Tracking our Twitter followers from January 2010 to April. Back on My Feet launched a campaign on the Web in January.

Last month marked three months since I started at nonprofit Back on My Feet and launched a concerted effort to share more member stories and help develop a better, broader online relationship with our volunteers, members and supporters.

The first step in that process was to reawaken our social media accounts — the best platforms to create Web communities and ones buttressed by an organizational blog that I hope to more formally announce soon. Because our organization is all about accountability, we wanted to see how we’ve done.

I thought some lessons or benchmarks might be able to be garnered for others interested in social media use by nonprofits or other organizations, so I’ll share our progress below.

It’s important to note that no one was explicitly in my role before I joined, though someone was responsible for social media use. Still, there wasn’t a lot of experience or perhaps even interest in their uses, so, though all of these accounts had started, there is something of a starting from the beginning feeling.

As I mentioned in last week’s post announcing my seeking an intern, social media is really only one of four big roles I’m filling, so I can’t give it as much attention as I’d like, but it’s certainly a priority.

Take what lessons from these figures that you can.

Twitter — Though our organization is developing chapters rapidly, for now, I’ll be maintaining a single Twitter account.

• On Jan. 18, our Twitter account had 335 followers, 99 tweets and was listed 30 times.
• Today, our Twitter account has 770 followers (and we’re following fewer than 150 accounts), 564 tweets and is listed 54 times.

Facebook — I’m using a Back on My Feet organizational Facebook account to then push content to chapter-specific Facebook pages (though we’ll have to transition older groups to pages) and am having a single staff member in each chapter offer more daily updates to those chapter pages.

• On Jan. 18, our Facebook account had 727 friends and was only sporadically active
• Today, our Facebook account has 1,087 friends and updates between three and seven times a day with member updates, running quotes and news and links to our blog.
• On Jan. 18, our Philly chapter Facebook group had 711 fans; our Baltimore chapter group had 311 fans and our DC chapter group had 75 fans.
• Today, our Philly chapter group has 953 members; our Baltimore chapter group has 397 fans and our DC chapter group has 418 fans. All update between one and three times a day.
• On Jan. 18, we didn’t have Facebook pages for our May 24-launching Boston chapter, our fall-launching Chicago chapter or our signature event, the Stroehmann Back on My Feet 20in24.
• Today, the Boston page has 157 fans, the Chicago page has 32 fans and the 20in24 page has 161 fans.

Photos and Video — Youtube is proving nothing more than a repository for our events and member videos. Before I arrived, we had purchased a premium Picasa account, so at the moment all chapters are feeding into a single account for hosting purposes. I may need to transition these to chapter-specific accounts, though I haven’t the foggiest how to best do that.

• On Jan. 18, our Youtube account had 10 videos and 12 subscribers
• Today, our Youtube account has 32 videos and 18 subscribers
• On Jan. 18, our Picasa account was home to 91 photo albums from two chapters
• Today, our Picasa account is home to 130 photo albums four chapters (including Boston happy hour snaps)

What do you think?

Social media has this stigma.

In the past six years, those brand-name behemoths of an industry that didn’t exist at this decade’s beginning have reached every corner of the developed world. When something, when anything reaches that level of prevalence, there’s going to be some backlash.

So, yes, a medium devoted to regular updates and structured around Web-based interactions is derided for self-reflectiveness and impersonality. But, of course, there is value to be gained, too.

Businesses, organizations and other groups are connecting, interacting and communicating with their communities and consumers in ways that were never possible before. On an individual level, too, connectivity has changed: the dissemination of information and building and sustaining relationships will likely never be the same.

It’s with this in mind, that I’ve found a reserved, but devoted interest in social media.

I readily admit the worst of the buzz words and online posturing, the wasted time and pointless obsessions, but there is power on those tubes and it is transforming communication in ways not unlike the Web itself once did, and e-mail and RSS protocol and the like.

It’s OK to note the remarkable power of these tools, without having to be another idiot calling himself a social media evangelist or something of that ilk.

Let us not forget that.

Nearly two years ago, it was apparent to me that, with the explosion of Web communities, it was necessary to be everywhere online.

Lame? Yes, maybe, but your byline is your brand and all of that goodness. That’s still true, but can we agree there still room for consolidation in our Web presences?

