I unfollowed:

• People who only tweet about themselves (when their lives aren’t particularly interesting);
• People who tweet inane crap (sorry, this is very general, but I’m looking for value-add from Twitter, otherwise I’m wasting my time on there, so if all your tweets are about how it is snowing in London, but I live in Newcastle, then that goes into the ‘inane crap’ bin for me);
• People who bulk-tweet and then disappear for a while (I cannot stand this – it’s like invading a stage at a conference, shouting something, and then making a speedy exit without waiting around for the reaction);
• People who were interesting to me when I first started using Twitter, but have been ‘overtaken’ in the interesting/usefulness stakes by other people (this doesn’t mean you’re using Twitter ‘wrong’, it just means I have finessed and revised what I am using Twitter for and what I can get out of it – this has shifted as more and more people have joined the conversation in recent years);
• People who don’t post any relevant information for me (absolutely critical for me – it is all about value-add);
• PR people who spend all their time tweeting about their clients (ugh, that’s all I have to say about that one);
• People who just tweet press releases (ugh again, enough said);
• People who retweet positive things that others have said about them (okay, this won’t necessarily make me unfollow you, but if you’re great, then I’ll know you’re great and I won’t need to see this little piece of self-indulgence – there are many other things to do with positive tweets about you that retweeting them to everyone else).

This isn’t remotely scientific, but I often advise people to think about how they use social media themselves (and their own mental filtering processes) when they think about how they use social media to engage other people. Or, if you’re not a heavy social media user, think about the mental filtering processes that you apply when deciding which emails to open first in your bulging inbox. We all apply these filtering processes to just about everything we do (it’s decision making and prioritisation), but I often find that when we’re trying to get messages out to other people, we forget that they too have their own mental filtering criteria (whether they’re aware of it or not).

So, with this in mind, how can you ensure that people (forget about me, I’m not important) don’t unfollow you or your organisation on Twitter or other such sites? Here are a few thoughts:

• Apply my mantra: useful, interesting, relevant. Make sure that what you are sharing is at least one of these things to them (this might not be the same thing as what is useful, interesting and relevant to you);
• Add value: provide content that adds value to their lives. This might be providing them with something that could save them time, offer them a new perspective on something, add another string to their professional bow, etc. If they are followers who really matter to you, then look out for opportunities to help them with something through signposting or forming useful connections for them;
• Be personable but not self-centered or self-obsessed. It’s possible to inject your personality without talking about yourself all the time;
• Be humble. Be confident in your own worth and awesomeness. We don’t need to see that someone said something great about you. Just be great, and we’ll think the same thing anyway (show us, don’t tell us);
• Don’t tweet too much (you’ll overpower us and make us weary);
• Don’t tweet too little (we’ll forget about you).

Okay, I should expand on that a little I guess. Here’s the thing… for months now I’ve been noticing a growing trend of some university and college ‘corporate’ Twitter accounts (ugh!) retweeting positive comments that people say about them. This can be anything from someone enjoying an open day to a student excited to have been offered a place at your organisation, to someone celebrating their graduation. In the past ten days I’ve been asked by at least three universities whether this is something that they should be doing, so I thought it merited a blog response.

First, the positive. The fact that they are doing this demonstrates that universities are now spending more time monitoring and listening to what people say about them online. Great! Well done. This is very much a step in the right direction.

Now, the reason why I don’t think we should be retweeting all of those lovely comments: it looks needy and desperate. This is personal opinion and I am sure many people will disagree with me, but the need to shout out and spread every single good thing said about us online to me almost suggests that we don’t hear many good things said about us. People follow people and organisations on Twitter who provide them with some kind of added-value to their lives, not those who simply pat themselves on the back. Your RTs of someone saying something nice adds no value to the user experience.

I am not for a second, however, suggesting that you shouldn’t do something with all of those lovely tweets. Too bloody right you should. They’re great! We revel in them and we want to see more. So, here are a few thoughts for what you might do with them instead of simply retweeting them.

1. Say thank you
Simply thank the person for saying something lovely about you. Other people will see you thanking someone for their kind comment and will therefore know that people are saying good things. But you won’t be shoving it down their necks in a desperate ‘look! look! someone said something nice’ way.

2. Have a conversation
Beyond just thanking them, have a conversation with them. Find something out about them, engage with them, find out what prompted them to say such a lovely thing… what did they like most about their visit to your campus, etc? Use this as an opportunity to develop a deeper connection with that person and to gather crucial feedback. You might even prompt them to say even more lovely things in the process.

3. Favorite it
Many people use the ‘favorites’ functionality on Twitter as a bookmarking tool. Turn it instead into a recommendations/endorsements tool. It’s more subtle than retweeting those comments, but it gives you a place that you can direct other people to (link from your website) to share the great things that people are saying about you. I do this for myself and my work, but this could easily be done by organisations too.

