Posted by Gabe on August 26, 2009 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes | 
This is the third in our series of kids wanting to come to Kids Are Heroes Day. Cati Grant hails from San Diego, California and she wants to come all the way over to the opposite coast so that she can spread the word about her cause, which just happens to be the cessation of cyber-bullying.
In Cati’s words:
What a great honor to have been invited to Kids Are Heroes Day!
Please help with travel expenses so I may attend to continue to raise awareness about the epidemic of cyber bullying among kids!
WHAT: Kids Are Heroes Day
WHEN: Saturday October 24. 2009
TIME: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
WHERE: Francis Scott Key Mall (Center Court) in Frederick, Maryland
This is an amazing chance to meet young philanthropists from all over the country and learn about their inspiring causes.
Please help me to be a part of it :) Cati
MY MISSION: Please Help Me STOP CYBER BULLYING
and Help Keep Teens Using the Internet SAFE!
Cati Cares is dedicated to serving teens in our community by providing a valuable resource for internet safety tips and cyber bullying prevention.
My name is Cati and I am a 16 year old junior at a local high school in San Diego, CA. I want to help make our world a safer place! I decided to start this site on my 15th birthday as a way to reach out to other teens about how important INTERNET SAFETY is and how we can join together to STOP CYBER BULLYING.
TURNING TEARS INTO ACTION…….
Unfortunately, many teens have been the victims of internet crimes and cyber bullying.
Take the pledge to not be a bully and to BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE!
If you have a problem and don’t know where to turn, please CONTACT ME and I will offer some helpful advice and a safe haven to share your story and seek help.
I continue to strive to be better everyday of my life and I live my life to the fullest. Being a teen isn’t easy and each teen should be able to face middle school and high school prepared and ready for some of the tough issues they may face.
I want everyone to be able to feel safe on the internet and be confident that they WILL NOT be cyber bullied. Join ME and use my tips to stay safe and to stop the vicious trend of cyber bullying.
Please help with travel expenses so I may travel to be a part of Kids Are Heroes Day on October 24, 2009! Thank you and God Bless!
Posted by Gabe on August 25, 2009 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes |
This morning I received in my Inbox another plea to come to Kids Are Heroes Day. This essay was written by young Calista herself who cares deeply about her brother and others. I would so love to see her be able to come to this event and share with other children.
Here is the link to her profile on the Kids Are Heroes web site. Please contact me directly or click the Donate button below if you or someone you know can help her.
Dear Mr. Gabe,
My project is fundraising for Crawford County Special Olympics. I fundraise for Special Olympics because my brother is a Special Olympics athlete. He is my inspiration because he loves to do the competitions. I overheard the Special Olympics management team talking and they said they weren’t raising enough money to go to all of the competitions. So, I started Calista Cares. I love to see my brother and all of the athletes happy knowing they can do the trainings and go to competitions. I hope you can support my family and I to go on this trip. Without you, I wouldn’t be able to go. I would love to go because it would be nice to sell my crafts somewhere I have never been before. I also think Special Olympics will be extremely proud. If you would be able to help me, it would be so great. I also really want to go because I want to make new friends who are also doing community service projects. Some people don’t understand why I do my project. It would be fun to meet others who understand and feel the same way. I think it would also be really fantastic to get the word out about Calista Cares and also getting the word out about Special Olympics. I think it would be a really fantastic trip.
Thanks for your help,
Calista Pierce
If that’s not the sweetest thing I ever heard now I don’t know what is! What’s more profound about this situation is that Calista’s brother Austin has also been recognized on the Kids Are Heroes site. (See his profile here.) Please help both Calista and Austin fulfill their dreams to come to Kids Are Heroes Day in October by clicking the Donate button. Thank you!
Posted by Gabe on August 20, 2009 under Social Media, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
Back in March I wrote a post with the same title. Usually what I do is go back and update these posts with my new experiences sprinked in. This time I felt it was necessary for a major overhaul, so I am writing from scratch.
