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Has the Vancouver social media community considered starting a chapter of the Social Media Club? I know it’s “yet another thing” for many people, but its whole mission is to have these conversations, both in person and online. It has benefited the Victoria community enormously for these reasons:
1) The larger organization is a wonderful space to share local discussions and “lessons learned”, and the arrangement is reciprocal, with wider discussions seeding the local level too.
2) It encompasses the full spectrum of social media – not just blogging, not just the “flavour of the month” – and many of our discussions are applicable across platforms.
3) It is becoming a recognized brand in itself. As a communications professional engaged in social media, I’d like to visit chapters in other towns. Are there great people visiting Vancouver who are missing connections because they don’t know where to look?

Since Paul Holmes and I founded the Victoria chapter (the first in Canada!) six months ago, I have been continually amazed by the quality of discussion and the building of community that takes place when we meet.  We’ve gone from 15 people to nearly 40 at the last event, and the momentum keeps building. We’re preparing for a very big event Sept 22nd, when we welcome n2y4 award winner Joe Solomon to talk about “Movement Building in a Connected Age”.  That deserves its own post, so expect to see more here about that talk this week.

At the same time, meetups, tweetups, an Open Coffee group and DemoCamp all add to our knowledge base and our contact files.  (For people who spend a lot of time behind screens, we sure like to meet!) At each event I’ve been to, I’ve come home feeling like I’ve shared a lot and learned far more.

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Like much that is Twitter, or many other forms of human intercourse, the rules aren’t written down – you pick them up from the other kids on the playground. That can be tricky when you are new. So here are the “retweet rules”, as I have learned them. Please feel free to add your take on them in the comments.

1. Please acknowledge the source tweet. The first example is the standard form, created by many applications that give you a one-click retweet.  If you are using Twitter in the Twitter.com web format, copy and paste the tweet, and type “RT” at the beginning. RT stands for retweet.  Like this:

Wordspring: RT @yyjtwestival Tickets now available online for #yyjtwestival http://www.amiando.com/YYJTWESTIVAL.html

Or, if you want the news to come first, massage it like this:

Wordspring: Tickets now available online for #yyjtwestival http://www.amiando.com/YYJTWESTIVAL.html (via @yyjtwestival)

Failing to quote your source is intellectual theft and plain rude.  ALWAYS acknowledge where you obtained your information,  even if you have to adapt the wording a bit to make it fit into 140 characters.  More on that below.

2. If it’s a quote, use the source of the quotation as well as the source of the tweet.

Wordspring: An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. – Jef Mallett (via @hummingbird604)

Or this:

Wordspring: RT @hummingbird604 An opinion should be the result of thought, not a substitute for it. – Jef Mallett

In that case, I retweeted @hummingbird604 quoting another source who isn’t necessarily on Twitter, or even alive.  I see a lot of Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde on Twitter, and I suspect they would have taken to the medium like Barack Obama and Stephen Fry, respectively.  But I digress.

3.  It adds personality to append your own comment, particularly where it isn’t just a “ditto”, but adds more information. I frequently see people using arrows –>  or ~, or something else that says “my comment”.  Like this:

Wordspring: RT @yyjtwestival Tickets now available online for #yyjtwestival http://www.amiando.com/YYJTWESTIVAL.html ~ I’m going!!

Or this:

Wordspring: Got mine! –> RT @yyjtwestival Tickets now available online for #yyjtwestival http://www.amiando.com/YYJTWESTIVAL.html

4.  When it’s a retweet of a retweet, things get a little more complicated. You can include the middleman (person?) or not.  I like to thank the messenger with an acknowledgement if there is the room.

Wordspring: RT @jodie_nodes @cpudan @lacouvee Announcing the 1st family friendly #victoriatweetup Sun Sept 13 1pm Witty’s Lagoon. #yyj (via @mikevardy)

But if that is getting a little bit crazy, and you feel you are losing the message in so many acknowledgements it’s beginning to read like an Oscar acceptance speech, I’d go with the one closest to the message:

Wordspring: RT @lacouvee Announcing the 1st family friendly #victoriatweetup Sun Sept 13 1pm Witty’s Lagoon. #yyj <– The Twitter grapevine is working hard today!

