Landing Tweets – Group Writing Project Announcement

This is a bit of an experiment which I hope you’ll be just as excited about as I am.  If you look up at the top of my site you’ll see a tab called @amypalko.  Now some of you may be familiar with it already, because that’s where you arrived upon clicking through from my Twitter homepage, as this is my Twitter Landing Page.

Landing pages are a great idea to implement on your blog.  As I’ve mentioned once before, it’s important to direct traffic towards your online home(s), and one easy and effective way to do this is by creating a landing page.  So, over the next month I would like to challenge you to produce your own landing page.  It doesn’t, in fact, need to be specifically aimed at Twitter; you could create a landing page which all of your social media homepages point to.  What it does need to do, however, is to give your visitors an idea of who you are, what you’re about, why they should follow you and where else they can connect with you.

Over the month of May, I would like to see an explosion of landing pages!

If you’re looking for advice, or have a question about landing pages, get in touch either by leaving a comment or send me an @ or dm  on Twitter, and next Monday I’ll be sharing a brief guide to writing a landing page in which I’ll do my best to answer any of your queries.  Over the coming month, I’ll be showcasing some of my favourites, so if you’re in need of some inspiration before you have a go at writing your own, hopefully you’ll find it here.  Once you have your landing page (or if you already have one), leave a comment here, I’ll come & check it out, and then I’ll share it with my Twitter followers & the readers of this blog.

At the end of May, I’ll compile a post with links to the landing pages of all who have participated.

So what do you say? Are you in?

The Outward Gaze

Daily reminder: reply/retweet others for 5 mins. Nothing about u. Interact, engage, build.

@unmarketing (Scott Stratten)

Whenever this daily reminder from Scott (@unmarketing) appears in my twitterstream it makes me smile.  Scott’s new tagline is ‘Stop Marketing, Start Engaging’ and businesses and individuals would do well to take both this daily reminder and Scott’s tagline directive to heart.  While I completely accept that Twitter is open to be used by anyone in any way that they so choose, the simple fact is that the majority of twitter users would benefit from directing their gaze outwards rather than in.

When I’m informed of a new follower one of the first things that I do is to check their twitterstream.  Primarily, I’m checking out their content to see if I’m interested in what they have to say, but what I’m also very conscious of, and will often dictate whether I follow back, is their level of engagement with their community.  I’m scanning for altruism.

So how do you tweet in such a way that you engage with your followers?

• Retweet often - If you discover a tweet that you think your followers will find interesting/relevant/funny/informative, don’t keep it to yourself. Pass it on!  Most twitter desktop clients provide a retweet function, but if you’re tweeting from the web, simply write RT @username before copying & pasting the tweet you want to share into the update.  A retweet should look like this: RT @btocher: Edinburgh Tweetup! Edinburgh Tweetup! Please RSVP here: http://twtvite.com/jqus8r However, you can also write out a retweet like this: How Friends are Born: Stranger > follow > @ > DM > FB > phone > meet > Friend (via @lisahickey).
• Connect using @ – Twitter is, of course, a platform from which you can promote your blog, your business, your brand; however, if you ensure you take the time to send replies you’ll find that a lot more people are willing to listen.  Twitter isn’t a soapbox; it’s a space that facilitates communication, and as with all successful communication there has to be give & take. No one likes to talk to the person who is so focused on themselves that they refuse to engage with the other participants in the conversation.  In fact, it’s a surefire way to alienate yourself and block your message.
• Answer questions – A frequent tweet that you’ll see often in the twittersphere is the  open question.  Twitter is a fantastic resources for information and others have claimed that the way in which it harnesses the knowledge of the crowd has the potential to compete with Google as a dynamic search engine.  Now I’m not looking for a discussion on the wisdom of the crowds – that’s a post in itself! However, there is value in responding to questions looking for feedback, information, news or opinion as it strengthens original connections and promotes new ones.
• Attract attention for others – One of the most popular memes on Twitter currently is #followfriday.  You can find out all about it here, but all you really need to know is that it’s a way of promoting some of your favourite tweeple.  Now, there are as many ways to phrase your #followfriday tweet as there are ways to use Twitter itself, but the #followfriday tweets that I find the most effective are the kind where only one person is promoted, and it is accompanied with a few words explaining why others should follow that individual.  For me, this appeals more than the #followfriday tweet that includes a whole raft of Twitter usernames.  In fact, I prefer these kind of meme tweets so much that I’m going to be making a conscious attempt to only participate in #followfriday with those personalised tweets.  I’ll report back to let you know how it goes!
  
