, especially those with a powerful platform (size/telepresence).  You can tweak Tweetdeck or Twitgrid to setup listening posts for social media chatter. Via Google or Yahoo, you can set email alerts for website or blog mentions of a brand or any set of customer experience terms.  By monitoring the social conversation, you can engage with detractors and mitigate damage to your brand.  

How can Progressive find this one?  I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who's snapped a pick of this scene. Perhaps photo sharing sites already host one. This means that email alerts should include text, audio, pictures or video-- not just text. 

Takeaway: Every company should listen for detractors (and if you have time, raving fans). Engage them all with empathy and authenticity. Be sophisticated in how you setup your listening stations and remember that only a fraction of customer feelings are shared on the web. In the end, each day that this scene stays up is MONEY for its competitors in the insurance world. 

As Chistropher Locke and his gang of futurists wrote in The Cluetrain Manifesto: 

Markets are conversations. 

Contact me if you'd like info on how your company can listen better

A good case of Wiksmanship

This week's social media commentary will focus on the fine art of using the stream to aggregate and distribute collective wisdom. Raj Setty (@upbeatnow) is a pioneer in this area, as well as one of the top bloggers around. 

Earlier this year, he conducted a very thoughtful experiment.  Using social media (Twitter, Facebook, his blog), he asked thought leaders and big-mouths to contribute advice for a free eBook.  The topic was timely: Practical tips for thriving during rough times.  

He collected fifty souls together, gleaned some wisdom from them, then applied stellar design acumen to produce an eye-popping and thought provoking eBook.  Download it today.  If you are a Kindle user, you can either email the PDF to your Kindle account for .10 and read it on there OR if you have the new DX model, you can transfer the PDF via your USB.  

This is a novel way to provision social media.  What Raj demonstrates is Wiksmanship, using a Wiki type crowd sourcing model to produce and distribute relevant content.  Just like a Wiki, a community created the document, except Raj is the centralized editor and it is a static finished document.  

Wiskmanship relies on: Topic selection, author aggregation, editing and design.  All four stages need to be done right to avoid a train wreck or another useless PDF that a Twitter user might call his/her "free eBook." 

Another example of this is found over at Change This.  In this case, you author a manifesto and let the crowd vote on whether it's worthy of being featured.  Many great ideas, and books such as Trust Agents, have sprung from this social media incubator. 

All of this begs the question: Why do we think of social media as a place for personal or professional marketing?  That's the tip of the value iceberg.  Raj's experiment demonstrates that crowdsourcing is very easy with social media, and can bring together incredible value in a short period of time.  This must be pretty baffling to publishers that have one to two year release windows, layers of process to swim through and an overly centralized pool of talent ... where you are only as good as your last book. 

How will you leverage your social stream to add or multiply value?  It's not just a way to sling URLs, build up a following and get traffic to your site -- it's a resource that you can use to change the world. 

Your digital bonsai tree

I'm converting Twitter Tuesday into Social Media Tuesdays to account for Twitter plus blogs, Facebook, etc.  Given Twitter's up and down status, it wouldn't surprise me if a better service comes along over the next year or two. Who knows, it may be a higher quality spam free service worth paying for. 

This week I want to focus on you as content creator and editor.  If you blog, are on Facebook or Tweet -- you are a content creator that owns a digital bonsai tree.  It's a living document that captures your thoughts, finds and recommendations.  This tree needs constant care, though, because it lives for a long time and influences new people in your life that "discover" it via a single post or update. 

Often, we build this tree on the run, trying to squeeze in a quick thought.  Many times we tweet from mobile devices with hardly any time to proofread or consider grammar.  The result is a tree with many broken branches (links), withered leaves (sentences) and a shaky foundation (continuity).  Have you stopped to read your last sixty blog posts or one hundred FB/Twitter updates?  You'll be surprised how many errors or bad ideas you'll find -- still alive and waiting for a new network connection to read.  