Another motivator is that I have been a bit negative about Twitter lately. Blocking spammers, unfollowing Mafia Wars and “gift-seeking” tweeps and listing reasons why I unfollow people. That has actually been my most popular post to date, but one person finally questioned why there were so many negatives in relation to the positives. I think he had a point.
So without further ado, I am listing my top 10 reasons why I do so love this platform.
#1 Exposure
As many of you know my number one goal for becoming involved with social media is to tell as many people as I can about Kids Are Heroes. Since I began in December of 2008 quite a good deal of people now know about us and that number grows every day. It’s important to note that there are no shortcuts to making this happen. Paying for thousands of followers and tweeting about your business constantly will do you more of a disservice than help you. But in my estimation it is time incredibly well spent. I recently received a phone call from a father of one of our heroes before he submitted her nomination. His daughter actually had a former president (yes, of the United States) escort her in his limo from her high school to be on Oprah. (Go @KidsCaring4Kids!) Now that is the Super Bowl of exposure. But Kendall’s dad mentioned that after a while all the hoopla eventually died down – he noted that what we are doing with Twitter is to “constantly prime the pump.” I couldn’t agree with that statement more. Because of this I get new people discovering us every day. (Oprah, if you are reading this, we will gladly accept your exposure as well. ;) )
#2 The Connections
It really is not difficult to connect with people on Twitter. This is a very social atmosphere and most of the people on Twitter are looking to make new connections. Yes there are spammers but you learn how to deal with them and minimize their impact. Make no mistake about it – the connections on Twitter are like gold. Seek them out and treat them with respect because without them you are wasting your time.
#3 The Relationships
After the connections come the relationships. This is when you connect with someone to the level that you meet with them either face to face or by phone, or simply connect with them often enough that you consider them a trusted colleague. Again, these relationships must be culled and don’t happen over night. But their value is immeasurable.
#4 Accessibility
I just love the fact that everyone is on the same plane. You can talk to celebrities you admire and sometimes even get a response back. Another great value is being able to access companies without having to talk to a customer service rep that has only a few canned answers to choose from. This may change as Twitter gets bigger, but it is so much easier to reach decision makers this way.
#5 People are Great
At risk of sounding smarmy I just love the fact that most of the time people are on their best behavior. And if they are not you simply block them, so everyone you follow will still be on their best behavior. OK yes you still get spammed but this is supposed to be a positive post, remember? And that’s what the unfollow button is for.
#6 The Cultures
Twitter is definitely a great place to learn about other cultures. The more I learn the more I see that most people are similar enough that they can connect with each other, no matter where they are from. But we must understand that at the same time people are different. In my case even with other countries such as Australia that also speak English, there can be a disconnect in the underlying meaning of what people are trying to say, and I believe that is culturally based. So please keep that in mind.
#7 The Entire World is in Your Room
This is just one of the coolest things that I always get excited about. Talk about a small world – how about a world that is the size of your office? Just last month I saw a tweet from someone who was interested in what we were doing. Within ten minutes of that tweet we were talking and seeing each other via Skype. He lives in Sweden and I in the US. Not too much longer after that I spoke to a man from Australia. It was the next day there! Ok those of you who have international jobs are laughing at me because you do this all the time and it is no big deal to you. But it still amazes me that I can tweet with almost anyone in the world at any time.
#8 The Entertainment
Anyone can use Twitter strictly for entertainment purposes, following comedians and celebrities and giving in to the games and shows that are circulating around the medium. If you follow that path that is certainly your prerogative. I do find the occasional tweet that makes me laugh and I gladly retweet it. The viral Youtube videos make their rounds without making you feel that you have to respond to someone who emailed it to you with something like “Ha Ha! Loved it!” You control which ones you click on and which ones you watch in their entirety. My favorite is still the Evian Roller Babies. Might not be your taste, but again, that’s what makes Twitter great.
