Twittering: frittering or fabulous?

Or…Twitter as a case study for assessing the usefulness of a social media tool in YOUR work context.

Nancy WhiteFull Circle Associates

http://www.fullcirc.com

With seemingly endless opportunities to try

yet another social media tool,

how do we assess the value of

any one of them in our work?

Let’s look at as a case study to experiment and develop practical

social media tool assessment and adoption approaches.

Item Possible Measures Comments

Purpose: WHY use it

Supports identified organizational/personal goalsOr…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!)Target “audience” – who do you want to engage withValue creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports work

Getting Started: Find/install

Ease of download (if applicable)- Product and related apps, etc.Successful registration (personal? org?)Firewall issuesDevice compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…)

Getting Started: Figuring it out

Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation

Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with

Someone around to show me (my favorite!)Active user communityFindable case studies/examplesAvailable practice tips

Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”)

Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check)How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?)How it fits with time/attention availability

Dependencies & risks

Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience?Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

A couple of ways in

to

the topic…

Item Possible Measures Comments

Purpose: WHY use it

Supports identified organizational/personal goalsOr…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!)Target “audience” – who do you want to engage withValue creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports work

Getting Started: Find/install

Ease of download (if applicable)- Product and related apps, etc.Successful registration (personal? org?)Firewall issuesDevice compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…)

Getting Started: Figuring it out

Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation

Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with

Someone around to show me (my favorite!)Active user communityFindable case studies/examplesAvailable practice tips

Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”)

Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check)How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?)How it fits with time/attention availability

Dependencies & risks

Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience?Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

Beth Kanter’s 7 Questions

• What is my objective for using this tool? What benefit?

• What is the work task that I want to make more effective or efficient? How does it fit into my workflow

• What are the tool’s features? Does it support the above?

• 15 minute test: Can I figure it out in 15 minutes or find someone to help me figure it out?

• What is a use-case that I can test over the next week that won't be too time consuming?

• After using the tool for 10-15 minutes every day, what are the benefits? What is driving me crazy? How does it compare to other tools I'm using for the same purpose? Enhance or replace?

• If there is value, can I make a commitment to using it?

Purpose

I want to accomplish…

… at the a)the individual, b)interpersonal, c) organizational, or d) societal level.

I want to engage/interact with…

Twitter might help by…

This aligns with my other goals and activities in the following ways…

Item Possible Measures Comments

Purpose: WHY use it

Supports identified organizational/personal goalsOr…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!)Target “audience” – who do you want to engage withValue creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports real work

-Decision – personal or organizational account? I’ll start w/ personal.- Organization says yes/no… I’ll start personal and cross that bridge later- I want to see if I can better connect w/ librarians like me.

Getting Started: Find/install

Ease of download (if applicable)- Product and related apps, etc.Successful registration (personal? org?)Firewall issuesDevice compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…)

Getting Started: Figuring it out

Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation

Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with

Someone around to show me (my favorite!)Active user communityFindable case studies/examplesAvailable practice tips

Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”)

Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check)How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?)How it fits with time/attention availability

Dependencies & risks Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience?Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

Installing Twitter

• Is this OK in my IT organization?

• Firewalls?

• Does it replicate, replace or fill a tool gap?

Some rights reserved by Eleaf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleaf/2536358399/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Item Possible Measures Comments

Purpose: WHY use it

Supports identified organizational/personal goalsOr…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!)Target “audience” – who do you want to engage withValue creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports real work

-Decision – personal or organizational account? I’ll start w/ personal.- Organization says yes/no… I’ll start personal and cross that bridge later- I want to see if I can better connect w/ librarians like me.

Getting Started: Find/install

Ease of download (if applicable)- Product and related apps, etc.Successful registration (personal? org?)Firewall issuesDevice compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…)

I’m starting only w/ web client but from what I hear, the downloaded clients make the tool more useable and useful!

How is this different from Facebook?

