tweetdiner Archives | Ian M Rountree

Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

Tonight, Nic Wirtz and I cohosted #tweetdiner (it was my second run at this – last time, @MyAgenda and I took the reins) – thanks to Earth Hour crossing the continent just as we began, it was a small, tightly-knit crowd in the chat. Made for a lot of depth which, ironically, was a bonus to the subject.

As with any twitter chat, I’ve missed things – that’s what the transcript is for (read it all, no tl;dr allowed)

The questions were fairly simple;

What are the signs that you’re suffering from social media fatigue?

Some diversity in answers here; I mentioned an increase in effort, Nic feels he gets crabby when he’s fatigued with something.

Also, finding that the time it takes to realize that arguments you’re making are pointless, or finding that more often what you say is not advancing the conversation can be a clear sign of fatigue. When we have high energy, natural optimism often helps us continue to persevere in difficult discussions.

@MyAgenda – “For me is knowing that I’m spreading myself thin and not being productive up to my standards (is a sign of fatigue)”

What steps can we take to overcome or avoid social media fatigue?

Some suggestions include;

Take regular breaks, and schedule time for yourself.
Set goals – have a purpose behind your work.
Vary your activities. Spending all your time on one platform is tiring.
Set expectations, and let people know when you’re not available.

From a comment by Daniel Hewitt came: Taking a break can work in the short-term but what if that is not enough?

Daniel mentioned he goes into “Airplane Mode” – a reference to turning off his connections. Occasionally this does mean missing some things – big events, scheduled things. However, the corollary for this is that perceived consistency (in broadcast) is often just as good as real consistency.

For example; one could schedule a number of blog posts, tweets, and other push messages for the sake of taking a few hours – or even a few days – away from the keyboard.

Do you have a long-term plan for your social media usage?

SMSJoe – What’s long term in socmed, 6 months?

Joe’s point is that so many goals set in social media are blinds. They appear to be long-term, but can’t be sustained; they’re “build a house” tasks, not “run a household” jobs. So how do we set goals? Joe mentioned that some metrics-based goals are useful for building upon, but relying exclusively on statistical goals is weakening.

Personal note; having been working with online communities for twelve years, this is the first year I set myself any goals as far as actual involvement and activities go. Oddly, having the goals (even if some of them have already proved wrong) has led to less struggling and grasping for ideas.

final note; watching the numbers is a zombifying experience, and an incredibly easy trap to fall into regarding goal setting.

What one thing would improve your social media experience?

This one got crickets. I think it’s hard for people to nail down “that one thing” with social media. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Quick-fire round!

We ran out of time, so I tossed these out at the end – if you have any comments about the last two questions, please leave them here.

Do you find it’s difficult to promote yourself consistently, rather than just puttering?

(and)

Which app do you find you spend the most time on? Is it a web version of a platform, or a mgmt app?

Blog-only Bonus Round!

For those reading here: How often do you take what you’ve learned in chats and create an action plan because of them?

Co-Hosting #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 1 Comment

Tonight on #tweetdiner, Nic Wirtz and I will be helping the crew tackle the idea of social media fatigue.

This is at once an old topic (Liz Strauss talked about social media fatigue in 2009) and a renewing concern (the tipping point I saw recently was Amber Naslund writing about social media fatigue here).

It’s hard not to feel exhaustion sometimes – always being on stage, always working the crowd. Always facing concern and disregard from the people who need your help most (if you’re a consultant or marketer as I am)… It’s stressing.

Or, for those not acclimated to the social media sphere, facing their own fatigue in the face of the unknown. Building habits that aren’t taxing, working the social muscles until they build memory and the effort needed drops – it’s a lot of work, and needs a lot of input! So how do we avoid it?

Better yet, should we avoid it?

Fatigue is a sign that growth is happening in some cases. Should we put it off, it’s like dropping from run to walk just as the hurt starts – the hurt is a sign of growth.

So, join Nic and I – along with (of course) Margie Clayman, Stanford Smith and the rest of the crew, at 8pm central time tonight – let’s talk it through.

UPDATE: The chat’s gone down, Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue are live!

Image by o5com.

Notes From #tweetdiner – Authenticity vs Transparency Death Match

February 12, 2011 by Ian 2 Comments

I co-hosted #tweetdiner tonight!

Well, actually, was deputized to host, and the awesome @MyAgenda stepped up to the plate as well.

For those unaware, #tweetdiner is a weekly twitter chat originated by Marjorie Clayman (@MargieClayman) and Stanford Smith (@pushingsocial), which explores how people get into online community platforms, what they can do to make their experience better, and how we can all get the most out of what we do online.

First, some resources:

Dawn Westerberg published some tps for Twitter beginners, one of which was 7 reasons to attend #tweetdiner.

Russell Faust retweeted an article originally shared by Mark Ragan – 10 phrases that mean your blog post is worthless – which decries the use of the term authenticity.

during the chat, @RickCaffienated shared a link to his blog, about dealing with crises.

So what’s the beef?

We talked about authenticity and how it meets transparency, almost entirely because of this article from Margie which asks, in a nutshell, if someone does you a favour… How likely are you to criticize their future work, even if they jump the shark?

