11 Ways to Find New Content for Your Social Strategies

11 Ways to Find New Content for Your Social Strategy*

Is your business running out of content ideas?

Content is the fuel for your social media rocket ship and the foundation of any solid presence in the social sphere. Your content cannot be everything to everyone; however, you can be relevant and provide value to your target market.

Generating compelling content that people want to consume can increase your website traffic and help you attract and retain a dedicated following. In order to produce quality content, you’re going to need a good source of raw material to continually draw upon.

Here are 11 proven tactics to help you never run out of content.

1: RSS Reader: Scan It Daily

A great way to get fresh ideas and inspiration is to sign up for a free RSS reader such as Google Reader. Then use the Google Blogs search option and search blog directory sites such as Technorati and Blogcatalog for blogs that are relevant to your product or service. When you find what you’re looking for, simply subscribe by clicking on the RSS feed and adding it to your reader.

Organize your feeds into folders and sort by category for easy scanning; you can combine topics you find in your industry’s blogs with your own commentary to create posts that stand on their own.

2: Make Every Employee a Marketer

Encourage employees to contribute to your blog by writing posts on a topic of interest in your industry. Ask your customer service and sales teams about their most frequently asked questions, then have them write blog posts about the solutions. Creating a simple blog template for employees to use can be a great tool to eliminate any objections to writing a post. Click here for some sample templates.

3: LinkedIn Groups

There’s no shortage of opinions on LinkedIn. You can join up to 50 groups per individual profile. Find the most active groups related to your industry by searching the Groups tab. An easy way to tell which groups are most active is by the number of members and discussions. LinkedIn Answers is also a fantastic place to tap the knowledge of your pr4: 4: Forums

If social media has a grandfather, its name is Grandpa Forum. These open and free discussions are a fantastic way to find out what’s going on in your niche. A simple search on Google for “<your topic> + forum” will yield thousands of results.

5: Make a Tag Cloud

Use entire conversations based around your relevant keywords to build a tag cloud. For example, find 15 tweets that mention your brand, product or industry and drop them into a tag cloud application such as Wordle. You’ll often find new keywords you may not have thought of as well as a few surprise topics of association. This is a great way to really stretch your content dollar and find emerging trends to blog about.

6: Eavesdrop

Be nosy. Listen in on conversations offline as well as online. Tune in to conversations while waiting in line at Starbucks or by ear hustling the table next to you at lunch. Find out what people are talking about, what they care about. Carry a small notebook or use Evernote to jot down and keep track of interesting points you overhear and the ideas they spark.

7: Crowdsource

Post a social networking status or blog asking your audience for content topics and suggestions. Online survey and polling tools can be invaluable resources for collecting and prioritizing these ideas in an organized way. Embedding a survey or poll directly into your website or blog engages your audience in real time, and lets their voices be heard. You can also launch a survey or poll directly in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn asking for feedback.

8: Audio Books

A wise man once said “Why read when you can have someone do it for you,” and the audio book was born. Because everyone is severely pressed for time these days, audio books are a fantastic way to listen to books on the go. Just listening to 15 minutes in the car or 20 minutes at the gym can spark several ideas for content and enable you to “read” a book or two a month. Check out Audible or eMusic for a nice selection of titles.

9: Google News

Want to keep your content relevant to current events and hot topics in the media? Sure you do. Google News aggregates headlines from news sources worldwide, groups similar stories together and displays them according to each reader’s personalized interests.

Simply search for keywords related to your industry and click on the news. Scanning the results will immediately provide you with headlines to tie your topic to what’s happening in the world.

10: Attend Industry Events

Meetups, Webinars, Tweetchats, Conferences. There’s a wealth of events hosted on- and offline on a weekly basis with many offering a free exchange of ideas and knowledge. Look for events with topics related to your industry and jump right in. Chances are you’ll leave inspired with new ideas and a new-found vigor to turn them into remarkable content.

11: Frankenblogging

“A Day In The Life” is one of the Beatles’ most influential songs and it came together with two seemingly unrelated bits, one written by John, the other by Paul. This is a perfect example of how bringing together two distinct segments written independently of one another can spawn greatness.

