Do you live tweet events? Do you like following others who do? Are you annoyed when your stream is filled with event tweets?

Personally, I love tweeting events and following events I can’t make it to from Twitter. And while I usually have people encourage me to continue, thank me for tweeting and always a sharp increase in followers, there’s always one or two who ask me (sometimes rudely) not to.

So if you do like to tweet at live events-here are a few tips:

• If you are putting out lots of tweets, consider starting those tweets with someone’s username (i.e. the speaker) what this does is ensures those tweets only show up in the streams of people who also follow that person and therefore are likely interested in your tweets.
• You don’t need to tweet EVERY word coming out, wait for the valuable nuggets. However sometimes, especially when you are seeing very seasoned speakers, that’s difficult.
• Tell your followers in advance what conference you are at and that you will be tweeting. You can also recommend they use an app to mute you or temporarily unfollow if they are not interested. I have not used it yet (like I said I like following events!), but I often see TweetAgora recommended. They’re also a Toronto-based startup so full support from me.

If you enjoy live-tweeting and feel you get value in doing so, continue! If you’re a hater, the unfollow link is always there, but I’d consider trying a muting service first.

Maybe this seems strange, but bear with me here. Do you wear glasses? Have you ever thought about buying them online? Chances are it seems like a good idea in theory, but what about trying them on? What about the expert opinion of the optical store sales person? What about fitting and prescriptions and measurements? That’s exactly how I felt too. Until I received a wonderful email from the PR rep at ClearlyContacts.ca offering me a free pair of glasses.

From the email, I learned that ClearlyContacts.ca was targeting bloggers who appeared on a list of influential bloggers in social media. I don’t know who else or how many others were targeted or even how he knew I wore/needed glasses (until this blog post you’d never find a photo of me with them!). As it turns out, eye care is not covered under my benefits and I desperately needed new glasses. Fate!

Now before you get in a huff about whether my blogging habits merit free glasses, or that I’m simply writing about them because I got free glasses, let me point out a few interesting tidbits about this campaign:

• Yes, I got a free pair of glasses.. but if you search ClearlyContacts.ca you’ll see they’ve been handing out free glasses like crazy! In fact, two Fridays ago the ClearlyContacts team gave out 3,000 pairs to Montreal residents, a week before I had seen friends from Ottawa posting they had received free glasses. They’re not just for bloggers, but while they’re giving them away left, right and centre, it’s not a bad strategy to seek out potentially influential people.
• I was never asked to write about my experience, the pitch was more targeted as a reward for my hard work as a blogger. Obviously, they wanted me to write about them, but it was never requested, pushed or really implied even. I also would not write a positive review if my experience wasn’t positive. However, my suspicion is they know they have a good thing going and they’re trying to get the word out. Success!

It’s definitely too soon to tell if the ROI on giving out thousands of pairs of free glasses will pay off. However from my experience I can tell you that already I’ve told at least a dozen people about the site who are now enthusiastic about buying a pair (because they are *SO* much cheaper than any alternative anyway), and I’m definitely a customer for life. I plan on purchasing my contact lenses through the site, and will most definitely purchase my next pair of glasses. Fortunately with the very reasonable prices, I will hopefully not wait another six years for new glasses!

Why it works

If you’re not a glasses-wearer, let me enlighten you for a minute. Glasses are EXPENSIVE. You buy frames which typically can range from $50-$500. Next you need to purchase lenses, lenses can typically run from free (included with the frames) to maybe $200. Optical stores also upsell you on all sorts of extra coatings and features (UV coating, scratch resistant, non-glare coating)… Now if you’re especially blind like me and have radically different prescriptions in each eye, you also need something called high-index lenses so you don’t look like a weirdo (may sound vain, but trust me on this one. Not too mention off-balance glasses). Bottom line: in my experience I’m usually dropping at least $500-800 on a pair of glasses. Even if your benefits cover eye care, it’s usually only about $200 every two years. The rest comes out of pocket.

Now the pair I got (a lovely pair by Valentino) are actually on the more expensive scale on the site ($198) but super reasonable as far as frames go. Lenses are included in the price along with all those fancy up-sell features optical stores will nail you on (all of them! Free!) Even the high index upgrade was only $99. Had I paid the full price, even with taxes they would have come to $327–less than half what I paid for my last pair.

