ImpactWatch Blog

For the past week, I’ve been toying with two different recommendation systems for Twitter. The site’s own recommendation engine, “who to follow,” displays a couple of suggestions on your homepage sidebar, a “you may also like” list after you follow a user, and extensive lists of recommendations on the “twitter suggests” page.

So far, I’ve been pretty pleased with the “suggestions for you”  recommendations. These are based on who my Twitter contacts are following, so it makes sense that I might be interested in users that are followed by several others in whom I have already shown an interest (=I will like people that my friends like). The “Browse interests” feature on the “Twitter Suggests” page is a bit broader. Due to the sheer number of Twitter users, it is as difficult to pick out interesting users on this list as it is with a topical search. These are also organized by follower count, so you have to wade through a lot of brands and socialebrities to discover anyone new. Like most of Twitter, features are limited and there is no way to keep track of users you have been recommended but have no interest in.

As far as the pair of sidebar recommendations, I think that’s really just a way to get you to click to the main feature. I haven’t seen any good recommendations there but it does infuriate me that I can’t right click to open the profiles in new tabs. I would probably click through to the profiles more often if I didn’t need to leave my Twitter homepage to do it.

I’ve also been checking out a service from SocialOomph ( a site that I really like for tweet scheduling) called  FollowerHub. It’s a bit complicated to start but basically it’s a platform for buying visibility in the site’s search results and finding users to follow. First, you put a bid down on keywords related to your profile. When other users search for those keywords, you will appear in the results in a position relative to your bid (I think). The search function is quite well done, allowing advanced search syntax, tons of profile filters, the ability to automate search frequency and to organize users found through the search.

Searching costs 10 credits which is 10 cents. Following someone that you find on Followerhub through a search also costs 10 cents. Appearing in search results for others costs whatever you bid for that specific search, which can be as low as 1 cent. All users get 500 credits free to start. The system lets you track who you have found/who has found you through the system, as well as offering a platform for follower management in general. You can create organizational groups, take Twitter actions (follow, unfollow, block) and also add notes to user profiles, which could be very useful within the groups feature.

Now that we’ve found a bunch of new people to follow, how can we get rid of all of the old, boring ones?

I really like ManageFlitter. The service shows you which users that you are following are inactive, too active, and whether they are following you back. It would be great to be able to customize the filters (like finding users who tweet more than 10 times per day) but this at least gives you a list that you can work through to trim down your list a bit. I got rid of some users that have clearly stopped using the site, although I kept several that I hope will wander back to tweet someday.

Know any other good services for finding (or losing) Twitter users?

This week was the first meeting of the #smmeasure chat on Twitter to discuss social media monitoring and measurement. I think it takes time to build a community for these discussions (hey, that sounds like marketing advice) so with about 80 participants, #smmeasure is off to a good start.

Although it can be difficult to join week after week, I think that Twitter chats are really quite brilliant. They enable topical discussions with no travel, no tickets, no credentials. Unlike an industry conference where the few speak to the many, Twitter chats gives novices, students and consumers the ability to jump right and voice their opinions to the experts. It can often be an unparalleled opportunity to learn from people you would rarely get a chance to speak with otherwise.

I’ve enjoyed the weekly #socialmedia chat (Tuesdays, 12pm EST) for some time. The topic can be almost anything related to professional social media use and the guest moderators are usually pretty awesome. The new #smmeasure chat will be Thursdays at 12pm EST (doesn’t anyone eat lunch anymore?). There is also a bi-weekly #measurepr chat for the intersection of PR and social media which takes place every other Tuesday. Yes, also at 12pm EST.

Are there any other twitter chats that discuss social media monitoring and measurement? I still have a few lunch hours free. (SMMM, delicious!)

Hannah

-Photo: Marc Smith

Yesterday, I woke up to discover an emergency situation. Yes, it’s true that we had a 6.2 earthquake here in Mexico, but I slept through that. Unlike my emergency, the earthquake caused no damage in Mexico City.