By a rough count — and I mean rough because I got bored quickly — I think I have worked up more than 60 profiles or pages or public accounts or what have you. That’s absurd.

As Web communities mature, so too will our ability to discern what has value for us and our interests, and the list of these stupid profiles will become more and more ridiculous. OK, we already know what’s good and what’s not, but the something must shift.

Just what will that maturation or consolidation look like do you think?

And only because I wouldn’t want my idle research to go to the wayside, below, I plunk down all those online presences I counted.

Social and Professional Networks

• Couch Surfing
• Digg
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Friend Feed
• Google Reader
• Linked In page
• MySpace
• Picasaweb
• Slide account
• Spot.Us
• Twitter
• Wired Journalists
• Yelp
• Youtube page

Contributing Sites

• ChristopherWink.com
• NEast Philly
• Technically Philly
• We Don’t Speak the Language

Profiles for the sake of profiles

• Ebay
• Gravatar
• Hulu
• Market Watch
• My Vidoop
• Pandora Internet Radio
• Philly Blog
• Photoshop

Profiles for things I don’t use anymore or, well, never ever used

• AIM
• Associated Content
• Bloglines
• Blurb
• Elance
• Our Stage
• Publish2
• Squidoo
• StumbleUpon
• UWire
• UWire 100
• Vimeo
• Vodpod
• Widget Box

Past Writing

• Broad and Cecil
• My Life To-Do List
• Philadelphia Business Journal
• Philadelphia Digital Storytelling
• Philadelphia Partisan Politics
• Room 243
• Super Tuesday blog
• The Temple News

Updated: July 2, 2009 @ 11:43 p.m. with another app. Updated again: Sept. 16, 2009 @ 10:12 p.m.

The world doesn’t need another Twitter post. But, with the surging number of third-party Twitter applications and posts and stories surrounding the buzz service of the moment, I find it’s easy to get lost.

Admittedly, I’ve done my fair share of Twitter coverage here, as with social networks generally, but I wouldn’t take the title of social media guru if it was gifted me. I just thought it was worth sharing the few services I do find helpful, particularly for those using the tool to grow a Web product.

Because, despite the buzz and the more likely reality that it’s probably a bit more of a tool for the few than for the masses as it’s currently being portrayed, I think it has the potential to be one of the most valuable social media tools.

The conversation and link-sharing employed by those whom I most like to follow are testaments to what is good about Twitter. …And believe me, there is plenty of bad.

Below, peep six Twitter tools that are actually worth your time.

1. Advanced Twitter search — Every news organization should be using the opportunity to find people talking about your region or industry, in order to find new followers. For Technically Philly and NEast Philly, it’s an opportunity to grow our readership. It’s certainly not something I necessarily recommend for individual users because, well, that might come off simply creepy. But, earlier this month, by searching for people near Philadelphia who were tweeting about Billy Joel, I was able to find folks who went to a tribute band concert in Northeast Philadelphia and share our coverage.
2. CoTweet – The Philadelphia-regionally based application affords you the opportunity to tweet from multiple Twitter accounts and forward-post tweets. It’s great for any work use of Twitter.
3. Twitpic — Photos get a lot of traffic, so get yourself a password and e-mail or forward from your mobile device shots of what you’re covering or visiting.
4. Twitter Counter — No one wants to follow too closely the metrics of something as inane as social networks, but if you’re going to do anything, you ought to do it well. Math can help you. Every few weeks, it doesn’t hurt to chart your progress in adding followers compared to others on the twittersphere. The numbers don’t lie. I can also keep track of buddies.
5. Qwitter — I love the concept. You watch your Twitter follower count dip, but you’re not sure who left or why. This service will send you an update when someone leaves. I signed up recently and haven’t gotten a note yet, so, well, either the service is bogus or those followers I’ve lost were simply accounts that Twitter shutdown for being spam.
6. BackTweets — While most who shares links to your work offer an @reply, many don’t, as I’ve found by following the site’s chronicling of those linking back to Technically Philly. This is a great way to follow discourse following your product and finding new followers.
7. Yes, a Seventh: Tweet Effect — This nifty device will show you after what tweets you gained or lost followers, and no, I’ve garnered absolutely no knowledge from it and it still interests me.
8. Yes, an Eighth: Twitter Karma — After growing my following list to several hundred and finding I was losing value in following so many, I wanted to mass clear many. This tool made it easy.
9. Follower Monitor — This is a Twitter user who tracks users who stop following you, doing what I found Qwitter didn’t.