ClearlyContacts.ca has a great product at an amazing price. However, it also has a significant barrier-people want to try on glasses before they buy. Because of this I hadn’t considered buying glasses online, however it turns out it is actually really easy and they have a very generous satisfaction guarantee. In this case, blogger (or influencer) outreach is a great strategy to boost awareness. And like I said, I’m a customer for life now.

And now, through the Ottawa Community Manager Meetup group started by Angelina Munaretto and me, I’m fortunate to be constantly meeting great homegrown community folk. Over 60 current and wannabe community managers in our little town, who knew?! It’s fabulous news because I happen to think community management is a really hot career to be in and I love meeting others in the same boat…

So thinking of all the awesome community people I know, there are many qualities we all share that I think make us all good at what we do. Here’s five I can pick out right away:

Social – Perhaps this one is a big “duh!” but I’m going to throw a little hook in it. By social I don’t mean popular or outgoing. I mean someone who can easily connect to others and is interested in meeting both like-minded people and those with different view points. Although communities are almost always formed around common interests, that doesn’t mean all the members are the same. In fact every community I’ve been involved in is quite diverse, and a community manager needs to be able and interested in relating to all of them.

Curious – In my mind, being curious means willing and able to learn quickly. A community manager need not start out tech savvy but if he/she is really curious about how something works, learning about it quickly is easy. Also back to the social point. If you’re curious about people it means you’re willing and able to listen and ask questions and that’s the best way to get to know your community members.

Boundless Energy – Have you ever looked at a community manager’s day book or agenda? A community manager thrives off being around people, both online and off. As much as I love the occasional lazy day in front of the TV, I’d never do it at the sacrifice of a good time. Even if a community manager has family commitments or otherwise can’t be available always, you will find him/her taking advantage every given opportunity.

Multi-disciplinary – While community managers come from all different backgrounds, many share similar skill sets that crossover into several disciplines. Perhaps a by-product of curiosity, but you’ll never hear a community manager say “that’s not in my job description!” (Though this could be because he/she wrote the job description).

Passion – OK while it may seem like a real cliche thing to say, it’s totally true. I’m not sure any of us could really dedicate so much to what we do if we weren’t completely passionate about it… Am I right?

I listed five for the sake of brevity, but I’m sure I could go on about this all day. However, I’d love to hear what you think… Either from other community managers, or those who observe them.. What would you add?

5. An insatiable thirst for knowledge

I honestly can’t remember if I was like this before and it was amplified, or if it’s a new quality all together, but I’ve definitely noticed that I now crave knowledge. I need to learn more and I need to at least skim Twitter to see what’s happening in my community/country/the entire world. Even on weekends and days off I’m always checking my phone (when appropriate! Not in the rude anti-social way!)

4. A newfound willingness to take risks

Or perhaps I mean the ability to take more calculated risks; when you’re exposed to more, you can make better decisions. For example, if I wanted to start a business helping restaurants with marketing, before I would maybe look up a few web sites, makes some calls and try to get an understanding if there were a need for such a service and if my potential client base would be willing to pay. However, without a lot of money to do proper market research (let’s face it-most entrepreneurs definitely don’t have money for it), I’d have to rely on a very small number of opinions based on my limited time to do said research on my own. However, now I can simply passively research this info through Google and various social networking sites, poll or survey my Twitter followers and Facebook friends and I can get a better glimpse of the risky industry and whether or not my idea will fly. Sure it’s still not as accurate as proper research, but it’s a whole lot better than what I was going to do.

3. A humbled world view

I admit, I’ve often been a “big fish in a small pond” kind of person. I exceeded in school and many hobbies/sports but mostly participated in small communities, as is pretty normal in the offline world. Secondly I’ll admit I’m a bit of a competitive person, not in a malicious kind of way, but in the sense that I’m always looking to benchmark myself against others, so I can work on improving. Well online there are so many more people doing whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s humbling–which is awesome because it gives you a great sense of how *much* you can improve. And yes, on the flip side this can also be discouraging, but we all know the best out there know how to persevere!