4. Build lists
Create a list (can be private if you wish) of all of those lovely people who say nice things about you. This can be your ‘ambassadors’ list and will provide you with a way of keeping in touch, and maintaining engagement, with those people. They’re your fans, and they’ll continue to be if you keep them involved and engaged. You never know when you might need to call on them for something further down the line. Alternatively, the comment that they make might reveal who they are in relation to your organisation, so you might add them to a list of ‘prospective students’, ‘alumni’, ‘current students’, for example. These lists could become very valuable to you as part of understanding your target audiences, what makes them tick and how they use social media platforms like Twitter to help you finesse your engagement plans and activities for them, as well as just keeping in touch with those individuals.

There should be a number five here I think. It will feel tidier. But, I’ll leave that open to you. What else do you think you can be doing with positive tweets that people make about you or your organisation?

One of the things I mentioned in the workshop was slideshare. In my usual style I have uploaded the slides to slideshare, and embedded them here for you to view at your leisure.

Please note that the images used in these slides are not for reproduction, but many are available for you to purchase and download inexpensively on istockphoto, another resource that I mentioned to the delegates.

Yesterday one of my house rabbits very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. He was only five years old and full of life until less than a day before he died. To many people who read this blog, and particularly those who know me personally, you’ll understand how heartbreaking this is for me. My house rabbits are my family. They live and run freely in my house. They keep me company in the office when I am working (the photo below is of Herbie helping me to decorate the Pickle Jar office back in 2007 when I set up the business). I feed them, care for them and play with them every day. I love them like children.

Herbie was a rescue rabbit. He had been dumped in a cardboard box at a rabbit rescue centre with no note to even tell what his name was. He was a lively chap, clearly still a baby, and we’re convinced that when we called in to visit the rescue centre four and a half years ago that he chose us. I think he knew he was on to a good thing – space to run around, fresh vegetables to eat every day, lots of hay, an abundance of toys, and two big sisters to keep him company.

On Wednesday evening we noticed he wasn’t his usual self. He didn’t come bounding over to the treat bowl, and just sat hunched up looking sad. So, on Thursday morning I booked him in to see the vet. I took him in that afternoon and she couldn’t see anything obviously wrong with him. The only problem was that his back teeth were looking a little long and could have been causing him discomfort. So, I left him there for the afternoon so they could put him under a general anaesthetic and file down his teeth. The vet called at 3.30 to say he was absolutely fine, had woken up, and that we could pick him up at 6.30. We arrived on time and sat waiting to be called through looking forward to seeing our boy and hoping that he’d just be looking forward to having his treats that night.

The vet called us in. No Herbie. She had some bad news. As they were getting him ready for us to bring him home he collapsed. I didn’t realise at first that she was saying he had died, but the news soon dawned on me. His teeth weren’t the problem afterall, but we think some form of organ failure. He died very suddenly. We spent 20 minutes saying our farewells to the little fella, and headed home with an empty carry case in floods of tears. I haven’t really stopped crying since.

The point of writing this post though is two-fold. Firstly, being able to publicly express my grief in this way is helpful to me. It gives me a place to record my thoughts and pour out my heart as I sit in an otherwise silent office. Secondly, though, is to make a point about social media. Despite our constant tears, both Nathan and I almost immediately tweeted about what had happened. We felt moved to update our facebook status, and we were able to chat to some understanding friends via instant messenger. Talking on the phone has been too hard, but at least typing is manageable. Losing a pet is not like losing a family member. There isn’t really a system of people phoning each other people to share the news. That just isn’t how it’s done. But social media has given us a platform from which to share our grief and to receive back an enormous ‘virtual’ hug (we’ve had some real ones too of course, including with Scotch and Macy – our other two rabbits).

Social media comes under so much criticism for revealing so much about our lives in a public forum, and for voyeurism. Yet lately I have seen several friends share sad news through social media platforms and receive an overwhelming response. There are times when that sense of community, albeit a virtual community in some cases, is really needed. Right now, I’m no good for going outside and seeing lots of people, but through the power of social media, text messaging and instant messaging, lots of people have been able to come to me and offer their support. Nathan even had a tweet from the Times Higher Education – from someone he’s never even met – offering their sympathies.

This is one of those times when, through all the concerns and negative press, social media has really come into its own.

Around mid-March, so really very recently, a 4IP funding iPhone app was launched – AudioBoo, developed by BestBefore media. Described by some as ‘audio twitter’, AudioBoo enables you through a simple iPhone app to record a short burst of audio, attach a photo, tag it, and pretty much instantly have it online with the photo, audio file, and the location of the recording marked on a google map (thanks to the power of GPS). You can set it up so that every new ‘Boo’ you post is tweeted about through your twitter account, and you can also embed the file into another web page using the emded code provided. Very very simple and easy.