Getting Started: Figuring it out

Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation

Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with

Someone around to show me (my favorite!)Active user communityFindable case studies/examplesAvailable practice tips

Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”)

Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check)How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?)How it fits with time/attention availability

Dependencies & risks

Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience?Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

Make an account at http://www.twitter.comPersonal or organizational?

Set up Twitter home page Bio? Logos? How to do it well? Tips?

Twitter applications and clientsTweetdeckHootsuiteFacebook

Useful resources (more at end )

Using Twitter

http://www.flickr.com/photos/beardenb/59207597/

http://kindofdigital.com/useful-stuff/what-is-guides/

Get me some great resources!!

http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437

Learn from a Puppet! http://vimeo.com/20008272

Figuring Out Twitter

Listen and Connect: Create an initial network– Followers/following

– Lists

– Tools to find other “tweeple”

Some rights reserved by abrinsky

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-psychology_b12776

“Talk”– Your Twitter goals

– What kind of Tweets?

– Frequency

– Crossposting

– Responding

– Monitoring

Some rights reserved by gin_able

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-psychology_b12776

A Few More Application Realities

• Who do you want to interact with and how much do they/are they willing to use the tool you are considering?

• Because this is online, how does it represent you? (Identity)

Safe-Fail/15 Minute Experiments

Some rights reserved by Josef Dunne

http://www.flickr.com/photos/josefdunne/4319306255/sizes/z/in/photostream/

http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437

http://artssocialmedia.wikispaces.com/file/view/what%20to%20tweet%20worksheet.pdf or http://bit.ly/rbFLAf

August 17h around 10:30 am PDT

Twitter Evaluation Tools

• Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com/• TweetReach http://www.tweetreach.com/: Put in a brand, tag or phrase and it will

tell you how many Twitter users were reached. Free sample search, then paid.• 4 – Twitalyzer http://www.twitalyzer.com/: Gives you various influence scores for

a Twitter account. Some seem a little convoluted, but the charts it throws up are useful

• 5 – Twitter Grader http://www.twittergrader.com/: Gives you a Twitter score based on various different criteria, such as followers and followers / following ratio. Used to be popular a year or so ago, still worth looking at sometimes if you want to compare two IDs

• 6 – Mention Map http://apps.asterisq.com/mentionmap/#user-dirktherabbit: Put in Twitter ID and see closest relationships to other Twitter users.

• Klout.com• More on social media measurement for non profits

http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-nonprofits-measurement/p/395169768/bloom-s-taxonomy-and-ipad-apps-langwitches-blog• Beth Kanter’s Twitter measurement project wiki

http://socialmedia-strategy.wikispaces.com/Twitter

So what did you learn?

How do you measure your success?

How do you learn from any failures?

What’s next?

More, More, More Resources• What is Twitter http://www.slideshare.net/kindofdigital/what-is-twitter-8687602• Facebook NPO/Social Media group -ask me, I can add you

http://www.facebook.com/groups/158023107553360/

• Beth Kanters slides on Twitter practices http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437

• A more general piece on social media strategy http://socialmedia-strategy.wikispaces.com/Twitter

• More on social media http://www.scoop.it/t/social-networking-for-information-professionals/

• My Twitter related bookmarks (oversharing!) http://www.delicious.com/choconancy/twitter

• Great slide deck on social media and learning in the workplace as context for tool exploration http://c4lpt.co.uk/library/janes-articles-and-presentations/social-media-and-its-impact-on-how-we-learn-in-the-workplace-2/

• A tool selection process described for educationalists http://web2survivalguide.wordpress.com/web-20-and-education/choosing-the-right-tool/

• A deeper example about dependencies with your target peoplehttp://www.freireproject.org/blogs/putting-social-justice-social-media%3A-assessing-tools-trends

• Past Webjunction artifact that explores Flickr as a storytelling tool https://www.webjunction.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=94460991&name=DLFE-25280001.pdf