Mondy Dose of social media: Have realistic goals and expectations for social media

Ten issues I have with Twitter (and its community) — There are some very legitimate issues listed here, and I hope many of them will be fixed in time. First, Twitter does need a better search engine. There is a so much information on Twitter, and it is a real shame that is so hard to sort through.

Content producers, you should be actively lobbying Twitter to improve its search engine. It can help us all do our jobs better.

The other big issue listed here, for me at least, is groups. Twitter needs them. Now that people are following more and more people, it’s getting harder and harder to track the conversation. If I could create groups ala FriendFeed, and put my friends into groups like journalism, social media, Web dev, politics, news, etc that would make my job a lot easier.

Yes, TweetDeck has groups, but they are only contained within the application itself, not within the whole Twitter universe. FriendFeed is an excellent model for Twitter groups.

Seesmic’s Browser Client Is Like Gmail For Twitter — For content producers who aren’t allowed to install Twitter applications — or any applications without way too much approval — Seesmic’s browser client should be a big help. Seesmic’s browser client allows for multi-columns, which can make Twitter much more usable and efficient.

Seesmic also brings over all your saved searches from the Twitter.com client. This is worth checking out. I prefer TweetDeck, but then again, I can install whatever I want on my computers. If you want a more advanced Twitter experience, but aren’t allowed to install desktop applications or you don’t want to deal with all that, than Seesmic’s new Web client is your best bet.

Tumblr Submissions: Create Your Own Community-Powered Blog — This sums it up well, “With free content from your readers, what’s your excuse for not updating your blog?” Tumblr’s new submission feature may be a good way to tap into — trusted — community members for links.

Location-Based Services: Are You Using Them? — Location-based services are still in their infancy and mostly appeal to tech-savvy people. That, like social media was a few years ago, will be quickly changing. Location-based services make a lot of sense for geographically-based news orgs.

HOW TO: Manage Social Media Goals and Expectations –You’re not going to get 1,000,000 followers on Twitter overnight — or ever — and it takes time to build up a solid reputation on social media sites. Having realistic goals and expectations will make your social media experience much better.

Social media is about people, conversations, friendships, education, and communication. Social media is not a race. If you get over-competitive with people over followers, retweets, and popularity, you lose sight of the communication and learning aspects of social media, and the fun gets sucked right out.

When you are setting your social media expectations and goals, remember to avoid pitfalls that many enter. Really assess what you want to get out of your experience. If you do this early, you can avoid the frustration of aimless wandering quickly.

Got a social media tip? Send tips to @jiconoclast or to our social media maven @MsBeat.

A Posse to Improve Interviews: Tools for Microblogging

Yesterday I sent an email to Craig Newmark, of Craigslist fame, to see if I could interview him. I was a bit surprised when he suggested “sometime after 4pm,” which was only 30 minutes away.

Think Quick David!

One of the first things I did was send out a twitter message: “Interviewing Craig Newmark (craigslist) in 30 minutes. Anyone got any questions for him?”

I received five responses, including two from Ryan Budke and Ryan Sholin who opened up entirely new angles towards the interview (thanks!).

This morning Amy Gahran had a post on Poynter with advice (from J.D. Lasica) for any beat blogger:

“A beat reporter could enlist a dozen or two dozen passionate, driven
readers to serve as a kind of Twitter posse. Whenever she was about to
tackle a big story or difficult interview, the reporter could begin a
mobile dialogue with her posse members, who could pose questions, much
like the ‘backchannel’ IRC feed at conferences such as AlwaysOn or
Supernova. …We’ll see how it plays out. Wired News may start
experimenting with this in limited fashion early next year.”

I have my ups and downs with Twitter. For one – it requires a certain level of phone or PDA. I integrated Twitter into my Gchat, so I can only use Twitter when I’m at my computer. Much like Facebook, Twitter is often assumed to be the only option out there – and while it has the most market penetration (and probably has the most “sources” on it) – there are others.

If you are brand new to micro-blogging: An Overview

POWNCE

If you don’t care whether or not your microblog lands on phones, there is also Pownce, which allows you to send links, documents, or events. What’s also nice about Pownce you can select who you send your micro-blog post too. So you have have groups of sources on different subjects. Right now, however, the community on Pownce is younger and more artsy. I would recommend Pownce to our Wired beat blogger who is covering music (LOTS of music sharing happens on Pownce), but I wouldn’t recommend it to Ed Silverman who covers pharmaceuticals.

Jaiku
I have not used Jaiku myself, but I do get the sense that it is the second most popular micro-blogging format for geeks (behind Twitter). Perhaps that’s why Google recently bought Jaiku – and perhaps we can expect more from them.

Bid Me
Bid Me, made by Connectme360, is an easy way to manage sources or writers by microblogging (texting) requests. Example: I need someone to write 500 words on X.” The request goes out to 15-20 people (whoever is part of the network) and they have the option to respond “I’ll take it” or “No thanks.” The first person who responds postively and gets your approval gets the gig. If you are second, a “sorry, this has already been assigned” is sent back. This could also be used to find sources: “I need somebody who can talk to me about X by 3pm.”
(NOTE: This project is still in alpha testing, but if you are interested, I believe they are looking for testers).

SugarCandy
SugarCandy is licensed to individual organizations instead of running all users off of one site, so they customize it for each user.

(UPDATE) Tumblr
I can’t believe I left Tumblr out (Thanks Amy). I’m not 100 percent sure – but I believe this was the first Microblogging platform.

More alternatives that we don’t know enough about.
Upoc -From the looks of it Upoc appears to be marketed towards younger people
Mozeo
and Zemble.

Related
ReportingTwitter – another angle to the love affair between journalists and Twitter.