I came across it for the first time at an event I was involved with for Becta, who were supporting a DIUS event hosted by Channel 4. The guys from BestBefore did a live demonstration of the technology, which worked seamlessly. So, in true flattery, I decided to copy their exercise at a social media training session I was running last week. Worked perfectly, and certainly got the creative juices of my ‘trainees’ flowing, particularly thinking about potential for gathering customer feedback and quick testimonials. From a personal point of view, I know it’s also going to be great for gathering quick soundbites at events (from delegates and speakers) and I might also use it to help gather some anecdotes for some research I’m conducting for the CIPR Education and Skills sector group at the moment too.

The guys at 4IP have been blogging about some of the uses they’ve seen for it. And that’s one of the things that so staggering about this. BestBefore and 4IP could see the potential for this technology, but they really had no idea how people would use it. I can’t see it replacing Twitter because, let’s face it, who wants to have to trawl through audio clips of each of the individuals they follow (I find it hard enough just keep up with written tweets), but the real gem of this story is how the technology has bee pushed out, and the community out there have decided how to use it rather than being told what it’s for. This is a great example of how social media is actually all about the content, and not about the technology. The technology just makes it happen, but it’s the content that really drives it and encourages interest.

For a little taste, here’s me just mucking around with it:

And here’s the link to the actual AudioBoo page so you can see the photo and map too.

BIRMINGHAM TO JOIN 100 CITIES ACROSS THE WORLD IN FUNDRAISING ‘TWESTIVAL‘

On February 12th 2009 Birmingham is joining with over 175 cities around the world to host the Midland’s biggest ‘Twestival’, a volunteer-run fundraising event for people who use the micro-blogging service Twitter. BrumTwestival will be held at Poppyred in the Arcadian Centre from 7.30pm, and will see Birmingham join over 175 confirmed cities world-wide in a night of fundraising. The global event, described as “a ‘tweet up’ with a social conscience” will be raising money to support charity:water a not-for-profit bringing clean water to people in developing nations.

With members including Barak Obama, Stephen Fry and Jonathon Ross, Twitter is quickly growing to become a world-wide online phenomenon. The network allows users to update other members who are ‘following’ them online with details of what they are doing in 140 characters or less. As Twitter’s user network has grown, the community has also been the first to publish breaking news online, with members ‘twittering’ updates on unfolding events before journalists have reported on them.

Birmingham’s Twestival will give twitterers across the West Midlands the opportunity to come together in the spirit of fun, change, charity and global communication. Over 100 guests have confirmed their attendance at the event, and more tickets are to be released shortly to meet demand. Birmingham has a very active social media community and this has grown through Twitter to include users from a variety of backgrounds including politicians, University staff, artists and bloggers.

Birmingham Twestival has been organised by volunteer Twitter members who work for a wide range of local businesses. John Newbold, creative director of 383 Project and one of the Twestival organisers commented: “Twitter has grown across the West Midlands to become a really exciting community. It has enabled me to connect with a network of other users from with a variety of backgrounds and occupations within the city and get to know people I may not have met otherwise. Twestival is not only a great opportunity to bring the online community together offline, but unites Birmingham with other participating cities across the world in a common aim. Twitter will allow us to join other cities throughout the day with live updates and coverage of the events.

“As social and business networks grow, online communities are becoming increasingly popular ways to stay in touch and up-to-date. It is rare for people who engage online to have the opportunity to meet face-to-face, and I’m delighted that Twestival will make this possible for so many local users.”

Birmingham Twestival is sponsored by Pickle Jar Communications, the Coventry-based communications consultancy specialising in new and broadcast media, and Bostin, original t-shirt producers and promoters of pride in Birmingham, the Black Country and beyond. Tracy Playle, Director of Pickle Jar Communications commented: “I’ve been using Twitter for personal and business use now for several months. The power to build communities through social media, such as Twitter, is significant and important for small and large businesses alike. We spend a lot of time advising others on how to use tools like Twitter to build communities of interest, and possible business opportunities, so it only seems fitting that we would want to support the biggest Twestival in the Midlands.”

Managing director of Bostin, Donato Esposito added: “Twestival is a fantastic development to Twitter, and I welcomed the opportunity to support such an important charity.”

As well as raising money through ticket sales and donations, a range of raffle prizes donated by local businesses and Twitter members will be auctioned at the event. All guests will also be automatically entered into a main prize draw to win a Nintendo Wii.

The event will begin at 7.30pm. A limited number of remaining tickets are available at www.birmingham.twestival.com

Don’t simply link to your Facebook bio if there’s anything on your profile that you wouldn’t show in front of the class. Rule of thumb: If a link leads in any way to photos of you throwing up after consuming too much alcohol, omit it!

