Tag Archive for: twitter

[Rant] How Social Media Playfulness Leads to Meaningful Connections

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Social media often gets a bad rap, and it often deserves it. 

On the other hand, social media may well be the biggest, most fun playground ever. 🙂  

And, I’m not just talking about frivolous fun. I’m talking about an AWESOME playground with creative superpowers and unprecedented opportunities to develop meaningful connections.

Amongst social media’s creative superpowers, my favorite (as you may well know) is video. Social media is constantly reinventing video in a morphing media form that most currently spans a spectrum from TikTok and IGTV (and, yes, Reels) to Facebook Live, YouTube, Zoom, and Loom, just to name a few. 

Has there ever been a video playground so abundant with creative opportunities to experiment and try new things? And, when you try new things, there’s no telling what will happen. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!

One of those things that might happen, perhaps serendipitously, is that you might make some meaningful connections with like minds who resonate with your creations.

It’s in making these kinds of authentic connections that you can, if you are willing to play and experiment, make social media meaningful. And, I hope you know that I’m not talking about my thousands of Facebook “friends.” 

I’m talking about authentic long-term relationships that are sustained through an Engaging Social Media Presence (my new acronym is ESMP). Because nothing meaningful is ever built with a single click, these kinds of social media connections require nurturing through the values that I champion, specifically, consistency and authenticity, as well as (and I know I’m getting a bit circular here) playfulness and video.

So, when someone makes you aware of how truly evil Facebook (and others) can be, please don’t forget that there’s a flip side that is also true. 

When you use social media with a spirit of playfulness and experimentation it leads to expanded creativity and connections.

And, oh yeah, this quote (that’s on the social media graphic that’s attached to this post) came out of my recent webinar, “Beyond the Hype: Social Media Marketing That Really Works!” 

If you’re interested, you can check out that webinar for free, no registration required, here: https://www.combridges.com/free-social-media-marketing-webinar/

Thanks for reading!

New Twitter Website Press Conference, Live via UStream & Scobleizer

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Twitter called a press conference today. I caught wind of it on Twitter just minutes before it began.

I noted (yes, also via Twitter) that Robert Scoble a.k.a. @scobleizer was webcasting live video of the press conference via his UStream feed.

The announcement was delivered in a surprisingly incoherent, rambling style that included a presentation computer crash.

The big news was the “New Twitter” website (video demo is here). It should be live by the time you read this.

I was equally entertained (and informed) by the chat stream that accompanied the UStream webcast, and it was interesting to see Mr. Scoble’s webcast go from just a few hundred viewers prior to the event to about 4,500 simultaneous viewers about 40 minutes in.

The new Twitter web interface looks more interactive and feels inspired to me by the excellent Twitter iPad app.

Twitter founder, Evan Williams, @ev emphasized the volume of Twitter users who access Twitter.com vs the variety of third-party applications and he noted something that I think a lot of the general public does not realize: “You don’t have to tweet to use Twitter.” You can just use it to access information, links and whatever from just the folks that you find to be of interest. (If you don’t know, Twitter Lists is a good way to do this.)

The new Twitter website will include a more interactive second-column (or pane) that will allow you to learn more about the tweeter or view pictures or videos without having your click “open” a new web browser window. This will provide more convenient browsing via Twitter, for sure. Also, messages via Twitter @mentions will be threaded (I like this feature in HootSuite) which should help the overall user experience as well.

Bottom line, Evan said, in an uncharacteristically grandiose style, that the online Twitter.com experience has been “completely transformed” into “one of the slickest web sites anywhere.” Or something like that. We’ll see.

Bottom line, I think this is an intelligent upgrade that will make the Twitter.com website much more useful for those browsing as well as those tweeting. Twitter is continuing to grow rapidly and I believe this growth will continue for the foreseeable future.

