Myth #1: We actually get lunch breaks

Myth #2: It is well paid.

Sure it can be. I however have $29 left in my bank account and am currently eating Mac and Cheese for dinner.

Myth #3: We get to go to glamorous events.

Again, it can be, but let’s just say my Mac and Cheese is in front of me as I write this…at work…at 8.07pm. My event tonight? Enjoying the late night train commuter people spotting. Oooh look, I think that guy is urinating over there.

Myth #4: We’re charming in person.

I, for one, would love to be charming in person but I don’t think I will ever get the chance to find out. I can however find out if I am charming over the phone – possibly, if any journalist answers my calls. Charming over email? I certainly hope so, as that is what I do all day. Hi there, I hope you’ve been well. I tried to contact you earlier but I thought it might be best to try your email….

Myth #5: We drink a lot.

Okay, so not a myth in my case, but there are people who don’t. I know because they always make fun of me as the resident alco – just because I enjoy a glass of wine when I get home most (every) night. Red wine is good for you I tell you! Good for you!

If you could be a self appointed ‘guru’ in something, what would it be?

Personally, I would go for something niche like Newspaper Circulation Guru, however in the public relations world I would seem to be in the minority. There have been some great articles recently by Peter Shankman and Brian Solis about the rise of social media ‘experts’ in what could be seen as jumping the social media bandwagon.

And why not? Social media to organisations is like Australia to foreigners: a far off place where they’re not sure exactly what goes on but they hear that it’s cool and they’re pretty sure they want to visit. There are 5.1 million Australians on social networks, 7 million sharing photos, 3.6 million sharing video, 4.5 million reading blogs and 1.5 million with their own blogs. It is a largely untapped golden seam of potential influence and reach.

Here’s what we do know:

- It takes a minimum of 10 years of consistent practice to become an expert

- Of people on Twitter who identify themselves as PR professionals, 65.5% have never posted an update

American social commentator Will Rogers described an expert as “A man fifty miles from home with a briefcase”.

Don’t be fooled by the briefcase, talk to us for some practical advice.

Mandy Griffiths: Newspaper Circulation Guru, follow me on Twitter @iknowyournumbers

Again people are saying that it is not retaining its users, that the younger generations are not interested. But for the people that really utilise the tool, I am sure it will continue to be strong and newsworthy until the next ‘fad’ comes along. Facebook has managed to stay relevant, we will see if Twitter will as well.

Is Twitter a tool to connect people, or is it a just a forum to allow self expression?

Sometimes described as the “SMS of the internet” Twitter slowly made a dent in social media history with its creation in 2006, before exploding in 2009.

Virtual communities are not a new concept, especially not in the generation of digital natives.

But the question remains: how can you really connect with someone in less than 140 characters? I’ve still got 45 characters left. Make that 26, no 19 ….and I’m done.

Let’s see how this works…

View in YouTube

I couldn’t decide, so I went to my own online community for help…Facebook

Mandy Griffiths wants to know what you think of twitter for an assignment…please help!

May 21 at 8:59am · Comment · LikeUnlike · Show Feedback (11)Hide Feedback (11)

You like this.

Sam Brane at 10:52am May 21

I love it!!!

Megan Clement at 10:54am May 21

do not care for it.

Seamus Coppick at 11:02am May 21

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Twitter

Mandy Griffiths at 12:02pm May 21

My work security settings blocked me from going to that website…don’t tell me there’s Twitter porn

William Perera at 12:17pm May 21

What the hell is twitter porn????

Megan Clement at 12:31pm May 21

Don’t be fooled – that little blue bird can be NASTY

Seamus Coppick at 12:45pm May 21

no twitter porn, your work security settings need to lighten up

Seamus Coppick at 12:57pm May 21

Although upon re-reading there is some language there that could have led your security sensor thingy astray.Nsfwish i guess…. my bad

Megan Clement at 1:08pm May 21

oh, NOW you know what it means!

Seamus Coppick at 1:56pm May 21

I am totally down with the 1337 lingo now.

Melany Antcliffe at 9:05am May 22

I can take or leave Twitter, I won’t be getting a personal account any time soon, Facebook is enough for me!

Unenlightened by my Facebook community I turned to email

I don’t really see the point to it.  It would appear that it’s a bit of an ego thing for celebs… i.e. “people love me so much that they’ll want to know that I’m shopping in D&G”… people who actually want to connect with people would use a blog – in my opinion

The common theme here is that none of these respondants are active Twitter users. So I looked at the source itself and created a poll.

Do you think Twitter is a way of connecting people, or do you think of it more as a forum for self expression?I definitely think Twitter is a way for people to connect
I think of Twitter more as a place to share ideas
A little from Column A, a little from Column B
I like to update Twitter however I am not that interested in following other people
I like to follow people but I rarely engage with them

Finding varying opinions, I went to Twitter itself and started reading the conversations #twitter and #social media, and eventually I just typed in ‘connecting people on Twitter’ and found the below…

I think the industry people connecting on Twitter are absolutely putting themselves in a better position now & for future.

Me too!  I have been thoroughly blessed to have found so many great people on twitter. I’ve enjoyed connecting w/you

About time more artists realised that tools like Twitter are about one on one connecting with people.

Thankful for Twitter connecting us all for free & introducing wonderful people to our lives on a regular basis #ThankfulThursday

my wonderful friends on Twitter. I love connecting with people like you and hope you have an amazing day …

Let’s try this again.

