I found this Social Media Venn Diagram over the weekend at despair.com. The best humor is when there is an element of truth behind it…….enjoy.

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Twitter recently debuted it’s new Lists feature. According to Mashable:

Twitter lists is a new way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In actuality, though, Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. They offer a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to.

Lists makes Twitter easier to use and engage with. It gives you the ability to follow a topic or group of interesting people, without the need to follow each of them. I think Twitter Lists could have a profound effect on the way people and businesses use Twitter. Here are some links to help you better understand what lists are, how to use them, and some of the implications.

This is a great article by Mashable discussing what Twitter Lists are and how to use them – HOW TO: Use Twitter Lists

For those that want a thorough description and evaluation of Twitter lists, check out the blog at Pistachio. The author co-wrote the Twitter for Dummies guide. She is doing a 3 part series on Twitter Lists. Here are the first 2 parts of the series (the third has not been released as of this post) – Part 1: What Are Twitter Lists, Part 2: Twitter Lists: Developers and Applications

The following article at the Snowcrashing blog discusses 6 Ways To Look At Twitter Lists including:

• A Reputation Tool
• A People Discovery Tool
• A Content Aggregation Tool
• A Corporate Identity Tool
• A Mob Power Tool
• A Crowd-Sourced Targeting Tool

Read the full post here.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

I recently wrote a post about sponsored Tweets and the ethics involved with getting paid to post on your Twitter account.  I was sent a link to an interesting article today, 8 Tips To Make Sponsored Tweets Work.

The article discusses 8 ways to make sponsored tweets work, including:

1. Protect Your Reputation

2. Beware of Systems Based On Pay-Per-Click

3. Clear Transaparency and Disclosure

4. Ads Perform Better On A Smaller Network

5. Go Beyond A Simple Product Pitch

6. Ads Should Be Conversational

7. Beware of Fake Twitter Accounts and Spammers

8. Too Many Sponsored Tweets Will Turn Off Followers

You can read the full article here.

The article does address a few of my concerns including transparency and protecting your reputation.  You don’t want to be known as a spammer.  Take a minute to check it out.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

Are Sponsored Tweets A Good Idea?

I read an article in Time Magazine this weekend discussing a company called Izea.  Izea started a platform called sponsoredtweets where companies can pay Twitter users to Tweet about their products and services. According to Time:

“Twitter users can sign in, set the price they want companies to pay them for tweeting an ad on their behalf and wait for the offers to come in.”

Izea got it’s start building a platform connecting bloggers with advertisers willing to compensate them for plugs on their blogs.

Every sponsored tweet is appended with a “sponsored” disclosure tag at the end of the tweet.

What Are The Ethical Implications?

With a blog post, I think it is easier to let readers know that the post is sponsored. Readers can draw their own conclusions as a result. However, even when some type of disclosure tag is appended to a Tweet, this tag is easy to miss or gloss over when viewing a stream. I think it is important that people know, without a doubt, that the Tweet they just saw was sponsored.

That being said, I don’t have a problem with it if people want to monetize their Twitter accounts. It is their option to face the backlash of lost followers or angry replies when people realize they are tweeting out sponsored tweets. I could even make the argument that if they believe in the product they are tweeting about, who does it hurt if they get paid to tell their friends about it?

I get tired of all the “experts” in social media telling people the “right way” to act or use a service. Twitter is in its infancy, and while there are basic rules developing, it is far from a mature community. Sure there are basic guidelines and common decencies, but at the end of the day if you don’t like the way someone interacts with you, I’m betting you’ll avoid them. However, just because it turns you off, doesn’t mean someone else won’t like it.

What do you think? Are sponsored tweets a good idea?

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

Vivox Voice Chat For Facebook

Vivox, a Boston-based company that offers voice chat services,  is providing a new technology to Facebook and Twitter users that will allow users to have high-fidelity, conversations with anyone on their friends or followers list.   Even non Facebook and Twitter users can participate, as Vivox plans to offer free dial-in numbers that will allow anyone to call into an existing conversation, kind of like a call-in phone conference.

The technology will also be available to third party developers to use in their applications.