Some reading that might actually teach you something about actual value in the mostly otherwise self-serving and overly fashionable-at-the-moment social network:

• Top 21 most-visited Twitter applications — Tech Crunch
• Kevin Rose: 10 Ways to Increase Twitter followers — Tech Crunch
• How 11 mayors use Twitter
• How Newsrooms Adapt to Twitter — Editor and Publisher
• Newspapers that use Twitter
• Gain more followers for your news organization

The funny thing is that with all their growth, Twitter and Facebook haven’t made a damn dime yet — despite all the hemming and hawing about their influence, most recently in the Iranian post-election dramatics.

With their incredible traffic, there was a time when advertising would seem like a natural choice. Even though they are considered among the most powerful Web products, they seem to be missing monetization possibilities, if not outright ignoring them.  Twitter is trying “innovative” revenue streams like, maybe, TV shows.

Could it be part of the fear that advertising prices could be in trouble?

Because, of course, Facebook should be any marketer’s dream, as the most dramatic example of the power the Web has for data collection.

Recently, Facebook was valued at $10 billion, setting Twitter at $1.7 billion, but, without any real method of making money installed, the Wall Street Journal has questioned the valuation of the company to be, as Business Week reported, more than twice the market cap of the New York Times.

But, it seems it won’t be advertising, or at least that won’t be a primary strategy — something with which I certainly agree. So as they toy with new monetizations, I figure one of two things will happen, an enormous Web 2.0 bubble will burst or these two social networks will help lead us into a post-advertising focused world.

Am I missing anything? Does that make sense? Which is it going to be — will a $10 billion Facebook valuation seem laughable years from now or will this be a point in history where traditional display advertising will only be a secondary revenue stream?

Cartoon from Ohio.com.

Update: We lost.

Grant money in journalism is flowing freely in a tightened economy and a historic juncture in print media.

Seems like an opportunity.

So, my two partners and I, who founded Technically Philly, applied for the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism, a $10,000 grant to support new ideas in news. See our submission here.

We thought bringing together two niches — the geography of Philadelphia and the industry of technology and innovation — and diversifying revenue streams — going beyond advertising — was a new enough model that it might catch the eye of a judge or two.

We walked into a meaningful business, social and startup community in a major metro region’s creative economies and began reporting, relying on our interests in social media, community reporting and professional and ethical journalism.

We recently introduced advertising — a small first step in monetization –and feel that a grant for $10,000 could afford the three of us an opportunity to work full time for perhaps as much two months or more. Considering how pleased we are with our traffic growth and the response from the community, we’re thrilled by even the chance at the opportunity to give full time to a project none of us have been able to offer even part time thus far.

Unfortunately and entirely unsurprisingly, there is some stiff competition from the nearly 100 submissions that were entered.  Below I share some of the more interesting submissions I saw and my thoughts on our viability.

Big names

• CNN/Facebook Inauguration Collaboration — CNN.com collaborated with Facebook to create an interactive online experience where viewers shared their experiences of Obama’s inauguration from 8 a.m. till the last inaugural ball. Four anchors provided coverage from the Capitol grounds in DC, while a special report was given from the CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta. Online users could update their Facebook status directly from CNN.com Live video player in real time. On Facebook friends could click the CNN tag and join the live chat on CNN.com. There were 26 million live video streams on CNN.com, 1.3 million concurrent streams, 2 million Facebook status updates, and 1.2 million RSVPs on Facebook before the event. I was confused by another Facebook-related submission that already took place — where is the money meant to go?
• This American Life Live! — This American Life took advantage of HD satellite technology to broadcast a live performance to movie theaters across the U.S. More than 50,000 people gathered in their communities to watch this broadcast. This American Life utilized podcasts and social networking sites to promote the event and survey fans before the event to get feedback. An encore presentation was held due to massive interest.
• Ledger Live — Breaking down the barriers between the newsroom and the community, “LedgerLive” committed to video in the summer of 2008. Using different types of social media, the Star-Ledger’s webcast showcases the newspapers videos, brings viewers into the newsroom, and includes them in some content decisions. Columnists and reporters are guests on the show.
• The AP Economic Stress Index — It combines unemployment, foreclosure, and bankruptcy data down to the county level to create an index of the overall health of the economy. The data are displayed on a clickable map and the data can be mashed up in several ways to dig deep into the numbers.

