Today, at 10 am PDT, I’ll run a Twitter experiment to see how a discussion might work. Here’s information about it. I’d appreciate it if you’d jump in and participate. I think it’ll be fun, and we’ll likely learn something. Always do with these experiments. I don’t know how many will participate, but will plan for no longer than one hour.
Topic
We’ve seen Twitter being used by many companies for tech support, release notes, and tips. Scenarios in which I think it would be useful for discussions are noted later in this post.
Are you using Twitter for work to support your docs, company products, marketing efforts, or anything else? If so, how? If not, why not? How do you envision using it?
Reasons I can think of for not using it yet are:
- Unfamiliarity with Twitter
- Company reluctance to use Twitter
- Not yet in company or doc group strategy
- Not enough staff to handle the extra work of establishing and maintaining a feed
Why Participate?
I think that Twitter has much potential, and that we can use the #techcomm tag for more than just pushing and sharing information. I think Twitter can be used for more. I haven’t really seen formal discussions, so thought it’s something to test. So why not give it a try?  Â
Discussion Process
Info will be posted in these locations:
Twitter
Use hashtags #TCdisc and #TCexp.
I think it’s important to use the #TCdisc and #TCexp hashtags. That way, all related tweets will be separated from the main #techcomm tag tweets and easier to track and review. We’ll then be able to go back and review it again.
Plus, just so you know, I learned something from the last experiment I ran. I may take some screen shots periodically. Will see how it goes and if it’s necessary. I also may post updates on the blog and in Facebook. Will see how that goes. It’s an experiment, so we’ll just have to see what happens.
Blog
Right here on this blog. Here’s the link, though:
http://www.2morodocs.com
Will use for updates and more detailed info. Comment right here on this post if you’d like. Comments will not be held for moderation, and will post immediately.
Facebook
2morodocs page
Comment there as well if you want. You have to be signed in to Facebook to do so.
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I’ll be monitoring and using all these locations.
Comment in any of those places about any aspect of it, but let’s try the bulk of the discussion in Twitter just to see how it goes.
Uses
Why try a discussion in Twitter, you ask? I can think of several instances. One possible scenario I see in which this would be useful is for scheduled discussions. Here are some that I can think of.
Scenario 1
Let’s say that your company is rolling out a new app version. It’s been in the works for a while. Marketing has a plan or campaign to announce it. Why not have a Twitter discussion planned to announce new features, point to docs covering updated features, and provide info to people. They’re likely to have questions.
Recently, Hootsuite rolled out a new version. They were busy all day handling and processing input from users. One issue that kept coming up was to be able to RT using the old style so you could edit tweets. Information about that rolled out all day. Check out @Hootsuite_Help.
Scenario 2
You have a biweekly or monthly Twitter meeting, where customers can pose questions. Have some writers, tech support, and developers involved to answer tweets and (for writers) update various docs as needed. Why wait until there’s a problem. Remember the new mantra: go where your users are. Help them. Don’t wait for them to come to you.
Scenario 3
Something comes up and you just want to quickly discuss it and move on. It’s easy to jump on Twitter and start conversations.
Related Posts
Proposal: Expand Use of Tech Comm Hashtags
Twitter Discussion Experiment: Lessons Learned
Twitter is OK for holding discussions, but it has a couple of drawbacks: You’re limited to 140 characters (minus the length of the hashtags). And it can be chaotic when everyone chimes in at the same time.
But….A few months ago someone was holding real-time interviews on Twitter. Worked like this:
1. They’d tweet “Tune in at noon Eastern for a live interview with Sally Thoughtleader. Use such-and-such hashtag to follow and ask questions.
2. At the appointed time he’d tweet a question to the interviewee, and she’d respond in kind. Always using the hashtag.
3. Anyone could throw in their own questions just by using the same hashtag.
4. When it was all over (usually in an hour) he’d make a transcript and post it on his blog.
I was never the interviewee, always just a listener. But I found them stimulating and informative. (I wish I could remember who it was doing this. Maybe Jeremy Victor. Someone like that.)
Anyway, the interviews were kind of like what you’re doing here. Except they were more focused (panel discussion vs. room full of people talking). Still might be an effective way to use Twitter.
Personally, I don’t think Twitter is a great discussion tool for the same reasons Larry mentions: The 140-character limit requires too much brevity sometimes, and it’s hard to sort things out if you have multiple people responding to the same tweets (or individual people responding to multiple tweets simultaneously). I think Twitter works best as a one-to-many tool (pushing out announcements to followers), or it can work as a one-to-one discussion tool, though it’s better to move one-on-one discussions to the DM realm so the rest of your followers aren’t bothered by it. As a one-to-many or many-to-many tool, though, I think Twitter fails.
I observed the discussion because I follow all three of you, so this is an observer’s point of view. I agree that the 140-character limit is a problem for discussions. Many tweets were hard to read because sometimes five+ letter words were abbreviated to two letters.
HootSuite is a bit of a skewed example I think. They know that all of their users are on Twitter, so reaching out via Twitter is the right move for them. For pretty much any other product, some customer research would be in order on an ongoing, general level to see how many customers use Twitter, Facebook, etc. As Larry tweeted, go where your audience is. If only 10% of your users are on Twitter (and you’d have to take into account how heavily that 10% use it), there are probably more worthwhile communication methods.
Having said this, I think it’s a worthwhile and pertinent discussion to be having for people in our field.
Everyone – thanks for your comments so far. I will reply in a bit. I’m working on writing up my thoughts while they’re fresh in my mind. There are many. Whew. Just want you all to know I’m not ignoring you!