Like most bloggers, you probably have a growing number of half-written posts. The idea here is to find a common theme or link between two of them and combine. For example, I took a half-written post about identifying influencers, combined it with another half-written post about using Twitter lists, and came up with a fabulous post about finding influencers on Twitter and following them efficiently using Twitter lists.

6 Tips for Starting an Online Community

6 Tips for Starting an Online Community*

Are you considering building an online community? In order to build a strong community, there are a few key factors every business should take into consideration.

1: Know Your Audience

Every business should begin its focus on its audience, the customers. No online community can exist without a firm foundation and if your online community is to truly succeed, you need to know the demographics of your target audience.

What are demographics, you ask? Demographics are the characteristics of your audience. These characteristics are helpful in assessing the changing trends of audience behavior and narrowing down a wide audience into smaller segments.

General categories of demographics use age, gender, life-cycle stage, income, social class, lifestyle, education, religion and location and are collected by varying means of market research. These categories help give shape and definition to your audience and clarify who they are, what they do, their habits and more.

2: Know Their Needs

How does a business find out what its audience needs? Ask questions! Engage with your audience to determine what they want, need and desire from your business. This is not a once-and-done type of inventory. Audiences are comprised of dynamic individuals and with time their needs will change organically. Also, external factors applying pressure to the collective audience will also cause ebbs and flows in needs.

By asking and being open to the response from the audience, your business can benefit from knowing not only generically what is needed, but you can gather insight on trends and benchmarks; potential problems or issues; research and development opportunities; product, process and service improvements; crisis communication plans and more.

3: Know Your Business

All effective and successful businesses are customer-centric. Without your customers, your business wouldn’t exist. So intimately knowing the needs and wants of your audience can help shape and purpose your business and its future plans. Giving your customers a role and voice in the direction of your business lends itself to creating a sense of community.

As the focus and leader of the community, it is imperative that your business plan is known and understood by your leaders and staff. How can you expect to rally a community of customers around your business if you don’t know your own business?

Start with a strategic plan with the goal of mapping out the future based on the needs of now and the lessons learned from the past. Do you know what your business’s plans for growth, contingencies, expansion, product and service development, reduction and possible shuttering are?

You should know these answers about your business!

4: Know Your Stuff

Knowing these answers about your business can lend itself to building credibility as a business within your online community. Audience members learn to trust those representing businesses that know what they are talking about.

You can build that trust by using your knowledge base to answer their questions, listen to their feedback, troubleshoot their issues and—if you can—fix the problems they have with your product or service. Every conversation you have with an audience member is an opportunity to build or destroy your business’s credibility!

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the following questions about your community-building efforts:

• Are we fostering mutual respect or disrespect in our response?

• Is there ever a time to admit that we do not know what the answer is and that we need to do our homework before answering?

• Is there a time to admit that a competitor may be a better option for a customer’s needs?

• Is there someone else in the business who can answer a question or respond to negative feedback better than I can?

Remember, how you respond to negative comments and complaints is just as much a credibility opportunity as how you respond to the complim

5: Know Your Limitations

While your business can certainly respond to many of the needs of the online community, is it wise for the business to dictate all of the interactions of the audience? Not always.

Consider the possibility that you may not always have the best answer for building the community and may need to let the community build itself. Your customers have the potential to be your best brand ambassadors.

The audience members should be encouraged to build relationships and connections with one another and grow dynamic interactions within your online community. The benefit to you, you ask? Your business is the commonality in the community.

Who can better attest to the viability and relevance of your product or service than the customers? You as a business representative are admittedly biased in your opinions of your products or services and this is limiting. Unbind your community and encourage it to explore the possibilities in the experiences of other audience members!

6: Know How to Appreciate

Recognize and appreciate your community members for participation, brand loyalty, solutions orientation, patronization and for any number of other activities that merit appreciation. Your appreciation will encourage them to come back and visit your online community more frequently, to encourage their sphere of influence to join and even lend itself to increasing their purchasing behaviors with your business!