Social Media

• Tagging Names in Facebook — This facebook application would allow users to tag names in news stories. As tagging photos on Facebook is so popular, the hope is that tagging names will bring a new audience to news articles. This application was developed by ASU engineering and journalism students who are very familiar with facebook. This is set to premiere during varsity sports season, when athletes, coaches and parents are likely to tag.
• Twitter integration — The Des Moines Register used Twitter to help report on Iowa’s gay marriage decision by creating a hashtag, aggregating Twitter users’ tweets using that hashtag on their Web site, and getting live tweets from reporters after the decision. Their hashtag was listed on Twitter’s top trending topics, and they are planning more Twitter reporting projects for the future.
• Video Your Vote — “Video Your Vote” records voters experiences of the 2008 election by providing over 1,000 flip video cameras, using voters cameras, and teaching citizens laws regarding recording and voting. 2,500 videos were received from 50 states and several foreign countries to depict the election moments from different points of view. PBS, the NewsHour and YouTube collaborated to create this project in efforts to share the realities from the day, which gained 300,000 views on YouTube.
• What Is Barack Doing? – What Is Barack Doing? aggregates presidential news from many different sources, from the major networks to social networks. It uses good Web design practices to increase usability and accessibility.

Philadelphia

• Street Level Philadelphia — After working as a photographer for 10 years for the Philadelphia Daily News, Jim MacMillan taught himself how to shoot, edit, and produce video for the Web and created 1-2 minute video reports. He reported, filmed, voiced, edited, and produced the videos alone, and tried to tell the stories of Philadelphia on a personal level.
• PlanPhilly — An organization that reports on and seeks to bring transparency and openness to Philadelphia’s design, development, and planning as an experiment in project-based journalism. It has developed partnerships with some of Philadelphia’s mainstream media outlets, and seen their unique visitors double in the last year.
• Philadelphia Neighborhoods from the Temple University School of Communications Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab class — Temple U. project covered 20 predominantly minority Philadelphia neighborhoods by sending student reporters to do multimedia reporting. The program also trained community residents to use programs like Final Cut Pro, Flash, videography and blogging so residents could tell their own stories. One story about a racist police officer generated enough mainstream media coverage that the officer was fired. (A story written by Shannon McDonald certainly seems to have put the program’s recent incarnation on the map)

Others

• AmherstWire.com — A student-run online magazine, a project of the Journalism program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The site offers a wide array of content, including various beats localizing current events, a video blog that tracks the pulse of campus opinion, and the Global Beat Blog written by students studying abroad. The main section of the site includes periodic, in-depth feature packages that tackle major issues from multiple angles using non-traditional storytelling techniques. Over the course of three semesters, a small group of full-time students were able to produce a high quality, professional news Web site that attracted a worldwide audience with a budget of well under $1,000.
• American Indian online journalism — To interact with readers and to attract a younger audience, The Circle (the sole source of print journalism for the American Indian community in the upper Midwest) has created an enhanced web edition. This allows readers with limited access to transportation to interact with other communities and lets users share their stories on the site. As of June 1, 2009, there are over 350 registered, and 7 bloggers getting ready to go online with Native-specific topics.
• Newspaper Tycoon from Eastern Illinois University — An idea for a video game wherein the gamer is a newspaper mogul responsible for all the aspects (both business and journalistic) of the newspapers he/she controls. The game has not yet been developed so it does not exist. At this point it is just an idea.

I’m personally unsure of proposals dominated by only-citizen contributors — concerns about their stability and where advertising money is going. There are some innovative ideas, but I am happy with our submission. If not the best, I feel like ours is a model that could offer important coverage for other communities and, as I wrote above, I think that $10,000 grand prize could have a far greater impact on our project than many of the others. I also am proud that we are moving ahead with our own monetization, so that money will only help us surge forward toward a truly sustainable product.

Do we have any chance? What are some other submissions you like?

I’ve written about social media here more than I’d probably like to admit.

These social networking sites are transforming the way we receive our news and information. There’s no secret there.

But they keep popping up, so much so that I’ve stopped joining them, because I never know when enough’s enough.

