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 Joined on 06/29/2006 Posts: 1,959
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My Contribution to Twitter-mania

24 February , 06:50 PM

I saw on Techmeme today that Howard Rheingold kicked off a love-fest of conversations about Twitter in his post, Why I'm Hooked on Twitter. I couldn't agree more with with Mathew Ingram's take that openness and the flexibility that comes with it goes a long way. I also agree with Tony Hung's assessment as well, though I can sum up the reason I love Twitter in a shorter sentence:

Twitter connects groups of people more effectively than any other Web 2.0 tool that I have come across.

Case in point, in honor of Susan Reynolds and Bryan Person being in town (and because it was a nice night in Austin) Kim Haynes organized an Austin Tweetup last night. She invited folks in the Austin area who largely met each other through Twitter to meet each other face to face. No surprise that it resulted in a lot of conversations. Was really bummed that I wasn't able to make it. You can see Kim's Austin Tweetup Flickr photos here.

Twitter makes it easy for anyone to follow the thoughts of some of the best social media minds out there today. If you're not sure who those folks are, it's easy to start with one person you look up to, and see who they're following. It's as easy as a simple name search and a couple of clicks.

Beyond that, following folks on Twitter will often give you insight to them on a more personal level. And though others have mentioned it, I just can't say enough about the pure genius of the 140-character limitation. If I could apply it to e-mail, my world would be a better place.

It wasn't always that way for me. Like lots of others, I first discovered Twitter at SXSW Interactive 2007. Other Dell folks like Laura Thomas (@LPT) were quick to pick up on the benefits. It took me a lot longer. People like Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and RichardatDell (@RichardatDell) encouraged me to dive a bit deeper into the Twitter pool.

 Even now, I'm just getting started compared to the majority of the Twitter freaks out there. If you haven't tried Twitter, I would highly recommend it. Thanks to Connie and a couple of others, I just started using a Twitter app that rocks called Twhirl. I've tried several, and it's my favorite so far.

Taking a page from Jeremiah Owyang's blog post, I'd love to follow more Dell customers. You can see what I'm up to at www.twitter.com/lionel_menchaca, and you can follow Direct2Dell posts at www.twitter.com/direct2dell.

If you'd like to connect with other Direct2Dell readers, feel free to leave your Twitter name in the comment thread of this post.

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steve baker
11 Apr 2008 10:51 AM
I'd like to connect to dell twitterers. I'm at @stevebaker
 
Lionel_Menchaca
02 Mar 2008 12:06 PM

@conniereece Agree with you that's a great topic for the Conversation Starters event. Twitter might come up in our Future of Corporate Blogs panel that Mack is moderating.

I use my personal Twitter @lionel_menchaca both ways. It's mainly my personal updates, but I definitely include some details that involve my work at Dell in terms of where we're going on the social media front.

It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

 
Connie Reece
02 Mar 2008 12:03 PM

Lionel, I'm glad you have been so much more active on Twitter lately -- it's great keeping up with you that way.

Regarding business use of Twitter: we were having a discussion about this over on Mack Collier's blog. Is it better to have only one person behind a business entity on Twitter -- for example, Ann Handley as the voice of Marketing Profs. Or can more than one person write for a company Twitter account, which is what Bulldog Solutions is experimenting with.

The problem w/ the first example is that Marketing Profs has really turned into Ann's personal Twitter stream much more than anything about Marketing Profs. The problem w/ the second example is that you don't know who is tweeting from Bulldog unless they "sign" a post.

I don't think Twitter *has* to be conversational only; it has a marketing use as well, but that use is often not perceived to be as valuable. This might be a good topic for the Conversation Starters event.
 
 
Ricardo Guerrero
25 Feb 2008 11:43 AM

Heyya, @LPT (Laura Thomas) & @lionel_menchaca!  @ggroovin here.  Thx for the love as well.  I was wondering why suddenly a few more folks were following me?  hehe

 /pd: I agree with you that we have an opportunity to create real dialogue where mostly we've used Twitter as a one way channel.  What I've been wondering, though, is if folks expect to have a "conversation" with an entity rather than with a person?  One idea I've been considering could be to have the person behind a Dell Twitter entity be listed as someone that Dell Twitter is following.

