What value do you really get from the people you follow on Twitter?

For me, I get pretty much zero value from my Twitter followings. And the same goes for my followers btw.

Some argue that the real value of Twitter comes not from the number of followers, but from following the right people.To some degree I will agree with this point of view, but I still think its not enough. There's missing a filter to make Twitter a valuable investment for the time spent there.

My main problem with Twitter is that it is too fragmented. There is simply too much irrelevant fluff being tweeted.Few people have something of interest to say to many people very often.

Others argue that the best way to use Twitter is to see it as a waterfall. According to this point of view, we don't have to read all tweets from all our followings all the time.We can simply log in once in a while and see if there is anything of interest going on. That too sounds quite un-productive to me.

Is there value on Twitter?

So why am I even on Twitter? Is there any value to get from using it?

I do believe Twitter can provide value if used correctly. I will argue, however, that both the numbers of your followers and your followings have no direct value. If you can't expect that most of your followers will see what you tweet, then a following of 50k becomes somewhat meaningless as a network effect.

Apart from direct up- and downstream networks (followings and followers), which I for the sake of clarity call meta-networks, most people are connected to various sub-networks. By sub-networks I mean the intangible networks of people we are following or which follow us, and with whom we have a particular interest in common, an interest which most likely aren't shared by many others in our meta-networks.

This fragmented attention network means for me that the real value of Twitter comes not from our networks, but from search and filter. Third party Twitter apps, such as Tweetdesk allows us to put people into groups. But still, it doesn't really cut it. The filter options aren't good enough. There's still too much noise and too little signal.

Enter Friendfeed.

Twitter on Friendfeed

Friendfeed is my Twitter client of choice. It is customizable, flexible, extremely powerful, and it simply lets me cut out as much noise as possible.Basically we have three tools on Friendfeed which are relevant for this purpose; Lists, Smart Filters (which now are called Saved Searches) and Imaginary Friends.

If you haven't done it already, go to one of the Twitter-to-Friendfeed apps and import your Twitter clients into Friendfeed (at least the ones who have a Friendfeed account).You can put all your Twitter friends in one list called "Twitter", or do with them whatever you want, this is just an example.

Imaginary Friends

For the people you follow on Twitter which does not have a Friendfeed account you can import them as imaginary friends. Imaginary friends are created under the "Friends" list - where in the bottom it says "Imaginary Friends". Thats it. Simple.

As Friendfeed is powered by RSS feeds, Imaginary Friends can of course also be from any where else on the web which supports RSS. This could for the purpose of Twitter, be the RSS feed output from Twitter Search. This becomes useful when we talk about lists.

Lists

If you created your Twitter list as mentioned above, then you have a few interesting options. First, you can add/remove friends, meaning you can decide which of your friends should be on this list, or another. This should be obvious.Second, you can add any of your imaginary friends into the list. This could for example be on any topic where you have made a Twitter Search.

You can choose whether you want to import a person as a Imaginary Friend from their Twitter personality or if you want to import them as a Custom RSS feed. But before you decide, please note one powerful difference. When you import a person from Twitter you get all their tweets, as you would expect. Now, if you follow a person on Twitter who belongs to a lot of sub-groups, and you don't necessarily want to listen to all the person's tweets, you can solve itby making a Twitter Search like this: "topic of interest" from:"person's twitter handle".

This is an example where I searched for tweets from me, inwhere I mention Ruby (Ruby on Rails is my newest obsession). Notice the search input.And the best thing is you don't get all my other tweets which might be endlessly uninteresting for you.

Smart Filters / Saved Searches

The Smart Filters, or Saved Searches as they are now called on Friendfeed have some additional interesting function. This one is just one of the obvious saved searches which will bring value for Twitterers on Friendfeed:

Include entries from:All Friendfeed users. Keyword/quality filters contains the words:service:twitter contains ...OR ...
Fill in the dots with as many words as you want to track on Twitter.

This will give you all Friendfeed users, filtered only for the Twitter service, and tracking your search topics of interest.Unfortunately it is not possible to import the RSS feed from a saved search into a list, which would otherwise have been quite powerful.

Power up your Twitter Friendfeed lists with Google

If you think Twitter isn't enough and you really wanna spice up your Friendfeed Lists, you can search for your topic of interest over at Google News and Google Blog Search. Enter your search topic and copy the resulting RSS feed into your friendfeed list as an Imaginary Friend.

