Getting Ink

More Twitter etiquette nonsense

Ooh, now there's even more reason to get your Twitter knickers in a twist here - Qwitter tells you the very moment someone stops following you, with a copy of the update that *may* have caused your cyber-follower to lose interest in you. Genius.

Thanks Charles for flagging it up (although I hadn't realised I'm following Charles but he isn't following me. B@stard.)

Actually, I think the comedy potential of this app is almost limitless. Imagine those smug Twitter users realising that 10 people unsubscribe every time they post about being in a first class airline lounge somewhere hot and sunny. Or those nerds who post about their breakfast realising that - actually - nobody gives a stuff if you had Weetabix or Coco Pops.

Marvellous.

Twitter irony, or what?

I was looking at Twitter this evening, and saw this post from Sam Sethi about how he's unfollowing loads of people on Twitter because something called Twitter Karma told him to (in Twitter speak, 'following' means reading someone's updates on Twitter).

Investigating a bit further, I discovered there's an online app called Twitter Karma that shows all your Twitter contacts with little arrows next to each user - a green arrow means you follow them; a red arrow means they follow you back. In a good karma world, apparently, the people you follow should follow you back.

Looking at my own Twitter contacts, I notice there are only four people I follow who don't follow me back. Two of those are entities that primarily use Twitter as a broadcast medium - Profnet and Haro in the US. The third is super web guru Steve Rubel. And the fourth person I follow who doesn't follow back? Sam Sethi. Seriously, how ironic is that??

Sam says by 'sadly' unfollowing people he hopes they'll get the hint and start following him, in which case he'll resume following them.

Makes no sense whatsoever to me.

I follow people on Twitter on the basis that I find what they post interesting and relevant to me. It doesn't necessarily follow that what I say will be equally interesting and relevant to them. So, let's imagine I'm following someone interesting, but they're not interested in me - do they then become LESS interesting as a consequence? Should I only be listening to people to listen to me?

Seems a bit random. Sam is a renowned community builder, but this approach just isn't community-minded. It's Sam imposing his view of what he thinks Twitter ought to be (a community dialogue with two-way discussion) on other people, who might have their own views of what Twitter is useful for. 

Or am I missing something?

Twitter and Profnet

This is interesting - PRN/Profnet is posting media requests on Twitter.

Looks like the US media response services are having to respond to free alternatives like HARO (a WAY bigger US service along the same lines as ours, although Shankman needs to do some SEO, because his Google ranking? Sort of sucks).

It does beg the question, how long will people pay for this stuff?

I've been thinking about it for a couple of days now, and I think the volume of enquiries could soon become overwhelming on something like Twitter, which is already a pretty full-on information experience. With a company like Profnet (or Response Source/Gorkana etc in the UK) there are presumably so many requests that getting to see them on Twitter would soon become unworkable. So perhaps what you pay for isn't the requests themselves (which I absolutely believe will end up being free) but for the filtering of the requests to your specific requirements.

Oh, and we're on Twitter here, for UK PR types.

Gah. I hate Facebook.

I have been using Facebook a bit more the last couple of months, and exploring how it can be used for group communications and stuff. I know the new layout has taken a lot of criticism, but I like the way you can see comments on status messages - it's like dropping in on a conversation when you log in.

But the problem with Facebook is it's used by people. Fallible, stupid people like me, more specifically.

This week, I wanted to "make friends" with someone who works with my PR client. I looked her up, requested  her as a "friend", and a few days later, she accepted the request. I took a quick look at her profile, noticed we didn't have any friends in common. That's funny, I thought she had one child, but this picture here is of two kids. Hmmm.

Of course, it turns out I've just made friends with a PR person who I have worked with occasionally over the years and not with the person I intended. When I typed in the name, some force of habit made me type the PR's surname rather than the right surname.

Now I'm in a dilemma. Do I:

a) Do nothing, and allow the PR person to remain under the impression that I'm a sad loser with no real friends who therefore asks PR people who are too polite to say no to be my friends?

b) Defriend the PR, hoping she doesn't notice, and risk offending her if she does notice?

c) come clean, thereby revealing to the PR contact that I am, in fact, a complete moron?