German Cultural Value: Prizing Virtues Of Saving

Germans, Prizing Virtues of Saving, Find Euro Bailouts Hard to Swallow*

The 28-year-old mathematician has never taken out a loan, rarely uses his credit card, and saves about 10% of his paycheck every month. He recently bought a car with cash. “I’ve never bought anything without having the money for it,” Mr. Strogies says. His behavior, multiplied across the population of Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, helps explain the economic imbalances that have fed the euro zone’s crisis.

For years, German consumers’ reluctance to splurge has left German companies reliant on exports for growth. Other euro-zone economies, meanwhile, have had to live with sluggish exports to Germany, with its large economy. At the same time, the strong euro has made products from the peripheral countries less competitive outside the euro zone. On top of this, the weaker countries’ low savings rates are forcing a reliance on foreign investors to finance their deficits.

Now, frugal German taxpayers like Mr. Strogies are on the hook for bailing out some other European countries where borrowing has been a way of life. It’s one of the issues fueling tensions within the euro zone as Germany and France this week began the delicate task of trying to convince their major banks to voluntarily accept losses on their holdings of debt in Greece, which faces a cash crunch despite a bailout last year.

Germans’ deep-seated economic caution has roots in the ruinous wars and inflation of the last century. Many of today’s Germans are as frugal as ever, on average saving 11.5% of their incomes in 2010, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That compares with a savings rate of 5.7% in the U.S. last year.

In Ireland, one of the euro-zone countries that is getting a bailout, the average savings rate last year was 11.1%, near that of Germany—but the rate only rose after the shock of the global financial crisis, and follows years of much lower saving. Meanwhile, in Greece, residents on average spent 12% more than they earned in 2008, the latest year for which data is available from the OECD.

“Risk-averse Germans are concerned about the problematic economic behavior of some of their neighboring countries,” says Thorsten Hennig-Thurau, a professor at Münster University, who studies consumer habits. That, he says, explains many Germans’ growing nostalgia for their beloved former national currency, the Deutsche mark.

Although there are some signs that Germany’s improving labor market could boost consumer spending, economists say German households aren’t about to become free-spending drivers of Europe’s growth.

Germans typically invest their savings conservatively too, preferring savings-bank deposits that offer low interest rates to higher-yielding but riskier investments such as stocks.

When Mr. Strogies and his girlfriend, after having a baby last year, decided to buy a bigger car, they drew on their savings to buy a used Nissan Primera for about €10,000 ($14,200). “My parents taught me that you can only pay with the money you have,” Mr. Strogies says. “I think that’s deep in the German philosophy.”

That attitude is widespread—and makes Germany a tough market for credit-card companies. “The word ‘credit,’ in the German mindset, is negative,” says Werner Decker, country manager for Germany at American Express Co.

One consequence of this culture: Debit cards are far more common in Germany than credit cards. Most Germans want “a payment tool, not a credit tool,” Mr. Decker says.

Greeks have started to feel the consequences of rash spending decisions as Greece’s economy lurches through its worst recession in more than 15 years.

“Unfortunately our membership is growing day by day,” says Theodore Thanopoulos, head of a group that helps Greek debtors, the Panhellenic Association for the Protection of Borrowers from Banks and Public Organizations.

In the past five years he has seen his membership rise more than fourfold to 1.5 million—or nearly one in five Greek adults. That coincides with the boom in consumer lending in Greece, which led to a consumer frenzy as many Greeks splashed out on new cars, new homes and expensive foreign vacations.

Now many Greeks are having to slash their spending at the same time as their government—which behaved similarly—is forced to cut its huge budget deficit, pushing the economy into a deep slump.

Ireland, Spain and Portugal are also suffering after bingeing on credit for years.

To alleviate the pain of retrenchment in the euro zone’s weaker economies, economists say, solvent countries, led by Germany, need to spend more to help boost their exports. Policy makers around Europe have urged Germany’s government to stimulate spending with tax cuts.

But many observers doubt it would work. If the German government sent out stimulus checks as the U.S. did, says Mr. Decker of American Express, “I would say 98%” of the population would put the money straight into their savings accounts.

