Actually what you’re saying about being more personal on Twitter is a good message. I think that I am a bit guilty of just promoting either the latest blog post, or trying to sell what we do.

When I’m doing some support on there it feels a lot better – kind of what Twitter is really meant for. So I think thats good advice – and I am going to be a bit more of a person in future!

Ken

You can use Twitter two ways, I think. Entirely impersonally where you just make polite responses but never deviate from your goal which is to drive people up to your website/forum/blog/shop. Or, personally, where the person who does the twittering interacts with their new friends and becomes a ‘personality’.

For me, well, for TABI, the second element works – mainly because, I think, most Tarotists are women and women like to talk and exchange confidences. People get to see what our community is like, chat wise, and many sign up with us.

The former approach – just keep posting snippets and drive folks to the website or forum – didn’t work for us.

Now – would I like my informal TABI tweets to represent my organisation? No. They serve their purpose on Twitter, but when I’ve got my Chairman’s hat on in the organisation, I want people to see that we’re a hard-working, ethical bunch of people who are striving to create community and raise standards in a much-maligned field.

I am caught between a rock and a very hard place :-D

AX

Ken

Actually, I am just reading a book called Twitter Power by Joel Comm.

It’s amazing what can be tweeted right back at you after some ponderous tweet that you make yourself…..

But tweets are not reliable sources of information – check out the trending topics, for example, and see what utter bloomin’ rubbish gets wittered – what was it last week Ted Danson or Billy Crystal had died (no – they hadn’t) but it still trended for ages.

Indexing probably is more reliable, as you say, but we have an insatiable need for stuff NOW. So, who knows – sacrifice quality for speed?

AX