See how I slipped a comment in there that basically says “a lot of people are talking about this”?  That’s a lot friendlier to read than the grocery list of chatty Victoria twitterers.

5.  You can adapt and retweet – with caution. At times, somebody has written a tweet that you like, or that contains good information, and it’s just too darn long to fit into your 140 characters along with their name.  This is where the “adapted retweet” comes in.  Be as true as you can to the meaning of the tweet, edit and send.  But beware.  If you mangle someone’s meaning, it’s better to leave it alone.  Here’s one that is 10 characters too long when I just press RT:

Wordspring: RT @Veribatim I am amused at how many comments I get on Facebook whenever I mention alcohol. I’m writing this down as a black-hat optimization tactic.

Some shortening is in order!

Wordspring: RT @Veribatim Amused at how many comments I get on FB whenever I mention alcohol. Writing this down as a black-hat optimization tactic.

You can also shorten links with a URL shortener.  It can turn http://www.amiando.com/YYJTWESTIVAL.html into http://bit.ly/2RESR Dozens exist, and you can access them on their own websites – Paul Holmes has one at tweeting.ca, or you can use the ones that come with the large variety of Twitter applications out there.

I hope I don’t need to add how WRONG it would be to switch someone else’s link to one that points to your stuff, or ANYTHING other than the original link.  That is called link hijacking and it ought to mean the end of your Twitter career if you ever do it.

There you are – the subtleties of the retweet!

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I’m surprised it doesn’t mention the big social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) – but whether you produce your own media on your own channels, or hang out on the larger social networking sites, his analogy still holds.

What do you think?

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1. Stick to a publication schedule. You can blog weekly, twice a week, even every day.  But do your best to be consistent.  On average, I post once every week or two, and really, that’s not enough, in frequency or consistency, for someone in the communications field.  It’s difficult enough to build up a readership without making it extra challenging for your reader to find new material from you.  This is the rule that makes me feel like a “bad mommy” blogger.  So there you are – post something – anything that makes your heart beat a bit faster will do.  And post consistently.
2. Understand the difference between blogging and writing an article. This is going to help immensely with point #1, because ultimately, blogging is easier and more free-form than writing an article.  You can make your post whatever it wants to be, including some recent pictures, a comment on someone else’s blog, or a top 10 list.  If you are blogging for a business purpose, then I would suggest that you remember the keywords that work for your business, and try to stay on topic.  But don’t feel that you have to write a Pulitzer Prize-winning article.  You just have to share what you know, or have experienced. Content is definitely more important than style.
3. Try to keep your posts on the short side. When we read on the web, our attention spans are shorter than when we read in print – or so I’m told.  Frankly, some of my favourite bloggers create very lengthy, literate posts (Karen Rivers of iSpuddle is guilty of this, but so funny that it’s worth persevering through 400o words of her latest synopsis of The Bachelorette.  Speaking of which, Karen, where is Episode 10?  Were you camping or at the beach again when it was on?).  But for your average person who does not write for a day job, you are doing yourself and everyone else a favour when you stay within 500 words, and highlight your points with a bulleted or numbered list.  These are much easier to write, and easy to scan quickly for information as well.

There!  See?  Blogging isn’t all that scary – just get your information out there and let people know that you are someone they can do business with, or at least find interesting enough to make a return visit.  And once you are done, remember to blow your own horn by letting the social networking world know that you have launched another little nugget of wisdom into the universe.  Share it on Facebook.  Tweet it out there. You can even ask me how to set it up so your electronic online places talk to each other and do the publicity work for you.

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Twitter’s “recommended” list… isn’t
The problem is, that from Twitter’s website, you’re not given much more than the “Recommended Twitterers” list of about 20 people, mainly big celebrities.  And frankly, big celebrities are very low on my list of people I want to interact with on Twitter.  Ashton Kutcher’s social calendar just doesn’t intersect with mine all that often.  I’d far sooner find people who actually share my interests, or my geography, or even who are at a similar stage of life, and I’ll bet that you feel the same way, too.