I woke up to find that I had no internet. No internet!

After recovering from the initial shock, I quickly contacted tech support (my husband) to assess the situation. With a home network that consists of 2 routers, a TimeCapsule, a NAS and 4 computers, there is pretty much always something wonky going on here but it doesn’t usually affect my ability to shop online. If you think I’m overreacting, consider that Finland has declared broadband a human right.

In all seriousness, I work from a home office that is 2,000 miles from ImpactWatch’s main office in Washington, DC. I can’t just pop over to use the wireless. So after hours of playing doctor with our boxes and cables, husband gave up and went into his own office. I headed over to Starbucks.

When I returned in the afternoon, we were still offline. The longer I was without internet, the more I figured there was something amiss with a router or some component in the house. In the two years I’ve lived in Mexico, I haven’t lost internet for more than a pair of hours.

Then I had an idea. If the ISP was to blame, surely others were having the same problem. I turned to Twitter to see if anyone else in Mexico City was having issues with Cablevision, our ISP.

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, these people (and hundreds more on Twitter) are not happy. Many have been without service for more than 2 days. Seeing these complaints was actually a relief for me because I knew that my house wasn’t the problem. I could have saved hours of fiddling around if I had gone to Twitter first for troubleshooting.

The response from Cablevision has been disappointing. They disabled their single support phone line from the beginning and make no mention of the issue on their website. Living in Mexico, I know first-hand that companies get away with a lot here – the complaint-resolution process is slow and ineffective. With social media and smartphones becoming more widespread every day, I don’t think they will get away with it much longer.

Bien hecho, Cablevision. Well done.

(cross posted from The Bivings Report)

Last Friday I was fortunate to spend 30 minutes talking with Jack Dorsey, who in addition to co-founding Twitter recently launched a product & service called Square. As an electronic device, Square is a mobile credit card reader that plugs into the audio port of compatible smart phones and laptops. As a service, Square is a downloadable application that verifies sellers and provides buyers a measure of security about the transaction itself. From small businesses to political campaigns, the potential applications for Square are virtually unlimited.

A few highlights and then the interview after the jump. Also strongly recommended: Friday Coffee with Square on Ustream

1. Why we were better off without Twitter on September 11th 2001: “One thing I was really inspired by after 9/11, especially in NYC is how people gathered and really sought each other out face to face…. My concern with relying on the technology would be that it would potentially abstract some of that humanness, and make it a little bit easier not to go out in the streets and not to go out meet your neighbors and really support each other.”
2. What Wired.com Got Wrong: No PayPal v. Square Deathmatch: “We want to be completely payment network agnostic, so if you’re really comfortable using PayPal and you want to pay (or receive) with it… but you still want the Square front end experience, that is something we would be interested in implementing and maintaining.”
   
   
3. Top Politicos on Twitter: Barham Salih, Cory Booker,  Mike Bloomberg, Francis Slay.
4. Why ‘Social Media Experts’ using Auto-Follow Services Have No Souls: While Jack was more diplomatic in his phrasing, if you’re doing something against the “fundamental spirit of the technology,” for me, that is red flag. That is not to say paid advertising of an organizations account is a bad idea, but the whole idea of paying for followers / friends is somewhat repugnant: “I think any sort of automation or any sort of aspect like that really takes away from the spirit of the technology which is to really share what you think, what your experiencing, what is happening around you. I think there is a lot of people in the social media space that are trying to consult against that, and I am fully supportive or that.”
5. Advice for Entrepreneurs: Communicate, Build Something People Need: In response to a question about production delays and software issues, Jack said his biggest challenge since starting Square has been: “Communicating in the right way what is actually out there today, what works and what still needs some work” In regards to supply problems with Square, I asked Jack if he had considered domestic supplies  “The only reason we picked China is because we could not find anyone in the U.S. to do it…”

Q1: Can you tell us about inspiration for starting Square- Biggest challenge or unexpected surprise?

