3 Things I Hate About Twitter

I make no bones about the fact that I'm obsessed with social media. However, it doesn't mean I love EVERYTHING about social media; actually, there are plenty of things I don't like about it. For example, I don't love Flickr because I'm not an images kind of gal; I can easily take a pass on FriendFeed; and I am skeptical about the usefulness of Lifestreaming.

One tool I generally do love, though, is Twitter. It's quick and connects me to almost everything I need to know: news, great blog posts, friends, colleagues...as pathetic as it sounds, Twitter has become a lifeline for me. I was shocked how much I missed last week when I unplugged from it for a few days: the DC metro train crash, Farrah Fawcett's death, Michael Jackson's death--it was a very bad week.

However, there are three things about Twitter that don't just bother me a little; they bother me a LOT:

1) Search--I find it incredible that there is no search archive for Twitter. I do social media for an association and publicized a hashtag for a month-long issue-awareness campaign we had in May. I was amazed and psyched to see literally hundreds of people tweeting about the campaign throughout the month, and couldn't wait to tally up the final number of tweets. Well, guess what? I was never able to do it because apparently Twitter search only goes back about three weeks. By the end of the month, half the tweets were already gone, and now, two months later, all the search results are gone. So much for using it to dazzle management about how useful Twitter is at helping us spread the word about stuff.

I keep hoping I'm wrong and that I'm just doing the search wrong--if anyone reading this knows of a way to retrieve my several month-old search I will be ecstatic. But I've tried everything I can think of--every Twitter search app I could find, and still nothing. I keep thinking I must be missing something--after all, I read about how Twitter is this great search engine, or how Twitter was the linchpin of the Iranian protests--even how researchers are using it to find a cure for autism. Twitter is great in real time, but when someone goes to analyze the Iran tweets a few months from now they may have a nasty surprise to contend with: they'll all be gone

2) Hashtags Hashtags, to me, are a horrible idea. Think about it--you already are limited to 140 characters; now how about take a bunch of those up with a tag that a) won't make sense to 99% of people reading your tweets and b) can't be altered if you misspell or just plain use the wrong one. What if you had to fill up your blog posts with tags? Or had to select the tags before you posted and not be able to change them or add to them after the fact?

Fortunately, there is a solution, although it doesn't seem to be that widely used yet: What the Hashtag?! The only downfall is that it is dependent on Twitter's search engine, so you still will eventually lose all the tweets with a certain hashtag unless Twitter beefs up their search archives. Not that many people seem to be aware of it yet--hopefully it or some similar tool will catch on so that you'll be able to click on a hashtag and quickly figure out what it means.

3) Chat--While I love the idea of Twitter chats, logistically I hate them. While in theory they're no more prone to people talking over each other and being hard to follow than regular web chats, you have the extra mess described in #2 above to contend with--seeing that crazy "#whateverthechatis" on every single message. And that's assuming you're taking part in the chat; it's doubly annoying to have to be an innocent bystander to people you follow taking part in various hour-long chats. While it's sometimes useful to know what chat they're taking part of, it is very rarely useful to have to follow one disjointed thread of a chat you're not interested in.

Why Is It Surprising When People Don't Blog?

It always amuses me when people express surprise or shock that execs--or people in general--don't blog.

Blogging=writing. If you don't like to write, or can't write well, why would you have a blog? Most execs probably didn't become execs because they love writing and write really well. They are business people. Not writers.

Not to mention that blogging takes a ton of time--and, in most cases, you probably won't make a cent off your blog. If you're a super-busy exec who already makes a ton of money, why would you want to take on a really time-consuming, zero-return hobby? And even if you stood to make some money off your blog, it would be peanuts in comparison to the amount of time it takes to maintain the blog over the long haul.

I'm just sayin'....

Eff It Off Friday Links

It's summer and it's Friday so I'm having a hard time gathering my thoughts into a cohesive post; rather than wait for the words to start flowing I'll let these links do the talking themselves:

• Awesome post by Josh Bernoff on the Groundswell Blog about Social technology: a way of life . . . or just a damn hobby?


• New Forrester Research has a new report on how companies should organize for social media. I probably should not include this in a post entitled Eff it Off because I think this report is super important...oh well, too late now.


