Twitter has been making a lot of changes to the activity stream of their wildly popular social network. Today I noticed as I was mousing over my replies that it is now possible to “untweet” a RT that you’ve shared with your followers.
It’s been possible to delete your own tweets from Twitter but the ability to “take back” a RT is an interesting twist.
Remember though if you’re pushing your tweets out to other social networks like Facebook, you’ll need to manually remove the tweet there yourself!
Twitter introduce a new feature a few months ago to their notifications that alerted you when someone favorited one of your tweets. Favoriting a tweet is like bookmarking, Facebook liking and Google +1′ing it, sort of. Favoriting has been something private that could only be seen by the account owner like things you bookmark in your browser while the latter two are public and outward facing.
In my video, I explain how my friend Meghan, connected myself and a friend after she realized, through a favorited tweet, we both lived in San Francisco.
The Story
My friend Meghan Wilker (@irishgirl) who lives and works in Minneapolis, retweeted one of my tweets about an upcoming WordPress training. She’d taken the class online and loved it. Then, Meghan saw her friend, Carol, who also lives in San Francisco, favorited her retweet. Meghan then took the time to write an email introduction so we could connect since we both live in SF.
How awesome is that? I realized that initially everyone groaned about the new twitter notifications but after having this happen and talking with social media clients who feel frustrated by the sheer number of tools out there intended to help them “manage” Twitter, I thought this was a perfect example of taking things back to basics on how to draw value from this new Twitter feature.
What did they favorite?
This tells you what people value in your Twitter stream. Since favoriting is is like bookmarking something, it shows that they want to reference your tweet. What did you share? A link? A personal thought about your view of the world? A breaking news story? Something funny or uplifting? Take note and use these favorited tweets to shape your Twitter persona.
Who favorited it?
Is it someone who follows you? Was someone following a keyword or a hashtag and catch your tweet that way? Is it someone you met at a conference? How often do the two of you talk? Use the favorited tweet as a segway to start a longer conversation offline or via email with them. I pay attention after conferences now to who favorites my tweets and see it as a great opportunity to connect about my technology consulting and training services.
When did they favorite your tweet?
In my video, I give the example of tweeting something before lunch yet seeing that someone favorited it just after dinner. This will give you insight into when people are potentially reading your tweets and may be an opportunity to adjust your tweeting schedule. Twitter of course is full of tweets and links but people have a tendency to share business related items during the day and personal items later on. Maybe save that story about your new breakfast shake with almonds until the evening when people will have a better chance of seeing it.
How Google Can Run With This Concept
Google+ tells you who +1′d and shared your content. I’d like to see a running log of it and I can then see this tying into a CRM, lead and deal tracking system in say….Google Apps?
Now you may ask why I’m such an advocate of this ever growing, microblogging social network?
Because I’ve experienced it’s impact first hand for the last three years since signing up March 31st 2008 (Shout out to @womenwhotech).
I will continue to say that Twitter has been the most effective networking tool I’ve ever used in my entire life and Twitter landed me more business than 10 years of in person networking. That’s why I use it, speak about it, am interviewed about it and train companies on how to use social media to be present and available in the lives of their customers.
But why? What is it about Twitter that gives it so much juice?
Twitter is used by a core set of people who focus on giving. This attracts people seeking who seek help, direction and affirmation. From career choices, coffee makers and cars to religion, raising children and raw food, you can find advice for it via Twitter. Twitter is a giant weather vane composed of millions of tiny weather vanes helping you navigate your world.
Five Questions To Add Value To Your Twitter Stream
The most important think I’ve learned about Twitter is that it’s all about connecting on a deeper emotional level with others. When you share something that resonates, people will respond. You can brighten someone’s day without ever knowing it.
You can make them smile, snort or chuckle with delight. You can give them perspective, courage and hope so my core advice for Twitter to be successful is to give with the intent of changing someone else’s reality.
Are you sharing original thoughts?
Are they focused on positive life events?
Are you sharing news stories (that everyone else is also sharing? yawn)
Are you reading the streams of other people and replying with a share?