#9 Things Happen on Twitter
People are very active on Twitter. I have discovered that besides blogging and tweeting people are very quick to take action if something moves them. The Iran Election is one great example where many people colored their avatars green in support. The Twitter powers that be were even convinced to reschedule their scheduled downtime because people did not want to see the support go away. I also have personal experience with this. In March we entered a contest (that we discovered through Twitter) held by Sir Richard Branson to get great exposure for our video. Thanks to our Twitter supporters we won and had the video featured first in his premiere episode of PitchTV shown on Virgin Atlantic planes during the month of June 2009. I still have a hard time believing that one.
#10 Everyone Helps Each Other
If you “behave well” on Twitter you will find people who go to bat for you. By behaving well I mean not being spammy and connecting with people. You will promote what others are doing as well as your own agenda and ask nothing in return. I have found that the people who are successful on Twitter are full of humility and they also are very generous with help and information. Think about that for a second. Isn’t that an incredibly desirable atmosphere to be part of? What if all people did was tweet such things as: “Hey you won’t believe how great I am! Come see my web site that you can buy stuff from!” If that was all you saw would you log on in the morning? I didn’t think so.
I would love to hear what you think makes Twitter great. Or if you haven’t bought in to the hype let’s hear about that too.
Posted by Gabe on August 18, 2009 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes |
My last post described our biggest event of the year which is Kids Are Heroes Day 2009. This year we are inviting all the kids from around the US and Canada to participate. Some of them would love to come but it is difficult for them financially. Here is an email I received from Alaina Podmorow, founder of “Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan”. (See her profile here on KidsAreHeroes.com.)
Dear MaryMargaret and Gabe,
It’s me Alaina, the founder of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan. I received your invitation to participate in the “Kids are Heroes” day on October 24th of this year and would absolutely love to be involved. I love the idea of being in Washington DC and being able to raise awareness with both youth and adults about the human rights violations against girls in Afghanistan. I believe that education is the most important key to unlock the door to peace. If we can educate everybody, I believe peace will follow. Once everyone is educated, people will not live in fear and be intimidated by what they don’t understand and they will understand how to exercise their human rights. My focus is educating girls in Afghanistan because they don’t have the same rights that men and boys do. Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan want to make that change by raising money and teaching our global community that it is our job to make the change toward peace. I would love to be able to share my story and plans at your event however it is not easy for us to travel such a distance due to the costs of airline tickets and hotel cost and other stuff as well. I hope things will work out and we can get some funding so we can participate. I wish you good luck in planning your event and if I can’t go, best of luck in making our world a better place. Education=Peace
Alaina Podmorow - Founder of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan
If her story touches you and you or someone you know can help her in any way to get to this event, please click the Donate button and give generously.
Posted by Gabe on August 12, 2009 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes |
October 24, 2009 10AM-4PM Frederick, MD
For those of you that have been with us a while, you might remember Kids Are Heroes Day which was held at the Francis Scott Key Mall in Frederick, Maryland last September. Approximately 15 of our local heroes participated. The event was from 10AM-4PM on a Saturday with the kids at different tables raising awareness for their causes and collecting donations. The middle of the event was reserved for a recognition ceremony where all 15 kids were recognized by the mall on stage. As I look back on it, it was the culmination of a lot of planning and a lot of hard work to get to that point, but the kids made every second of it worthwhile. Five inches of rain from Tropical Storm Hannah did not even come close to dampening anyone’s spirits. Here are some pictures from that day.
Countdown to Kids Are Heroes Day!
2010-10-23 10:00:00 GMT-04:00
Well it’s that time of year again – to start planning for Kids Are Heroes Day 2009. Christina Steinbrenner (marketing director for FSK Mall) and I had our first meeting for this year just this afternoon. I have fond memories of our sessions last year and that is mainly because of her attitude. People in this position can sometimes be greedy and care only how it affects their stature and/or their bottom line. That was why I was a bit skeptical when she first approached me. However, right after our first meeting I was confident that she was a person that was not like that at all. Having traveled with Habitat for Humanity herself and also sharing my passion for kids, I quickly discovered that we would get along just fine.