2. A stronger sense of confidence

Especially as a writer (or any creative field) you always practice your craft with a certain level of vulnerability. You’re putting yourself out there. It’s scary. People will judge you. You might make a mistake. To me, it seems like whenever I’ve gone too far and lost my sense of what I’m doing, the community around me chimes up with words of encouragement. Even when things go wrong, there will always be someone backing you up and cheering you on.

1. An optimistic view of the world

OK maybe you’ve caught on that I’m generally an optimistic person… But I’m talking about something bigger. For all the awful things going on in the world, it’s amazing to see people band together for the greater good. There are so many great examples, but most timely is @unmarketing‘s Tweetathon for Tanner (go on, read the whole story and try not to shed a tear!) it ends tomorrow at 9 pm and since earlier today has already raised over $8,000 for a very worthy cause. Also take any natural disaster–even the most recent floods in Pakistan, a simple search shows many tweets urging help and many have been retweeted hundreds of times.

Have you noticed the same? Do you have others I haven’t mentioned here? Please share! (Especially because I’m super excited that I finally have Disqus running on here! Yea, sometimes I’m not such an early adopter–and this blog gets neglected.)

While I definitely agree with the masses that this was a well-executed campaign-it was funny, engaging and captured the attention of so many, but I’m still reluctant to declare it a resounding social media success story (yet?) for a few reasons. And more importantly, these are some factors to consider before you go out and try to replicate Old Spice’s success (since I’m sure already this will be a case study social media experts everywhere will be preaching to the masses):

1. Will it increase sales for the company? My guess would be quite possibly, but we don’t know yet, it’s simply too soon to tell. Aren’t we always whining about business outcomes and that success needs to be based on more than just eyeballs?
2. What about ROI? Sure maybe they’ll get fantastic results, but clearly they spend A LOT of money on this campaign.
3. Did Old Spice really take a big risk with this campaign? Well not really, the built it off an already successful ad campaign–which don’t get me wrong was a very smart move, but let’s all remember that when we’re trying to build our own loveable brand character.
4. Doesn’t social media require long-term commitment and ongoing strategy? Obviously they can’t keep up the videos for ever. where will they take it yet? How will they keep their new-found audience engaged? I’m not saying they won’t but perhaps we should wait and see before we declare this the most successful social media campaign of all time.

Maybe I’m just a little bitter because my man already wears Old Spice (long before Old Spice Man even) and now every man will smell like him? Either way, I love the campaign but I’m saying stop the madness–at least until we’ve had enough time to step away and see the whole picture.

And now, for your viewing enjoyment, the original Old Spice Man ad that started this all

Surely by now, you know a report a while back said that 40% of Twitter posts are pointless babble.

The report made quite an impact. I don’t know about you, but I hear about it everywhere. As well, I’ve heard quite a few remarks from people who defensively claim: “I don’t tweet what I’m eating for breakfast!”

Ok. Fine. I get it. There are some people (usually outside of the social media bubble) who tweet silly mundane things all the time.

But here’s the thing, do you know what’s worse that finding out what someone ate for breakfast? Following someone who only tweets links. Unless you’re already a famous person or trusted source, you are not going to build trust and relationships but simply tweeting links to blog posts or news articles. Yes many of us have nearly or altogether replaced our RSS readers with links we get from Twitter, but we’ve done so because we appreciate reading links from trusted acquaintances who’ve we’ve come to know through our interactions, and yes, the occasional breakfast tweet. Not personality-lacking link bots. Twitter is not a broadcast tool. We have quite enough of those. Get out and interact, and throw in the occasional breakfast tweet (or cute thing your cat did, or whatever else might be dismissed as pointless babble). I will appreciate it.

This is my second year going, and I’m excited. So excited, that I anticipate to be tweeting about it… A lot. In fact, if you follow many people who are going, I can guarantee you’re going to get sick of hearing about it. (I remember the feeling in ’08)

Good news for you, there are now a handful of tools available that will let you temporarily mute followers or keywords. Here’s a list from Oneforty…

However, if you *do* want to follow what’s going on at SXSW. Leave a comment and let me know what you want to hear about! I’ll do my best to accommodate.

Given that I don’t work in IT, or in the government, I felt a little like a fly on the wall at this conference (that brings together leading experts from all levels of government to collaborate on what citizens want with a technology focus). However what drew me to it was Tim O’Reilly and he did not disappoint. One thing I really wanted to take away was a better understanding of “Gov 2.0” and what it really means.