Are you making a sincere effort to improve the lives of those who follow you?
I encourage you to:
Participate more openly if you’re already on Twitter
Join Twitter if you’ve heard about it but not created an account
Discuss the impact of Twitter on your life, business and family
Share offline how you use Twitter and find out what others think too
In recent weeks, I’ve seen my Klout score climb to 68. Klout is an independent site used to measure influence on Twitter. I passed the 5,000 follower mark in May so along with the new score, I feel grateful and happy for this “social proof”. Since people like you are voting with their “tweet” (haha, get it, “feet”?), I wanted to write a post to help you think about adding value to your tweets.
The geeky twist I provide via consulting is to look at all of these networks, platforms and tools in the bigger picture of your business workflow, create a technology blueprint and centralize communications whenever possible. Feel free to contact me with interesting projects and speaking opportunities.
Summary
Everyone feels frustrated at first when they start using Twitter. They’re not sure how to “act” or “behave”. Some people reflect their true thoughts and feelings, others put on a show. Some choose to follow the rich and famous while others choose to follow friends, collegues and family members. The beautiful thing is Twitter can enrich anyone’s life and you have the direct ability to create your own experience in Twitter.
What is one thing you’re going to change about how you use Twitter?
What do you want to see me tweet about? I setup a poll last week to let people vote so let me know what you want to see more of!
Last week, I got all teary eyed and appreciative about how awesome Twitter has been in changing and shaping opportunities in my life and sent out some tweets. They were met with RT’s which they struck a chord with others.
“God and Twitter work in mysterious ways but you can uncover their wealth and wisdom if you keep your eyes open”
“It is just so amazing how much Twitter has changed my life for the better”
“I cannot even begin to count the number of seemingly serendipitous tweets that have changed the course of my life”
To me, using Twitter is almost a spirtual expereince due to the amazing interactions I have with people.
It’s amazing how much Twitter has changed my life for the better. I now have this extended network of amazing people I truly feel I can reach out to and count on for ideas, advice, news and friendship. Twitter is definitely a “pay-it-forward” network where the more you give, the more you get. Read More…
Can you imagine live tweeting the death of a heavily armed, dangerous and evasive military leader suspected of being responsible for the 9/11 attacks? Turns out a local Twitter user in Abbottabad, Pakistan who goes by @reallyvirtual did just that.
The U.S. team was at the compound for about 40 minutes, the officials said. There were no casualties on the American side, although a U.S. helicopter crashed during the raid due to mechanical problems. The helicopter was then destroyed for security reasons, senior administration officials said.
I attended the Women Who Tech (@womenwhotech) afterparty here in San Francisco and had an amazing time meeting women from the Bay Area actively making the world of technology a better place.
It quickly reminded me of how far I had come in just two years since attending my first Women Who Tech Telesummit Conference in the spring of 2008. I will be forever grateful for the encouragement, support and wisdom the conference generates through it’s focus to provide women with role models and a central place to come together and connect!
Thanks for encouraging me to join twitter March 31st, 2008!
Transcription
Ok, Geek time! I love the video quality on this new video!!! It’s from the new Logitech Pro C910 (Amazon affiliate link) I picked up this month to replace my aging Logitech 9000 Pro I’ve had since November 2008 and wow is there a huge difference!!! More on it later.
What I did here was extract the audio and then use Macspeech Scribe to transcribe it to text for me. I had to do a bit of clean up but wanted to post it here for those of you interested in following along with the video and also to show the power of Scribe which I’ve been dying to use for audio transcription of my videos! Eventually, I plan to transcribe my training courses at Freshworkshops and this all came out of meeting someone at a Wordcamp who was deaf and asked about taking my training!
Here you go:
Hi folks as they do and I want to say hello from San Francisco, it’s Septembe. I just got back from the Women Who Tech AfterParty. WomenWhoTech.com is a virtual conference it happens every year and the goal is basically to help women step into technology boldly and fiercely.