I find that many of my new followers on Twitter begin to read the blog and go back in time months or sometimes years.  Google searches still drive traffic at blog postings I created in 2007!  As a result, you should consider your entire library of generated content as an extension of your personal brand for better or worse. 

Takeaway: Spend several hours pruning your tree.  Bloggers, re-read and correct posts with bad syntax or grammar.  If a post is no longer relevant, delete it (careful though, there might be links to it).  If your point of view has shifted, add an update at the bottom.  While you are doing this, add Tweetmeme at the end of your posts.  It makes it very easy for a reader to Tweet your post and get you more traffic.  

To add Tweetmeme: In HTML editing mode, paste this at the bottom of your post: 

<div class="tweet-button">
<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = 'http://yoururl.com';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>
</div> 

(Don't forget to add the permalink URL for your posting in place of http://yoururl.com.  I use Typepad, so it's a manual process.  Wordpress supports this with a widget, making it even easier.) 

Tweeps and Facebookers, look at your profile and edit your comments.  Some of your updates need to be deleted.  Unfortunately, you can't easily edit them like posts, so a straight trim may be all you can do. In many cases, you might find an update so evergreen that it deserves a re-posting -- which can service new followers since its original publication.  

In any event, you owe it to your online reputation to continually manicure your digital bansai tree to ensure quality, continuity and helpfulness.  Once you've done a big sweep, you can keep it up with less than a half hour a month of time.  Consider all your social media postings as the wiki-of-your-mind where you are the only contributor and sole editor.  

Twitter Tuesday Thoughts, Volume 7

tweetmeme_url = 'http://sanderssays.typepad.com/sanders_says/2009/08/twitter-tuesday-thoughts-volume-7.html';

In Twitter Tuesday Thoughts Volume 6 I focused on being a good follower. This week I'm turning my attention to being a good leader/author.  The paradigm is much the same, though: Be helpful.  

Early last year, I asked a social media maven to give me some advice on how to be successful in social media world. He responded, "the internet rewards what the internet likes."  Over time I realized how true those words are.  To grow your following and influence on Twitter, you need to be an effective writer that adds value for all that follow you.  Period.  That is the only way to create a following that will reward you with clicks, purchase, word-of-mouse and attention.  Otherwise, you are just junk in the stream.  Noise pollution. 

To write well for Twitter, think of yourself as a thought leader, not much different than when you blog. Just more compact, to the point and attention grabbing.  You are competing against a non-stop stream of tweets, especially if your follower is following a lot of people.  

Here are some ways to think about leading: 

1.  Purpose -- Napoleon once said, "the leader's role is to define reality, then give hope." This is the perfect approach to Tweeting.  Give me a mix of messages that tell me what's going on, then give me a way to find some hope through it all.  News and tools.  Don't just provoke me or be mysterious.  

2. Headlines matter -- even if you find a highly provocative and helpful website/post/page, no one will read it unless your headline jumps out of the stream like a spawning salmon.  The key, much like in ad agency days of lore, is the effective headline.  Use 8 words to provoke, then your shortened URL to direct.  Read, The Art Of Writing Great Twitter Headlines at CopyBlogger.  If you want to go even deeper, read David Oglivy's fabulous book, Oglivy On Advertising.  He was the master of copy writing and specifically, headlines that grabbed attention. 

One additional point here: If you are going to link-tweet, you might want to build it up first with a sequence of short headlines from the article you want people to click to.  In his book, Twitter Power, Joel Comm calls this sequencing.  This is especially useful if you are using Twitter to drive more traffic to your blog posts. For example, as I write this post, I tweet: "Working on Twitter Tuesday, today's theme: Be a good leader and great writer." I'll add another tweet later with an out-take, then BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE, I tweet with the URL for the blog post.  Make 'em come to you!