So here are my suggestions for tuning your Twitter radar, and finding some actual signals amongst the noise:

What’s your purpose on Twitter?
First, ask yourself why you want to use Twitter.  If it’s so you can follow Oprah’s doings between shows and magazines, then by all means, follow @oprah.  But if you have a local business and you want to engage your customers and other local people, you’ll need a different strategy than following Twitter’s recommended list.  You may need a different strategy again if you want to discuss issues with people further afield.

It’s not what you know – it’s who you know
So start with what you know.  Or who you know.  Twitter makes this easy by offering to go through your contact list – provided you can supply it on Gmail, AOL or Yahoo.  Not on any of these?  Then I suggest you get an account with Gmail and import your contacts just so Twitter can search it.  You may never use Gmail again – though in my opinion, it’s a much better email interface than anything else on the market, and you might just be converted – as I was.  But I digress.  If you find people you already know on Twitter, you probably have things in common with them already.

Friends of friends are good, too
Next, take a look at who your new-found Twitter contacts are following.  Chances are, it’s more people with interests you share.  Twitter has just made this research much easier by giving the location and the latest tweets on both “follower” and “following” lists.  Where you find things in common, add them to your list.

Third, do a Twitter search of key words that are important to you.  You’ll find people who are talking about those subjects.  This is great if you are a designer looking for other people in your field, or a realtor, or a social media fanatic.

Call in the reinforcements
Fourth, use an application like TwitterLocal or Twellow to find people in your geographic area.  Twellow lists the most active/prominent Twitterers first, while TwitterLocal feeds you a geographically defined Twitter stream in real time.  Both these functions are pretty useful!

Finally, start talking about the things that make your heart beat faster.  If it’s window coverings, tell people about the best way to manage all this hot summer sunshine.  If it’s a conference you are planning for this fall, talk about who is planning to be there.  People will search for these things (hey, you are rarely alone in your interests!) and they will find you.  Then follow them back.  It’s the Twitter way.

When will you have enough people?  When you have a Twitter party taking place on your computer, and it feels like you need to call the fire marshall.  More on managing the crowd in another post!

* OK armchair grammarians, I know that correct English usage would be “whom” do you follow, but really… does anyone speak like that any more?

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Then at noon today, Paul Holmes of IdeaZone.ca and I are going to give a topic on – guess what – Using Social Media in Your Business – to the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.  It’s sold out!  But we’ve produced a handly little “action plan” for those who want to take some concrete action.  And I’m sharing it with you here.

Also, I now have a venue to teach social media classes starting this summer!  They are going to be “roll up your sleeves and get going” classes in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blogging with WordPress.  More platforms available on request.  Let me know if you are interested, and what days of the week and times work best for you.

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You’ll be glad to know I’m not “reblogging” something boring or useless – here’s an excellent quote from the blog of Social Media Club Phoenix, on how to know if your social media consultant “gets it”. 

“How do you know your social media vendor really knows what s/he’s talking about? It’s simple. Look at his/her portfolio, the same way you would look at a photographer’s or a designer’s. That portfolio is on the web, and should be easily searchable. Start with Google. Google your vendor’s name. No matter how much you don’t know about social media, you can do this part. Do you see your vendor on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, other social sites? That’s the bare minimum. Read your vendor’s blog or his Tumblr, or his comments on the blogs of others. Is s/he a valuable member of his/her community? Engaged? Respected? Thoughtful? Social media is a very quickly evolving space, and new tools come out every day.”

Just so you know, that was a very simple drag-and-drop. What’s more, Zemanta’s Reblog tool is taking care of the attribution and the backlink.  That’s pretty important in this day of easy theft of intellectual property. 

Looks like we’ve killed two birds with one stone – a quick and easy product review (yes, Zemanta, I’ll be using your stuff again).  And a very short lesson on how to know if your social media professional gets it.

On the second topic, if your professional unafraid to experiment in public, as I just did, you can probably trust them to be authentic in their treatment of your material as well.  And authenticity is a very good thing in the social media universe.

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