Newspapers are still figuring out the power of the conversation, and some say that media in general is covering social media more than they are using them. It just seems no one seems interested in deciding what is worth anyone’s time.

The real lesson is that social networking and other media are tools, plainly and simply. Not all are good for everyone.

Facebook — The major player is aiming at being a yellow pages for the future. Anyone you need to find will be there. It’s a shame, then, that I’ve seen increasing levels of spam since I joined last summer, and even more since I credited the network’s value months later.

Some good:

• People still spend a lot of time on that site and will follow links. They will come to your site with the help of link-posting and an RSS feed.
• By some standards, you don’t exist as a young person — read: potential employee — unless you’re on the social networking behemoth.
• It can be a hub for your other online presences
• It’s so popular that, apparently, with the right people, it can make you a happier person.

Some bad:

• Man, people hated the new Facebook version when it came out, and it seems it continues to be reviled. Put that with the pushback over privacy rights, and you can see a real path toward the site’s demise.

Twitter — I knew Twitter long before I joined it, but a friend warned me it was a time suck. And it is. What’s worse is that it’s become awfully fashionable, as some have complained. That would be fine if it wasn’t bloating the conception of who should be there and what purpose it serves. I did join and, while I have a somewhat small following of 430 or so, I have found by regularly sharing good links, I can bring small pockets of traffic.

Here are some positives:

• Create a following of people interested in similar things, who can support your writing, products or initiatives
• By following the habits of successful Twitter users, you can pick up standard best practices online, like sharing links, interaction and followup.
• Some say, those followers can lead to employment or other freelance work or assignments.
• Because Twitter is so popular right now, there are a lot of hacks and alternatives coming out that can help you learn Web possibilities and suggestions and tools to make it easier, so you can better understand what’s out there for the future.

Negatives

• It’s searchability is still janky
• It still goes down on functionality when it’s busy
• It does take more time than other social networking tool because a simple RSS feed is missing the point.

LinkedIn — It aims to be the professional equivalent of Facebook.

Some good:

• This was my first foray into social networking because it felt the least dirty and self-involved.
• It is meant to be nothing but professional, resume and little else.
• It doesn’t require a lot of effort, and it can be a Web presence left on auto-pilot. I do get some clicks from plopping this WordPress site on my LinkedIn page, as you can do, too.

Some bad:

• Nowhere near as powerful or versatile as Facebook
• Can’t compare with the number of links Facebook or Twitter bring

Industry-specific social-network — I just wrote about an event-planners ISSN for Technically Philly, and there seems to be the most growth in this arena. I am a member of Wired Journalistss. I also joined Uwire while still a college journalist.

Here are some positives:

• Job postings and opportunities worth your time. I got some blogging work from a post on WJ.
• Smaller communities allow you to actually e-meet new people

Negative

• Out of your work flow mean you might never ever return after setting it up.

Flickr — Not too long ago, I reawakened my Flickr account, putting photos I was proud of there, and hosting other images elsewhere, whether it be on Slide or Picasa, depending the purpose.

• Show some photography skill by being where many serious photographers are — although there are many alternatives.
• Useful editing and hosting tools there

Bad:

• Free service is, of course, limited — active photographers will likely find the premium services worth the cost.
• Not as prone for others finding you, so it’s hard to develop brand or expect links or traffic from it.

YouTube –I took a healthy look at YouTube’s value as a social media tool, beyond just watching illegal videos and listening to music.

Good:

• It can bring traffic.
• People will likely find your videos.
• And, hey newspapers around the world are on YouTube.

Bad:

• There are better video hosters, like Viddler and Vimeo.
• It doesn’t seem terribly professional. I think newspapers need to see YouTube as a means to promote their video, but I understand wanting to control their product outside of the site.
• YouTube may be unstable, even with Google ownership

MySpace — I say give it up. Sorry. I took the trouble to joining MySpace last summer, and I even tricked it out a bit for journalists, but I won’t recommend anyone else join. In fact, I trashed it in an entire post dedicated to its shortcomings.

The good:

• There are still audiences there.
• It can be incredibly passive after a little time invested to set it up.
• It can be something else that clogs up a Google search for your name, so you can claim another spot.

The Ugly:

• It is MySpace
• Can’t post traditional RSS feed
• On the decline

There is value in being on all of these and everywhere else, too, if only just to more aggressively control a Web search of your name. College Media Innovation showed some other examples of brand-development through major publication, but, some choices are worth being made.