Bloggers do it Better, it seems.

Just got back from running a nationals&broadcast course in Manchester, where we spent a bit of time talking about the common mistakes PR executives make when pitching national print and broadcast reporters - stuff that isn't offensive, but which makes it harder for the journalist to see the value of your client or their story.

We like to use real life anecdotes in the sessions because I think it's a fair bet people will remember the story of "F**k Off Sarah" (as one unfortunate PR exec was known for many years) long after they've forgotten the slides about the best time to get a national correspondent on the phone.

But to make life fair, we always encourage the PR execs to share stories about horrible journalists - the ones that are snooty or dim, or who ask for the moon on a stick then don't credit the PR's client in the copy.

One of my favourite stories from today was the national desk editor who has apparently adopted a policy of ONLY speaking to people who blog. I'm told he pointed to a series of business execs in a meeting and announced to several of the poor execs: "You don't have a blog. I don't want to speak to you. Or you. Or you. No, definitely not you either."

Seriously? The decision not to blog could (I imagine) be down to any number of reasons from security concerns to legal restrictions or a lack of manpower to devote to what is still considered by most business people to be a non-essential activity. Why eliminate 50% or more of your potential story sources because you've decided "Bloggers do it Better"?

Communication or just noise?

I was a bit mystified by this post by Millington about how many people he communicates with during a working day. I have to say his communication - on what he calls a ‘light’ day – is quite something. 89 different communications across Facebook, SMS, telephone, email, forums, blogs, Triibes, Twitter, Skype and IM.

Yikes.

On average, Richard's communicating with someone new every eight minutes. Personally, I think that level of communication leaves little time for doing the stuff you're supposed to be communicating about. And it surely leaves no room at all for reflecting on the communication you've had about the stuff you're doing.

Fortunately, my own communication is decidedly less impressive. Here's today's tally:

• 169 emails. 21 replied to. Must try harder. 
• SMS tells me I have 12 voicemails. Must get around to listening to them tomorrow.
• Six phone calls from PRs chasing releases.  Good grief. 
  
• Miss call from editor while witless PR is on phone. By the time I reach them, they’ve commissioned someone else. Arse.
• Write some web copy for a client, start first draft of case study for another magazine.
• Switch off Twitterific at noon, bored by all the “Gosh, I’m SO amazing, aren’t I?” posts.
• Online banking FAIL.
• Race through Google Reader, Google Alerts, Digg and Technorati to see what’s happening in the world. Speed read Guardian and WSJ while eating soup at my desk. 
• Rush out to the vet. Apologise to vet’s receptionist for the Very Unfortunate Incident. Although if you will put dog treats on the bottom shelf in the reception area, you deserve everything you get, frankly.
• Two conference calls for a white paper I’m writing.
• Race through case study copy, file. Realise forgot to attach copy to email. File again. Impressive performance there, Whittle.
• Call from media database company. Ask them to call back another day. 
• Use MSN to cancel arrangements for the evening, when I realise I still have 2,000 words to write tonight. Rats.

Lesson I’ve learned from this process: social media doesn’t help me to be a better journalist nearly as much as unplugging the phone and exiting Entourage. 

The Twits.

I use Twitter. I like Twitter. There are some issues around the complete lack of any business plan and increasing downtime on the platform - but overall? It's A Good Thing. 

But oh dear God. Is there a bottomless jug of Kool-Aid somewhere I don't know about?

Following the bright ideas that we should use Twitter to review books and write news stories comes this gem: let's insist PR execs and companies can ONLY pitch us using Twitter. What utter twaddle.

Stowe Boyd is a highly-respected social media writer and commentator, as well as serving on the boards of several organisations in the US and Europe. I bet he gets loads of spam pitches from PR execs, and I bet it's pretty tiresome. But making PR execs jump through ridiculous hoops of sending stylised Twitpitches (and if you get it wrong three times, you're on the auto-delete filter, folks) seems counter-productive to me.