The funny thing about buzzwords is the more they are used the more meaning they lose. Even the term Web 2.0 has many different meanings depending on who you ask. Since O’Reilly is at least partly responsible for defining the term, I have a hunch he knows what he’s talking about.

So what exactly is gov 2.0?

O’Reilly suggests it involves the following:

• Citizen contribution and collaboration
• use of social media
• transparency
• new methods of procurement
• cloud computing

And what it all means is positioning government as a platform for citizens to build upon and help make better. The current model, which David Kettl explains is “government as a vending machine;” we put money in, and receive services in return. Straight foward, but is it effective?

The problem, O’Reilly states, is that the cost just keeps going up. An alternative model—that embodies the government as a platform idea—is to throw the door open to partners (i.e. citizens) and provide the data for them to collaborate and improve services. This would enhance efficiency and curb spending. It’s the gov 2.0 model.

I’m excited to see if this is adopted in Canada. Obviously our biggest concern (as usual) is privacy… Which, of course, someone asked about during questions. O’Reilly responded by quoting Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems who said: “you have no privacy, get over it”

We’ll see how it goes I guess.

Makes a lot of sense, right? Then why is it often lost in the business world?

In my general observation and experiences, most companies don’t follow this rule. Fortunately there are some fantastic examples (Zappos obviously comes to mind!), so not all hope is lost.

Here’s a few examples:

• Do you enjoy receiving unsolicited bulk email? No, you don’t. No one does, so why send it?
• Do you like when old high school friends (or whoever) send you mass Facebook messages daily to promote whatever it is their doing but never actually send a personal message? Probably not.
• Do you like when someone follows you on Twitter, so you follow back, but then only floods your screen with self-promotional tweets and never engages in conversations? Not likely.

The positive side…

We can also look at it in a positive light:

• Do you like being complimented? (I bet you do!) Why not try and compliment someone else every day?
• Do you love your tweets being re-tweeted? Take some time to re-tweet whenever you can. (Hint: don’t always re-tweet people like Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki. They get lots of love already, look for the hidden gems.)
• Do you love having an old contact/friend reach out to you randomly, just to say hi? Why not take the time to re-build some old relationships, you never know where you may end up finding a great business connection.

Just a random thought for the day. I’m sure we all know and understand this, but I think sometimes a little reminder can help us all. What are you doing about it today?

If you don’t know #FollowFriday is a popular Twitter meme started by  user @Micah who suggested everyone recommend someone to follow on Friday. A great idea. In theory-you trust who you follow already so a recommendation from one is the best way to find new people to follow.

Unfortunately it’s gotten a little out of hand.

Every Friday, it seems my Twitter stream gets flooded by Follow Friday recommendations, from people who post tweet after tweet of a list of Twitter users with no rhyme or reason for the recommendation. I sent a tweet out asking if people actually even clicked through these types of FF tweets and got several replies that made it obvious others were a little annoyed.

Later in the day, one user I had previously unfollowed–but who noticed and made me feel bad about it, so I re-followed–was flooding my stream with such tweets. I sent the person a DM saying (nicely) that probably the reason I unfollowed was the Follow Friday stream invasion.

The person replied to me publicly basically saying I should lighten up. As someone who values the people I follow, I don’t like my stream clouded with insincere #FF tweets. It takes away from other valuable info I could be reading, I don’t think I’m being uptight about it.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people do #FollowFriday really well. For example, when they state what the people have in common (even as simply as also tagging #Ottawa to suggest they are fellow Ottawa Tweeters) or with a little more effort: I love @GiniDietrich‘s approach, who posts her detailed recommendations on her blog and then links to it. But as far as just multiple tweets with something generic like “Cool people to follow!” It’s sucking up useless bandwith and taking up space that could be used for valuable tweets.

BTW-the person I butted heads with over it… I checked their stream, last Friday they posted over 60 #FollowFriday posts, all exactly the same, with a list of random names. I clicked through a few and some of the recommendations were even spammers! I went back a little further and saw the person only seems to post 2-3 times all week, and then the #FollowFriday recos…

Am I uptight? Or do you agree that’s a big waste of tweets?