• My favorite blog post this week Delegation Equals Death in Social Media. If you don't feel like clicking on the link, here's a summary of this post: "Everybody in your organization – including senior managers and ownership – needs to understand and participate in social media. Period." Amen.


• If you're looking for some light yet awesome summer reading I highly recommend Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod. Reverse disclosure: sadly, no, I did not get this book free to review or anything--I just like it.

Reverse Disclosure?

If you read this blog you know I'm big on transparency and disclosure--both because it's important to me and also because it's about to become very important to all bloggers when the FTC releases its revised guidelines later this summer.

Last night on Twitter I noticed a conversation between Danny Brown and Chris Brogan about disclosure, then today saw Danny had a good post up "Can You Have Too Much Disclosure?"

It got me thinking about something I've wondered about before: should bloggers have to worry about what I guess you'd call "reverse disclosure"--e.g. when raving about a product or company that they just happen to like should they say "my only incentive for writing this is my genuine enthusiasm for this product/company/service"? It sounds sort of stupid and tiresome but, what with the new regulations coming from the FTC, will it soon be necessary to reverse disclose to avoid being accused of not disclosing?

I find myself thinking about the concept of reverse disclosure a decent amount lately--maybe because I've become more attuned to the concept of blogging for compensation? Before I started reading so much about the whole disclosure thing I never really gave it much thought--call me stupid but I guess I never realized how many people out there were getting free stuff or being paid to post about products or companies.

I know the handful of times I've been given something free to blog about I've been so impressed with myself that I made darn sure to mention that I'd gotten the stuff for free. The fact that I'd gotten the stuff for free was, in fact, basically the gist of both posts. And in both cases, I wasn't exactly raving about the products; certainly nobody would ever accuse me of writing falsely positive posts. In fact, I'm quite sure that if I were to go solicit products to review, companies would probably steer clear of me, given my reputation for telling it like I see it and not sugar coating things.

The thing is, though, that just as I'm fine with being strongly negative about things if I feel it's warranted, I'm also very passionate about things I love. Especially on my other blog, I'm very prone to raving about how much I love certain books, websites, people and products. (Fair warning: I'm also very prone to using the "F" word, so consider yourself forewarned.) Again, nobody would probably accuse me of raving about a product and not disclosing some conflict of interest, mostly because I'm the most TMI person in the world and usually come right out with the reverse disclosure.

But what about people like Chris Brogan or Penelope Trunk, who companies are willing to pay big bucks to have them mention products or services? (I gasped out loud when I read Penelope Trunk's post about how she used to get paid $5,000 a MONTH to blog about Payscale.) Once the FTC starts peering over bloggers' shoulders a lot more, will people like that need to put reverse disclosures in EVERY post in which they rave about something they weren't somehow compensated for? As much as I'm all for disclosure, I have to say it might get annoying...but will it be a necessary evil?

Blog Potomac Happy Hour...Wasn't So Happy

I was supposed to have gone to to Blog Potomac last week but, as I posted then, I didn't want to go down in the bad mom hall of fame for choosing to go to a blogger conference over my son's graduation from grade school. I did, however, go to the happy hour the night before, which I haven't really said much about.

But after reading my friend Elizabeth's post about Blog Potomac, I started to comment about the happy hour and figured I may as well just blog about it.

What inspired me to write this post--which I hope won't degrade into a rant-- was one particular quote from one of the sessions:

"Social media can make people look more social than they necessarily are in real life."

A-freakin'-men. I probably would not have gone to the happy hour had I been able to attend the actual event, but, since I couldn't, I figured I may as well try to at least get a bit of what I'd hoped to get from the actual conference: some networking, meeting people with interests similar to mine, etc. Usually I avoid traffic at all costs, but I willingly took the hell ride that is the beltway south to Northern Virginia at 5:30 pm on a weekday, to get to the happy hour. I sat in traffic for a full hour and finally arrived at Carpool, where it was being held.

Here's the thing: I was exhausted from working all day, then battling traffic for an hour. I'm a woman. I'm 41. I don't customarily hang out in bars. To walk into that place, not knowing a soul, was hard enough--the only reason I did it was thinking I'd be part of a group and not look like a 41 year old woman standing around a bar by herself. There'd be a clearly marked part of the place where Blog Potomac Happy Hour was being held, right? Wrong. Because it was an "unconference" that included no nametag, no sign--oh, and no greeting of any kind. Just good luck to you if you can figure out which clump of people in this huge bar are the people there for Blog Potomac.