So this year Kids Are Heroes Day will be on Saturday, October 24th from 10AM-4PM, which also happens to be Make A Difference Day. We encourage everyone to come down to the mall and cheer on these kids. If you are a parent who would like your kids to be involved in the community, we also urge you to bring your kids down to meet these heroes. None of them have horns or tails – they are all normal kids just like your own.
An Open Request
To make this event very special this year, the FSK Mall has opened it up for all heroes on the web site to participate. Over 70 heroes hail from all over the US and Canada, many as close to us as our back yard but some are as far away as Texas, California and even Edmonton, Alberta. We would absolutely love for as many of the heroes featured on the site to be able to attend as would be possible. We have seen when the kids get together, kids who share empathy for others, and how well they complement each other and interact together. It is a wonderful thing to see. As you would imagine these kids would love to be a part of this. However, especially in this economy, many can ill afford to take this trip. Some are single parents with a single income. So, if you know of anyone who would consider a corporate sponsorship, someone capable of sponsoring the return flight of one or more of the heroes, and/or to sponsor hotel rooms, please have them contact me directly at gabe at kidsareheroes dot com. Even donating frequent flyer miles would work. We will be knocking on the doors of local hotels and airlines to see what we can do, but it would be just wonderful if we could make this happen somehow. Please send anyone that might be able to help make this work to this blog. You can also donate to their travel expenses by clicking the button below. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you in October!
Posted by Gabe on August 10, 2009 under Kids are Heroes |
Yesterday we had such a wonderful experience. We had heard about a Heifer International Global Village that opened up in Sharpsburg, Maryland a few months ago. It is a bit of a trek for us (almost an hour drive) so we had to pick the right day to go and yesterday was it. We called ahead and got no answer (we later discovered their phone system was down). Not much more info on the web site either, but we figured we’d just go for a drive and see what happens. We arrived to find (almost) no one there. We didn’t know that most of the events there are scheduled in advance (they had put on an open house the day before). We did find someone and instead of just telling us they were closed (which was indeed their right) she took the time to give us the tour of the village.
For those of you who are unaware of Heifer International, this is a non-profit whose mission is “To work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.” One of the ways they do this is by supplying animals that can provide sustenance to impoverished communities and teaching them how to take care of it. The Global Village concept is relatively new. “Heifer’s Global Village programs offer the extraordinary opportunity for people to experience some of the challenges of global hunger and poverty – and come away with a re-energized determination to be part of the solution.”
So what this is is a program that allows youngsters (6th graders and up) and/or families to experience life in other cultures first hand with one of their 24-hour programs. The village in Sharpsburg showcase houses built that represent homes built in different areas of the world. Mozambique, Kenya, Guatemala and the USA were represented and they are in the process of building more. The homes are built as close as possible to the ones that are in the actual communities despite still having to follow the local building codes. The floors are mostly mud floors, except for the trailer that represents poverty in the USA. There is no electricity at all in any of the homes, so if you stay there you are reminded that the only reason to use the home is to sleep.
Knowing several children from the Kids Are Heroes web site who are drilling wells in Africa, we knew personally of the challenges to get even dirty water to drink. What we didn’t know is that firewood is almost as precious a resource. According to our tour guide, more than half of the world is without electricity so they burn wood to cook. Some must travel long distances just to get the wood. It was interesting to see the different villages and the specific challenges that face each one.
As we were swatting bugs away I couldn’t help but think that we should spend the night there at some point. I hesitated for one simple reason: I don’t want to. I don’t want to spend the night on a hard floor with no air conditioning. I don’t want to be without the comforts I am used to having. Not for one night. I am ashamed of this but it is true. But the meaning of it all is certainly not wasted on me. I was so happy that Ann took the time out to show us her village. I highly recommend everyone attend their next open house if you are within an hour or so drive. Next year they will have animals as part of the experience to further demonstrate what Heifer is doing. This is such a great organization and we hope to feature heroes that have saved up and purchased an animal for a community somewhere.
For more information on Heifer International’s Global Village and to watch a demonstration, click here.
