My friends who are not on Twitter constantly ask me, “Why are you on Twitter?” Yesterday I attended my first 140 Character Conference — #140conf — and like Twitter, it moved quickly and in short bursts, on various unrelated topics. Speakers had 10 minutes each, panels lasted 20 minutes each. Someone unfamiliar with Twitter may have felt that the conference had no direction or purpose. On the contrary, I left with a feeling of empowerment. Twitter, social media and the real-time Internet in general, can help one do many great things.

Listening — Hear what your neighbors, customers, clients, target market or constituents are talking about. Should you know more about some topics? What are they saying about you? Can you offer a solution? If you are in customer service, or looking for more business, this is a great way to use Twitter. But as @JustinKownacki reminded us, when you’re a business person trying to join the conversation around the community water cooler, don’t go into a hard sales pitch. Have a conversation like adults.

Discovery — Find news as it is happening. Read about it from primary sources or from your favorite investigative journalists. Discover stories (or restaurants or recipes or hotels) through recommendations from friends. Those on the media panel said they use Twitter as their personal news wire, both to know what’s being released by news media, and to get ahead of their competition.

Revelation — Find out more about yourself, your likes and dislikes. Do you have an expertise you’ve been keeping quiet about? You’ll be able to find a group of people on Twitter that appreciate your specialties. There are regular chat groups, like the #edchat education group, that bring together experts and interested folks around certain topics. Search and you shall find.

NOTE: People are often concerned about falsehoods on the Internet, but @acarvin of NPR said that Twitter is often where “rumors go to die.” Since so much information can be passed around so quickly, as fast as a false rumor is started, it is revealed to be a hoax.

Volunteer recruitment — Non-profits are having great success at getting volunteers and donations of time and resources (outside of cash donations) through Twitter. It’s easy to be specific and local. Even investors have been found, as @MelissaPierce found making Life In Perpetual Beta.

Amplify your voice — Remember that old ad, “I told two friends… and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…”? Twitter works like that, but it can be almost immediate. Instead of waiting for you to run into a friend, people can re-tweet ideas as soon as they receive them. And they are often telling hundreds of their friends as soon as they hit send.

Research — Some people argue that “lunchies” (thanks for that word, @doctorjeff) — those that tweet about what they’re having for lunch — are the problem with Twitter. But a writer like @girlinblack can use these minute-by-minute journals for character development, and our host @jeffpulver pointed out that these Twitter accounts may belong to someone’s grandfather one day. As the Library of Congress is going to archive all our tweets, even these little throwaway tweets may give us some valuable historical, biographical information someday. No? Well, imagine if you could read your grandparents’ tweets. Was your grandma excited to change her name or was it a hassle? How excited was grandpa on his first day back from World War II? Maybe not everyone wants to read their grandparents’ tweets. But check out @bus2antarctica.

Many people are hesitating to log on to Twitter because they anticipate it may be too involved, too much like Facebook, or because they feel they already get all the information they need from websites and e-mail. In actuality, Twitter is less complicated than Facebook, websites or e-mail and that is its strength. Some of the interesting new websites I learned about from the 140 Character Conference (#140conf) follow. I hope you’ll check them out. Know that you wouldn’t have found out about them without Twitter.

• JustCoz: Launched by conference host Jeff Pulver at the DC #140conf, this is a great way for non-profits to get the word out at no cost. If you are a non-profit, check it out right now.
• TroopSwap: an online marketplace that allows active duty military to connect with other service members, veterans, community members, and small businesses both locally and nationally to buy or sell almost anything related to military life. For now, these items fall into the categories of: gear, household items, cars and homes.
• BetterHumanRace.com: Search to benefit charities.
• Rock the Vote: 20 years old this year, and getting ramped up for the midterm elections.
• The Remarkable Power of Twitter: A Water Cooler for the 21st Century – by @doctorjeff
• Life In Perpetual Beta – a film by @MelissaPierce

Also read: Getting the most out of Twitter, Tips on being a corporate Tweeter, 10 tips to help you learn to fly on Twitter

I’m looking forward to embarking on a new adventure as a corporate tweeter. As such, I’ve taken a good deal of time accumulating best practices for corporate accounts. Many of these are the same as I would recommend for anyone operating a business Twitter account for themselves:

1. Have a mission/message in mind before you post your first tweet.
2. Your message should also consider your target audience.
3. Twitter directories are a good way to gain some followers initially, but there is no get followers quick solution.
4. Be selective in following. There is no need to follow everyone who follows you.
5. Be careful of your language. This is even more important for corporations than for individuals.
6. Your posts are 100% public. Remember that bad news travels faster than good news and anything your shareholders wouldn’t like will travel out of the Twitterverse and onto TV screens and into newspapers.
7. Corporations need to select a voice. It’s best if one person, or a couple of people, man the account, for consistency, and to be sure there’s no redundancy. Most corporations invoke the royal ‘we.’  Other more customer-service oriented Twitter accounts have used an individual speaking from the first person.
8. A regular stream of content is important to any Twitter feed to maintain followers. Appropriate corporate topics include:

• • respond to follower/customer inquiries
  • retweet satisfied customer tweets
  • link to updated/interesting information on corporate websites/blogs
  • retweet updates from affiliated Twitter accounts
  • Twitter contests
  • advance notice of corporate news
  • Twitter discount codes
  • stimulate Twitter discussions with product-related questions
  • product-related trivia
  • run online surveys
  • photos of corporate events

Have some other ideas? Please share in the comments!