I did the big-girl thing--I walked up to strangers and said hi. Have you ever done that? In regular social situations, usually people recognize you for what you are: a person embarrassed to be standing by herself so they attempt to include you in their conversation so you don't feel like a total ass. But did you see the quote above about social media making people seem more social than they are? Well, this happy hour was a social event for social media people--which meant some of them were, well, not so social in reality. Which meant my usual walk up and say hi and please take pity on me and include me in your conversation didn't go over so well--I approached a few groups, only to have them say hi, then turn back to their conversation. Thankfully I found one guy who was friendly and didn't make me feel like an idiot for walking up to him and planting myself gratefully in the chair next to him when he didn't immediately turn away.

I did end up meeting up with a person I'd been told to look for, and she was very friendly. She and another Twitter friend, who was also friendly. But just as I was finally actually enjoying myself, the organizer of the event walked up--he happened to be a friend of my one of my conversation partners. He interrupted without so much as a hi to the two people who were talking to her and said "There are some people you need to meet." And just like that, she was gone--and not so much as a "sorry to interrupt you guys" from the gracious host of the social hour for social media people.

I have to tell you, I was not impressed. Actually, more than that--I was mad. I bought a ticket for Blog Potomac back in January. I blogged about the event, tweeted about it--even gave my ticket away when I couldn't attend. It's one thing for blogging and social media to be informal or "unconferenc-y" or otherwise non-traditional. But can we at least remember that when we meet IRL (that's "in real life" if you are not a computer nerd like I am) the regular rules of human engagement apply? It's hard to stand around and make conversation with a bunch of strangers--and maybe harder still when the people standing around are, by nature, people who are maybe more comfortable online than standing around chatting at a bar.

Ok, that was perhaps more rant-y than I'd intended but the more I keep typing, the worse it's going to get, so I better just stop.

Why Are There Ads On My Blog After I Dissed People Who Blog For Profit?

No, you're not imagining things--there is a great big ad on my blog now. And yes, you're right, I'm officially a sell out after equating blogging for money to charging your husband for sex.

So why'd I do it? I'll tell you why: curiosity. Seriously, that's it. I have no illusions I'll be making more than a few bucks a month--if that. I think BlogHer pays $5 or $10 for 1,000 page impressions; if you refer to my stats you'll see I have yet to hit 1,000 visits in a month's time. I have 64 subscribers. I get about 35 page views a day. Basically there's a zero percent chance I'll be quitting my day job anytime soon based on my earning potential from blogging.

So, there you have it--and sorry for the annoyingness of the one ad that creeps across the page--in the end I may take down the ads just to get rid of that one.

Buzz2009 Social Media For Associations--Why I Wish I Was Going

Right now I should be battling traffic on my way to BlogPotomac but, because I don't want to go down in the bad mom hall of fame as being the mom who chose a blogger conference over her son's grade-school graduation, I'm not going. I did slog through traffic hell to go to the happy hour last night, but since I didn't know anyone there, I totally forgot the names and faces of the people I'd vowed to go say hi to and beat a pretty hasty retreat. Such is life. I did meet a few nice people, though, so all wasn't lost.

The heartbreak of my summer, though, will be if I don't get to attend Buzz2009 Social Media for Associations. I've already blogged about the reasons I'm so obsessed with going: a) it's being put on, in part, by my friends Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer and b) Guy Kawasaki--who recently shared a Navy ship with my ultimate blog crush The Bloggess--will be there. Unfortunately, though, like every other association out there, my association's professional development budget is on hold so unless I start scouring my house for stuff to sell on eBay, I won't be able to go.

But aside from socializing, the reason the conference will be so awesome is that the focus will be on association social media. How many other conferences can you say that about? I believe that would be none. What's the difference, you say, between regular social media and association social media? Either way you slice it it's just a bunch of nerds talking about Facebook and Twitter, right? Hey--wrong!

Even though there's always tons of talk about social media in an association context--ASAE conferences, blogs, listservs, etc--the bulk of those conversations revolve around the theme of convincing fellow association people that they should be using social media. Case studies about what associations are doing, lots of slides and stats and reports--all of it essentially a sales pitch for why your association should be using social media. Here's the thing: I'm in. I don't need convincing or 101 sessions on what is Twitter and how should you be using it, etc. I need help.