As writers, journalists, bloggers or whatever - our job is to dig out stories. Sometimes this means we have to do a bit of work. Although it's great when a smart PR exec sends us absolutely the right sort of information when we need it, sometimes the information comes from a customer, who's sent a long, rambling email about their experiences. Or it's a half-remembered anecdote repeated by a friend of a friend. Sometimes it's a case of reading a dull press announcement and spotting the angle that the PR exec has missed. Sometimes the story just is too complicated to fit into one sentence.

I'm all in favour of PR execs making the pitching process more effective, and increasing the odds of more reporters being interested in their clients' stories. But I, for one, don't expect to be spoonfed*.

(* except when on deadline and writing about multi-core processors obviously)

Why Misha is, like, totally over Twitter

I don't often post on the blog simply to link to someone else's blog, but I love this post from Misha Cornes of Three Minds explaining why she is ditching Twitter.

I personally agree with Misha's point that "most people are not that interesting". I was saying to a colleague yesterday that one of things I find hardest to get my head around when using Twitter is the way that high-falutin' 2.0 debate is mingled with "I just had a sandwich" or "Wow! anyone love CSI as much as me????"

Two thoughts occur to me, though:

• I wouldn't have known this post existed if not for the fact that Steve Rubel posted it on Twitter. That is just, like, way ironic.
• Twitter has to be one of the most fiercely defended social networking tools around. Post something critical of Twitter, it gets Twittered, and before you know it, dozens of the Twitterati are swooping in on your blog posting impassioned  defence of their community and accusing you of missing the point, you big, fat Luddite.  Which sort of shows the power of Twitter to mobilise people and share data, if nothing else.

What does Profnet do now?

I’m really interested to see that, at the same time the Journo Case Studies Facebook group and the Getting Ink Requests blog launched, US publicist Peter Shankman was launching his own Facebook group - If I Can Help a Reporter Out I Will (IICHAROIW!).

Shankman found that Facebook caps groups at 1,200 people and so has now moved his group online at helpareporter.com. Like Getting Ink Requests, Peter’s site uses social media to provide reporters with access to an instant pool of new sources. His service is free – Peter says as a parachutist, he’s really only interested in getting good karma. 

There’s a great post here about how Profnet (the US equivalent to Response Source) responded to the Facebook group. But it’s an interesting point – if more and more of these sites and blogs pop up, how do Profnet, Response Source and the like justify charging up to £5k a year for pushing out media requests? As Edelman's Phil Gomes says: What does Profnet do now? Well, they do other good stuff, obviously, so I don't see them shutting up shop. But perhaps they'll evolve a little?

As Peter himself says: “We live in an age now where anyone can do anything with a website and a good hook. Twitter, Facebook, they all work to serve us if we do it the right way. If the older companies don't realize this and don't change, they'll simply be eliminated.”

Is Twitter where bloggers go to die?

I've been using Twitter for a month or so now, and I must admit I find it pretty exhausting.

This morning, looking at Google reader, I see there are 987 unread "tweets" since logging off last night - 75% of which I don't understand because they say things like "snurl 45345o34rtdcm," or "@ Ste: hahaha Gold Mate!"

I only follow about 30 people on Twitter but the sheer volume of information generated is just depressing sometimes when I've got other things to do. And the content on Twitter is rarely of use to everyone reading it (that's not the point of the medium, I guess) but is directed at one or two other people in the network.

From my experience of Twitter, though, it seems people like Chris, Brendan, Stephen and Paull Tweet far more than they blog these days. Which to me seems a bit of a shame - they're sharing thoughts and content among a small network of like-minded individuals rather than using blogs, which seem to me a far more open form of debate.

It's easy to forget sometimes that the vast majority of people in media and PR still don't blog, much less use the likes of Twitter.  And whenever I log into Twitter I get the feeling there's a little, increasingly self-referential community becoming more and more divided from the rest of us. What do others think?