AdamCovati.com

Did I miss one? Wait. I know, “Twitter is good for finding out what someone had for lunch.” I’ve had this argument far too many times.

This sentiment is usually expressed by experienced Marketing and PR people. People who look at channels through reach marketing lenses. But this isn’t Direct Mail or Banner Ads. This is a channel that your recipients control. You have to understand it before you can embrace it.

Too Many Experts

A common argument is that there too many False Twitter/Social Media Experts. Oh so true, there are very few true experts on twitter. There are a lot of people who understand it’s value, there are also quite a few who don’t get it - and some of these are name brands.

So ignore them or listen with a grain of salt. This person probably knows more about marketing in Twitter (or social media in general) then you do. Sure, they may not be what you call and expert, but they’ve probably been here a while.

Ok, so now we can focus on the Value of Twitter.

Seek Value, Don’t Wait For It

But on the question of value - I think too many are waiting to see ‘The Light’. Well, you can wait forever, but it’s not going to just shine on you.

You can’t just follow a few of your friends and maybe a business partner and expect to see value. Would you expect to get value from putting banner ads on your friends website or just sending your mail pieces to your neighbors? No? Really? Hmmm.

So what you need to do is branch out and look for what other people are doing and saying. Follow a few people in your industry that you respect, see who they Retweet, see who they reply to. Those are the people that they see value in, you probably will too.

You’re not going to get anywhere in Twitter if you don’t put in the effort. And you’re not going to be able to use twitter effectively for your clients until you see the value.

If you’re in marketing and you’re not seeing value then put a little more effort in. There is value in Twitter, but you have to work for it.

Show Me The Numbers

You know what, I don’t have numbers. I could go find some, but I’m not going to. What I can talk about are the benefits that I have received. Here are a few

• Huge Word Of Mouth marketing benefits
  I never would have been able to get the word out about these projects or nuggets of info if I hadn’t built a network of great people with useful things to say.
• Industry Friends - not just connections
  I had some of these before, but now I have friends in the industry - people I can have a beer with. People who enjoy talking with me about what’s going on in my industry. That makes my life easier and more enjoyable.
• Helped Sales Deals
  I can’t say for sure that twitter has closed a deal, but it has been very helpful in resolving problems and bolstering relationships. It grows a relationship and establishes a personal connection. I don’t know about you, but I’m happy about anything that increases chances of closing deals.
• Learned About Oh So Much
  Yes, I do hear about things quite quickly. Whether that is trends, new apps, or the latest news. I don’t go to CNN or watch tv I listen to my twitter friends. I don’t even use my RSS feeds anymore - if something is of value I will find out through my network.
• Grown Company Ranks
  I’ve met and recommended people (who were subsequently hired) at my company who I met through twitter.

Wow, I’ve gotten a lot out of twitter. But that list is pretty one-sided, it’s sounds like all take and no give. Well that’s because I do all of these things for other people in my network too - whether it’s recommending some one for a job, talking about their latest project, or spreading links that I find of value.

Still Hate Twitter?

I know. I know. And that’s your prerogative, go ahead and continue to hate it. OR - or you can give it a chance.

Ask yourself if you are looking for the right people and if you are giving back some of what you want to take. Go out there, look for people who provide value. Then go and provide some value of your own.

If all you want is a new channel in which to peddle your clients’ wares then you’re not going to find anything. If you are looking for a tool for building, creating, and managing relationships then you may have just found a goldmine - and perhaps one for your clients too.

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I do have a propensity to talk a lot. It’s who I am and what I do. But lately I’ve been given a few chances to do so to a bit of a wider audience.

Last weekend I spoke at the Product Camp unconference. This is a conference where there are no attendees, everyone is a participant. So at the suggestion of a product manager friend of mine, I offered to talk about Delivering Products in a Software as a Service (SaaS) World. As it turns out there was a bit of interest in this topic.

I really enjoyed the talk, it generated some good discusion. Not suprising, and in true unconference fashion, I learned quite a bit also during the talk. This was a great first experience in leading a discussion at a conference - and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve actually been invited to talk on a panel this August as well. I’ll be speaking alongside a colleague and friend, Mike Rundle at Social Media Fresh down in Charlotte. I was invited to speak there based off my experience of writing applications for social networks. This would be related to my work with idek.net and more recently pici.me.