• The Winner: With the right attitude, use and effort, right now Twitter brings the best brand development, links and traffic, though your audience matters.
• The Obvious: Joining Facebook may hurt your pride, but real traffic can come from it, if you cast a wide enough net.
• The Loser: MySpace doesn’t give any real quantifiable traffic or brand devlopment you’d want. I guess unless you’re a music artist, there isn’t anything there for you.

Xerox that. Get a Band-Aid.

Of course, that has clearly followed online.

Google that. Digg that – though not Digg me. Facebook me; the confluence of Twitter and tweet and twittering. You don’t LinkedIn someone, which might relate to how Facebook could crush its professional conterpart if it would only offer a more restricitve and private version of a person’s Facebook profile for colleages.

Can this come to news media?

A subject could probably get TechCrunched – if covered by the popular Silicon Valley blog. (Could we peer into the future and see Delaware Valley region tech businesses getting Technically Philly-ed?)

Before his death, Tim Russert was rising in prominence and fame for his grilling of leaders and legislators. In the future, could have been Russerting his guests?

It seems a silly path in vanity, but I think this is a lesson in the power of personality over person – it’s not who you are or what you can prove, but what you can show and say.

CNN’s ratings are slipping in comparison to booming audience figures for opinion-heavy and personality-driving MSNBC and Fox News.

I don’t think anyone’s doubting that news is going to need an increasingly character-basis to bring in the masses.

Whether the brands will matter enough to develop verb-use, we’ll have to see.

Oh man, how done are you with Twitter news reports?

Mostly, news stories on Twitter include a nut graf that looks something like the following passage from a recent piece in the New York Times near-obsessive coverage on the social medium:

In its short history, Twitter — a microblogging tool that uses 140 characters in bursts of text — has become an important marketing tool for celebrities, politicians and businesses, promising a level of intimacy never before approached online, as well as giving the public the ability to speak directly to people and institutions once comfortably on a pedestal [Source].

Many media are still reveling in introducing Twitter, in which they take a local user of new media and play their explanation with clever puns or skeptical variations of Twitter, tweeting, twittering, etc. Other pubs are trying their own new takes on the service, to the point that plenty of snarky bloggers and even news hounds are tired of the stories.

Rightly so, considering Twitter just turned three, hardly a new phenomenon. But all these folks joining the game, following that common nut graf, I think, are missing the point, particularly journalists.

I don’t think regularity matters as much as the balance between two Twitter features in my personal evaluation of someone’s use of the site – TwitterGrader be damned. That’s conversation and links.

I never tell anyone he needs to get on Twitter.

As a friend first described it to me almost two years ago, “Twitter is a time suck.”

And, of course, it is. But, it can be of great value, particularly to journalists. Many feel that, so reporters are flocking to the site, and people are tracking what newspapers have, too.

But too few are talking about how they should be best using Twitter.

Check a hilarious indictment of Twitter, I found from a friend:

Conversation

It isn’t an effective RSS feed, as some are suggesting rather firmly. It is important to note, though, that while the real game is about conversation and I maintain that’s what will help newspapers and other media find new readers and followers, there are exceptions of status. The New York Times Twitter account offers nothing more than an automated and regular trolling of its latest headlines, but it has some 450,000 followers.

Some suggest that Twitter could become a replacement for RSS feeds, something I don’t dismiss, but I newspapers have to stay in the game for now — unless you have become a brand of meaning like the N.Y. Times (i.e. it makes individuals feel educated, important and involved to be seen as a reader of the Times).

The value of social media like Twitter is a democratization of many conversations – news being one. In Philly, when a Fox 29 reporter was swiping Inquirer coverage without attribution, a Twitter user reached out to the news station and the daily newspaper. Karl Rove follows me on Twitter. Whether it will ever be used or not, that’s a line of conversation that could never have existed a decade ago.

I have made professional acquaintances with people online, and then followed that with personal interaction. Unfortunately, some news outlets, editors and reporters are scared of this two-way dialogue that defines new media, so not all interaction has followed.

That conversation is still necessary for media and will likely always be necessary for individual Twitter users. Mix it up. Meet new people, find new ideas and concepts.

Links

Now, a role that an automated RSS feed does offer is something many other users don’t: links.