“The whole thing has been rather challenging because it is a new industry, something we are learning, and not just learning but learning how to simplify. That has been the biggest challenge. There is a lot of complexity in this industry and when we remove a bit of it, some more just pops up. Our focus is to build an experience that hides all that complexity or does away with it in some way. That has been a challenge to first of all recognize (the complexity)  where it is and then get rid of it. There has not been any one particular thing that has really been challenging, it has been all of it.”

Q2: Square is available for Apple and Android Devices. Is there something the mobile phone services providers or manufactures could do to make things easier for developers?

“It seems all the platforms are doing their best to make it easy, in particular Windows and Blackberry. They are right in the middle of a transition, they’re reworking their API, their SDK to make it easy to address all their hardware platforms instead of having to program for each one. I think it will take some time to get there, but it is something we are definitely excited to participate in once they do get there.”

Q3: You outsourced the manufacturing of Square, if you had to do it again, would a domestic supplier been able to meet demand for the cost and what you needed, or was China still the best way to go?

“The only reason we picked China is because we could not find anyone in the U.S. to do it. There are very few people who make things anymore in this country, especially small electronics like that. We actually went out and tried for many months to find people in the United States to do it. Not really even considering the cost aspect, but we couldn’t find it. If we do find it, we would still love to turn that on in the U.S. We just could not find anyone who could meet the demands. “

Q4: You recently sent email to Square users apologizing and explaining the delays in hardware and transaction limits. What has been the overall tone of the response been like?

“It has actually been really constructive. We do have a lot of people who are frustrated with the amount of time it has taken. And I think a lot of that is just our fault in terms of communicating in the right way what is actually out there today, what works and what still needs some work. So that’s definitely been a challenge, but I think what we learn in all these things is that as long as you are talking to people, it minimizes a lot of the frustrations and the issues. So were just intending to do a lot more talking to people and making sure that everyone has a sense of where we are with our application and with the service and what that means for everyone.”

Q5: PayPal recently introduced an updated application allowing iPhone users to fist bump payments. Can you talk about what sets Square apart from that as well as past and future mobile credit card processing tools?

“In order to do the bump technology with PayPal, it does require a PayPal account, and there are a number of people who have PayPal accounts and that is definitely a clever way to go about transferring money, but it is just not our focus. Our focus is really speaking to that 90% of what people are using, they’re using plastic cards. Our intention is to turn on that other side and really enable those face to face transactions with devices that everyone has in their pocket. So we see ourselves a little bit differently in that light because we do not require any sort of account to actually pay someone. You just use the plastic card in your pocket. And that is really our focus. At the same time, we want to be completely payment network agnostic, so if your really comfortable using PayPal and you want to pay with it, or you want to receive payments through PayPal, but you still want the Square front end experience, that is something we would be interested in implementing and maintaining.”

Q6:  Act Blue allows you to donate to their candidates with a specifically phrased Tweet. There is a Facebook application called “SquareUp with PayPal” that is geared for collecting money for Facebook events. Any plans for integrating Square with Facebook, Twitter or YouTube?

“Right now were focused purely on the face to face interactions. Once you start getting more into the Internet and virtual interactions you start to lose more identity. We want to make sure that we get the face to face stuff right, because 90% of commerce is still offline, only 10% of it has moved online and we want to address that 90%. There are definitely models on how to extend that to the online and there are obvious integration points, but we are talking this bit first.”

Q7: What are your thoughts on politicians use of Twitter? Is it something that is more effective on the state or local level where the representatives themselves actually respond and engage or is there a politician you know who is doing it very well?