I’m curious to see the effect this will have on the way  Facebook and Twitter are utilized by firms, businesses, and lawyers for networking.  This seems to me to be the next big leap for these two.

Free Guide: Facebook For Lawyers Want to learn how to utilize Facebook to build relationships and bring more business for your firm? Download AttorneySync’s Free Guide: Facebook For Lawyers.

I read this great article studying the usability and design of Tweets. The article is written by the foremost expert in web design and usability, Jakob Nielsen. I thought it was worth sharing some highlights from the article to assist with the lawyer marketing efforts under way at your firm.

I had 2 big takeaways from the article:

The Design of Your Tweets Matters

“It’s a common mistake to think that only full-fledged graphical user interfaces count as interaction design and deserve usability attention. As our earlier research has shown, URLs and email both contribute strongly to the Internet user experience and thus require close attention to usability to enhance the profitability of a company’s Internet efforts.

In fact, the shorter it is, the more important it is to design text for usability.”

I don’t think that many of us would consider how the construction or wording of the tweet we send out will effect how many people click on a link, retweet the message, etc. However, we must take the time to test and investigate what works best for us.

Some things to consider:

• What words if any should be capitalized or in all caps
• The arrangement of the words in your tweet to highlight what’s most important
• Are you leaving enough characters for someone to retweet your message
• Is full punctuation and sentence structure necessary

When to Tweet

Nielsen recommends the following – It’s best to post a minute after the hour so you’ll be listed on top of anybody who sets their software to release postings at exactly 9:00 (or on the hour).

“One of the big downsides of stream-based communication compared to email newsletters is the highly ephemeral nature of the postings: Once they scroll off the first screen, they’re essentially 6 feet under.

A look at clickthrough statistics for links posted to Twitter vs. those circulated in email newsletters shows a drastically steeper decay function: lots of clicks the first few minutes, and then almost none. In contrast, email continues to generate clicks for days as people work their way through their inboxes.

Clickthrough decay: Twitter time passes 10 times faster than email time.”

When utilizing Twitter to enhance the lawyer marketing efforts of your firm, it’s important to take these things under consideration. Just because Tweets are short doesn’t mean they can’t be optimized and improved to better distribute your message.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

While this embarrassing Twitter fiasco is a few months old, it is a great example of how NOT to use social media. Back in January, a former VP of Ketchum Interactive Communications got himself into major trouble after carelessly tweeting upon landing in Memphis, TN for a meeting with one of his biggest clients.

James Andrews was headed for his presentation on digital and social media for the worldwide communications group at FedEx, when he tweeted:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, “I would die if I had to live here!”

Not only did an employee at FedEx find Andrews’ tweet, but when he responded he copied the FedEx Corporate Vice President, Vice President, Directors and all management of FedEx’s communication department AND the chain of command at Ketchum on his e-mail:

Mr. Andrews,

If I interpret your post correctly, these are your comments about Memphis a few hours after arriving in the global headquarters city of one of your key and lucrative clients, and the home of arguably one of the most important entrepreneurs in the history of business, FedEx founder Fred Smith.

Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write.

Not knowing exactly what prompted your comments, I will admit the area around our airport is a bit of an eyesore, not without crime, prostitution, commercial decay, and a few potholes. But there is a major political, community, religious, and business effort underway, that includes FedEx, to transform that area. We’re hopeful that over time, our city will have a better “face” to present to visitors.

James, everyone participating in today’s event, including those in the auditorium with you this morning, just received their first paycheck of 2009 containing a 5% pay cut… which we wholeheartedly support because it continued the tradition established by Mr. Smith of doing whatever it takes to protect jobs.

Considering that we just entered the second year of a U.S. recession, and we are experiencing significant business loss due to the global economic downturn, many of my peers and I question the expense of paying Ketchum to produce the video open for today’s event; work that could have been achieved by internal, award-winning professionals with decades of experience in television production.

Additionally Mr. Andrews, with all due respect, to continue the context of your post; true confession: many of my peers and I don’t see much relevance between your presentation this morning and the work we do in Employee Communications.