Posted by Gabe on August 6, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I really enjoy helping people get acclimated to Twitter. I think it is because I want to help them unlock the powers of social media for themselves. So what I have done is create a new “Ask Gabe” series of posts for newbies, where I answer selected questions directed at me about Twitter on this blog. I used to do this in tweet form, but some questions cannot be answered in 140 characters, and if I write the answers here other newbies can also benefit. Just click on the “Ask Gabe” category on the sidebar to see all the questions and answers.
To ask me a question, simply pose it to me by replying to me (@KidsAreHeroes) on Twitter.
Also don’t forget that many of your questions may already be answered in the “Twitter for Beginners” section of this blog. Happy tweeting!
Posted by Gabe on August 5, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This is the second in the Ask Gabe series. A very good question came back to me posed by @DaveWebbBC:
@KidsAreHeroes Hi Im new to twitter, how do you manage conversations in the midst of 100s of tweets from random people?
Ok Dave, there are two parts to this. By your tweet I see you have learned to preface your tweet with the @ sign followed by the intended Twitter ID. This is the proper way to do this. I received this in my Replies/Mentions folder (as do you when you get tweets directed at you). Many newbies don’t see this folder. When you open Twitter from your browser, on the right sidebar you see “Home”. Underneath that you see your Twitter ID and under that is the Direct Messages folder. Click on your Twitter ID and you will see only tweets that are either directed at you or mention you in the tweet. What may be confusing is that you also see them in your main Twitter stream. So the basic answer is to check your Replies/Mentions folder – this will be separate from your main stream that has all those other random tweets.
Now once you get a little more comfortable and daring, you can install a product such as Tweetdeck that provides columns for different folders. Your Replies/Mentions folder is viewable at the same time as your main Twitter stream. You can even see your direct messages concurrently as well. And the nice thing about Tweetdeck is that it automatically refreshes itself, wheras you keep having to manually refresh your browser to see new tweets.
Now, one problem occurs when you get a response from someone who you directed a question quite some time ago and you can’t remember what you asked. Or maybe you just commented on something they said. They come back to you days later assuming you had just asked the question. That happened to me yesterday. There are a number of ways to do this, but the only tool I could find that worked properly was TweeTree. This tool shows the threads in conversations. Go to Tweetree.com and log in to Twitter. Look at your Mentions folder. You should see the conversations that you have been having.
Now there should be two other resources that can help. Specifically Advanced Twitter Search and TweetGrid.com. You can add boolean operators to Tweetgrid – for example to see conversations between you and me enter: DaveWebbBC AND KidsAreHeroes – note the capitalized AND. Unfortunately this isn’t working now in either case. I think that both use the Twitter Search API and my guess is that something is wrong with it at the time of this writing. I was unable to find the tweets from @DaveWebbBC to @KidsAreHeroes. If this works for someone else or if someone knows something I don’t please enlighten. UPDATE: As I suspected, at least according to this post, the Twitter search engine is indeed broken. That’s probably why it is no longer available directly from their home page. What you were trying to do will be much simpler once it is fixed.
UPDATE 8/25/09: I was working with the aforementioned tool Tweetdeck just now and I tripped over something that is definitely related to this. Tweetdeck has different columns that you can set up. One is the Mentions/Replies column. As I stated it will automatically update according to how often you have it set and you can see other tweets as well. If you get a reply (as opposed to just a mention), there will be text at the bottom of the tweet that will say “..in reply to..”. If you click on that it will show you the conversation you had with that person. I just discovered it so I have yet to determine its real value, but it seems like it might be very helpful.
UPDATE 8/6/09: I saw this link today for Twitter Conversation and Communication Tools. Looks like there are several more tools to help. Haven’t tried them all, so when I do I will come back and update again. Here is the link.
Hope all this helps… :)
Posted by Gabe on under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This is going to sound really nerdy but I have looked forward to Fridays because of #followfriday on Twitter. “Follow Friday” is the practice of recommending your favorite tweeps to other people to follow. (See more about it and how it got started via @mashable here.) This is a great concept – at least in theory. There is no better form of flattery on Twitter than for people to recommend you to others. But I must be honest. I do not look forward to Fridays like I used to. I see it more as a chore than a blessing now, at least as to how it applies to Twitter and here’s why:
1) The List. People cram as many names as they possibly can into one tweet. It is so bad that the #followfriday hash tag has been reduced to #ff to get more names on it. There is no reason given as to why we should be following these people. I guess what we are supposed to do is blindly click on all of them and follow them??
