1. How I use Twitter to build and support my community
David Gurteen
17 Sept 2009

2. My Community
16,000 people in 154 countries

3. Why do I bother?

4. I give in order that I may receive!

5. What I give Give stuff and point to stuff Give my help and support
Both my stuff and stuff of others
Website, newsletter, RSS feeds, etc
Give my help and support
I collaborate with people
Connect members to other members
Run free events e.g. Knowledge Cafes
I use social tools extensively to do this

6. What I receive Find like minds Learn from them Have fun with them
Connect with them and build relationships
In order to achieve things
Learn from them
Have fun with them
Gain their help and support
Spread ideas that are important to me
Market and sell my stuff ***
consultancy, talks, knowledge cafes, workshops
Again social tools play a major role

7. Most important benefit is the relationships

8. Relationship building process
Find an interesting person
Establish connection with them
Build a relationship through social tools
Do stuff together
Go to 3

9. Connection Process Find a like mind Enter in my contacts database
Sometimes trip over them, sometimes search
Enter in my contacts database
Google them & find a reason to communicate
If no response back off else
Connect on LinkedIn, Dopplr, FaceBook
Invite them to join my community & receive newsletter
Subscribe to their blog and Twitter feeds
Meet them face to face at first opportunity

10. Three principals

11. I want to share knowledge!

12. I want to be transparent and open

13. I want to be found and connected to wherever I am!

14. Social Tools are at the heart of my community!

15. How I use Twitter to build and support my community
And how you can use it too!

16. Twitter What ever I say I cannot do it justice
Huge ecosphere (the TwitterSphere)
It’s not about what you had for breakfast
It’s not a just a publishing tool
Like blogs in the early days it is misunderstood
Great for networking & building communities
Google it & play with it to understand it

17. Twitter uses
A means of mass broadcasting and receiving short “messages”
Inform people “what is new”
Announcements
Point people to interesting things
Keep people informed of activity or status
Ask questions

18. Twitter Basics Post Tweets to a blog 140 characters
A Tweet can include a URL and #tags
You can follow people; they can follow you
Messages sent through browser, sms, im or third party application
Limited conversational capability

19. How to get followers Follow people! Find a big names in your field
And follow their followers
Either blindly or selectively
But over 2,000 people there are limits
I don’t follow: people without a photo, bio or intersting tweets unless I know them

20. How I use Twitter To read -Tweetdeck To publish – Tweetdeck, Bitly
To connect – Follow interesting people
To interact DM
To conduct polls
To ask questions
To invite people to my events
To meet people
To build relationships

21. Building my community Tweet news items several times a day
Tweet personal events/thoughts less often
Retweet RT really interesting stuff
Use DMs to reply
then try to preserve context
Use Bitly to track what interests people

22. Bit.ly Standard Twitter URL shortener But much more
Tracks real-time statistics on click-throughs
If you open an account will allow you to see all your URLS and their stats!
Tool bar accessory to enable easy tweeting

23. Building my community Sensitive to time zones
Repeat Tweets to hit different time zones
Always attribute
Search columns in TweetDeck for KM
#KM tag
Publish news and quotations

24. RSS to Twitter I have 3 Twitter accounts 
DavidGurteen: my regular Twitter account
GurteenNews: what’s new on my website
GurteenQuotes: quote of the day
Take an rss feed & turn into a Twitter feed
rsstotwitter.com
twitterfeed.com

25. Building my community
I have conversations in Facebook over Tweets posted in Twitter!
Have published lists of KM Tweeters on my website
Exploring what my new iPhone can offer

26. Complementary tools Thousands of them – just Google
If you can think it there is a tool to do it!
TweetDeck
Twitteriffic for iPhone or Mac
Twittercounter
Bit.ly
All sorts of widgets

27. Understanding Twitter
Create an account
Start to play with it
Google for uses, business applications, complementary tools etc
Follow people/orgs like TechCrunch, Mashable, Robin Good
Use social tools to learn!

28. Twitter!
Hi David,
You're a good guy and you clearly know your stuff when it comes to KM.
But really this twitter nonsense is just embarrassing, it's the butt of jokes in the business world and a research note for a bank, Morgan Stanley I think, by a teenager said that teenagers don't bother with twitter because they know no-one reads it. Facebook has some relevance and is quite useful as a networking tool but personally I don't think it's the revolution that it is touted as.
In business we need to get back to technology that helps us DO things not obsess about technology that helps us SAY things.
I think one of the reasons our economy is losing ground is because of our obsession with things like Twitter that don't actually have any practical use in business beyond adding another channel to bombard us with useless information. We have , SMS and, I acknowledge, there are some useful networking tools such as facebook and linkedin. Twitter adds nothing but hype.
Best regards, Dermot.

29. So what is your reply to Dermot?
Knowledge Café Question

30. www.gurteen.com David Gurteen Gurteen Knowledge Tel: +44 7774 178 650

31. Licence
You may use these slides under the Creative Commons Licence: Attribution-Share Alike 2.0