“I am really fascinated by this usage, and I love to see it. I went over to Baghdad with the State Department in March of last year and we managed to get the Deputy Prime Minister (Barham Salih) on Twitter and his usage of it was really, really inspiring. It was very frank, it was very direct and it was very transparent and it was him directly. I think in terms of other politicians in the U.S., I am most impressed with three Mayors: Cory Booker of Newark, who has really taken to all these technologies, including Twitter to talk about the issues that his city is facing. He is a champion, he is out at 3am on police beats, walking the streets, reporting. And most importantly, he is replying to people, and he is replying to people in real time that communicate with him… He has been awesome. Mayor Mike Bloomberg has also gotten into it a lot more. He used it very heavily during his campaign run and has started back up in using it during in day to day, which I am really excited to see. For a city like New York it just creates a lot more transparency and connection to, someone who is often removed from the normal citizen’s particular day to day, so now he is a lot more approachable and accessible. In my hometown of St. Louis Missouri, Mayor Slay has been using the technology extremely effectively. He has really funny and clever Tweets, but he also really engages the St. Louis community and replies real time. (He is) using it as a way to point out very interesting things about St. Louis that normally people might look over.

Q8: Earlier this month at the Personal Democracy Forum, there was some speculation about the impact of Twitter if it had been around on September 11th. I recall you mentioning that there might be some instances where instant communication like that might be a negative, so I was wondering if you had any follow up thoughts.

“It’s a really good question, and I honestly don’t know what effect Twitter would have in that situation, if any. My particular worry, is that the one thing I was really inspired by after 9/11, especially in NYC is how people gathered and really sought each other out face to face. People were just walking the streets and it really united the city in a way no other event has ever done. My concern with relying on the technology would be that it would potentially abstract some of that humanness, and kind of make it a little bit easier not to go out in the streets and not to go out meet your neighbors and really support each other. I think that was a defining moment for NY, New Yorkers and thereby rest of the nation. That would be my only concern in introducing a technology like that…. Certainly technologies were used at that time, IM was huge, and we definitely had cell phones, but I think the most important thing in that situation is that people left their technologies and really focused on their face to face interaction.”

Q9: Is there a particularly surprising or innovative use of Twitter you have seen? Any thoughts on self described ‘gurus’ or social networking ‘experts’ using automated tools to follow tons of people?

“I am surprised everyday on how people use Twitter. There is a different account that springs to my attention on a daily basis. I have a rotating set of favorites but on the latter point, I think any sort of automation or any sort of aspect like that really takes away from the spirit of the technology which is to really share what you think, what your experiencing, what is happening around you, and when we get into more and more automation we get back to these abstractions that Twitter effectively removes. So I don’t really appreciate that sort of automation. I think there is a lot of people in the social media space that are trying to consult against that, and I am fully supportive or that. And being more of an effective communicator, using the technology, using the constraints, but it changes on a daily basis.

Q10: What is the best Twitter analytics tool for tracking reach or ranking users?

“I think it is wide open right now, I can’t say I have spent a lot of time looking at firms doing that just yet, I think there is something there and it needs to be done. I don’t know who is the strongest at the moment or even what they are looking at, I think it is one of the most fascinating things of Twitter is getting an understanding of reach. There is a lot of work there and it is going to be coming from a lot of different folks. Not just one in particular, so I am excited to see what people come up with.”

Head over to The Bivings Report to download or listen to the interview

comScore says ‘yes’!  In a recent press release, the company released information and data about holiday e-spending in an attempt to show that social media and online purchasing is on the rise.  Earth-shattering news? No.  But interesting nonetheless.

Below is a chart of the various social media channels that respondents to their survey claimed they had used when gift researching this year.

I find it interesting that user reviews influenced purchases more than expert reviews.  Consumers obviously value recommendations from others, but the expertise level of the source doesn’t matter quite as much.  Also, don’t the numbers for Twitter seem kinda…low?  I would have expected the amount of those following a company and those influenced by a friend’s tweet to be at least a combined 10%.

The release also contains a graph showing the amount of online purchases by week leading up to New Year’s Day.  The recession doesn’t seem to be affecting online holiday shopping for 2009, although this may be due to consumers hoping that the Internet will provide them with better deals than stores.  The week beginning with Cyber Monday (November 30th) sees a huge jump in online spending, although as this Focus article explains, Cyber Monday is never the biggest online shopping day of the year.  It typically begins about a week or two later, though still on a Monday.