It’s an important question. There’s also a really important breakdown of how these things are most often seen online, in their mediatrope froms:

Transparency: Tweets about ham sandwiches and pet bowel activity. See also; [Too Much Information]

Authenticity: The tone by which you transmit your aim to others. See also; [Blogger’s Voice], [Personal Brand] and [Good Job Breaking It, Blogger]

What’s interesting about this is that transparency is almost never equated with letting people know that you’re an affiliate for a program, or that someone you mention is a client or employer. It’s also almost never measured against your authenticity – in the way that Margie says in her article. What’s missing from this conversation?

The idea of integrity, character, tact, and social grace.

Yes. I like transparency to some degree. But I almost stopped listening to Media Hacks when, in one episode, Chris Brogan actually left the podcast by proclamation of bowel movement. I kid you not.

And now the meat!

There were a lot of noteable notes from the chat, as always. Some of them:

@BrandSprouts: I think if you have to work hard to be authentic, you’re probably not. #tweetdiner

@RickCaffienated: my problem is that everyone assumes you’re NOT authentic/transparent in given circumstances and that assumption to me smacks of being inauthentic as well. #butthatsjustme #tweetdiner

@DWesterberg: Authenticity means I’ve lost some, won some – but probably won and lost the right ones #tweetdiner

@jaclynmullen: I think integrity is a huge determining factor for authenticity. It can also be a double edge sword. On the one hand, if you provide full disclosure & promote a product that you may be vested in, you have integrity, right? But when we know someone may have received consideration to review a product, how much do we trust their review?

We all stumbled around the same elephant (as Rick put it) for some time; authenticity is a personal trait, not a verb, and transparency seems to be the means by which we express that authenticity.

Integrity can be really easily defined as consistent authenticity over a long period of time; even as applies to social media and online communications.

The bottom line.

There was kerfuffle in the US last year when a bill passed requiring affiliation and sponsorships to be listed on blogs. That changed some of the landscape of disclosure on the web, and led in part to the discussion we had tonight. The nature of authenticity and transparency is tricky, especially as applies to the pseudo-anonymous web. Even when we’re ourselves, we’re not all of ourselves all the time.

You don’t need to share everything. But you do need to share the things that matter – like client relationships and perks – because failing to do so is is disingenuous. However, there’s a line to be drawn between enforcing openness at an uncomfortable level, and encouraging people to do the right thing.

We’re not going to get into the question of exactly what “the right thing” is tonight – ethics and morality on the web have to be another day entirely. Big, big can of worms there.

Last quote of the night:

@tsudo: Authenticity is the Aim. Transparency is part of the method. #tweetdiner

Fantastic stuff.

What are your thoughts on authenticity? Do you disclose everything, or are you cautious in your sharing? How do you think different levels of disclosure affect our integrity as people and publishers?

Find more information about #TweetDiner on What The Hashtag

Read the full conversation transcript here as well.

Keeping it Under the Buffer

October 16, 2010 by Ian 3 Comments

A long time ago, on an internet far away, I used to be a role-player.

I – and as many as a hundred other players – helped to curate, create and control a diverse world of characters, with centuries of in-game history, hundreds of criss-crossing plots, and inter-personal drama… Both between the dozens upon dozens of characters, and the few dozen players who made the game their life for years.

We had everything a community would expect – sex, lies, videotape – and then some. We were one of the first greatly inter-woven community groups on the web. We knew each other. Some of the players met in real life (and at the time, in the late nineties, that was a really big deal) and some players even got married.

None of that could have been possible without the buffer.

On the chat we wrote our worlds at, the segment of the screen reserved for private messages between chatters was called the buffer. Players – or, when out of character, chatters – who were either getting personal, displaying inappropriate activity, or often just plain lewd (it was internet chat in the nineties, after all) would be told quite clearly to “take it into the buffer” as a hint that their messages should be private.

We’re stripping a lot of the expectation of privacy away online. On Twitter, Direct Messages are a last resort – and usually not used unless you lack someone’s email address or IM. On Facebook, messages are very rare. Tonight, on #tweetdiner, Margie Clayman and Stanford from @pushingsocial’s weekly twitter chat, there was some talk about the idea that eventually Twitter might splinter into many smaller, more private groups.

This may not be necessary – we already have the means by which to get private – but if people fail to recognize when they should take their connections into the buffer, they’re missing out. The buffer doesn’t just mean privacy in the sense of strictly one-to-one connection. The buffer is anywhere that you can speak without the crowd at large listening. Business deals happen here. Lasting friendships happen here.

Without segmentation – not to be confused with segregation or exclusion – real interpersonal connection is a lot harder.

Not impossible. Just harder. But how do we get past the idea that everything we do is public? How about looking for buffers – and then making use of them?

Perhaps;

Email is a buffer. Whether one-to-one or group.
IM is a perfect buffer – even with small groups.
Podcast production can be a buffer – both in group production, and in distribution until a big audience gathers.
DMs can be a buffer – but they’re a better gateway to more efficient buffers.
Blogs and blog comments can even be buffers – they’re public, but sometimes just direct enough to be a source of real connection.

It’s not hard to see the spaces where we can make real connections with people. Make some connections.

Maybe even make a connection here. Hi. Nice to see you.

image by Steve Jurvetson.