Tag Archive for 'delicious'

Managing Twitter, One Account at a Time

Published in resources, strategy and webtools. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

There are so may stats, reports, assumptions and speculations every day about who is using Twitter, let alone how and why.  I recently read a reflection on Twitter called How To Use Twitter When You Follow Several Thousand People.  And it got me thinking, not necessarily about how I filter through the stream and so forth, but how others who are filtering through their streams, find me!

I’m not the only one that is follow lots of interesting, valuable, fun people on Twitter – so are many of you!  So, how do I create ways for people to pick up on my content or shared learning in ways that is visible (and not just sucked into the stream)?  How do I ensure that the stream I’m creating, isn’t overwhelming as well?

With these questions in mind, I decided to start a second Twitter account – and I want to share with you my strategy and implementation steps – so you can see if something similar is right for you, too!

Why Create Two Accounts

My Twitter account is @AmyRSWard and I have, currently, over 3,000 followers.  I’m not one for popularity and don’t view follower counts as a reflection of such.  I think that at one time or another, those 3,000+ people found an interesting link I shared, read a blog post I wrote and wanted to get more, or connected with me in one way or another online, at a conference, or through email.  The way I see it, those 3,000 people are “following” the content or value I can add to their work, not necessarily my coolness.

But, I’m human! Not everything I say is smart, valuable, insightful or useful.  Sometimes I just want to say, “hi” to my mom on Twitter, and that’s okay.  But for people who don’t want to follow everything I say, and really just want real-time access to my shared brain, well, why not them have it!

Purpose of @AmySampleWard

As I explained above, the purpose of the second account, @AmySampleWard, is to provide a pipeline to valuable content.  I intend to use this second account for three main things:

  1. Sharing links to posts as they go up: Whenever a new post goes up on this blog, a tweet with the title and link will go out!
  2. Sharing links to interesting things I read: Whenever I tag something using Delicious that I think is of interest to you all, a tweet with the title and link will go out!
  3. Livetweeting and Twitter-chats: If I go to a conference or an event or am participating in a Twitter-based chat, I always think about the tweet-overload I create for people who follow me as my messages go from # of tweets per day, to # of tweets per hour or minute.  This way I will have a separate account to use for following a conference session or speaker, etc.

Set Up of @AmySampleWard

I have to give tons of credit to Joe Solomon, my friend and colleague and rockstar, for his help getting me set up.  I asked for his advise (he’s the man behind @nptechblogs among other Twitter mutations) as there are TONS of tools out there to choose from when setting up an account.  So, the steps below are generated from Joe’s smarts as well as my applications.

Sharing links from your blog:

I used TwitterFeed to set this up.  It’s really simple.  Just put in the RSS feed of your blog, and then use the Advanced Options to add a preface or suffix to your posts (this is where you could say, as I do, “New post:” or something).  As Joe advised, and I TOTALLY agree, be sure to select the option to show only the Title & Link – as including any more means a really jumbled tweet.

Sharing links you tag onling:

I use Delicious to tag content online instead of saving bookmarks locally to my computer – this way I can access things I’ve saved from any computer and can share content easily.  Using Twitter to share is just one more option!  If you do not already use Delicious, it’s easy to get started – visit the site for more. I used TwitterFeed again to coordinate auto-tweets of items I tag.  I used the RSS feed of a specific tag, because I didn’t necessarily want every single item I bookmark to be tweeted out.  This let’s me choose which items to share.

We’re in Business!

So, the new account is all set up! It’s already tweeting out blog posts, interesting links, and more. Follow it here!

What do you think? I’d love your feedback on my strategy and process – if you would have done things differently or if you have questions about how I’m making it work!

Published on September 15, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 2 Comments

Building Blocks of Social Media – Webinar slides and notes

Published in events, rss, socialmedia and storytelling. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Today was the first webinar in the Storytelling & Social Media series from NTEN and TechSoup Global.  I’m happy to say that I had the great honor of serving as the speaker for the webinar and had a ton of fun.  It’s always a little weird to talk over the phone and not be able to hear or see those you are presenting to, but everyone was really great with comments and questions and responding online so I knew I wasn’t talking to myself!

If you want to check out the recording of the session or register for webinars that are still to come, check out the full line up.

Today’s webinar focused on the building blocks of social meda; things like tagging, RSS and how to get started finding the conversations taking place online.  Here’s my slide deck:

Social Media Building Blocks

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: nonprofit nptech)

The questions folks asked at the end were terrific!  Some of them, along with my answers, include:

  • How much time a day do you spend reading (RSS feeds)? I used to be quite worried about reading everything that came into my reader.  Until I finally “got it.”  Even if you don’t read the post that comes in your RSS Reader, that content isn’t lost and the knowledge is still at your footsteps.  You can search within your reader and find content that came through that you might be looking for, even if you didn’t read it the first time.
  • How do you separate personal and professional contacts or content online? I share a lot of information online, but if it is something I really want to be personal, I take advantage of the settings in different applications and mark things as private or hidden.  Most all of the tools you’ll use online allow for you to show or hide different content for different users or groups.
  • What’s the difference between Netvibes and Google Reader? Netvibes is a lot like an iGoogle home page and is designed to have many different widgets or boxes that are customizable.  You may have a weather widget next to an RSS feed of your organization’s blog, a calendar widget and a feed of Google Alerts, and so on.  Google Reader is designed to organize your feeds and let you share them with your contacts/the world – without having boxes and widgets.  I like to use Google Reader most of the time, but keep my Netvibes up-to-date for times when I want to narrow in on certain topics because of the way you can view the feeds.  You can see screen shots of both of these in the slide show above.
  • How do you create a tag? If you are using Delicious, for example, you don’t need to create a list of tags or a taxonomy you have to stick to before you actually start saving bookmarks.  You can create a new tag every time you save something if you want to.  When you save the bookmark, you add the tags you want associated with it, and those can be new or ones you’ve used before.  That’s it; once you hit save that tag is created.

There were other questions and some good conversations.  If you were on the call and had a question that didn’t get answered feel free to ask it here in the comments or you can check out the Emerging Technologies forum in TechSoup to join the conversation.

Upcoming events in the series include podcasting, video creation, creating social buzz, and social media ROI.  Check them out and register here!

Download the recording of today’s webinar on Social Media Building Blocks.

Thanks to all those on the webinar today! It was a lot of fun talking with you and I’m happy to keep answering questions and discuss how we can all use social media better to more effectively and efficiently change the world for the better!

Published on January 21, 2009 by Amy Sample Ward. 7 Comments