I absolutely love movies; I probably go see every single one that comes out in theaters (and yes, that includes such gems as Stepfather).  I was excited to see a Twitter application come out that proposed the idea that it could tally a movie review total from tweets.  It’s called TwitCritics.

We already have plenty of websites and blogs dedicated to movie reviews, so why use this?  Well, I like to think that most Twitter users would immediately tweet about whether or not they liked a movie they just saw.  Think of this not so much a review summary, but a ‘first impression’ summary.  The system searches for tweets that include a movie title, and then assigns a tonality based on the content of the tweet.  A handy ‘mistake’ button is present under each individual tweet to ensure that users can report a faulty rating.

Does it work?  Not completely.  Its success is on a movie-by-movie basis.  Some films that have unique names such as The Men Who Stare at Goats and the tweets for that film are easily recognizable.  Other films such as Fame suffer the issue of having a common word for its title.

Most of the tweets were not actually about the movie but were still rated in the system and part of the film’s overall tonality.  Often, tweets about an actual film were still not rated correctly.  A prime example is below:

Currently, the system doesn’t seem to account for popular acronyms for longer movie titles (such as TMWSAG).

The website is still in its infancy with the Beta only about a month old.  Hopefully, they will find a way to work some of the kinks out.  It doesn’t really subsist as a standalone product, but I could easily see something like this incorporated into a more robust site like Rotten Tomatoes.

Twitter recently opened up a new feature for Twitter users: the ability to lump users into ‘lists’.  Users can then add or delete their friends from these lists as they see fit.  Following a thousand users, but only want to see your 15 close friends’ tweets?  Done.  Just create a list of them (may I suggest the title ‘bffs4ever’?), and then view that list within your account.  AS of now, more than 50% of users have access to lists, and a full rollout is imminent.

Another positive feature of lists, as noted by TechCrunch, is that new users can follow a well-created list to get them started on the platform.  A potential downside, suggested by eWeek, is that lists may tarnish the open feeling of communication that Twitter champions.  Will users start looking at their lists after they login instead of their whole buffet of tweets?  We’ll have to wait to see the fallout.

One interesting question that popped into my head was whether the most-followed Twitter users would also be the most-listed.  At this point, the same celebrities and organizations are going to stay on their high follower pedestals, but now there’s a new metric in town.  Some of the popular kids may lose their lunch table and have to eat in the phone booth (schools still have those, right?).

Twitterholic.com provided me with a cohesive list of the most-followed Tweeps.  I went through each of the Top 50 accounts in order to get an updated amount of followers as well as the new listed metric.  Before looking, I assumed that the rankings would be nearly the same.  I was very wrong. (Please note that I ranked the 50 most-followed people against only the other most-followed.  The data does not represent a list of the 50 most-listed, at large.)

I uploaded a full spreadsheet of the data below, so check that out, and I’ll note the highlights.  Apparently there’s a big difference in being followed and listed in a Twitter list (‘Twist’?).  Taking a peek at the actual people, they are all very recognizable (except for Lily Rose Allen, who I had to Wiki-stalk even after reading her tweets).  Why would there be a difference in their rankings?

Taking a look at the actual tweets provides some clues.  The people that have a higher listed ranking than followed ranking provide frequently (but not too frequently) updated tweets that are well written and either witty, news-worthy, or interesting.  People who don’t provide good content have a much lower listed ranking as compared to their followed ranking (Looking at you, Kim Kardashian).

Users aren’t going to un-follow people often after they have started to follow them, but Twists are a different beast.  Those can change at a whim and other users would have no control over them.  Also, when they are being created, only those Twitter users that have provided good tweets in the past are likely to be thought of.  Think of the amount of followers one has as the kind of popularity a HS cheerleader has, and the amount of lists one is on as the popularity one has in college with closer friends and colleagues.