That's right--help. Because the fact of the matter is, association social media is tricky. It's like the classic wedding/marriage analogy. You make the big announcement 'We're getting married!" or, in this case "My association has agreed that we need to start using social media!" The wedding day comes and goes, as do the drafting of social media guidelines and strategies, of unveling your association's page on Facebook or Twitter account. And there you are. Now what? How do you keep the momentum going? How do you navigate the silos? How do you measure success? Or failure, for that matter?

These are the kinds of things I want to hear about and talk about, in the company of people who are dealing with the same challenges.

Claim Your Company's Name on Facebook--But Only if You Have 1,000 Fans

The day has finally come: as of this Saturday morning at 12:01 am, you can claim a vanity url for your business on Facebook. That means instead of having to hand out coupons that look like this:



you'll be able to, instead, just use "www.facebook.com/Nest"
(I'm just using this one as an example because it happens to be on my desk; I don't have any affiliation with them or anything and am merely making up this fictional username to illustrate my point.)

Awesome--right? I know I will be VERY psyched to be able to check my association's page on Facebook without having to type "http://www.facebook.com//pages/The-American-Speech-Language-Hearing-Association/26971470317" every single time.

But it looks like companies and associations with fewer than 1,000 fans as of May 31, 2009 will still be doing a lot of url-typing, because they apparently won't be eligible for vanity urls.

As far as "chicken or egg" situations, this certainly qualifies: a huge challenge as far as getting people to become fans of your company or association's page on Facebook is directing them to the page. I blogged about this a few weeks ago: it can be hard as hell to find pages on Facebook. Most companies resort to "go to Facebook and search for "Company Name"--assuming that there will be only one result. Not the case at all. Take my association, for example--if you do a search for "American Speech-Language-Hearing Association" on Facebook now you get this:



Will the REAL American Speech-Language-Hearing Association please stand up?

Don't despair, though, if your company or association's page doesn't have 1,000 fans; like most things Facebook, I'm sure if enough people gripe about it, they'll relent and let all companies with public profiles claim vanity urls. In the meantime, here are Facebook's FAQs about usernames for fan pages/public profiles.

**UPDATE**Ok, small businesses--the outlook isn't so bleak after all--apparently the 1,000 fan restriction will end on June 28, 2008.

More Power of "Huh?"

I still hadn't stopped scratching my head over the whole Power of A thing when the latest issue of ASAE's inTouch newsletter arrived in my inbox just now. Headline: "ASAE Offers New Health Care Resource"--sounds good, right? I click on it and get this:

ASAE now has a new health care and association policy resource for its members, building off the successful Power of A campaign. The Power of A website (www.thepowerofa.org), in addition to showing how associations are economic problem solvers, will also contain blog posts, videos, and other interactive features on association policy issues, with an emphasis on health care. What this means is that the site will be THE place to find daily updates on health care reform legislation, the major issues surrounding health care, and how it impacts the nonprofit community.

The changes and expansion into health care for The Power of A will not be entirely ASAE staff driven however; the site will not be simply a one-dimension information dump but an interactive opportunity for the association community to discuss and debate health care issues. The site will contain:

Interviews with health care thought leaders and association leaders;

Tweets on health care issues (using hash tag #pwra); and

Guest posts from association leaders on specific health care topics.

You are invited to participate in ASAE's endeavor and help us make our site the go-to place for information on association management issues, especially health care reform. If you would like to volunteer or have any questions, please contact the Public Policy Department at 202-626-2703 or publicpolicy@asaenet.org.

Huh? Is it just me or is this crazy confusing?

Is Summer the Season for Social Media Malaise?

Recently I just haven't been feeling it as much--blogging, tweeting--just the whole social media thing. Life is too busy and sometimes I question why I put all this other stuff on myself when I already have a more-than-full plate with kids, a husband, a full-time job, etc. I blogged about it last week with regard to Twitter. Since then I have come across a few blog posts that lead me to think I'm not the only one experiencing some social media doldrums.

The NY Times recently ran an article about blogs fizzling over time as people either get tired of pouring effort into something that either nobody reads or something that sucks up so much time even if it does get read. Then today I read this post, Why I'm Quitting Social Media, and started thinking maybe I'm really not the only one who's not feeling it so much lately.

