Talk It Up!

How to create a Twitter news bot

Sometimes, you just need a robot: Twitter automation tool

I've been playing with dlvr.it, an online app for automatically delivering content to your social web. Of course, I'm a fan of posting interesting links with personal commentary, and that is always my first choice. However, one of the downsides of being a social media practitioner is that, when things get going, you have less time to spend on your own social media presence. The time commitment of remaining constantly connected can be overwhelming.

So maybe a 'bot isn't that bad. Dlvr.it is a service that will automatically deliver content to your social web, including Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. "Content" is defined as anything with a feed, including your blog RSS, but what I'm finding useful is the ability to post specified items in a Google Alert to Twitter and Facebook.

So I tried it out for the Spoken Communications Twitter feed, something that benefits from more timely updates than my current schedule allows. I already have a Google Alert set for the keyword "IVR," so I just grabbed the feed and set is as a source, directing it to post to Spoken's Twitter feed.

The most useful aspect of dlvr.it is the capacity to schedule the pull from the feed, so that new items are spaced out over the day. For examle, I asked for items to be posted every three hours with a maximum of 12 items daily:

Each post is tagged with #IVR; I recently added the tag "news" as well to acknowledge that these Tweets are part of a news feed:

So far, the #IVR news Tweets haven't seen a great deal of response in terms of mentions and reTweets. As I play with the feed content and scheduling, I will report back on the engagement success of the tool.

For a more detailed tutorial on how to set up a dlvr.it feed, check out this awesome video by Troy Janisch at Social Meteor on using Dlvr.it to create a Twitter news bot:

How about you? Has anyone else tried dlvr.it? What tricks did you use to earn the best engagement and provide the most value to your followers?

"You Tweeted WHAT?" : Legal Risks of Social Media

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I know I'm not supposed to play favorites, and truly, I love all of Social Media Breakfast Seattle's speakers equally.

I just believe that Kraig Baker really kicked butt with his info-laden but not jargon-laden talk on the legal risks of social media yesterday morning. Clear, thought-provoking and funny, he walked us through defamation, copyright infringement and even told us the biggest real risk organizations face.

My favorite tidbits:

"Everybody has a free, non-legal remedy [to conflict]. It's called a Twitter feed."

• Before worrying about the liability of social media engagement, ask yourself the question, "Why are you there?" The reason for social media participation should come before the details.
• If you defame someone, it doesn't matter what platform you used to do it. It's still defamation. And BTW, defamation is fact (not opinion) about a living, identifiable person or entity and substantially false.
• Not everyone thinks a viral hit is valuable - driving traffic to a site is not a valid defense against copyright infringement.
• Just because content is posted on the internet or on a social media site doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with it. Copyright still applies.
• Be careful about making promises. A promise by an enthusiastic employee can create liability where none would have existed previously. And even if you don't have legal liability, organizations might experience huge PR headaches and ramifications.
• Nothing will protect you against stupidity - there's no expectation of privacy apart from home and work.
• The NLRB calls Facebook "the new water cooler" and has fought and won against firing employees for work-related negative comments on that social network.
• And more wise words: "Don't confuse not getting caught with being legal." How many of us broke laws just getting here today? That doesn't mean you can't get caught or sued the next time!

Slides of Baker's info-rich and example-rich talk:

You Tweeted WHAT?!: Legal Risks of Social Media

View more presentations from SMB Seattle

But it's really not the same without the video, is it? Every social media pro NEEDS to watch this!

 

SMB Seattle Podcast 10: The legal risks of social media

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What liabilities do companies face when using social media platforms? With all the benefits, what risks need to be addressed when creating a social media policy?

This week, before Kraig Baker's presentation, "You Tweeted WHAT?" The Legal Risks of Social Media, I sat down with Baker to pick his brain about trends in privacy and security as well as copyright and liability. To find out more, join us on February 23rd at 7:30 AM at Davis Wright Tremaine for Baker's talk on the risks of engagement in social media. Register here. 

SMB Podcast #10: The Legal Risks of Social Media

Show Notes

3:00 With so many opportunities for information sharing, is privacy even a concept any more? Users are willing to share information with some but not publicly; users have a desire to control their own data; in Europe, the data belongs to the data subject, but in the US we see it as belonging to the person/company that collected the data.

6:45 What will the trend in privacy be: to reveal less information, or will the law catch up with privacy concerns - norms and expectations will change; the law might catch up with location-based advertising, perhaps; we won't match European security principles any time soon

10:15 Compared to the rest of the world, how secure are we with our data? The rest of the world is far more protective, e.g., double opt-ins for newsletters in Germany.