While conservation is great, all those who have attempted to write the rules of what Twitters users shouldn’t do suggest inane and personal chatter between individuals that could be better done via instant message, Skype, a Twitter DM, a phone call or, you know, in person should be forbidden.

In choosing whether to tweet or to direct message, just think whether there’s a chance someone else might have something meaningful to add to the conversation. That’s the point of the chatter, to allow for consensus building and crowd-sourcing.

So, assuming you don’t have the celebrity to write simple phrases or suggestions that might craze the masses, like ?uestlove and Shaq have, Twitter is a great place to share ideas, and online, that means sharing links.

We’re entering the link economy, where links matter. In any dialogue online, it ain’t true if you can’t give me a meaningful link to back it up – one of the great values of transparency for news makers and tellers. If you want to discuss a trend, you better link out to the data, so I can check your math.

Twitter’s role as a feed reader could be a reality, but I still see a role for active linking on Twitter and the additional role of RSS feeds. As feed catchers add the possibility of sharing items from feeds – as Google Reader revolutionized – I see them as a means to share links with friends or colleagues.

I personally use Google Reader, an online application for which I see possibility of improvement but still love and respect it. Because I believe all journalists should be using a feed reader of some kind, I certainly would recommend Google’s take at it. So, among a cohort of peers, I do share links.

But, I have a much larger audience on Twitter, though a small percentage of them are watching their feed at a given time. Still, my Twitter account, as my followers may note, relies heavily on links – some my own, though I’m making a point of being a bit humbler on the self-promotion front, and many outside sites.

So friends, join Twitter if you must, but don’t follow the news reports so closely.

It doesn’t have to be about every inane detail if you don’t it to be. Share links and conversation with me and others.

I readily know that I have friends who’ll swear that number is larger.

I recently pledged to work on limiting my own shameless self-promotion and, admittedly, nothing is dirtier than submitting your own work to Digg or other sites, like ReddIt and Stumble Upon. So, I thought I’d set some guidelines for others and, well, really, myself to follow.

First, this is a world and an age that requires self-promotion, so don’t let your friends or even a healthy sense of humility force you to entirely balk at the possibility, even the reality of putting your own name, your own work into the big mess that has become competing for the attentions of readers.

Know the site you’re using. Digg, for example, is heavy on tech and lists. Two of the four works of mine that have been on Digg thus far are from my personal site (though I only submitted one of those two), and, looking back, that does feel particularly wrong.  I’m not ready to make the steadfast claim just yet, but I’m near to rescinding those past actions and suggesting one should very nearly never submit one’s work from one’s own personal site.

If you’ve written for an established publication or you’ve started a new blog, then I think the rules are a bit more liberal, but I’d guess submitting your own work any more than once a month would be just plain wrong.

All of this comes with an agreement, I think, that you’re actually using Digg or any other service for more than your own self-promotion. I do use Digg and digg other stories I enjoy. If you have any intentions of doing the same, you ought to use whatever service you want to promote you. I never got into using StumbleUpon, so I don’t promote my site on it, though others sent traffic my way through it, so I added a link on my about page.

That last bit is more than class, though, it also helps to face the reality of Digg. You need a rich community of fellow Digg users – or Stumble Upon or ReddIt or others – to bring any traffic your way. You can’t do it alone, which is why signing up and only digging your own work doesn’t help.

It’s why my own self-promotion fell short — it seemed forced. Unless you know a few dozen active Digg users, you’re better off leaving the digging to others because you’ll only seem needy.

Below see the four stories of mine that ended up on Digg, not even one of which got more than six diggs.

• When the hell do you tip in Europe? – It’s global and a topic of regular conversation but rare dissection, I am comfortable with this.
  
• Worst problems with Google applications – It has Google in the name, yet was critical. I also collected as many opinions as I could.
  
• 12 Months Of Top Journalism Blog Posts In 2008 – I didn’t submit this myself, though once I saw it submitted, I did digg it. Lists, Digg users love lists, but this certainly wouldn’t be worth self-promotion, though it was heavy on outbound linking, as healthy a blogging practice as any.
  
• Ballet, Opera, Orchestra orgs. on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter – Social media get attention particularly on Digg, but there was no reason for my self-involvement, though I liked the thought of any philly.com story getting traction on the news aggregation giant.

Icon from Phil Reinhardt.