Bird art by Triax Mills.

A friend of mine and I have been talking about doing this for a while, and I procrastinated as much as is socially acceptable. Now it’s happening. My first Tweet Up is next week. And I helped plan it!

Let me rephrase that. A person I don’t know at all — to whom I was introduced through Twitter — and I have been exchanging 140-character thoughts about this concept for a while. She and I planned a party together via Twitter, for folks we know on Twitter and their Twitter friends. Ah, the mysteries of social media!

For those who don’t know, a Tweet Up is when people who have met each other on Twitter meet up in person.

@seakisst and I hit it off, via Twitter, and according to the information she’s shared with me, we will probably get along great in person. (She meets my empathy standard.)

To be honest, I’m just really excited to go downtown and have a beer at happy hour, because I don’t really do that much anymore without a good reason.

I think a Tweet Up is a good reason to go downtown and have a beer. Will you join me? My friend @seakisst will be there with me, @dcgrrl.

DC Tweet Up
Thurs. August 13
http://twtvite.com/vwnivf

So, you’ve decided to join Twitter.

Welcome. Anyone can tailor their Twitter experience to something they enjoy. You can make friends, communicate with your family, get the latest news, see behind the scenes on movie sets, get out a marketing message, or look for creative inspiration. All of these objectives can be met with Twitter, if you know that’s what you want to do.

1. Twitter is not complicated. Each post can be up to 140 characters long. The site counts the characters for you.
2. Twitter addresses are represented with @ – so my Twitter address is @dcgrrl – that will take you to a Twitter profile page, where you can read someone’s tweets and opt to follow or un-follow anyone on Twitter.
3. To keep posts short and to the point, Twitter shortens web links and people sometimes use the same SMS text shorthand they use with their phones, like omg & thx alot.
4. You only have to read the folks you’ve decided to subscribe to, or follow.
5. Choose to follow people that will bring informative or entertaining value to your Twitter stream. Remember you don’t have to follow everyone that follows you. Beware of scam Twitter bots — those that are simply sending links to credit card or adult sites — they’re probably not real people, you should ignore them like spam e-mail.
6. Feel free to un-follow someone if they’ve gone off topic or are over-tweeting for your reading schedule. You know when you read your tweets, and how many tweets you’re interested in reading.
7. If you especially like someone’s post, or tweet, you can ReTweet it, signified by RT, and share it with your followers. Or save it as a Favorite for later reference. Posts go by in real time from all over the world. That immediacy is part of Twitter’s charm.
8. Be careful of your language. Use a word like ‘p0rn’ in one post and you’ll be surprised by the type of followers you’ll gain. On the other hand, try cupcake + baking and you’ll eventually have the entire recipe contingent on your tail. And depending on your motives, that could be a good thing. (There are a lot of good cooks tweeting!)
9. Topics that get lots of reference earn a hashtag # — such as #SOTU for State of the Union — as an indexing bookmark, so it’s easier to search everyone’s tweets for comments.
10. Your Twitter posts are 100% public and anyone can read them. You can change your privacy: There are options to PROTECT your posts from being seen (under Settings), except from the followers you approve — perfect for kids who want to tweet — and you can BLOCK unwanted followers on individual profile pages. Use these tools to keep the Twittersphere safe for you and your family.

Now for some valuable references…

• http://search.twitter.com/search: You can search for anything on Twitter without having an account.
• Twitter Grader: Here you can find the ‘Elite’ tweeters worldwide and in your area for ideas on whom to start following.
• Localtweeps: Looking for friends? Localtweeps helps you find other folks on Twitter near you geographically, that you can tweet-up with in real life.
• WeFollow: Search for people to follow based on topics you’re interested in.
• Mr. Tweet: Helps by providing personalized recommendations for you.
• Twittervision: It lets you see tweets pop up all over the world, just what’s happening on our planet via Twitter.
• Tagalus: Defines the Hashtags.
• Corporate Avatar: Like Facebook, Linked In and other places, you need an avatar at Twitter. If you’re representing a company, you may want to be a bit strategic about your avatar.
• tinyurl: Twitter automatically shortens many links that people put into their posts. But sometimes you need to shorten your link to make it fit under the 140-character limit. This service is very handy and free (and run by donation).
• SMS language: Another helper in keeping your messages short and to the point is the shorthand you may already be familiar with from text messages. This link will take you to a brief dictionary on Wikipedia in case you get confused.
• #followfriday: This happens every week. Tweeps share some of their favorites with their followers and tag their post #followfriday or #ff. There is also a Wednesday version of this, #women2follow, for the ladies.
• Twitter Guide Book: from Mashable – very comprehensive!