(Currently, we've mostly cross-linked our available [one way, RSS] Twitter feeds to each other by having them all follow each other.  We've not generally followed non-Dell entities because if we start to follow dozens or hundreds of users then it isn't apparent that there are other Dell Twitters one can follow.  Yet, for @DellOutlet, for example... if I created an @RicardoatDELL account in Twitter & had @DellOutlet follow that account, then I would be the one person listed as being followed by @DellOutlet.  Hence, though not completely direct 2-way communication, I would appear as an individual with whom folks visiting the @DellOutlet Twitter page could interact.  Alternately, I could make it more explicit by creating an account like @DellOutletMANAGER or something like that which would be an account where I, as the originator of the @DellOutlet Twitter, or the person who does all the postings for us, Stef, could have conversations.)

Would love to hear your thoughts & others thoughts on the above.  I think this is all evolving and there may be room to have both 1-way "feeds" via Twitter as well as 2-way conversations available.  =D

 
-- @ggroovin

 
 
Lionel_Menchaca
25 Feb 2008 08:24 AM

/pd: Thanks for your comment.

Fair point you bring up, I've changed the background info on the Direct2Dell feed to make it clear that it's an RSS feed of D2D headlines.

Truth is, we're still trying to make sense of Twitter in the corporate space. We've tried a few things on the Dell overall front. Some have worked pretty well, others not so much. Matter of fact, I saw yesterday that the Direct2Dell Twitter feed is still not working correctly,

But, if it's 1x1 conversations you're looking for, would recommend @LPT, @ggroovin, @RichardatDell, @JohnPatDell, or @Lionel_Menchaca.

 
/pd
25 Feb 2008 07:59 AM

 I think you have got it all wrong and are fudging your way thru !!

 Firstly, the twitter account @direct2dell is only feeding blog posts into the twitter pool, another channel to get the blog rehased. So its a one way street.

Secondly,  over the last 2/3 week, there has been only 12-15 response within twitterverse @direct2dell , thats really not a conversation tracker from my POV. (used tweetscan to get that infonugget)

Thirdly,  there has been no human response on dell within twitterverse. (every twit I see is basically funneled thru twitterfeed)

Ok so what gives by saying that  "my contribution" ?? another bot that examplifies itself by way of a PR and corporate screech ??

IMHO, you gotta jump in and make sure that one speaks with a human voice within the twitter pool, else all your doing is listening and not responding.

I may sound a little hard /hash, but I want my "latitude"  to be issues to be seen and heard one a 1-1 basis , if respond to @direct2dell !! :)-

 

 
 
Tony Hung
25 Feb 2008 07:57 AM

Thanks for the link-love Lionel!

I think it remains to be seen how businesses and corporations end up using Twitter ... I think the whole space is evolving, myself.  I am only really "getting" it now, after discovering it and using it intermittently over the past year.

Cheers (and keep up the great work)
Tony Hung.


 
 
Lionel_Menchaca
25 Feb 2008 08:48 AM

Tony: Agree that how companies use Twitter will continue to evolve. Matter of fact, before I moderated your comment. Direct2Dell reader /pd called me out on that.

 
Bryan Person, Bryper.com
25 Feb 2008 07:02 AM

Great post, Lionel.  I've been using Twitter for just over a year now (and don't worry: It didn't make sense to me at first, either), and it's far and away been my No. 1 online tool for expanding my personal network, sharing and brainstorming ideas, and planning events (like Tweetups and Social Media Breakfasts).

I look forward to meeting you on my next trip to Austin.

 
--Bryan Person, @BryanPerson on Twitter
 
 
Laura Thomas
24 Feb 2008 09:42 PM

Thanks for the mention Lionel!  I'd like to add a call-out to Ricardo Guerrero (@ggroovin) who also saw the early potential of Twitter and back in June last year created @DellOutlet to bring special discount opportunities to twitterers.


 

 
Lionel_Menchaca
24 Feb 2008 10:02 PM

Right on, Laura. I shouldn't have left Ricardo Guerrero out in this post. Sorry for the oversight @ggroovin.

He definitely got the ball rolling by launching the DellOutlet feed in Twitter.

 

 
thom singer
24 Feb 2008 07:09 PM

I fully agree with you about the benefits of Twitter, and I was a skeptic for months and months. 

 Meeting the folks in person last night at the Tweet up whom I had followed was surreal, and I did feel I already knew them. 

 I look forward to discovering more about the power of Twitter.

 Twitter name @thomsinger.com

 thom