Empathy In Leadership

Empathy In Leadership*

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of co-hosting the weekly #LeadFromWithin tweetchat with Lolly Daskal. The subject of my chat was “The Role of Empathy in Leadership” and I have to say I was gratified by both the level of participation and depth of contributions/insights which arose during the discussion (click here to download a PDF copy of the chat transcript).

Although I’ve written previously about the importance of empathy in leadership, I want to use last week’s talk as an opportunity to delve into this issue more, sharing some of the points I provided during the talk, as well as some of the insights proffered by the various participants. Here are the ten questions I asked participants as we discussed the role empathy plays in leadership.

1. What does empathy mean?

“Empathy means I demonstrate concern for & listen to reach understanding of others ideas & feelings.” – @scedmonds

In order to appreciate the role empathy plays in leadership, we first need to have a clear understanding of what empathy means. Most times, we tend to confuse empathy with sympathy; that to be empathetic means agreeing or relating to the feelings another person has regarding a given situation or individual.

However, what empathy really means is being able to understand the needs of others. It means that you’re aware of their feelings and how it impacts their perception. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with how they see things; rather, being empathetic means that you’re willing and able to appreciate what the other person is going through.

2. Why does it matter for us to understand the needs of others?

“By understanding others we can develop closer relationships.”

At first glance, this might seem a tad altruistic, but there are tangible benefits that are derived from making time to understand what those around us need, as opposed to what we perceive is required. Indeed, leaders who take the time to understand the needs of their employees can provide them with the support they require to press ahead, to deal with the challenges or issues that might be holding them back from achieving their goals.

By understanding and providing employees with what they need to succeed, leaders can build a sense of trust, thereby strengthening the relationships they have with their employees and consequently, the relationships employees have with one another, leading to greater collaboration and improved productivity.

3. What traits/behaviours distinguish someone as empathetic?

“Empathy requires listening, nonjudgmentalism, openness, emotional intelligence.”

I’ve written in a number of pieces about the importance of listening in leadership. And how effective or intentional we are in our desire to listen to what others are saying is a key trait among empathetic individuals.

Indeed, empathetic people listen attentively to what you’re telling them, putting their complete focus on the person in front of them and not getting easily distracted by what’s on their monitor or smartphone. They spend more time listening than talking because their want to understand the difficulties others face, all of which helps to give those around them the feeling of being heard and recognized.

4. Can we learn to be more empathetic or is this an innate trait?

“Empathy is human. We can develop empathy when we focus on others and commit to develop our authentic self.”

In the discussion that arose over my previous piece on empathy and leadership, I pointed out that contrary to popular belief, humans by nature are not self-centric or concerned only with matters of personal gain. Indeed, recent research into mirror neurons has proven that we’re wired for sociability and attachment to others; in other words, we’re driven to connect and understand those we interact with.

We only need to look at how the whole world not only reacts, but responds to natural disasters like those which struck Haiti and Japan to see that the drive for empathy is an inherent component of humanity.

5. What can we do to become more empathetic?

“Take a personal interest in people. Show people that you care, and genuine curiosity about their lives.” – @LollyDaskal

Given how empathy is a natural part of the human condition, our ability to demonstrate it to those around us is not as difficult as we might think. As mentioned earlier, one key trait of empathetic people is their ability to listen attentively to those around them. One way they do this is by paying more attention to both the verbal and non-verbal cues that are a part of everyday communication.

Making similar efforts will help you shift the focus from the story that’s in your mind to the actual message that’s being presented.

6. What role does empathy play in leadership? Why does it matter?

“When we understand our team we have a better idea of the challenges ahead of us.”

Let’s be honest, when it comes to the keys for successful leadership, empathy is rarely included in such a list. However, instilling a sense of empathy in how you lead those under your care offers a number of advantages:

• Empathy allows us to feel safe with our failures because we won’t simply be blamed for them.

• It encourages leaders to understand the root cause behind poor performance.

• Being empathetic allows leaders to help struggling employees improve and excel.