PS: Tweeps I follow, featured in the image above: comedian @MichaelIanBlack, media journalist @HowardKurtz, DC shadow representative @MikePanetta, and homemaker and creative powerhouse @thepioneerwoman. More folks I follow on Twitter on my Tweeps I like page.

UPDATE: You will by default get e-mails from Twitter that notify you when someone starts following you. This includes a link to that person’s Twitter profile. You can turn this notification off at your Twitter settings page under Notices. However, if you take a look at your new followers, you can quickly identify if these folks are obvious spam accounts, and if they are, you can block them. (Actually, you can block anyone.) That helps Twitter keep the Twittersphere clean, and it protects your privacy from these folks.

Death seems to happen in batches for me. But this batch has been much weirder than others. The more remarkable loss in this batch, oddly, was of the person I knew least.

For the first time I have lost a social media friend. Not an In Real Life (IRL) friend that I caught up with via Facebook or MySpace, but someone I met via social media and communicated with via social media and never really intended on meeting in real life.

Cory was working on a beta website that I am testing, Lunch.com, and lived in Culver City, California. He had given me some nice feedback on some reviews I’d written. We weren’t BFFs, we had just started our online relationship. But his sudden accidental death — a car accident — still raised a painful, though digital, void in my life.

Cory’s face, via his avatar, was one of the faces of Lunch.com to me, and when I got the notice that he’d passed away, I was surprised to feel a bit more emotional than weeks earlier, when I learned one of my coworkers passed away. My coworker was someone that I passed in the hall once a week or so, but didn’t work on a regular basis with. Still, I knew him PERSONALLY.

But so much collaboration within my office building is electronic that I might as well have been working for the same company as Cory as with this other person. I had about the same amount of interaction with the two men, and I actually know a bit more about Cory because of the nature of social media. So I feel a bit closer to Cory than I do to my coworker.

Social media has such potential to bring people together across the miles, to build friendships and restore relationships. Death is a natural part of life, but a part that most of us are not well-prepared for, and most social media operations don’t seem to have a built-in death notice apparatus. (Or am I missing something?) We don’t plan on most of our friends having tragic accidents.

One site that does have a death preparation built-in is Caring Bridge, which is designed for people with long-term critical illnesses such as cancer or premature births. It has an element of hope to it, allowing the patient or caregiver to provide daily journal entries, but it also allows for conversion to a tribute site if the patient doesn’t survive treatment.

As social media relationships mature, I am regrettably certain we will see more of this. I’m interested to see how the social media giants make space for ALL parts of life.

UPDATE: Articles I’ve found on how social media is dealing with death, and how people are reacting to it.

• New York Times: Parents of Dead Student Use Facebook to Reconnect
• Consumerist: Facebook Agrees to Take Down Dead Relative’s Page
• Linked In: Policy answer

…come aboard, we’re expecting you!

Such were the strains of the theme to The Love Boat, a show I think my parents hated to see me watching at age 10 , but I couldn’t get enough of romance even then.
Love is a central theme in so many stories around us, and has been since Shakespeare, The Bible, and Greek mythology before that. Why? Because love makes everything better!

As long as you love someone, pictures are prettier, food tastes better, and the roses smell sweeter.

April 4, there’s a project going on in social media land to share the love. Just post it once.

I love you.

Don’t you feel good? Share it!

Here’s the inspiration: http://www.obsessedwithconformity.com/

I am so psyched for the new Paul’s Boutique remaster! And the Beastie Boys have done SUCH a great job with this… once you log in, there is so much wonderful online street team promotional stuff to dig into. Days and days of fun. And how can a Beastie Boys fan say no to picking up this album?

Here’s just one of the ‘trading cards’ fans can pick up and paste onto their page or blog to drive traffic to the site. See ya later, I’ve gotta go back to the site… Hey ladies!

the best in mens clothing
visit paulsboutique.beastieboys.com

UPDATE: I just received this package in the mail. I bought the Ultimate Collectors pack, with the poster and the vinyl and the CD and the T-Shirt and it was so frackin worth it! I LOVE IT! OMG I just have to figure out how to frame the 8-foot long poster of the Paul’s Boutique album cover, it’s amazing! Okay, I admit, I called it PHAT when I pulled it out of the box, it took me back. Beastie Boys are in MY HOUSE!