2) The RT. People who are given #followfriday shout-outs want other people to know they were given them, so they retweet these lists. You’re so vain – you probably think this song is about you.
3) The Requests. I actually received an email from someone that said, “I am going to give you a #followfriday shout-out tomorrow. Please give me one too!” When he did and I didn’t return it, he emailed me again telling me that he gave me a #followfriday shout-out. (By the way his follower count was 147.)
4) The Numbers. Have you ever looked at someone’s profile on a Friday and saw nothing but #FF lists? I fail to see what is accomplished by this. This is becoming more and more prevalent and is starting to amount to no more than spam.
5) The Thank-You’s. Regardless of the intent (or lack of) in a #followfriday mention, I feel obligated to thank people for them, even if I am one of 100 people they have recommended. I really do want to thank the people who have tweeted a “genuine” #followfriday to me. This gets harder and harder to do as I get more mentions, especially when I have a rule that I don’t thank people who have retweeted their own mention where I happen to be included.
Now I know what you are thinking – that I am biting the hand that feeds me, that I am whining about getting mentioned – all that may be true. And make no mistake I am truly grateful to the people that recommend me through their hearts. But if #followfriday was accomplishing what its originator intended, I would have a huge onrush of followers every Friday due to the number of mentions I get. This simply is not the case. As a matter of fact, I get no more of a noticeable following on Fridays as I do other days. And what that tells me is that people do not pay attention to these lists. Why would they? It’s just a long list of people with no reason why they have been recommended. The scary thing is that this concept is being propagated in a hash tag called #charitytuesday and I even received a #followwednesday shout-out this morning. The other sad thing I noticed is that on Fridays my “Mentions” folder is full of #followfriday lists and no real replies. People are spending all of their time creating these lists instead of connecting with people.
Now does that mean #followfriday should be done away with? No. I would just hope that people would go back to recommending one or two people at a time and giving us the reason. @DannyBrown has joined the trend of listing his #followfriday mentions on his blog. (Notice I picked the one where he mentions me – self-serving I know..) He keeps the list short and recommends different people every week. This is an excellent way to flatter and thus engage people. I still think Mr. Tweet is a great resource. This can be done any day and it is a great way to give props to the people you really love to follow. The beauty is that you can only mention one at a time, so you must give thought as to why you are following them. @bkmacdaddy seems to share my opinion. He has written a post how to use Mr. Tweet instead of #followfriday.
On Fridays I still partake in #followfriday but I try and recommend one person at a time. If I recommend several I do include a reason. Here is an example of one I did last week.
I know I might get some flak on this one but please feel free to dish it out. Convince me that #followfriday is still a wonderful thing on Twitter. You might make me look forward to Fridays again.
UPDATE 8/7/09 12:28PM EST Well #followfriday is just a little over half done for me and I must say either I am noticing it more or we did have a bit of an impact. I have seen several #followfriday dedications today that were very warm and genuine, and only mentioned a small amount of people. I did click through and follow those that were recommended. I find this much more productive when someone convinces me why I should follow just with a few kind adjectives. Keep them coming, people!
UPDATE 9/4/09: At the risk of appearing extremely self-serving I want to bring attention to a particular #followfriday mention I got this morning. It was delivered by @JonAston. (See what he wrote here.) This is one of the best recommendations I have ever gotten. In my opinion this is the way to recommend people. It gave me such a good feeling I had to write about it. This is a reflection of why you should follow Jon.