Top 5 Users by Followers

Ashton Kutcher

Britney Spears

Ellen DeGeneres

CNN Breaking News

Twitter

Top 5 Users by Times Listed

Barack Obama

Pete Cashmore (you know, the Mashable guy)

CNN Breaking News

Ellen DeGeneres

Taylor Swift (though Kanye rarely lets her finish her tweets)

Felicia Day and Pete Cashmore are the two users listed in a far bigger proportion to their followers (both ranking 29 places higher) while the biggest drops from followers to lists were 50cent (down 23 spots) and Kim Kardashian (down 22 spots).

Of course, lists are still very new so this could change as more users have access to them and begin using them.  Let’s hope lists do their jobs of making Twitter slightly more organized and perhaps spurring better content from some important users.

50 Most Followed and Listed Twitter Users

Two days ago, Bing announced that they were partnering with both Twitter and Facebook to provide extensive search capabilities for their users.  In simple terms, the searches would mine for keywords entered by the user for all the ‘public’ posts on Twitter and Facebook.  According to a recent Pew Internet & American Life Project, at least 19% of users post and read status updates.  This searching power could prove very useful to those 19% and perhaps cause more users to use status updates.

On October 21^st, when the announcement was first made, well over 1500 tweets were linking to various articles about the announcement.  Most Twitter users seemed more surprised than anything else.  Nearly all of the tweets were a simple headline and URL link.  On October 22^nd, the number of tweets about Bing and its inclusion of social media search were down to approximately 1350 tweets.  As of the writing of this post, October 23^rd tweets on the topic are around 250.

In contrast, Google partnered with less and garnered more attention than its competitor.  There have been over 1500 tweets every day since the announcement on the topic of Google’s deal with Twitter.  Bing may have prepped the user base for Google’s announcement by letting the public know only hours before Google did.

The vast majority of the tweets were simply passing along the information in the form of links and headlines.  Approximately 20 tweets were negative, fearing privacy issues, especially with Facebook.  Below is one such example.

Social networking users have some reason to be concerned about privacy.  After all, Jeremiah Owyang makes a very good point that Facebook is going to have to make more content public in order to compete as these two search engines wage war.  Jared Newman expresses eight big concerns about the process; my favorite of which is how Bing and Google will filter out this information in searches for people who don’t care about social media.  Most of the time, I probably won’t care what the Twitter-world is saying about the topic I want.  I can see that being easily the most frustrating thing to filter out.

Overall, it’s no surprise that these search features would eventually come to light.  Twitter user-ship has increased by over 700% in the past year.   With more celebs and non-celebs picking up the habit, most ways to search for them were inevitable.

As a sidenote, people forget that Google and Bing aren’t the only search games in town.  18 other useful (and in many cases, MORE useful) search engines are listed in this fantastic article.

One of the most universally used features on Facebook is the status update.  Status updates let me know everything from what my friends had for dinner (NOTE: I normally do not care what you had for dinner) to legitimate life announcements.   Users are updating them in greater frequency as well.  The current statistics on the Facebook press room page count 40 million user status updates a day, up from 20 million in April, 15 million in February, and 13 million in December 2008, according to Digital Beat.  Of course, the exponential increase is certainly due, in part, to the inclusion of the app to allow tweets to be Facebook status updates.

While most status updates are little more than time-wasters on the bus ride home, several have made national headlines.  Let’s look at a couple:

The Trapped Girls – Two adolescent girls were trapped in a drain for hours.  Rather than call 911, they updated their Facebook status about the situation.  A friend noticed the update, contacted the authorities, and the girls were saved.  Oddly, they could have easily called 911…seeing as how they used their smartphone to update their status.

Status: Robbed – According to a report by Belinda Goldsmith, many users post their holiday plans on Facebook, including times that they are not at their residence.  Being that it’s incredibly easy for criminals to target people using social media, Goldsmith likes to call it “Internet shopping for burglars”.  Might I suggest “iBurgle” for that Web 2.0-y flair?