12:30 Liability on the web vs. a newspaper

14:45 What are the risks of creating a society media presence within an organization? The first question is always, "What is your intent with participating in social media?" What people often don't think about addressing in a social media policy, including the good employees wanting to defend the brand or fix a problem, which can create liability that didn't exist previously.

21:30 The benefits are worth it, including analytics regarding trends and common problems and creating ownership within the company

24:30 How will social media affect copyright law and practice? Isn't a reTweet technically copyright infringement? What is different is that in the past, not everyone was a content creator, so expectations are changing.

27:10 "Everybody has an idea about what copyright law is... and for the most part, it's wrong."

27:30 What fair use really is

29:00 How is Creative Commons affecting copyright law? It won't change copyright practice, but we might see more Twitter-like TOS.

31:30 What is the future of privacy? A magic reputation manager that would erase everything embarrassing you did in the past online. :-) Norms will change first; legislation will follow. Advertising will survive as long as people are unwilling to pay for platforms.

For more free Social Media Breakfast Seattle podcasts, visit the SMB Seattle LibSyn page. Or fan us on Facebook or join our LinkedIn group.

Does social media make us less social?

Does social media make us less social?

I owe a big thanks to Mike Whitmore for voicing the sentiment that has been banging around in my head for a while. I am definitely not in the camp that posits that social media is all peformed by introverted geeks who would rather type in a dark basement than talk to a live human being. (Or shower.) But as the career takes off, I find myself frustrated that I don't seem to have enough time to be as social as I'd like. In fact, my big luxury these days is a retreat from being social: a Friday night at home with my couch, cat and DVR.

What's up with that? Does social media convert extroverts craving connection to introverts craving isolation?

I think that Whitmore is on to something. The tools that got us here require a time investment, and once you reap the rewards, it's more difficult to find time to carry on the same level of social interaction. Once you get the clients, the frantic Tweeting, blogging and podcasting have to be moderated simply because there are only so many hours in a day. The never-ending stream of Tweetups, happy hours, Social Media Club, Tech Café, Tech Karaoke and not-for-profit benefit events can easily consume all a geek's free time and leave no time to actually implement the exciting social media projects on the table!

Ever been too damn busy to blog about all your nifty ideas? I'm there.

Social Time Graph

And what does a geek do when faced with a challenge? An analysis. After Whitmore and I talked last week, I took a closer look at my own work-life balance and made a spreadsheet. I have about 15 waking hours a day, from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM, and for one week I tracked how I invested my time. I discovered that, apart from my exciting position as Chief Conversation Officer at Spoken Communications, the next two big chunks of my time go to social media and volunteer projects, travel/commuting time, and attending social media events. Dating is the next chunk, and I see the source of the frustration: only 3% of my waking hours are invested in spending time with friends. (FYI, "Miscellaneous" is defined as time spent showering, cleaning, cooking and eating breakfast, etc.)

 
The chart was quite telling about my priorities. Most of them are spot-on; my awesome job at Spoken and my volunteer social media work are very important to me. But the chart also tells me how I went from a relaxing vacation to overbooked in two days flat: I am trying to increase that time spent with friends, but I'm not willing to give up anything else in order to do it.

I'd encourage everyone who feels she is less (or more) social than she'd like to make a social time graph. This showed me exactly where I was putting my time and energy and gave me ideas on a strategy for the priorities I'd like to shift.

For example, if I work from home one or more days a week, I gain valuable time that would have been spent commuting, and I can invest that in lunch or an early evening drink with a friend, before the evening festivities begin. Or I can limit myself to two social media events per week, which gives me an additional evening for dating or connecting with friends.

Also, one last tip: don't compare yourself to Chris Brogan or Shauna Causey. Not everyone is an Energizer Bunny, and we just need to accept that those guys were granted supernatural powers and will do more before 7:00 AM than the rest of us do all day.

And I'm OK with that.

 

Twitter vs. Phone vs. Web: the Customer Service Smackdown

How does Twitter stack up against phone and web as a channel for resolving customer service issues?

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Fortune has just published an article with the provocative title, Can I help you? On Twitter, the answer is no. In an interesting customer service experiment, the editors contacted eight different companies with different yet typical customer service requests using different modes of contact to see which was most effective in resolving the issue.