3.  Produce 120 character self-contained ideas of value -- In my opinion, this is the #1 way to make yourself attractive to follow.  I say 120 instead of 140 because you need to leave room for your followers to retweet you and pass it on to their followers.  Think of yourself as a journalist that is limited in your room for copy, but challenged to educate within your limits.  Think of single sentences that provide direction, inspiration or make the reader think.  For more, read Good Journalism In 140 Characters over at JProfs.  

This is an area where I spend much of my time.  I focus on single action items that fit my personality as an author.  For example, yesterday I wrote: If you want your great tweets to get re-tweeted, you need to pretend that Twitter is a 120 character platform.  Short, sweet, helpful.  It was re-tweeted a lot as a result.  The key is punchy writing that's very clear.  When I first started tweeting, I brushed up on basic writing skills by re-reading the greatest book ever written on this subject: The Elements Of Style by Strunk and White.  If you haven't read this book ten times, you need to! 

4.  Use quotes sparingly and contextually.  Some tweeps just RT others and post quotes -- usually from dead people (LOL).  I call these Chicken Soupers.  They go to #quote, find a good one, then post it. Trust me, a little goes a long way.  At some point, it is easy to become a quote machine, with little editorial direction.  When I use a quote, it usually confirms my public point of view, often expressed via my self-contained updates or link tweets.  The key is to use quotes as evidence, not just stream fodder. 

5.  Edit, proof read and delete bad writing.  In our rush to get out tweets, we don't grammar or spell check often.  This is bad for your personal brand.  Always take a minute to re-read what you are about to post.  If you are on the run, tweeting from your mobile device, you may spell words wrong and miss it prior to posting.  Get to a browser (or a phone with cut/copy), copy your bad post, delete it, fix it and then repost it.  Never leave a post up with errors.  Ever.  

Over time, if you combine these ideas and practice-practice-practice, you'll be a great leader that builds an organic following.  You'll also build up your writing skills for better blogs, articles and maybe a book! 

Follow me on Twitter 

Read previous Twitter Tuesday Thoughts

Twitter Tuesday thoughts (Volume 6)

Social media is truly shaping up as Web 2.0. 

The original promise of the web is being delivered via new tools and a community of content. I was part of Web 1.0 (1996-200?) and while much has changed, the promise of the web stays the same. (Check out this slide from a 1999 Yahoo sales presentation)

                 

Back then, the obstacles to the vision were: 1. Poor search result quality  2. Low % of friends/associates could be located via search and 3. Commerce either lacked in quantity of provider quality.  With Google, blogworld, Facebook and Twitter, those obstacles are falling down, and quickly.  

The key to making the web the ultimate information solution lies with the user community. When a recession hits, bloggers and Tweeps don't close down shop like eCommerce shops, portals or software houses. The only enduring part of the web is...you. 

During these times, we all must contribute more to the social stream of information, making the whole system work better. If we participate fully, we'll all find anything we need via our trusted connections. This leads me to this week's first Twitter thought: 

1. Be a good follower 

For once, let's shut down the two Twitter topics that consume 90% of our mindshare: Get more followers and new Twitter tools.  Let's shift attention to the act of following for the sake of the community.  If the Twitter stream doesn't give good return on attention, it will eventually turn into a permission based spam machine where 2nd Tier marketeers attempt to sell to each other.  This is the problem with LinkedIn.  When is the last time you learned or discovered via LinkedIn?  When the Twitter stream is more newsworthy than major media or leading portals, adoption will skyrocket. 

What do you contribute to the stream? Many of my friends tell me that they aren't writers or authors, so they don't know what to contribute.  Ambient content (what I'm doing, what it looks/feels like) is somewhat useful -- but only interesting to your friends and stalkers.  Relevant quotes can offer a little pick me up.  Breaking news is good, if it's really breaking news.  In many cases, when you post a "newsflash" it's already on the Yahoo homepage and has over 1000 Diggs.  Sometimes, though, a niche piece of useful information is posted first on Twitter.  It either flies through the timeline or gets "picked up" by the community.  