Even though Twitter lags behind Facebook in terms of total users as well as time spent, it offers a faster-paced and much more search-able platform where you can “follow” people of interest without having to have them follow you back (i.e. become “friends”). That alone, to me, makes Twitter a worthy investment of time. And, the opportunities to monitor the social, public conversation via highly-visual web applications like http://paper.li and iPad applications like FlipBoard ensure that, at least as far as I’m concerned, Twitter will continue to be a “foreground” information and networking resource for quite some time to come. Stay tuned.
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Addendum:

I’m still not seeing the new design as of the time of this addition to this post. Apparently the roll out will take weeks. Meanwhile, here are a couple of other interesting perspectives (presuming you consider mine to also be “interesting”):

Conan O’Brien Gets “The World Has Completely Changed.” Do You?

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(Note: Read & scroll down please. Two [2] cool video clips below…)

I gotta love the fact that social media has become so powerful that a TV comedian like Conan O’Brien is having very tangible personal experiences that not only wake him up to the fact that “the world” as he says, “has completely changed.” But, as he illuminates in the video clip below from an interview at Google, his social media realization is in stark contrast to how far the execs at NBC apparently are from understanding how social media works (i.e. the audience has new powers). Duh. 😉

Of course, this is just one example of the fact that dramatic changes that are upon us due to the explosion of social media.  More video “evidence” is detailed in the 2nd video clip below.

Also, please note that when you click “play” on the Conan YouTube clip below, it is set up to play starting at the segment at 15:27 where he describes what happened to him because of Twitter (about 3+ minutes total) in the aftermath of his fall out with NBC when they gave “The Tonight Show” back to Jay Leno (“the other gentleman”). At some point, you may want to watch the whole 48-minute clip. It’s quite funny.

Now… especially if you are still wondering about the importance of social media—but probably, in any case— I highly recommend the following visually dynamic and informative YouTube video, “Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)” from the authors of the book, “Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.” This video is a freshingly-updated version of video that’s been around for a while. It’s packed with eye-opening statistics and relevant perspective, including, for example:

“Social Media is not a fad, but a fundamental shift in how we communicate.”
— Erik Qualman

Yes, the changes are that big.

Do you “get it” or are you still sitting on the edge of the social media “pool” thinking about jumping in?

Twitter Tools & How to Build More Consumption of Your Media

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This Tuesday’s edition of TheTVNews.tv which is shown immediately below, features the links, tools and resources that can be found below the video. Enjoy!

Tapping into Twitter & other insights…

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I am happy to write and release a new issue of my ComBridges enewsletter last week. It included some of my excitement about Twitter as well as other insights.

Please click here to check out the last edition of the ComBridges “It’s a Wonderful Web” enewsletter.

In the meantime, what I’ve come to call “Twittermania” has continued to heat up. In addition to the resources listed in the enewsletter linked above, here are a few more that I have found valuable:

And the list goes on, and the beat goes on, lots of interesting information being found by tuning into Twitter streams.

As pointed out in the O’Reilly webcast, Twitter really is different than other Internet communication channels. 1. Because the posts are SHORT, it’s microblogging, snappier and more accessible. 2. Because the posts are public and you can “follow” (or “listen”) to someone without permission, it’s more open than other social media platforms where you have to accept people as “friends” or whatever. And finally, 3. because it’s a text-based platform it can be pushed to you on a wide variety of distribution platforms from cell phones, to the web, to IM clients, you name it.

Mark my words, Twitter is really a big thing, maybe even the “next big thing.” The experience seems to be consistently that people don’t get it at first. It was that way for me and lots of others. But once you do get it, you see its enormous power and how much fun it is, especially for us information junkies. Enjoy.

OMG, Twitter is like so totally busted! “Twitter Whore” shows all…

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I mentioned below the “In Plain English” Twitter video which actually explains Twitter to the uninitiated or un-techie amongst us. But, on the other hand, if you want to laugh a little, and sorta, kinda experience the frenetic experience of what I believe Twitter to be (and why I’m not a participant… go on, comment below about why I’m missing out!), then OMG! I’m sure you’ll enjoy the Twitter parody videos below, produced by and staring one of YouTube’s rising stars, Lisa Donovan (screen name LisaNova), a self-described “Twitter Whore” (video is in two parts below). As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, “Be careful out there.”