UPDATE 11/13/09: I saw that last week my friend @JohnHaydon officially declared that #followfriday was dead because of Twitter’s new lists feature. I also saw that @AlexKaris has a Twitter list called FollowFriday. This seems to make sense, doesn’t it? I haven’t fully come around yet when it comes to the new Twitter lists. I still have a bad taste in my mouth because of what happened to me recently. But I do see their convenience. To date I have created just one list including all our heroes. I am not sure which list I should create next. When you follow lots of people it becomes more difficult to create them in the first place. And who do you offend when you leave people off your “Great-Tweeters” list? I thought about creating a Follow Friday list too, but in my eyes that’s no different than creating a long tweet for them (except for the added convenience of following them all, and not having to type in the lists each week). I still have yet to follow someone else’s list because I don’t really know who is in them. Maybe I would follow some of them but not all. So I guess I will continue with my #followfriday routine and just mention a few each week giving a good reason for each. After all, that is, as I understand it, the spirit in which it was created in the first place.
How are Twitter lists working for you?
Posted by Gabe on August 2, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This is the first post from the Ask Gabe series:
I recently received an interesting question when I asked my Twitter “newbie” colleagues if they had any questions about Twitter.
“@KidsAreHeroes: I sent out a general tweet asking for a response and got nothing. Is there a trick to getting answers?”
That to me is a loaded question with the following correct answers: “Yes.” “No.” and “It depends.”
I examined this person’s profile and saw that she had 109 followers. The question she asked was definitely of a “nichey” nature. My response to her was that what she needed was more targeted followers to raise her chances of getting worthy answers to a question such as this. There are many factors involved when you send out a question.
1) How many of your followers are actually online at the time you asked it? There are many opinions as to what is the best time to tweet, but you can try it yourself by asking the question a few times at different times of the day to see which produces the best results. You must be careful not to be too repetetive or people may unfollow you. You must also consider your target audience. If it is global then you might also try a service like Future Tweets that will schedule the question in the middle of your night which is the day for many others.
2) How many people are following you? I think many new people still don’t realize that your followers and your followers only are likely to read your tweets. So if you have 100 followers, it’s the middle of the night for 50, 25 are awake but off line right now…you get the idea.
3) How many people are your followers following? If a person follows more than a few hundred people chances are that many tweets will be not be noticed at any one time. This is just simply the nature of the beast. To combat this you can retweet your own questions, but just be aware that overdoing it will be annoying to many.
4) Does your question appear to have a self-serving nature? If you have hidden agendas behind your tweets you are likely to turn people off. Here’s an example: “So-and-so said my web site was awesome! What do you think? http://spammylink.com” The number one thing you should remember about being involved with social media is the word “social”. If you connect with people they will pay more attention to you – plain and simple. I was perusing new followers’ profiles this morning and came across a particular person who had a few tweets that read something like, “New to this, bear with me.” Then he asked how to shorten a URL. So far so good. But then I saw some self-serving tweets that pointed to his web site. The sad thing is here that I don’t believe this person is a spammer per se, but he simply doesn’t know any better. Hopefully he will learn in time.
5) Who are you? That’s right, I said, “who are you?” To me you are just one of the eleventy-million people on Twitter until: a) I learn more about you in your profile, b) I read one of your tweets that interests me, c) You have engaged me in some way that wasn’t spammy. This is crucial to your success with Twitter. You must make your connections one at a time. And guess what? That takes work and it also takes time. But the time is incredibly well spent. There are no shortcuts to doing this properly. Oh sure, you can get sucked into the “16,000 followers in 90 days” scams but what do you have then? You still haven’t connected with anyone and the ones that you would like to connect with can tell that you used a program to gain followers so they won’t follow you. On top of that many people (includng me) unfollow when they see a tweet that advertises these follower schemes. Just for your knowledge here are a few relevant tweets from @spam which is the account to report spammy Twitterers to:
“If you give out your username and pw to a site claiming to get you more followers, updates often get sent out on your account.”
“Giving out your username and password to a 3rd party site promising you more followers: not a good idea! Please be safe!”
“Don’t believe the hype & sign up for ‘get followers fast!’ programs. They can be scams that steal your username and password!”
So, is there a trick to using Twitter? I wouldn’t call it a trick, just be genuine and connect with people – everything else will fall into place after that.