The companies: Zappos, Delta, Rubbermaid, Hyatt, Dell, Microsoft, Comcast, Bank of America

The issues: relevant to each, from finding a hotel in Nebraska to shipping three golden retrievers on a plane. However, for the most part, the issues were not standard ones; they didn't fall within the 80% of customer service questions that can easily be answered with the company FAQ. In short, the experiment was geared towards how the company dealt with non-standard, unusual customer service requests--the 20% that require a human touch and a little extra attention. That is, they did not ask Delta airlines if there was a gate change or if the flight was late, which would definitely have fallen within the 80% of typical questions asked and would probably have been shown different results.

The results: I'd encourage you to read the entire article, but the quickest response times were through the phone, followed by the web form. The experiment found that Twitter was typically slower and less effective at resolving the issues posed.

Does this mean Twitter isn't a good tool for customer service?

To me, the result weren't surprising and were even a bit validating--coming from a company that provides virtual call center and IVR services, it's refreshing to see that the phone is still the most effective resolution path for complex consumer customer service issues. However, the results also don't prove in any way that Twitter isn't an effective communication channel for customer service. They show that Twitter isn't the most effective communication channel for this type of customer service.

First, as I pointed out earlier, for the 80% type of questions, Twitter would undoubtedly have fared differently. Second, and more relevant, being the fastest and most effective doesn't necessarily matter to consumers. What matter is which method lies within the consumers' comfort zone in terms of communciation channels.

Pick a channel Look at it this way: for years, I've been telling people that to get a response from a company, they must write a letter. Calls don't cut it when it's a serious, complicated issue. However, most folks never take my advice because their preferred communication channel is the telephone. Asking them to shift to a different communication channel, even if it's proven to be faster and more effective, isn't worth the effort within their busy day.

Where the customers are Therein lies the value of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as communication channels: they might not be the absolutely most effective, but it's where the consumers are. Even if the service request takes a bit longer or requires a bit more effort, it's still a win for the consumer, because he doesn't have to shift activities and pick up the phone or fill out a web form. It's a matter of giving the consumer the chance to stay within her comfort zone.

The personal touch Third, Twitter allows for at least the illusion of a personal touch in the customer service interaction. For each Twitter account mentioned, there is a person with a real voice behind it. A website or IVR interaction do not hold the promise in the consumer's mind of a personal interaction, even if the reality is that the agents behind the web form and phone interactions might be well-trained, helpful and incredibly friendly. Twitter feels like you're interacting with a human being, and most consumers do not feel that calling a company IVR will give them that personal exchange. In reality, the level of personal attention does vary widely based on the company's corporate culture, but that's the perception.

In conclusion, as I've stated before, Twitter won't fix your bad customer service. However, it is a channel that will allow you a level of interaction with your consumers. And studies have shown that users prefer to choose their own communication channel, so corporations would be well advised to have a presence across all channels, not just phone and web. And if engagement with your users is part of your corporate culture, social tools such as Twitter shouldn't be ignored.

Cross-posted from the Spoken Communications blog

6 Tips for Promoting Your Quora Post

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 Quora, the online crowdsourced question and answer site, is proving to be a valuable tool for my own blog post research and general brainstorming. The site does have its own conventions, and I've discovered a few tips for getting the best reponses to a question. 

Of course, as with any social media site, it's a good rule of thumb to listen and observe first. Try answering a few questions before posing your own, and don't be stingy with responses before asking for insights from others.

A few additional tips:

1. Choose appropriate categories and tag your question. Users follow categories they are interested in. For example, I follow Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Management, Podcasting, Twitter and iPhone (for now--more to come). See below the user tagged her question with Social Media and Philanthropy & Charities, so any user tracking those tags will be more likely to see her question. 
   And we can see from this question's Question Stats in the right hand sidebar that 25,163 people are following those topics, leading to the question having been viewed 360 times.   
2. In conjuction with #1, follow relevant topics. On your account page, click either Suggest Topics or Find Topics and do a quick search for your three favorite topics. As with the rest of social media, making valuable contributions to others' discussions returns value to you in the long run.
   
3. Add your one-line bio. The one-line bio appears immediately to the right of your name when you post an answer to a question. Make it succint, precise or funny--it's up to you. But use it to give some context to the advice or insight you are giving whenever you answer a question. 
   
   
   
4. Share your profile on Twitter and Facebook. Quora is still relatively new, so be a thought leader by promoting your questions on your established social media sites.
5. Vote up responses. Next to each response, Quora provides an opportunity to vote the answer up. In addition to providing additional feedback and replies, vote for answers to your own questions as well as to those posed by others.
   
   
6. Thank your responders. Quora provides a link to Send Thanks for users who post relevant insights in response to your questions. Be consistent and thank any user who provides a response you find helpful.