Here is the result of a search for "Friendfeed" on Google News 
Here is the result of a search for "Friendfeed" on Google Blogsearch

Combine these tools and you can make some quite powerful Friendfeed lists.
Oh, and in case any one was in doubt. When you import Tweets into Friendfeed you can of course reply directly from Friendfeed into Twitter as any other Twitter app.

Manage your Twitter & Friendfeed from Gmail

Now that you have set up Friendfeed to manage your Twitter life, you can choose not to use Friendfeed. As metioned by Jesse Stay from Staynalive, Friendfeed Lists can deliver new items and comments directly to your email inbox, or via IM (if you use Gmail).

Basically this means that you can control both your Friendfeed and your Twitter accounts directly from your Gmail without leaving your inbox.
You can read here for more information on how to set up your Friendfeed account with IM Gtalk.

That's it, I hope you found it useful. You're welcome to leave a comment. And remember, now you have no excuse to waste time on Twitter no more.

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media platform out there. It's hype, it's early adopters, and many claim that Twitter has already gone mainstream. But is Twitter really social? Is Twitter a great place for conversation?

Twitter - Its all about the conversation

Twitter's success often gets credited due to its simplicity of use. Yet, the same simplicity - the lack of structure - makes for a myriad of ways of using the service. We have the link-pimp's, we have the @'ers and we have the meme's. And so what? Is there anything wrong with this? Many will claim that its healthy for the various communities on the Twitter platform, to support a diversity of interesting people, where each individual can use Twitter in its own way.

But don't stand in the corner shouting - Engage! I've been on Twitter for a year or two now. And as many other people starting using Twitter, I got there, shouted a little bit, wondered why no-one thought I was extremely fascinating talking about my lunch, or hysterically funny talking about the weather. I left Twitter shortly after I arrived the first time.

Social Media is SOCIAL media - Engage!

Social Media, according to Wikipedia, is about conversation:  

"Primarily, social media depend on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words to build shared-meaning, using technology as a conduit."

  Try to enhance the conversation. Don't just be the geek standing in the corner, shouting out at people. But how can you start a conversation on Twitter? What if none of your friends or family use Twitter?

What if you don't know anyone in your industry using Twitter? What if everyone you know use MSN, and Myspace, and maybe even Facebook - you know, just to be hip. And what if you look down at the list of people following you, and realize that you have absolutely no clue who these people are, as you have never met or talked to any of them? Here is my two cents on Twitter conversation:

• Start a conversation with a stranger: Go to your followers list. Click on the first person you see. Read the profile and click on the URL if there is one. Ask the person any question you think of as you read his profile/site. Do this with the 5 next people on your follow/following lists. Repeat. Engage!  
• Search for Friends: Your Twitter friends does not have to be friends from real life. Search for your interests on Twitter search and add people with the same interests as you. 
• Add value: Look at your last 20 tweets. How is the structure? have you had any conversations? Are 17 of your last 20 tweets about food you have eaten?Are all your tweets links to other people's blog posts? The keyword here is balance.  
• @'s: No one wants to follow a person who only has @'s - why? because they usually only provide value for the person sending and the receiver. Twitter does not have threaded conversation (unlike Friendfeed), so conversations are rarely interesting for other than the two people in it.  
• Link-pimp: are all your tweets links, then most likely your Twitter account is exactly like 2 million other Twitter accounts. Why would anyone follow a Twitter account where the tweet page have no conversation, no engagement, only links?     
• Are all your latest tweets updates about your food or the weather? Well, how often do you start a conversation with people in this way in real life? Try to balance your Tweets, add value, be interesting. Mix up your @'s with your link-pimping and your updates about what you're actually doing.

Twitter - Its not about the conversation

I have earlier written about why I think Friendfeed is better for conversation than Twitter. Twitter is great for quick status updates. Twitter is great to share a link and to send a message to many people at the same time. Twitter is even great for fast and short conversations.

But the 140 character limit which makes Twitter so good for short updates also means that Twitter is not great for social interaction at any deeper level than send-receive.

...Twitter is great for sending information, but not for having a conversation.

Is Friendfeed better? Yes it is!

On Friendfeed people can argue, debate and inform. Don't get me wrong, Friendfeed is no IM like Gtalk, Pidgin, Skype or even MSN. Friendfeed is not a chatting tool for long conversations. But on Friendfeed, a conversation can easily be had, and Friendfeed adds value as it provides for conversations with more than two participants.