(Signed as a personal message by a member of the FedEx Corporate Communications team)

For me, the kicker in all of this is that Andrews was supposed to be the expert on social media. In any case it is a great reminder, that just like anything else, manners are necessary when using social media.

Here are five things to keep in mind when using social media:

1. Publishing still means publishing – Whenever you post something on Twitter, Facebook, or your LinkedIn account you are publishing information to the web. This means that with the exception of setting loose privacy settings, anyone can get access to your information.
2. Don’t use text-messsage short hand for professional uses, it won’t make clients or employees LOL – Using text-message short hand in e-mails or responses won’t make you look cool or down to earth. It’s definitely not a good way to be efficient and it will more than likely make you look stupid and unprofessional.
3. Be aware of your audience – It’s important to know the audience or target market for your blog, website, or posts. Some people are more sensitive to certain things and may take something you write out of context. While Andrews probably didn’t intend to offend anyone at FedEx, his tweet was not well received and probably taken out of context.

4. Transparent communication isn’t the same as being rude – While it is important to maintain a certain level of transparent communication with associated and the public, that doesn’t mean you can be rude. If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face then you shouldn’t be posting it online.
5. Respect is still the name of the game – Whether your working with social media or not, respect is key. More than ever before we are operating as a global market and it is absolutely imperative to respect what everyone else is trying to accomplish.

Photo by Intersection Consulting

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I’ve recently had a few lawyers ask me what a #hashtag is on Twitter, so I decided to write a post to help others with the same question.

What Is A Hashtag:

The Twitter Fan Wiki defines a hashtag as the following:

“Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.”

How Do I Use a Hashtag?

“First, follow @hashtags on Twitter. They will follow you back automatically, and your hashtags will be tracked.

Next, start using hashtags in your tweets, preceding key words. It can be helpful to do a little research first, to find out if the subject you’re tweeting already has an established hashtag.

Finally, track other tweets on the subjects you’re interested in (ie: those containing the appropriate hashtags) by browsing/searching at Hashtags.org or TwitterGroups. You can set it up with RSS feeds as well.”

Why Are Hashtags Useful?

Hashtags are useful for tracking events or topics of interest to you on Twitter.  For example, many people want to follow the tweets that are posted about the Iran election as it unfolds.  By attaching the hashtag #iranelection to a tweet, that message will appear to others monitoring or searching tweets on that subject.

Examples of Hashtag Uses from Twitter Fan Wiki:

• Events or conferences, e.g.: “Tara’s presentation on communities was great! #barcampblock”
• Disasters: “#sandiegofire A shelter has opened up downtown for fire refugees.”
• Memes: “My #themeword for 2008 is conduct.”
• Context: “I can’t believe anyone would design software like this! #microsoftoffice”
• Recall: “Buy some toilet paper. #todo”
• Quote: “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

Youtube Video Explaining Hashtags and Their Uses

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

I recently came across a post from the people at Mashable, “Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube“.  I thought the videos they posted were very well done and extremely helpful.

Twitter, although simple at it’s core, can be confusing to explain or understand fully before you really dive in.  This is a great collection of video tutorials to help you get a better grasp on what Twitter is and how it can be used.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.

The Kogi Taco Truck is all the rage right now in Los Angeles.  The truck serves Korean style tacos.  The tacos are reportedly delicious and lines form early for the truck, often times stretching for blocks.  People have waited 3-4 hours for a taste of the tacos.  The truck usually closes and leaves for the evening because they run out of food.

By the way, people never know exactly where the truck will appear.  It changes locations frequently and you can only find out where it is going to be by following Kogi on Twitter.

Marketing At Its Finest

I’m impressed with this on so many levels.  What a clever, unique way to market yourself!  By adding the hunt and chase to getting your tacos, Kogi is adding an emotional element, an excitement, no other taco place is touching.  In addition, by marketing their locations on Twitter, they are using a new platform where the mystique of the taco hunt can spread virally.

Business has exploded for the Kogi truck.  They have reportedly added a couple of trucks to their fleet as their popularity grows.  My sincerest compliments for their creative and successful marketing campaign.

Twitter Guide For Lawyers Want to learn more about using Twitter for your practice? Download AttorneySync’s Free Twitter For Lawyers Guide.