VARYING OPINIONS ACROSS THE BOARD

“Facebook is for sharing your life. Twitter is for sharing your ideas” – Twitter post

“Your Twitter community is your life line. The strength of your
community determines overall what you will (or won’t) get out of the
microblogging platform.” – Sarah Evans, director of communications at Elgin Community College

“Remember 2004-2005. Myspace was growing at 30-50% a month for an
extended period. Engagement was growing too. It was considered that it
would become almost a web replacement and marketing purposed web pages
would be custom profiles. At the time it was beyond earth shattering
and the so-called ‘future of media’ because most of us didn’t
understand it. Now look at it.” – Ben Shepherd, Talking Digital Blog

“Like swine influenza, technologies such as Twitter race around the world
before spluttering out. And when they do, the news is reported via a
technology that is robust and portable, one that is information rich
and never crashes – the platform for the online information age you are
reading now.” – The Australian

“A prevailing myth about Twitter is that it’s just an expression of
our collective narcissism, and that we’re all just tweeting to hear
ourselves tweet. In reality, though, the overwhelming majority of users
follow far more people than follow them. And if you’re tweeting more
than you’re reading, there’s a good chance nobody’s following you…” – PC World

“Many short contacts may leave the user wanting deeper, more
meaningful exchanges. Like a meal of cotton candy, when you come right
down to it, there is not much substance. A good conversation
with a good friend is much more life-affirming than a few tortuously
abbreviated or emoticon-filled lines in a tweet that anyone can read.
How special is that?” -Craig Kinsley, professor of neuroscience at the University of Richmond

“Rather than ego fulfillment
or networking, what appears to truly motivate Twitter users is learning
new things and getting information in a timely manner” – research firm Marketing Profs

CONCLUSION

Am I part of the Twitter community now? Yes. Do I feel connected? Besides the 34 people that are following me, the only people that I feel connected to on Twitter are the people from my work, who were essentially forced to sign up for our pn-budget experiment. Looking at it now, all of the people that we forced to sign up have yet to use it since. I do feel there is a place for Twitter and it is an amazing – and fast – way of sharing knowledge, however it did take a lot longer for me to come to this conclusion than for any other ‘social media phenomenons’. Because of this I do not think it is something that will be as wholly embraced by Australia as Facebook (4.7 million Australian users vs Twitter, 780,000). It will be interesting to see if it maintains its place on the social media ladder, or go the way of MySpace.

RELATED LINKS

How to build a community on Twitter
Top 10 tips

Hot not to build a community on Twitter
What not to do

CONTACT INFORMATION

• Mandy Griffiths (Spokesperson)
  RMIT
  Master of Comms (PR) student
  Melbourne
  (03) 9289 95555 (office)
  (03) 9289 9556 (fax)
  0422 415 559 (cell)
  @mandygriffiths
  Blog: http://mandygriffiths.wordpress.com

Technorati Tags: Twitter | online community | connecting

]]> http://mandygriffiths.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/what-came-first-the-constant-need-for-self-affirmation-or-twitter/feed/ 0 mandygriffiths 2531094926_144140293b Sam Brane Megan Clement Seamus Coppick Mandy Griffiths William Perera Megan Clement Seamus Coppick Seamus Coppick Megan Clement Seamus Coppick Melany Antcliffe twtpoll HubSpot-Making-Friends http://mandygriffiths.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/problems-with-linking/ http://mandygriffiths.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/problems-with-linking/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 13:20:40 +0000 mandygriffiths http://mandygriffiths.wordpress.com/?p=115 ]]> So…my whole theory about creating an interactive online documentary was that I could link to discussions taking place on social media sites Facebook and Twitter.

I have recently discovered, as in, 2 minutes ago, you can cannot access these Twitter discussions unless you belong to Twitter. Facebook I just didn’t really think through properly as I know they have much higher privacy settings. On Twitter you don’t even have a choice about whether someone can follow you, you are merely notified and they will only be refused access if you make the effort to block them.

Hmmm. At least I can still link to my Twitter poll.

“Your Twitter community is your life line. The strength of your community determines overall what you will (or won’t) get out of the microblogging platform. What do you want to use Twitter () for? I wanted to build a community where I could engage in dialogue, stay ahead of the social media curve and share some laughs.”

Sarah Evans then goes on to outline 10 tips as a guide. Make no mistake though, it’s a constant effort.There is even a follow up post on what not to do as well. This includes keeping Facebook and Twitter separate.

“Don’t install the Twitter application on Facebook if you send more than 10 tweets per day

You will seriously start to confuse your network…or worse, annoy them. If you’re like me, my networks are separate. Not all of my Facebook () friends are on Twitter, or plan to be. When I use “Twitter lingo” it confuses them.

I learned this lesson from a personal mistake. I did have a Twitter feed updating my Facebook account until a few very nice friends “encouraged” me to stop it (one was my sister!).”

Another tweeter I saw distinguished the difference between Facebook and Twitter.
asdavis10 @trniii That’s because Facebook is where you share your life. Twitter is where you share ideas. Different purposes.

And something to make updating your Facebook/Twitter status even easier? Facebook status generator.

Mandy Griffiths has a hankering for irrelevant pirates.

New rules include writers should check in with an editor before “friending” contacts that could wind up being confidential sources. Writers are also instructed not to “recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work;” the e-mail concludes by reminding them that “business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter.”

Such regulation surely means that Twitter is here to stay, not to mention a new form of source information. Does this mean though, that if you’re not twittering, you will not be represented?