So if you are interested in social media and how it can be a benefit to businesses - then please check out Social Media Fresh. And if you are coming then be sure to check out the Social Media Tech Panel.

Jeff Cohen, who blogs at DigitalPapercuts.com, and Kipp Bodnar, who blogs at DigitalCapitalism.com, came up with a list of 101 uses for twitter. This isn’t quite the 50 business uses Chris Brogan posted a while back; it’s a bit more fun.

Kudos to Jeff and Kipp for creating a list that not only provides some insight into the light-hearted side of twitter, it also mentions many of the buzz generating tweets (& accounts) as well as memes that have gone around recently.

Bolded below are the few I’ve managed to do:

101 Uses for Twitter

1. Answer the Question “What are you doing?”
2. Tell Your Friends Your Going To Jail
Read the rest of this entry »

What are you doing?

I’m getting sick of explaining that twitter isn’t just a random collection of facebook status updates - that’s what I’m doing.

I think the biggest objection I hear to Twitter goes something like “I don’t want to hear about my coworkers lunch habits, or when they go to bed, or what their kid is doing.” This complaint often stems from the prominent question on twitter’s main page (as well as the “home” page) of What are you doing?

The thing is, twitter is so much bigger than that. I don’t know how many times I’ve told people about the amazing capacity twitter has for link sharing, information passing, and relationship nurturing & maintenance. After about 5 minutes of back and forth I can usually get this across.

But the conversation almost always starts the same. So maybe we can get twitter to nip this in the bud. Maybe twitter can change the question.

What’s important right now?

This is how I see twitter. I mean, sure I do see a decent bit about lunch or people’s kids, but it’ usually not the mundane.  If I hear about lunch it’s because someone has something of note to say, good or bad. It’s really about what’s important right now.

I’ve heard twitter described as hyper-local, and while I feel this has some validity, I’m not sure why it’s really more local than blogging, for example. But I would say that twitter has time-context that blogs as well as many other avenues lack.

The huge value twitter adds is bringing you information in the now, not whenever you stumble across it, or after it goes through several editors. Changing the main question, that helps to define twitter, could help to change new twitterers mindset and present them a little better to the market in general.

So Twitter, capitolize on what you are good, play up the now. You’re better than just status updates.

I’ve been working hard on idek and I have been getting great encouragement from friends. One of the easiest ways for me to see how much they like idek (and of course how much they just like to help me out) is how often they recommend it to friends.

One friend, @MichaelBrooks told a friend who has quite a following. Well, it turns out that an early idek bug caught him when he placed the link on facebook. Mike told me and I messaged the chap. Well, you can read about his experience with proactive support.

I was glad to fix the problem for him, I was even more of win that he took it so well.

It just goes to show that people understand when you’re not perfect.

Thanks, Mike!

How Twitter can monetize it’s fast userbase has been a hot topic as of late. Recently @mike9r suggested that maybe twitter should allow people to pay for their service if they pleased. In return Twitter could allow them to have 240 chars instead of 140. An interesting idea.

And while I do agree the idea has merit, some might argue that it destroys something key to what makes twitter twitter. And I count myself in that camp.

Part of the value in twitter is that it’s quick. I’ve been annoyed more than once that I couldn’t get my thoughts into 140 chars. However, that limitation keeps you on target, it ensures that everything is bite-sized.

Increasing the character count could make it harder to quickly scan through tweets. My personal feeling is that this would just make twitter more distracting.

The other argument I made was that this could break many twitter clients. Mike argued that this was ok, essentially this was good for the market:

@covati It would kill a bunch of clients, but then again, why would Twitter care about that? 3rd party apps would race to make a new version

I argue that these clients and other third party are a huge part of what has made Twitter so successful. All these interesting integrations and efficiency tools have actually made twitter useable.

I personally find it daunting to try to interect with close to 400 people via the web interface. Tools like TweetDeck allow me to manage that massive flood of tweets. If the people who manage these tools have to deal with an ever changing and tool or API then they may become discouraged and stop maintaining them.

