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Feedback Wanted! How are you feeling about Twitter?
Submitted by saraneppl on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 8:31am
When we first started talking about using Twitter at CityClub, much of our conversation was about tweeting from events. We'd been brainstorming ideas about how to reach more people, how to extend program content and impact beyond those folks who could actually physically attend the program.
It was also a response to the common question of whether we accepted questions for panelists in advance, or just in absentia. With the technology for livestreaming not quite available to us just yet, Twitter seemed like a good option: we could tweet snippets and quotes from the programs, and if people following the stream had questions, we could try to sneak them into the audience question period.
As our group of followers grew, we realized via feedback from followers that the tweeting from events was a little too much - it was a bit spammy. "There's a limit to what you can say in a 140 character bursts," one user responded. And it's true. I was trying to catch everything - not only the question but all of the panelist responses. It's actually an extension of a difficulty I've always had - I think everything is important. In school, the most excruciating part of a paper for me was cutting parts out. I get long-winded.
We also realized that people were following our stream for different reasons - some want info about events, links to online video, etc. Others did want that live stream from events. We tried taking some of the Twitter-from-events content and doing a sort of liveblog, but weren't happy driving traffic away from Twitter. We started to suggest Twitter Snooze so that people who didn't want our event tweets could just turn us off temporarily instead of un-following us.
Now, we're trying something new. During yesterday's "Education Series: Getting Ahead - Educating for Today's Job Market" program, we transmitted our event tweets from a new account: @CityClubLive. I peppered our original Twitter feed with just the occasional quote and a link to the new account. It has a handful of followers now (although because of our name I'm never quite sure if they think we are a rock club or a health club or civic engagement club).
Social networking is very new, and as it keeps shifting, we'll keep trying to adapt. We'd love to hear from you: How are you feeling about Twitter? In lieu of livestreaming video (we'll get there someday) how do you prefer to remotely participate? Is a liveblog a better option? Will you follow both CityClub Twitter accounts? Or will you only access it when the topic is of interest to you? If the live tweets are from a different account, do we still need to cut down on the amount of tweeting?
You tell us!
Share
It was also a response to the common question of whether we accepted questions for panelists in advance, or just in absentia. With the technology for livestreaming not quite available to us just yet, Twitter seemed like a good option: we could tweet snippets and quotes from the programs, and if people following the stream had questions, we could try to sneak them into the audience question period.
As our group of followers grew, we realized via feedback from followers that the tweeting from events was a little too much - it was a bit spammy. "There's a limit to what you can say in a 140 character bursts," one user responded. And it's true. I was trying to catch everything - not only the question but all of the panelist responses. It's actually an extension of a difficulty I've always had - I think everything is important. In school, the most excruciating part of a paper for me was cutting parts out. I get long-winded.
We also realized that people were following our stream for different reasons - some want info about events, links to online video, etc. Others did want that live stream from events. We tried taking some of the Twitter-from-events content and doing a sort of liveblog, but weren't happy driving traffic away from Twitter. We started to suggest Twitter Snooze so that people who didn't want our event tweets could just turn us off temporarily instead of un-following us.
Now, we're trying something new. During yesterday's "Education Series: Getting Ahead - Educating for Today's Job Market" program, we transmitted our event tweets from a new account: @CityClubLive. I peppered our original Twitter feed with just the occasional quote and a link to the new account. It has a handful of followers now (although because of our name I'm never quite sure if they think we are a rock club or a health club or civic engagement club).
Social networking is very new, and as it keeps shifting, we'll keep trying to adapt. We'd love to hear from you: How are you feeling about Twitter? In lieu of livestreaming video (we'll get there someday) how do you prefer to remotely participate? Is a liveblog a better option? Will you follow both CityClub Twitter accounts? Or will you only access it when the topic is of interest to you? If the live tweets are from a different account, do we still need to cut down on the amount of tweeting?
You tell us!
Share
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