The best way to follow is to retweet the good posts, exposing them (and their authors) to your network.  When you RT (retweet), you are putting your stamp of approval on the information (worthy, relevant, helpful) and giving it some velocity.  Even if you can't author short powerful tweets, you can pick out useful ones and RT them.  This is an equal opportunity opportunity to help.  Besides moving good info through your network, you are also sharing it as a follower to help others grow.  This is Twitter love. Unlike @replies, RT's are given solely for the information value of what you are retweeting. Each week, you should find and retweet at least a few dozen great posts.

<I must admit, so many Twerps use replies (@sanderssays, what are you reading now?) to bait power users into replying back, and giving the Twerp exposure (and hopefully more followers).  It really doesn't work that way. There is no hard data here, but my assessment is this: Getting a whale to reply to you is less powerful than getting a moderate user (10-999 followers) to RT you.  A very very small % of Tweeple bother to click on a profile because someone replied to you, in fact they are more likely to click on the replier's profile to read the thread.  When you get RT'd, a much higher % click to YOUR profile as the originator of the helpful piece of information.>

2.  Be helpful 

In general, this is the best way you can help the community and yourself grow. This is Chris Brogan's #1 suggestion for people that want to build a following on Twitter. Think of Twitter as a place you help and trust others to help you back in someway.  If you approach Twitter with the "be clever" or "get noticed" philosophy, you'll dogpaddle along until you eventually give up or wither away to spammer obscurity. 

For leaders (those who have followers), look at Twitter as a stream you must help stock with good fish. Contribute a few ideas each week, either found on the Internet or original.  When you buy something, review the product on Twitter.  Good place to eat? Tweet it and include a hashtag (mine is #timeats). Same goes for movies, records or books.  Remember, Twitter could be a search engine killer -- a formidable competitor to Google or Bing. 

In my first book, Love Is The Killer App, I argued that "your network is your networth."  You grow it to give it away and produce value in the lives of others.  Follow Friday is an example of giving your network away to help sweet Tweeters grow.  The Twitter elite, such as Chris Brogan or Chris Penn, are incredibly generous with their network, despite the fact they are peppered with people asking for "free promotion" all the time.  Here's my point: You more you share your network with the deserving, the more you'll deserve to grow your following.  

There's an old saying, "money goes where it is wanted and stay's where it is well kept." The same is true with a following.  If you commit your Twitter time to helping, you'll see positive results over time.  You are harnessing one of the most powerful psychological laws in the universe, I call is The Secret of Social Media: The Law of Reciprocity. 

Twitter Tuesday thoughts (Volume 5)

Another week on Twitter, more lessons learned. 

This edition of Twitter Tuesdays will feature an interview with an online marketing maven I've known since 2002, David Berkowitz (Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy at 360i).  He's been online since the beginning and been through the various phases of web progressions (from Geocities 2 blogging 2 social media).  His insights are valuable, timely and generous.  

TS: Who is using Twitter? 

DB: With most new social technology, the youth came on first and the “old-farts” eventually join – that’s the typical adoption progression.  In this case, though, adult users adopted early on.  For example, mommy bloggers love Twitter and have been vocal on it for a few years.  In short, Twitter is great for people that like to have a megaphone.  

Early growth is also driven by celebs, specifically athletes.  While celebs were quick to embrace web sites, blogging and Facebook, athletes and sports figures have not.  But with Twitter, athletes got on board early.  Shaq is a great example of an early adopter of Twitter.  He’s 100% authentic, he shares and doesn’t sell.  Most of his updates are retweets or replies, making him highly interactive.  He’s interested in talking to anyone that interests him – sharing his network as he gives people exposure to his huge following.  

TS: How does Twitter compare to other social media platforms? 

DB: Twitter is much more powerful than blogs, Facebook or MySpace for a personality to have direct communication with fans.  Simplicity puts Twitter over the top.  Also, the platform provides unfiltered access to people and their lives.  Take Ann Curry for example.  She tweets about stories she’s working on, and also includes personal takes you’d never see on TV.  