On their web site here they have three goals. Their first statement, women are under represented in technology and they want to change that. The second one is they have this summit to break down barriers so it doesn’t seem so hard. I know last year I struggled with tech conferences because to me, every time I went to one, it was just a bunch of tall White guys, you know? And their third goal here is to mobilize a network of women.
I want to say I had a fantastic time tonight and I was really touched to realize that it’d been a little over two years since I first joined Twitter. The reason I joined is because I went to this Women Who Tech tele summit conference March 31st, 2008 and they said, “Oh you need to get on the Twitter” and I thought that Twitter would be like some kind of live chat thing and I would get to talk with other people but that didn’t really happened. I think I sat on my own Twitter page because I didn’t know how to use it.
I’ll tell you, I’ve come really far in two years; tonight’s even was great! I loved the food that they had. It was all Middle Eastern stuff and lots of wine because we’re in San Francisco and I met a lot of interesting women. I mean it is so refreshing to go somewhere and have people be like, “Oh yeah I work on Debian and Ubuntu” you know and another person’s like, “I work for Creative Commons. Yeah, it’s a nonprofit organization, I actually work there”. I’m like, “That’s cool!”. I mean there were just so many interesting folks and we had real conversations it just really touched me as to how far I’ve come in life and this wonderful network of not just women but of people in general attending conferences, being encouraging…folks I’ve met on Twitter…all these women in tech who are fighting for me, for us, for the future…love it!
So I thought I’m long overdue to make a video. I’ve been making a couple but then I don’t post them. I am recording this with my new WebCam which I think is quite fancy versus my old one. This is also a Logitech camera. It is the new HD Pro C910. You can see that there. I’m going to check on my other monitor. Anyway I think it looks clear vs the other one which is my Logitech 9000 Pro.
Anyway, I had a great time chatting with folks. Cheryl was there. I’ve seen her at several conferences so glad that I have been able to connect with her and no truly get to know her as a person, she’s very cool. I went up to another woman tonight and I said, “Hi! I want to introduce myself because you are a Brown woman and so am I!” and it went well! I’m going to keep doing that because I have felt that kind of, “Am I the only one here?” type thing and so I really want to be that person to walk up and say, “Welcome”.
So I just want to encourage you if you’re on Twitter, if you’re in social media, makes you getting out and doing real-life networking events. Now I know the word networking has a negative connotation but I’ll tell you these people in tech, especially people who are blogging, it’s not the same, it’s not your mom’s networking group, let’s just say that. I just want to say that I’m so grateful for my opportunities in life, I’m glad, I’m speechless with my decision to move to San Francisco it was the right one and you know what people keep saying me over and over – “Adria, any given night there’s several things going on; you can’t do all of them.” So that makes me feel good because it can feel overwhelming every single week is a conference, there’s an event, there are parties, I mean I don’t know. There are people who do several some folks like to go to another event tonight. I was thinking, “I’m going to do one event and I’m good to go”.
So anyway I say if you’re on you’re out there, you’re starting a business or thinking about pitching a business idea, a start up idea, you’re getting into in the software, you’re working with hardware, open source, content management systems, e-mail, whatever it is… go for it! Find other people are interested, reach out on Twitter and connect with people because is worth it. I cannot wait to see the future holds for me and for everyone else! I am so committed to shaping the future I see in my mind into reality that I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone to do that.
So with that, I hope you have a wonderful night and I’ll see everybody later. Take care and thanks for the positive Tweets!
It’s experiences like these that make me have faith in a higher power. It’s moments of connection between the handshake and the eye contact. It’s realizing that I’m one of many in a long line of women who will benefit from events like this so that our daughters can have an easier time for decades to come being able to just…be.
It’s been hard to justify to my technology geek friends why they should sign up for Twitter. Some have ventured onto Facebook but Twitter seems to create “stage fright” where one is expected to perform (tweet). Now that Zendesk can pull in tweets, I’m going to push them all try try both!
Let’s take a look at the brief list I put together on ways you can use Twitter for your business. This is a similar list I go over with my clients to help them think big when we brainstorm.
