For my latest social media interview I have invited Shel Israel, a social media journalist and public speaker and, as his Twitter bio says, 'nice guy'. I have been following his blog probably since the time that he starting writing Naked Conversations, a landmark book on social media which he co-authored with Robert Scoble. He is widely respected in the world of social media and has worked with technology start ups for the past 25 years. His clients over this time have included Wells Fargo Bank, Sun Microsystems, Dell Computer, CNET, Hewlett Packard, Intel and many more.
His latest book is called Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.
It brings together stories and insights into how businesses and organisations across the world are using this microblogging platform. Having read it myself I can certainly recommend it to anyone who is either new to Twitter or who would like to discover more of its secrets.
Shel, you and Robert Scoble wrote the ground-breaking book on blogging, Naked Conversations, now you’re doing something similar with Twitterville. Has microblogging overtaken blogging or do they complement each other?
I think blogging and microblogging are two of the growing number of tools in the social media work shed. It seems to me that it's best to view them as tools that work together and enhance each other.
You need to view them as complementary tools of conversation.
What are the main ways that you have seen that organisations are using Twitter?
What do you do with Twitter? Whatever you wish.
My book, talks with over 100 people who use twitter in a wide variety of ways, just like they use a telephone or email. You need to view twitter as a tool and not an app.
Different companies have found useful, efficient ways to use Twitter to enhance marketing, support, product development, sales,recruiting, communications, company culture, disaster response and so much more.
In Twitterville you show us some great ways that people are using Twitter, what are your personal favourites?
I am fond of United Linen a company born in the Great Depression by a door-to-door sales guy in Bartlesville, Okla. It's a restaurant linen and uniform laundry service and it uses Twitter with other Social media tools to show niche though leadership.
I absolutely love the story of Janis Krums who was just taking the ferry to New Jersey when US Air Flight 1549 landed near his ferry on the Hudson River. Twenty-seven minutes later, a photo he took from his iPhone was on international television and Janis was being interviewed.
I also like a lot of the business stories: Sodexo, which has experienced awesome results on Twitter in recruiting chefs for hospital, military and university cafeterias; CrowdSPRING which has created a disruptive marketplace for graphic design; Comcast, a company that uses twitter to improve its previously shoddy record in TV cable service.
I have a lot of favorites, I guess.
Which companies really “get” Twitter and what can we learn from them?
Every day there are more companies who get Twitter. I cannot possibly give you a list of these thousands and thousand of small, medium and global businesses that are using twitter to get closer to customers, prospects, recruits; who are sharing information and ideas with great speed and efficiency.
Whose Tweets do you enjoy reading?
Again I have trouble with favorites lists. I enjoy talking with a great many people on topics as diverse as Enterprise Community technology, the Boston red Sox, Haitian relief, unblocking China's internet, students at Tanzania's Shepherd's school, which was built from donations received through twitter, improved service, breaking news, and so on.
The magic to Twitter is that you can find people with whom you share common interests and ocassional passion. This may be in business, personal life, politics, education or entertainment. Even the list of topics is too long to list here.
Apparently, more than 60% of people drop out of Twitter in the first month. Why do you think this is and do you have any advice for those who are getting cold feet?
I don't believe that number at all. First off, every time I teach someone how to use an account I create one so they can see. Then I close it after the lesson is doner. This is going on all over the world, all the time.
I do believe that most people are clueless when they first get to Twitter. It takes about 30 days of playing with it before it starts making sense. Almost every business I know, comes to twitter with one idea on how to use it, and that idea changes completely after 30-90 days. Most companies come to talk, to send out messages, and they soon learn Twitter is a much better tool for listening and learning.
I deal with a few public sector organisations who are quite cynical about Twitter. How could I convince them that Twitter is a great tool that can be used across their organisation?
Well, I'd not advise an enterprisewide approach. Top-down initiatives very often fail in social media. But I would advise most companies, public or private, to encourage all their employees to use the tools they need to get their jobs done right.
Employees are encouraged to use telephones and email; printers and cellphones, why not Twitter, blogs and YouTube?
Twitter again is a new way of having conversations. It is fast, efficient and public. There are times when it can help employees get their job done faster and better than was previously possible.
For a business starting to use Twitter, what tips would you give them?
Come in listening, not talking. Use the twitter search tool to find topics that are useful or interesting to you business. Find a few people who you really enjoy then see whose following them and you'll start to develop a useful group of people to follow.
Sooner or later, you'll find a conversationwhere you can add value. That's when and where to start talking.
The other thing to keep in mind: who you follow is far more important than who follows you. They are your Twitterville Daily Newspaper. They are your source of ideas and information. They should point you to valuable content. They should influence your thinking and decisions.
If you see it the other way. if you just follow everyone who follows you, then you will be looking at low quality content too much of the time. If you measure twitter asif it were a mass media channel you will not get the true communications value of the tool.
Are there any third party Twitter applications that you regularly use or that excite you?
I use as few third-party apps as I possibly can for reasons that are hard to explain. Because Twitter is down so often, you need to have a desktop client. Tweetdeck is far and away the most popular. Having a mobile client is also valuable I use tweetie2 on my iPhone and I love it.
Where do you see Twitter going in the future?
I think Twitter, as well as other social media tools, are just now completing a dramatic period of disruption. Companies are no longer disdaining these products but are struggling with how to adopt them into their traditional business practices. I see thishappening at some of the world's largest companies, and with a few restaurants and coffee houses in my neighborhood.
I see Twitter and social media in general normalizing. The time is not very far away when attending a conference or writing a book about Twitter will make as much sense as producing a conference or writing a book on faxing.