That’s my take, I love twitter, it’s a great tool. If they went with Mike’s suggestion I’m sure it would be fine. But for now, I say, stay with 140.

As I have mentioned before, I run idek.net, which is a url shortener. These are great for places where characters are at a premium. Some people have asked me how the url redirects work and how they affect SEO. This quick video gives a basic overview of 301 redirects which is what idek.net uses to get your from a short url to a long one.

Other Resources:

• URL redirection on Wikipedia
• An example analytics page from idek.net

Yea, I love analogies. They are a great way to get your point across. I started using them heavily when I managed a small team of developers and had to settle a number of disputes between particularly stubborn developers.

Ever since then I’ve employed them quite often, when I can really. In terms of conversations, especially with complex ideas they are a must, here are a few reasons why:

1. Analogies simplify the problem
   In stead of worry about every little detail we can get down to the real nitty gritty of the problem. We are allowing for a distilling of the issue.
2. Analogies provide an alternative viewpoint
   An analogy allows you to present a different story, often from a different point of view, this can allow people to see another side more easily.
3. Analogies remove emotional investment
   Along the same lines as #2, when we are talking about something else entirely we remove the emotional investment some one may have in the original discussion point.
4. Analogies are a point of reference
   Often times the biggest reason to use an analogy is to show that this problem has already been argued or solved in a slightly different case.
5. Analogies often times provide new insights
   I’m often surprised by conclusions I draw from an analogy I created when I push the boundaries of the comparison.
6. They’re fun!
   I love a good analogy. They’re just fun to talk about, and you’ll be surprised how far you can push one if you try.

Analogies aren’t just powerhouses in conversations, they have a lot of value when trying to explain concepts in software as well. So whether I want to get some one on board to a new pricing paradigm, or I want to show a user how to use a new widget, I’m always trucking these bad boys out.

How do you use analogies?

I have been working on http://idek.net for a little while now (it’s a url shortener with great stats, useful for twitter). It’s something I’ve been doing on the side because I love to create apps. Like many friends I have who are programmers I have had many side projects that never made it. So why did idek.net get launched?

Well, the answer is easy, I aimed small. I took a good bit of one cloudy weekend and wrote a useable app and launched it. Once it was live I slowly started adding to it. It now has most of the features of the competitors, and a few more great ones planned.

I was able to gain momentum and keep it by not taking on any huge tasks that would get stuck in the mud.

Don’t want to take my word for it? Here’s some one who went into a bit more detail on why shooting for attainable goals builds momentum.

Of course, if I could follow that philosophy more closely then I’d probably post here more often!

Google has just launched SearchWiki within their search results. This toolset allows users to alter the results that they receive from google. They can move results up or down, add new results, or even remove them from the results. You can also add comments to search results.

Now, I should make it clear that this does not affect page rank, or even the results that other people see when doing searches. However, other people who are logged into google can see, via the SearchWiki icons, what users are doing with results. This allows the SearchWiki community to function much like reddit or Digg.

We’ve always said that the best search engine is the one that understands what the individual user wants … SearchWiki really puts that in action: this is an even deeper level of customisation than we’ve offered before, because people know best what search results they are looking for.

Juergen Galler, director of product management at Google

This is a great step forward for google. Rather than entirely trying to mathematically determine optimal search results they are actually able to incorporate opinions from people who are doing the searches. So while this won’t have an affect on most googlers, it does allow them to start to harness the massive community of people out there who want to work together to find better results.

I can only hope that this is a start of something that will provide more power to the social networks of users who are depending on google every day. Moving google a bit more towards the digg/reddit model could help to make results more relevant and also drive more involvement. Of course reddit and digg are also gameable, often times political or underhanded forces take advantage of this to bias results on the front pages of these site. Google is no where near prepared to give their rankings or results over to the mob. This method does seem like a safe way to allow those crowds to have their say without jeopardizing Google’s standing as the best way to search. Learn more about Google SearchWiki:

• Google SearchWiki tool allows user to personalise search
• Google’s Help topic on SearchWiki
• Google’s Blog: SearchWiki: Make Search Your Own