TS: Do you think Twitter users are a representative demographic sample of all internet users? 

DB: Not yet, but at some point, absolutely.  In just a few years, the users will be more mainstream, just like blog readers are now.  This brings up an important point: There are tweeters (they post updates) and there are readers on Twitter.   Readers will wind up being a pretty representative sample of internet users in general.  

TS: What are your pet peeves RE Twitter? 

DB: First, utilitarianism.  People tend to expect to get something back for everything they do on this platform.  For example, the protocol that you should follow back everyone that follows you.  This isn’t Facebook.  

Second, Twitter users get rewarded for talking too much.  Tweets don’t have much of a shelf life on the average person’s timeline if they follow a lot of people.  As a result, you have to post multiple times to show up.  One exception to this is Tony Hsieh (Zappos founder).  He doesn’t tweet that often, but when he does it is meaningful. 

TS: What tools do you suggest for getting the most out of Twitter? 

DB: Personally, I love the web version of Twitter, even more than Tweetdeck, etc.  I’ve installed the Grease Monkey plugin for Firefox, then Troy’s Twitter Script.  You have to install Grease Monkey first.  This ins’t hard, I’m not a techie and I did it.  Once you do this, you’ll see added functionality from your web based Twitter page.  For example, you’ll be able to create groups (friends, business, etc.) that show up as links on the right side of the page.  This way, you have clean streams without all the clutter that are relevant to you.  There are other cool features too. 

TS: Finally, what advice would you give someone going on Twitter? 

DB: First, set up some alerts to listen for discussions about you or your company/product/service.  You can use Twilert for this, as it provides email updates (my preference). 

Next, tweet for a bit to develop your voice.  It takes several tweets for you to find your comfort zone.  Do this before you go on a following spree (presumably to grow your following by reciprocation.0 

Finally, have some real personality.  Don’t be a robot or a link generator.  Be yourself, Shaq does it.  It is a generous thing to do and people respond to personality on Twitter.  

Follow David Berkowitz on Twitter.  Follow me (Tim Sanders) on Twitter. 

Read previous Twitter Tuesdays (Volumes 1-4)

Twitter Tuesday thoughts (Volume 4)

Another whirlwind week of drinking out of the Twitter firehose. 

I'm continuing on with my focus on building an organic following on Twitter. Using the platform correctly takes time, as much or more so than blogging.  The best time to Tweet (unless you use Tweetlater and never RT in real-time) is during the day.  This means that it is not all fun-and-games like Facebook.  It should be results focused.  Which leads back to the point: Do you have followers or do you have network strength? 

Let me be really clear: Twitter is not to be gamed by cheesy/scammy apps that get you thousands of useless followers in a few days.  This practice will not lead to value creation, unless you are a spammer.  And then, to reference Freakonomics, you are likely working for minimum wage.  I refuse to use Twitter Train or any of these tools to get followers.

One of the best ways to get true-followers (they care about what you have to say) is to show up often in the timeline either via posts or RTs.  Last week, I chatted with a few dozen Twitter users that comprise a representative sample of the network.  Most of them consume Twitter content via their timeline.  In some cases, they click to a profile (follow) and scroll through recent tweets.  But mostly, I'd say 90% or so of the time, the timeline is whats-for-Twitter.  A few highly advanced users syndicate Tweets and follow the best-of-the-best via a reader.  But that's really rare.  So here's my first general observation: 

1. Tweet often if you want to show up.  

With the exception of @zappos, most of the non-celeb mega Twerps post often.  At least 20 times a day and sometimes in flurries.  They tweet in all categories: FoundURLs, life, blog/product URLs, replies and questions.  They often tweet during prime time Twitter hours (think lunch time, all three coasts for the three hour sweet spot).  In some cases, they repeat their tweets via Post Later.  