Twitter's greatness is also its weakness.

Bonus Round - Twitter Guides

Many great guides for how to use Twitter has been written. Of my person favorites, I found great value in a strategic article on how-to use Twitter, written by uber-tweeter, Darren Rowse of Problogger. Jeniffer Van Grove, wrote a great article on the use of Twitter strategies to transform your brand.  Not that its particular for Twitter, but Vincent Hunt has written my favorite social media intro of all times, a must read.

And you...

... How do you use Twitter? How do you add value? and how do you use Twitter as a SOCIAL media tool?

Is Twitter better than Friendfeed? Is Friendfeed better than Twitter? Better for what and Better for who?  

While hanging out over at Twitter the other day, I was eavesdropping on one of the many Twitter vs. Friendfeed conversations. This particular conversation was between @maydbs and @raiha. They were talking about the hype of Friendfeed and how they didn't really get what the Friendfeed fuss was all about.

Getting a great deal of value from Friendfeed, I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I busted in on the conversation stating that Friendfeed was the better tool, hands down. After a bit of talk forth and back, all I got out of that statement was a "Prove it!".

However, since I have no intend of being #47643789 to write yet another "How-to Friendfeed" blog post (Louis Gray, Michael Fruchter and Daniel J. Pritchett, among others, have already written better posts than I could, fx. here, here and here and even here.

On Friendfeed I searched a bit around for conversations on the topics of Twitter vs. Friendfeed, when I realized that for me, the one thing which makes Friendfeed so much better than Twitter is its ability for crowdsourcing. According to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing can be defined as:

"Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call."

Why Twitter?

It is often said that the great thing about Twitter is its simplicity. The simple question of "What are you doing?" Twitter lets you easy connect with lots of people around the world, with whom you share an interest. Robert Scoble, being a uber-tweeter, has a great video tutorial on how he uses Twitter, and how it relates to his use of Friendfeed.   

Twitter & Crowdsourcing

Twitter is a great tool for having a quick 140 characters conversation one-on-one. While Twitter is also a good tool for crowdsourcing, it is however not an optimal tool.

It is true that Twitter is good and greatly used for shouting out one-to-many, and as Robert Scoble pointed out, Chris Pirillo's new tool, Twickie, is great for crowdsourcing many-to-one.

So why is Twitter not an optimal solution for crowdsourcing?

Friendfeed & Crowdsourcing

In my opinion, Friendfeed is a better solution for crowdsourcing because it uses threaded conversations, and everyone can see what everyone else has been commenting.

In effect this means that you can get a many-to-many conversation, and often find much richer results that the one-to-many or many-to-one conversations over at Twitter.

Crowdsourcing on Friendfeed - Examples

How-to Friendfeed Crowdsourcing Guides

• Sarah Perez, one of the star writers of ReadWriteWeb, asked a question on Friendfeed about where to guide her Twitter friends who wanted to know more about Friendfeed for Dummies. 
• B-2-B Marketing Specialist, Chris Herbert asked for pros and cons of using Friendfeed. 
• Photographer Thomas Hawk, wrote a post on his blog on 10 reasons why you should sign up for Friendfeed. 
• Uber blogger, Robert Scoble, has been very good at utilizing his huge following to create some great crowdsourced conversations. He for example asked: “If you want more followers on Twitter and friendfeed here's what to do:”

Great tools-for-Friendfeed Guides

• When Friendfeed in the beginning of February improved its Friendfeed search function to a degree that it is now better than Twitter search, Robert Scoble started a couple of interesting conversations regarding the new search feature, here and here. 
• As mentioned by Friendfeed co-founder, Brett Taylor, Friendfeed has made a tool which will import your Twitter friends to Friendfeed. 
• Robert Scoble started a great conversation on the value of Friendfeed rooms.

The Bonus Round

- Louis Gray - King of Friendfeed

Friendfeed super-user, Louis Gray, has written a series of posts on how to use the full strength of Friendfeed, for example:

• Louis has written about how to use Friendfeed as a productivity tool. 
• During the summer of 2005 Louis wrote a series of Friday tips for using Friendfeed. He covered how to use the hide button, how to use the Friendfeed bookmarklet, how to take advantage of advanced search (note that Friendfeed as mentioned above, later radically improved its advanced search function), How and why to import Gtalk status, and lastly, how to bring Friendfeed comments back to your blog.    