This got me pondering, are those of us that signed up to Facebook in our post-university days in an advantageous position? Okay, so the photos of us throwing up after drinking too much probably still exist, and perhaps they even exist in a digital format (though I’m old enough that most of my uni photos are from good old fashioned film so exist only in hard copy). I would like, at this point, to point out that I am not what you might call a dinosaur. I am 28 years old, so was only a few years out of University before signing up to Facebook, but I just can’t help thinking that the photographs of student antics that we enjoyed at university, but might haunt us in our professional lives, are far less likely to find their way onto Facebook. Finally an advantage to hurtling my way to 30!

This argument isn’t fully thought through, just my musings, but I wonder, if there is any truth in this, if it could spell an interesting phase for Facebook. I’m perfectly happy for potential clients, employers, and anyone else in my professional life to check me out on Facebook. There are plenty of silly photos of me, but that just shows me being me. There’s nothing to worry about. However, for younger folks not yet into their professional lives, I wonder if there might suddenly be a move to close their Facebook accounts down as they start searching for jobs, for fear of what potential employers might see. Dare I say it, could Facebook become the realm of the ‘older’ generation (I lose that term very loosely indeed!)? It probably will anyway in as much as the ‘kids’ will have something diffent to amuse themselves, and Facebook will be ‘old hat’, but for those already on it, could younger antics spell the end of individuals Facebook accounts as they strive to protect their employment prospects.

There’s something about immersing yourself in a culture with such vigor that means you inevitably end up thinking in terms of that culture too. And so, as I was driving along this morning and thinking about the day ahead, I realised that I was thinking in ‘tweets’ – that is to say, every one of my thoughts had to be 140 characters or less, or I would be thinking about how I would communicate this or that on Twitter. At regular Friday afternoon pub sessions with friends we’ve also giggled to ourselves about how you stop thinking about people with their real names and start thinking about them and referring to them as their Twitter alias instead. Even my fiance is at times no longer Nathan, but instead @NZMorris. I think there should be a medical name for this condition – twitteritis?

I thrive on the fact that new and social media generates opportunities to communicate direct to key stakeholders without having to hope that a journalist will pick up your story and run with it. However, I often get asked how PR folks can use new media to enhance their traditional media relations aproaches, particularly how new media can help them engage more effectively with journalists. This morning an interesting insight popped up on my Twitter feed.

I follow (follow – not stalk!) a few journalists on Twitter. A particularly prolific ‘tweeter’ is Joanna Geary from the Birmingham Post. This morning she tweeted about the order in which she checks on everything when she gets into work every day. I thought it provided a particularly interesting insight into a technically-savvy journalist’s communication preferences. Here’s the order in which she says she checks things, check-out the high prority she gives to online communities:

1. Personal email
2. RSS Reader
3. Twitter
4. Facebook
5. LinkedIn
6. Work Email

I suspect that many journalists aren’t as ‘into’ new media as Joanna is, but this is an interesting insight nevertheless. Many thanks for sharing this with us Joanna!

The background, in a nutshell, is that between us we’ve all experienced some examples of pretty poor customer service from this restaurant lately, despite the food being great and it being one of only a few places in Coventry city centre that we like going to and that suits all of our tastes. So, my friend Ben wrote this blog post a few days ago as a bit of a whinge about their customer service.

The blog post did the rounds thanks to the power of google and twitter and ultimately resulted in Ben receiving a call from the manager of the restaurant yesterday assuring him of their committment to customer service. So, true to form, the gang have headed over there tonight while I sit here working away.

As I’m working, one of said-gang and an avid Twitterati has posted a message linking through to a video recorded on his phone as they arrived at the restaurant this evening. In less than an hour the video had already been viewed 22 times. In case you can’t quite follow, the gist of this is that the operations manager said that we could request to sit upstairs anytime we wanted, but when they’ve tested this out tonight, they’ve yet again been denied using the space upstairs (a space which they rarely seem to use even when the restaurant is full, hence the earlier complaints about customer service). [At this point in the original blog post I included the video, embedded from elsewhere, but as I have since received a comment pointing out that the video should never have been put online in the first place, and they are quite right, I have since removed this]

And I’ve also just received another Tweet from my fiance this time telling me that they’ve been refused another drink (just to be clear – they won’t be drunk or anything at this time – they’re just a bunch a nice young professionals with money to spend wanting to have a quiet drink).

What a great example of the power of mobile, video, and social networking, hey? They haven’t even left the restaurant and already probably upwards of 30 or 40 people (by time I have also tweeted about this blog post) will be aware of this.

Twitter update: 10 mins after posting this blog
Jake (our talented videographer) says that customer service from the girl that served them tonight has been good – I just thought I ought to add this update to keep it fair to the staff that do deliver good service!