Because they are frequently tweeting, they are consistently in the timeline. If your follower is following a lot of people, the timeline moves pretty quickly.  After a few minutes, your tweet is buried.  If they are using Tweetdeck, it completely disappears within the hour if your follower is following more than five hundred (frequent) tweeters.  

These days, I suppose I tweet about twenty times, mostly during the day. I look @ my unfollows via Twitapps to measure my followers' sensitivity to over posting. My newsletter, for example, goes out every four to six weeks to avoid too much unsubs.  Send out a newsletter every week, and I get more unsubs than I can stomach.  Twitter is different: So far, it looks like my frequency is OK, as the lost follower count is pretty low.  One note: It is MUCH easier to unfollow on Twitter than to unfriend on Facebook.  

My next observation has to do with harvesting followers by strategically following others.  I call this, "panning networks for gold."  There's no easy app to do this quickly, because you want to be an organic follower too -- you should only follow people you are interested in knowing either by following or developing a relationship.  I've done this for months on Facebook: Find a friend that likely knows other friends I'm out of touch with, look through their friend list, find gold.  Works like a charm! This leads me to observation #2: 

2. Target discussions to find new Twerps to follow.  

Meeting Professionals International is having its annual World Education Congress in Salt Lake City this week.  As a professional speaker, this is a very important group of customers, partners and colleagues that I'd like to follow and be followed by.  Even though I'm not at the event, I've picked up over one hundred follow/followers by having a presence on the event's channels.  

Towards the beginning of the event, I used Twitter search to find the most popular hashtag, which was #WEC09.  It already had dozens of postings, even though the general session hadn't started yet.  First, before I started panning, I joined the conversation.  I posted some ideas, links and gave some RTs. Then I started clicking on Twerps there, looking at their profile, and following when it made sense. Later, when I found another channel at #MPI, I jumped in their too and found a few incremental follows.

I bought a webcast ticket, so I could watch and comment on the opening general session.  Later in the day, I posted suggestions on how to network and make the best use of the reception.  Along the way, I noticed something: The more you are RT'd with the event hashtag in the post, the exponentially bigger your presence on that channel.  Why?  The event's channel is being introduced widely to non-attendees via the retweets. 

For example, yesterday I posted, "The only reason to have a meeting is the change the world." with the #WEC09 hashtag in it.  A few meeting attendees RT'd it within the next few hours.  Then some of my long-time non-meeting professional followers started to tweet it, and my presence on the channel grew fast. I started to get people organically follow me because of my posts -- and many of them were potential customers or sales channel partners!  Takeaway: If your industry is having any type of event, assume its being tweeted about.  Find the hashtag, jump in, add value and pan for gold! 

Check out how much presence I have on the #WEC09 Channel. 

Finally, here are some of the tools I've started to use this week: 

1. Tweetake - This is a great tool for backing up your followers.  What if your account was accidently deleted or closed?  All your panning for gold would be lost!  Same goes for all your fantastic tweets, there might be a book in there!  Tweetake will gather up your followers, posts, friends, etc. and download it to your computer in CSV format -- perfect for an Excel spreadsheet.  

2. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.  That's right, I'm talking about a book (not free).  If you want to be success on Twitter, as a blogger, author or any type of writer, this book is money.  The first half of the book gives you simple rules of thumb for effective writing.  The last half covers frequently misused words or phrases.  Trust me, the more effective you write, the more successful you are as a text content producer. 

After all, in this new new new economy, we are all content producers!  

If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter.

Twitter Tuesday thoughts (Volume 3)

Another seven days have gone by, giving me no shortage of Twitter-tips to share.  I'm attracted to this space like I was attracted to streaming media in '97 and rich media ads in '01.  I'm piling on the reading, research and use of the platform to fully comprehend the potential of microblogging.  

