How I use Twitter to build and support my community

1. How I use Twitter to build and support my community David Gurteen 17 Sept 2009

2. My Community 16,000 people in 154 countries

3. Why do I bother?

4. I give in order that I may receive!

5. What I give • Give stuff and point to stuff • Both my stuff and stuff of others • Website, newsletter, RSS feeds, email etc • Give my help and support • I collaborate with people • Connect members to other members • Run free events e.g. Knowledge Cafes • I use social tools extensively to do this

6. What I receive • Find like minds • Connect with them and build relationships • In order to achieve things • Learn from them • Have fun with them • Gain their help and support • Spread ideas that are important to me • Market and sell my stuff *** • consultancy, talks, knowledge cafes, workshops • Again social tools play a major role

7. Most important benefit is the relationships

8. Relationship building process • Find an interesting person • Establish connection with them • Build a relationship through social tools • Do stuff together • Go to 3

9. Connection Process • Find a like mind • Sometimes trip over them, sometimes search • Enter in my contacts database • Google them & find a reason to communicate • If no response back off else • Connect on LinkedIn, Dopplr, FaceBook • Invite them to join my community & receive newsletter • Subscribe to their blog and Twitter feeds • Meet them face to face at first opportunity

10. Three principals

11. I want to share knowledge!

12. I want to be transparent and open

13. I want to be found and connected to wherever I am!

14. Social Tools are at the heart of my community!

15. How I use Twitter to build and support my community And how you can use it too!

16. Twitter • What ever I say I cannot do it justice • Huge ecosphere (the TwitterSphere) • It’s not about what you had for breakfast • It’s not a just a publishing tool • Like blogs in the early days it is misunderstood • Great for networking & building communities • Google it & play with it to understand it

17. Twitter uses • A means of mass broadcasting and receiving short “messages” • Inform people “what is new” • Announcements • Point people to interesting things • Keep people informed of activity or status • Ask questions

18. Twitter Basics • Post Tweets to a blog • 140 characters • A Tweet can include a URL and #tags • You can follow people; they can follow you • Messages sent through browser, sms, im or third party application • Limited conversational capability

19. How to get followers • Follow people! • Find a big names in your field • And follow their followers • Either blindly or selectively • But over 2,000 people there are limits • I don’t follow: people without a photo, bio or intersting tweets unless I know them

20. How I use Twitter • To read -Tweetdeck • To publish – Tweetdeck, Bitly • To connect – Follow interesting people • To interact - @reply, DM • To conduct polls • To ask questions • To invite people to my events • To meet people • To build relationships

21. Building my community • Tweet news items several times a day • Tweet personal events/thoughts less often • Retweet RT really interesting stuff • Use DMs to reply • If @reply then try to preserve context • Use Bitly to track what interests people

22. Bit.ly • Standard Twitter URL shortener • But much more • Tracks real-time statistics on click-throughs • If you open an account will allow you to see all your URLS and their stats! • Tool bar accessory to enable easy tweeting

23. Building my community • Sensitive to time zones • Repeat Tweets to hit different time zones • Always attribute • Search columns in TweetDeck for KM • #KM tag • Publish news and quotations

24. RSS to Twitter • I have 3 Twitter accounts  • DavidGurteen: my regular Twitter account • GurteenNews: what’s new on my website • GurteenQuotes: quote of the day • Take an rss feed & turn into a Twitter feed • rsstotwitter.com • twitterfeed.com

25. Building my community • I have conversations in Facebook over Tweets posted in Twitter! • Have published lists of KM Tweeters on my website • Exploring what my new iPhone can offer

26. Complementary tools • Thousands of them – just Google • If you can think it there is a tool to do it! • TweetDeck • Twitteriffic for iPhone or Mac • Twittercounter • Bit.ly • All sorts of widgets

27. Understanding Twitter • Create an account • Start to play with it • Google for uses, business applications, complementary tools etc • Follow people/orgs like TechCrunch, Mashable, Robin Good • Use social tools to learn!

28. Twitter! Hi David, You're a good guy and you clearly know your stuff when it comes to KM. But really this twitter nonsense is just embarrassing, it's the butt of jokes in the business world and a research note for a bank, Morgan Stanley I think, by a teenager said that teenagers don't bother with twitter because they know no-one reads it. Facebook has some relevance and is quite useful as a networking tool but personally I don't think it's the revolution that it is touted as. In business we need to get back to technology that helps us DO things not obsess about technology that helps us SAY things. I think one of the reasons our economy is losing ground is because of our obsession with things like Twitter that don't actually have any practical use in business beyond adding another channel to bombard us with useless information. We have email, SMS and, I acknowledge, there are some useful networking tools such as facebook and linkedin. Twitter adds nothing but hype. Best regards, Dermot.

29. So what is your reply to Dermot? Knowledge Café Question

30. www.gurteen.com David Gurteen Gurteen Knowledge Tel: +44 7774 178 650 Email: david.gurteen@gurteen.com

31. Licence • You may use these slides under the Creative Commons Licence: Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 • http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/