I've blogged before about the reasons I blog. Bottom line, I guess, is that I love writing. But blogging, which can be all about numbers and subscribers and ratings, isn't really about the writing. Mack Collier had an awesomely-titled post last week talking about how blogging isn't just about writing content. His post was great and his points were totally true...and totally illustrative of how blogging can be such a big, tentacled endeavor that you just want to throw in the towel. It's not just about writing--it's about then going and cultivating a following--a never-ending, incredibly time-consuming exercise in futility. Fun and gratifying endeavor, yes, but when you have a full-time job and kids and real life stuff--it can get overwhelming fast. And discouraging.

I had a great Twitter conversation with Mack after I read his post and he told me it took Chris Brogan 8 years to get his first 100 readers. It's been a year and a half for me and I have 60 subscribers and get an average of about 25 visits a day.

How about you, faithful 60 readers--do you feel less inclined to blog/participate in online communities during the summer? Or is it not even about the weather and sometimes it just gets old?

Twitter Honeymoon Period=Over?

I'm wondering if my love affair with Twitter is starting to wind down.

I've been at it for well over a year now, basically addicted and loving every minute. Learning stuff. Meeting People. Promoting my blog. I've gone from thinking Twitter was a stupid waste of time to seeing it as a tool that has fundamentally changed the way people--and companies--communicate. Ironically, my original thoughts about Twitter were that it was the equivalent of trash art. It makes me laugh to read that post now, given the passion I eventually developed for Twitter and, especially, given the fact that it's now an actual part of my job description at work.

The funny thing is that I've now come full-circle: I totally see the value of Twitter as a tool and marvel at the ways it's changing business communication. Customer service, fundraising, news, marketing...I could go on all day. The most interesting Twitter thing I've come across recently is this--using twitter to help manage the treatment of autism? Wow.

The thing is, though, while Twitter has become more and more "serious" (e.g. not just trash art), it's also become just plain lonely. I don't know if it's because people have gotten busier and started taking Twitter more seriously or what, but recently I've definitely noticed a drop in the interactive value of Twitter, at least as far as I'm personally concerned. Could be because most of the people I follow on Twitter are social media people, and therefore each have thousands of followers and in turn follow thousands back. I "only" follow 159 people and I can barely keep up. Considering that most of the people who follow me also follow thousands of other people I am a tiny gnat on their collective windshield.

Bottom line: to me, Twitter is starting to become information overload and interaction underload.

Facebook Vanity URL Stakeout

If your association or company has a presence on Facebook, I know you feel my pain: how do you direct people to your company's public profile? It's easy enough if you're just linking to the profile from a web page, email or blog post--you just contextualize the link. But to promote your page in a print piece: a newsletter or,worse yet, on a coupon or business card--you may as well just forget it. If you've tried to do it you know exactly what I'm talking about: you have a choice of either

"Visit our page on Facebook by going to Facebook and doing a search for 'American Speech-Language-Hearing Association' " [which results in this, thereby thoroughly confusing people]

OR

"Visit us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-American-Speech-Language-Hearing-Association/26971470317" [I have seen a coupon like this from a restaurant and it was just plain pathetic looking]

Neither is a good option.

It's especially bad when you're, say, The American Cancer Society--how in the world is anyone supposed to know which is your "real" page?

But your life may be about to get a lot easier--IF you don't miss the boat. According to TechCrunch and Inside Facebook, Facebook is about to allow users to claim vanity urls (for example, www.facebook.com/maggiemcgary). Which means that you will also be able to claim--in theory, at least--a Facebook url for your company that is fit to print.

When will this be happening? It's anybody's guess--although according to TechCrunch, an announcement could come "later this week." Your best bet is to watch Twitter--I'm sure it will be big news on Twitter when it does happen. You can also check this page on Facebook--they claim that they will post instructions there about how to obtain vanity urls.

Not to pressure you or anything if your company or association is still dragging its feet about getting into social media, but you REALLY should think about at a minimum grabbing a user-friendly Facebook url the minute they're available. As far as I'm concerned, Facebook is like the Wild West--growing like crazy (at latest count, over 200 million unique users and, total U.S. time spent on it last year up 700%)--who knows where it will all lead. Especially if vanity urls are free, I see it as a no-brainer; it's like a free insurance policy. And if you never end up using it, who knows--maybe you'll be able to sell it for big bucks.