Thoughts: 

1.  Build and maintain an organic following based on the quality of your tweets.  Don't play Twitter like a video game or you will ruin it for everyone -- like Geocities or MySpace.  People that use scammy programs to build a following are just playing around or building a spam platform.  (Read social media master Chris Brogan offering a better way, viral RTs.) Twitter Train, etc. are all silly ways to play the "follow-me-back" protocol to build an artificial following. 

If your followings isn't organic, it isn't available to you for attention, advice or assistance (the three AAAs of social media).  Sure, you might get a few people's attention over time, just like an email spammer actually gets clicks.  But you won't build a network of value.  Resist any easy solutions for building a following and put your time into useful updates, RTs and conversations that make a difference and create a social stream worth fishing out of. 

2.  Following back:  As with many internet protocols, I was initially resistant to follow everyone back if they followed me.  My key concern was the quality of my social stream.  Following everyone back pollutes it with twerps that might fill the conversation with negative or irrelevant content.  However, if you use Twitter to build a fungible/useful network of friends, every follower can be an audience or assistant.  Even if they aren't relevant in their updates.  You never want to lose a good follower.

Many Twitter coaches tell their clients to use various products to see who is and who isn't following back (I dislike these products so much, I won't list them here).  They tell their students, "If someone isn't following back, unfollow them because they don't want to have a conversation with you."  Uggh. How high school!  How silly, how twitter-as-facebooky.  However, many of the top twitterati have also made this statement, so if you don't follow back, you'll lose followers -- maybe very good ones that can help you over time via RT's, clicks and word-of-mouse promotion.  

So, I follow everyone back except the spammers (Sex sites, MLM, fake IDs to drive traffic,etc.).  It is very easy to figure which ones are which.  The tell tale sign is that they follow thousands and are followed by dozens. I don't follow them because I don't want them to possess false credibility. 

Now, I'm following almost as many people as are following me.  The result?  Much lower return on attention for my twitter stream.  It's really full of junk now, and that's not slagging anyone I'm following -- this is a medium that people will evolve into and the rules aren't clear what one should tweet about.  But, still, my tweet stream is not as useful as it was when I only followed back people I knew, wanted to read, etc.  

Unfortunately, Twitter hasn't engineered for this with a favorite twerps category.  Currently, favorites bookmarks specific tweets and not people.  So, that's not a solution.  Here's mine: I created a new account to follow my friends, families, colleagues and top tweeters I'm interested in.  It is a much smaller list, and much much more useful as an information resource.  Nothing gets buried here.  

There's a little work involved in building it.  First, you go through the list of who you follow (start at the end, where you began).  Ten or so pages at a time, identify people for your faves list and add them to your new account. I use Hootsuite for this, as it allows me to easily manage multiple accounts. I'm only 20% done in building my list, so apologies to anyone I haven't yet included.  If I start following you @sandersfaves, no need to follow me back as I won't tweet or retweet from that account.  It is read only. 

It's still easy to RT my faves.  I RT them from @sandersfaves, which shows up in my Tweetdeck logged into @sanderssays.  I snip @sanderfaves and RT and I'm done! 

Finally, I still look through my @sandersays stream at least a few times a day, to see if there are some useful twerps to add to my @sanderfaves stream.  I graze on the general stream and feast on the faves stream. NOTE: You can use Tweetlater to filter your friends privately, and I'll report later on how well it works.

4. Automated DMs.  Two words: hate them.  I do not have any automated DMs to welcome followers, spam them or show them a video thanking them for their follow.  Too much noise!  I just cleaned out over 300 useless DMs yesterday, to get to real ones that I needed to answer.  Much like email, the less the better with DMs.  Earn clicks to your websites by adding value with good tweets!  Don't market to people before you've served them.  

5. Tools I've started using in the last week. 

- Twitterfeed

- Tweetlater (when I'm traveling for speaking gigs)

- Twitter Grader (check out the Twitter elite list, follow many of them) 

6. Tweeting into Facebook.  Via Tweetdeck, I only copy Facebook about 20% of the time.  Mostly with personal or advisory content.  As a result, my friends need to also follow me on Facebook.  If every one of my tweets went to Facebook, why should/would they follow?  Also, RT's, replies, etc. are often not Facebook-centric and are offputting to friends who don't use Twitter.  Remember, relevance is about talking the local lingo, not jargon.  (Ironically, I posted this blog link on Facebook.)