Taking it from from the aspect of someone working in technology, development, mobile apps to really, any sort of company that provides a product, you can see Twitter is flexible and full of valuable information. Read More…
I just got back from a trip to Washington D.C. and woke up ready to check out tweets, hashtags and share a few ideas only to find CoTweet was giving me a server error. I searched Twitter and saw that people had been experiencing problems with CoTweet for the last few hours.
I follow @cotweet on Twitter but didn’t see anything about the problem in their stream…mmm
Keeping customers in the support loop
I wish this issue of downtime was reflected in CoTweet’s main Twitter stream. I just found out they have a second Twitter account, @cotweet_support but the difference is massive. One way to raise awareness of additional Twitter accounts for the same product is to retweet. People then see the name and often click on it. @cotweet retweets @cotweet_support and those 39,000+ people have the opportunity to stay on top of the downtime.
39,418 are following @cotweet
1,914 following @cotweet_support
Summary
It looks like in their support stream, CoTweet is actively responding to tweets out there but I wish they would give people a heads up in their main Twitter account.
I got this shirt at the Goodwill in St. Paul, Minnesota which has text and a Black/Brown woman with a big, healthy afro on her head.
It looks like I may have found the company who makes them and a reprint may be under way! If you’re interested in getting a shirt, email me at adria@butyoureagirl.com so I can start creating a list.
Today I got two more compliments on it in San Francisco so I tweeted it. Last time I tweeted about wearing it, the shirt got a big response on Twitter. It struck a chord today as well.
I got to meet @iamkhayyam in person again and this time I remembered to take a photo with him!
He’s a great guy to follow on Twitter because he’s constantly linking up to interesting stories, photography, funny stuff and he’s has his fingers on the pulse of social media. I don’t care if that sounds corny because it’s true!
ElisaC said on Twitter she didn’t want to upgrade to the new Tweetdeck because of the new RT style that doesn’t allow you to send on Retweets with your comments. Never fear! You can adjust the settings in Tweetdeck. Watch this video to see how.
* LinkedIn integration – Add a linkedIn column to see updates from your network, send status updates and comment on updates from your contacts
* Twitter List support – Create & manage Twitter Lists within TweetDeck. Follow & unfollow Lists, Create List columns and even get suggested members based on your List title
* Geo-location support – Show an inline map for tweets that contain location data using the new Twitter geo-location setting
* Twitter Retweet support – Flexibility to perform both traditional retweets with edits, or the new-style retweets, with both types shown in your columns
This question came up again when @nukirk retweeted @blackcanseco’s tweet that mainstream media (NBC Chicago) picked up that there are Black people in Twitter. What the heck!? Yes folks, not only is Twitter being used by people of all races
updated 3/14/2010 Of online adults, 19% have reported using an online update service like Twitter. Of that segment, 26% report their race as African American (Non-Hispanic) (thanks @shanselman for the factual correction and then @baratunde for pointing out the 26% is a segment of the 19% who report using an update service!)
Ok, now that we’ve covered that, let’s explore some thoughts on the issue that I’ve had inside my mind since joining Twitter in March of 2008:
What does it mean to be Black on Twitter?
Some people on Twitter who are Black talk about issues related to race; some don’t. Some use slang; some don’t. Some are just who they are. People bring their interests to Twitter, some find new things to enjoy via Twitter.
Here is the audio from last week’s event for SCORE where I shared how having a business mentor from SCORE helped me grow my business.
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I loved speaking at this event because when, Ed Hennen, Chapter Chair of the #2 SCORE office started his speech with, “I don’t know if anyone will be Twittering this”, I knew the audience was ready to receive the message about embracing social media! Read More…
Tweetdeck (version 0.30.5) is aiming to save you time when you’re posting your tweets and they have 2 cool features I share in the video:
You can now paste links directly into the post area and Tweetdeck will automagically shorten them
You can drag photos into the post area and Tweetdeck will upload them to TwitPic They have a few alternate URL shortening and image hosting options but my preferences are Bit.ly for url’s and Twitpic for image hosting. With the bit.ly service, you can add in your username and API key so the click traffic can be tracked via your bit.ly account. Sweet!