Diamonds are Temporary – In September 2009, a robber broke into a house, pocketing a couple of diamond rings.  Before he left, he checked his Facebook page…and forgot to log out.  Police followed the trail of the obsessed social networker all the way to the big house.

Updates from my Vaca! – Criminals should really just not use Facebook.  This week, police followed the trail of Maxi Sopo through Cancun after he commited bank fraud.  They got a break in the case when they realized that one of his Facebook friends worked for the Justice Department.

The Pursuit of (Virtual) Happiness – Recently, Facebook introduced a Happiness Index.  Working with psychologists and users, the social network created a list of happy and sad words. The list of positive words includes “happy,” “yay” and “awesome,” while negative words include “sad,” “doubt” and “tragic.”  This really isn’t news, but it’s certainly creepy.

Since Facebook status messages can now save kids, catch criminals, and rate intangible concepts, it’s not long before they get a full-blown book deal.

I’ve talked to several people who ‘de-friend’ or ignore colleagues who updates their status too often.  Do most people feel this way, or our those annoyed by it in the minority?  I personally subscribe to the “once-a-day but no more than three-times-a-day” school of thought.

This week my husband asked me for tips on live-tweeting some conferences he would be attending.  As with pretty much all forms of communication, how you interact depends on the circumstances, who you are and who your followers are. But unless you’re Obama or Bono, most of this advice will apply to you.

General Guidelines:

1.    Don’t overdo it. Tweet only what you would expect to interest most readers.
2.    Attribute quotes. If a presenter or attendee provides good information include their name or twitter handle as the source.
3.    Help non-attendees follow the event. Tweet to announce what is about to happen.
4.    Watch for responses. Regularly check for responses to your tweets or questions about the event so you can respond in a timely manner.
5.    Use an event hashtag (set it up ahead of time) so people can easily follow tweets about the event.
6.    Retweet useful information and insights from conference attendees.
7.    Don’t miss the conference with your face stuck to your Blackberry. Connected with someone at the conference? Meet them by the front door to continue the conversation in person.

Good example tweets:

-    Mr. Smith’s presentation on How to Increase Occupancy During a Recession in 10 mins Room F #hospconf
-    Mr. Smith: Customer service is important but a quality product is still key #hospconf
-    Stop by our booth to pick up new property brochures and free refreshments #hospconf
-    @questioner Our presentation is tomorrow at 2pm in Room B #hospconf
-    Great day at #hospconf tomorrow’s focus is on hospitality in developing countries.
-    After #hospconf cocktails at 8pm. Meet at La Cantina on New York Ave and 16th Street.
-    RT @confattendee Just learned that our company is up 15% in reservations for Oct! #hospconf

Bad example tweets:

-    Eating lunch  [no one cares]
-    Unacceptable response time accounts for 40% of dropped calls [where did you learn this?]
-    Just talked to an important client, wow is he boring [he can read your tweets!!! Don’t do this!]
-    Leaving the conference to hit the bar [Keep it to yourself unless it’s a networking opportunity for conference attendees]
-    [where are your hashtags?!?!]

Live tweeting is meant to enhance the experience of a conference, not replace it. Keep most of your interaction to fellow attendees and, unless you are doing something *extremely* exciting, keep it to around half a dozen tweets per hour.

Remember that your followers who are not interested in the event may be put off by the stream of event-related tweets. Consider what proportion of your followers are in your industry or potentially interested in the event before deciding how much event coverage to send out.

If you want to share comprehensive coverage of an event, consider live blogging with ScribbleLive , CoverItLive or your own blog, so fans aren’t held hostage to your updates. Post a link in Twitter to your liveblogging stream so those followers who are interested know where to go.

Another trick is to leave off the event hashtag when sending tweets that aren’t important enough to share with the crowd, like “@chuckfitz Where are you sitting? I can’t find you!” While the tweet will still annoy your personal followers, it will keep the tweet from reaching people following the event through the hashtag and from appearing on the big screen.

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Follow Hannah on Twitter.