What if Chris Anderson's new book were accidentally Free?

Yesterday, Seth Godin took on Malcolm Gladwell over his review of Chris Anderson's new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price.  He said, "Malcolm is wrong."  He went on to support Anderson's view that information will eventually be free, and that's a good thing. Wow, an intellectual battle brews!

The Twitter-sphere lit up, because it was a battle of the giants (mr blog versus mr mega-best seller).  I tweeted that I would read both party's posts on Anderson's book, then step in.  And I intend to, eventually. 

Along the way, I was tripped up by something Anderson says in Free: 

“In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.” (snipped from Gladwell's review).  

This is wrong at several levels. 

Today I had lunch with the head of business affairs at a major record label.  He told me about the new deal structure for recording artists and something called "360 deals." A 360 deal is when the record company controls and participates in records, touring and merchandise.  This means that artists are only getting a slice of touring and merch.  So, the idea that you give away the record and make it up on touring and T-shirts starts to crack, as the artist will not make enough to have a quality standard of living. 

Furthermore, even if the artist were to get 100% of the touring/merch revenue, it isn't scalable or passive like record sales or paid downloads.  For touring, there are only so many days you can play, and decreasing margins due to rising insurance costs, fuel, etc.  For merch, the artist usually has to front production costs, hold inventory and except for the biggest ones, usually treat it like promotion.  Now we are back to square one, again. 

Finally, an artist can offer their music via MySpace (streaming, non downloadable) or through variations (live, remixes, etc.), generate interest and PR and STILL get paid via iTunes or Amazon.  So making the product free isn't the only way to promote your music.  

Anderson never takes any of these points into account, and the first one (360 deals) is clearly a research oversight on his part.  360 deals are common place and will eventually expand into affiliate or social media generated income for bands, etc. 

Here's my final thought: It is up to the recording artist to make their music free, not some kid that decides to steal it and pass it around to his friends (offsetting sales via paid download).  Radiohead decided to give away their CD a few years ago, and it led to great results.  But it was their decision, not the public's.  Seth Godin gave away The Idea Virus, and it was a moderate income/platform generator at the time.  But it was his decision.

How would Anderson feel if someone obtained a digital (PDF) copy of The Long Tail and gave it away via Twitter, etc.?  Pretty pissed off, I'd guess.  I guarantee his publisher would unleash a legal team on the offenders and exert great energy getting the links taken down.  

Why?  A PDF of a book reads wonderfully on the Kindle's, especially the newest model.  And transferring them from your computer to your Kindle DX is just the right price -- free.  

It would not be hard for anyone to get their hands on an unedited PDF of Anderson's new book, give it away and then tell him he should be happy because he can still make money with paid speaking gigs and DVD sales.  I don't think he'd be very happy with it, because he wouldn't earn back his advance for his publisher - and his future advances would shrink accordingly.  

(Why is a book's PDF easy to come by? Literary agents and publishers now send PDF versions of books to foreign publisher's for potential licensing deals. Many of these publishers have less than perfect track records of business ethics. Also, others see these PDFs including: publisher staff, publicists, book marketing consultants, independent copy editors, etc.)

I believe that ideas and unpackaged (amateur) content should be free.  Well produced ($$$$), easy to buy content should be paid for if that's the business model of the content producer.  Free may be the price for non-essential web services and blog posts by aspiring content producers, but the argument should not extend over all digitizable information.  

I'm not saying that Godin or Gladwell are right or wrong. Anderson is wrong in one regard, but I still plan to read the entire book and comment on his bigger idea. Meanwhile, MP3 pirates of the world, you are still thieves.