• Become a connecter – If you’re anything like me, then you probably spend far too many hours surfing the net.  Turn this to the advantage of your Twitter community by sending links to content that you think will be of direct interest to your followers.  For example, if you are following someone who works in education and is interested in social media, send them a link to that post you just read about Twitter & Facebook in the classroom.  Another way of performing this role is by connecting twitter users  to each other.  Know two poets that have yet to find each other on Twitter? Introduce them!  By becoming a connecter you show others the value in connecting with you!

I’m sure these are just a few of the ways that we can turn our gaze outwards towards our online communities, and I would love to hear your thoughts on whether you think this is important/relevant to your use of Twitter & if it is, what tips can you offer to help others to engage and connect.

Blog Update – This is the first post of my new writing schedule – from now on I’ll be posting every Monday and Thursday.  I’m really looking forward to sharing more of my ideas about social media, but if there’s anything in particular that you would like me to cover, please do get in touch, either here or on Twitter: @amypalko

Feel For the Game

I tried it, but I just don’t get it.

I got an account last year, but I’ve never used it – seemed like a waste of time.

Why would anyone be interested in whether I chose a tall decaf caramel macchiato or a skinny hazelnut latte?  I don’t see the point in telling the world what I’m doing every minute of the day.

These responses may seem familiar to you.  You may have uttered a variation yourself, or it may be the response you often get while trying to explain social media to friends, family and colleagues.  The reason for these type of responses can indicate a) resistance, b) confusion, c) frustration d) fear.  However, the source of all these emotions is a lack of understanding.  They reveal that those who exhibit them are yet to develop a feel for the game.

One way of exploring this contrast between those who ‘get’ social media and those who don’t is by turning to the theories of French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu.  He posited that society consists of a multiplicity of fields with each field operating according to intrinsic logics pertaining to hierarchical strata, and the practice of position-taking in relation to those hierarchies.

One example that we can look at in order to illustrate this is the field of literary production; in this field there are a variety of agents such as publishers, authors, readers, booksellers etc. and they are all invested in the practice of producing literary texts.  Their success is then measured in two ways: economically and symbolically (cultural kudos).  In order to participate within this field, Bourdieu argues that we need to gain, through knowledge and experience, a set of dispositions which affect our practices, perceptions and prejudices.  Our habitus needs to develop in order for us to interact with others in the field – we need to gain that feel for the game.

If we then transpose this example from literary production to social media, it begins to explain why social media is intrinsic to the daily lives of some and a total enigma to others.  Those who understand social media to the degree that they can function quite happily within its structures have developed the habitus necessary to that field.  Those who don’t ‘get’ it, have yet to acquire that knowledge and experience which would facilitate their participation.

So how does one develop habitus to enable participation in the field of social media?

I would like to suggest that one of the best ways is through immersion.  It’s all very well reading blogs about social media, talking to social media ‘experts’ or enrolling in a social media degree, but it’s only when you give yourself the freedom to sit down, start an account, and begin to play with your medium of choice (FaceBook, Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn) that you begin to understand.

After all, it’s all very well learning the rules of the game, but it’s only through playing the game that we develop a feel for it.

- This is the first time I’ve tried to articulate these ideas, and where I’ve tried to simplify it, I can already see gaping holes in it.  However, let’s think of it as a jumping off point.  I’ll be exploring this theory further over the coming months and those explorations may ultimately render previous musings obsolete.  But, I’m looking forward to see how it evolves though!

If you have any questions or theories of your own – please do leave a comment.  I may not be able to answer your questions, but then maybe we can look for answers together.