AdamCovati.com

A new year provides a chance for a fresh prospective and a fresh start. Like your putting your full effort into your gym routine - I’ll be running twice a week, I swear. Or maybe setting your mind to learning a new language - not French, but Objective C right Mike?

However, this year is also bringing another type of fresh start for me. I’m going to be heading out from my current postion as Product Manager at Bronto. Bronto has been great to me, providing a place for me learn and grow, and to guide their product into position of a solid player in the email marketing field. But knowing that Bronto is in capable, caring hands I am looking elsewhere.

Starting in February I’ll be working on a new product offering with my friend and new business partner Eric Boggs. We’ll be combining our expertise, knowledge, and experience to launch a social media analytics application. Interested in learning more? So am I, so in the mean time you can check out Argyle Social to get a taste.

The next few months are bound to be exciting; full of lessons and surprises. I’m looking forward to it with a fresh prospective on things. Happy New Year everyone.

It’s been hard for me to get content out in blog post form for a while now. A busy life, with a full time job, multiple side projects, a bevy of tweetups, meetups, and groupups, and a wedding kept my posting at bay. But that has meant that I’ve a lot of time to contemplate not blogging.

I use twitter pretty heavily. I’m not talking @garyvee heavy, but heavy none the less. And I’ve stopped consuming RSS. I get all my info from the stream. Twitter has been around long enough to have everything I watch feed into it. If something isn’t directly tied in then I can just follow a champion for it on twitter (sounds like another blog post in the making).

So if I’m not consuming blog posts through RSS anymore, should I consider not producing content that is so RSS dependent? Shouldn’t there be another way that is more interconnected with world that I am directly involved in?

I’m not really sure. It seems to me that there is value in a twitter stream, but not all of it. And there is definitely value in pieces of information that are longer than 140 characters. I’m just not sure how to best marry the two. Because the current method just doesn’t seem optimal.

Think about that, and I will too. Maybe there is a solution out there, something truly mixed-medium that can bring the immediacy of speed of twitter with the value of blog posts and richness of video. Ok, thinking caps on.

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?