9 Thoughts after 2 Months on Twitter

9 more thoughts after 2 months on Twitter (in no particular order) ...

1. Maintaining 2 identities: There's difference of opinion about whether it's good or bad to have two separate identities on Twitter - and the challenge of doing that. My opinion is that if it's an "organization" using Twitter but a staff person has personal opinion on other topics - it's not the same. Now that news media, legislators, the Governor, Members of Congress, business groups may follow (or just watch) an association on Twitter, the organization's "name" should likely be mindful of that. It is, however, difficult to remember to switch back and forth depending on if you're speaking as the organization, or as you.

2. More lingo to learn: There are Twitter abbreviations and acronyms to learn. Here's a dictionary.

3. Should you care what's said? (Yes) Mark Cuban has interesting blog post saying maybe no one should care what people write about them because in reality there are not many listening (and potentially no one listening). I think it matters because of Google. They may not be listening the day something is written or even the year it's written ... but if it can be found in Google, then one of these days it may have an impact you won't realize.

4. Learn TweetDeck: Wished I had set-up and learned TweetDeck at the outset. Allows you to set up columns to only watch what you want to watch, to follow hashtags easily, to add pictures easily, to shorten URLs, Re-Tweet instantly, and to watch search terms. I've found it valuable to have a search column with the word Maine - although there's a ton of tweets out there about a band named The Maine, a Mets player with the last name Maine, and Maine coon cats.

5. Why buy the cow: The best thing about social media training is it's either free or close to free (the most expensive social media program I know about is $75). The community of participants using social media like Twitter openly share info, even in live settings. Many livestream or post video so you can watch (free) without attending. And it's incorporated into most conferences you're likely attending. If you need advanced training, call a few people and teach each other. This is the best deal going in a bad economy.

6. Joys of Bit.ly: Bit.ly uses less characters than tinyurl.com (to reduce long URLs). And if you have an account it will keep analytics on how many people click your link. Like everything else, it's free too.

7. Authentic deceit: A few days before the truth came out about South Carolina Governor being in Argentina, I read a tweet from someone saying they just saw the SC Gov on the Appalachian Trail. So when the Appalachian Trail info came out it made me think that maybe Twitter did have inside scoop. But it wasn't truth. If you want to be deceitful, Twitter's an easy tool for that too. Who really knows what's authentic? It's not obvious. As the saying goes: Trust, then verify. Even on Twitter.

8. Etiquette and engagement: I bet everyone has opinion about what is or isn't etiquette on Twitter - and there's no right or wrong (only definite personal opinion about it.) Sending auto-responders to those who follow you may seem less personal to the recipient than if you sent nothing. Deciding not to respond to every question is like not answering every email, taking every call, responding to a news story, or meeting everyone who wants to meet with you. We each have finite amounts of time, and for better or worse the decision about how much time there is to engage is the same on Twitter (and all social media) as it is in real life.

9. Need to facilitate Twitter: Much association info that may have a consumer component should be in Twitter-ready format to encourage it's redistribution. Need to figure out when and how to do that.

Here are earlier Twitter posts: my first 15 thoughts, and 5 (Bad) Lessons.