And you...

...Do you prefer Twitter or Friendfeed? How do you use them? Do you make use of crowdsourcing?   If you liked this post, please consider to leave a comment and/or to subscribe to my feed.

Does your company use social media to improve its coporate communication? If so, how does it do it? How have you implemented a dialog with your major stakeholders? How do you measure your ROI?

A growing number of social media consultants offer services to monitor and even influence the conversation of brands in the world of social media. Many of these consultants provide extensive and valuable services. It is, however, fairly simple and often sufficient to make your own image monitoring of your brand/company around the world of social media.

Here are five tools to track what is being said about your brand:

Google Search

Everyone obviously know about a Google Search, so why even mention it?

Well, a Google search is quite powerful, and as the most used search engine on the web, it will provide you with a lot of information. The problem with Google search is that it also usually provides a lot of non-relevant information. 

The relevant information results found in a Google search can however be drastically improved with a few pointers to advanced Google searches, see for example here and here for an overview of Google smart search queries.  

The obvious searched would be to something like: 

Your Company +Your Brand but you could also try something like: Your Company +your community or Your company +your targeted consumer group. 

Yet other searches will be your company name or brand name + a number of adjectives, like "suck", "hate", "fan" etc.

A Google Search will give you an updated overview of what is out there on the web, mentioning your product or brand name, or that of your main competitors.  

Google Blog Search

In addition to a standard Google search, it is also recommended to make a Google Blog Search on your corporate and product brand.

The Google Blog Search will show you all the times your specific search query has been mentioned in a blog or a blog comment.

Some will argue that a Google Blog Search is not necessary as it gets covered within the standard Google search.

I often find, however, that the standard search is cluttered with a lot of non-relevant information, and therefore I feel the Google Blog Search adds value.  

Google Alerts

Once you have an updated overview of what is being said about your product or brand name on the web, the next will be to make a Google Alerts search.  

Google Alerts differs form a general Google Search in that it alerts whenever a user defined search query is being used somewhere on the net. Basically, what this means is that if you decide to put your corporate and your product brand name to be tracked by Google Alerts, you will receive notifications whenever these search queries pops up around the net.  

Google Alerts provides notifications either through email or through updates in an RSS reader of choice. Google Alerts currently offers 6 variations of alerts - 'Google News', 'Web', 'Blogs', 'Comprehensive' (News, Web and Blogs combined), 'Video' and 'Groups'.  

Twitter Search

Twitter Search is a specific search engine for the social communications platform, Twitter.

Twitter is not nearly as big as social media communities like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn or the Brazilian favorite, Orkut. 

The difference, in my opinion, is that these networks works more like a series of communities, where people mainly communicate with contacts they have from the real life. Contacts on these pages are mutual, meaning that when one person befriend another, both have to agree to be "friends". 

Twitter differs, as it is more of a platform than a community. On Twitter anyone can follow anyone else, without being followed back. Conversations on Twitter is therefore not so much with existing family and friends, but more with other users with whom some topic are of common interest.

Communities on Twitter happens in two ways. One is through the "follower/following" feature, where people naturally follow other users of same interest. 

The other type of community is through Twitter "hash tags" where users do not have to follow each other. Instead, they see all comments on a certain topic, made by anyone on the Twitter platform.

A Twitter search is a search query made on the twitter search database, including all comments on a certain topic, and will provide an automatically updating RSS feed. Due to the nature of Twitter, many coporate and product brands are being discussed there.  

Friendfeed Search

Friendfeed Search is a search engine for the online platform  Friendfeed.

Friendfeed is a social media aggregator currently tracking 59 services. At such, Friendfeed is a far more fragmented tool than Twitter which has a larger user base and which is most likely used by more companies. 

The reason why I want to include Friendfeed on this search, is that it has one important thing, which I miss over at Twitter.

Friendfeed has threaded conversation, meaning that you can easily get a clear overview of any discussion, making the content very nuanced.  Friendfeed has recently updated its search function, making is a far better tool to track conversations about any topic.

See this post for a introduction to the new Friendfeed search function.  

Does your organization listen to social media? If so, then why and how? And if not, then what are the reasons behind your decision?  

Photo Credits: Norwegian School of Management