• Empathy allows leaders to build and develop relationships with those they lead.

7. So why aren’t we being more empathetic at work?

“Empathy takes time, focus, effort. Some ppl focus more on meeting deadlines than on the people who will carry you there.”

If it’s part of our make-up to be empathetic and that there are tangible benefits to fostering a sense of empathy within your organization, the question that naturally comes up is why then aren’t leaders taking the lead in making empathy a fixture in today’s business world. The most obvious reason (or excuse) is that the expression or recognition of any type of emotion in the workplace is still regarded as being a form of weakness (the rationale behind the well-worn phrase “it’s nothing personal; it’s just business”)

Of course, as is the case whenever there’s an examination of human interactions, the behaviours are rarely the result of one factor. Instead, it’s often due to a number of causes, which in this case includes:

• Demonstrating empathy is hard; it’s takes time and effort to demonstrate awareness & understanding.

• It’s not always easy to understand why an employee thinks or feels the way they do about a situation.

• It means putting others ahead of yourself which can be a challenge in today’s competitive workplace.

• Many organizations are focused on achieving goals no matter what the cost to employees.

In trying to address the apparent lack of empathy in today’s workplace, it’s important that we recognize that, much like an organization’s culture, it doesn’t come down to one element, but a series of inter-related behaviours and biases which serve to reinforce how leaders and their team perceive the value of empathy in business.

8. How can leaders encourage a culture of empathy?

“Create an environment were ppl feel it is safe to express their true opinion.”

One of the responsibilities of leadership is defining the long-term vision you have for the organization and establishing some short-term goals for your employees to attain in order to transform your plans into reality.

However, what distinguishes average to mediocre leaders from those who excel at leading others is how the latter group understands that their focus shouldn’t be simply directed to whether goals are achieved or not. Rather, their focus is also on fulfilling the collective purpose of creating something meaningful.

To accomplish this, leaders need to understand the inner purpose that drives each of their employees and aligning that with their organization’s goals. This requires that leaders be more open about their ideas and thinking and asking their employees about their thoughts on it. By spending more time learning about the needs of their employees, leaders can set the tone and approach taken by their employees to achieve their organization’s goals.

9. How can we use empathy to become a better leader?

“Empathy as a state of mind breeds more listening -> understanding -> leadership!”

By now it should be pretty clear that empathy plays a critical role in one’s ability to be a successful leader. But for those who might need more convincing, here are some of the ways empathy can help you to become a better leader for your team:

• You gain a greater awareness of the needs of your employees.

• Empathy allows you to create an environment of open communication and more effective feedback.

• It allows us to understand and explore problems employees face and how to help them resolve them.

• Being empathetic with your employees helps to validate what they’re going through.

10. If leaders could do one thing to create a more empathetic workplace, what would it be?

“Remember that people are not machines. They feel as well as produce.”

“Sawubona” is a Zulu greeting which basically means “we see you”. Now, this is not some variation of the royal usage of “we” in place of “I”. Rather, it’s their way of recognizing that how they understand what they see around them is a reflection of their perception that is derived not only from their own experiences, but from the stories and ideas passed down to them through their family and community.

Similarly, leaders need to remember that how we feel colours our perception of what we see going on around us and consequently, it’s important to understand those feelings so that we can respond and manage them accordingly.

It’s also important that we remind ourselves that the story we tell in our minds is different from the story playing in the minds of  others. It’s only through listening intently to others that we can begin to understand these differences.

As one of the pillars to developing empathy is being attentive to what others are saying, I’d like to end this piece with these two quotes which I think do an excellent job of capturing the very essence of the role empathy plays in leadership:

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. – Theodore Roosevelt

3 Ways That Social Media Can Set Your Business Apart

3 Ways That Social Media Can Set Your Business Apart*

As business people, we can’t help but look sideways once in a while to see what the competition is doing. And gleaning strong insights about your competitors can help you make smarter and more nimble business decisions, especially thanks to the fast moving and information rich nature of the real-time web.

But success in your industry or your niche isn’t always about going head to head with more and louder marketing, creating splashy but fleeting campaigns, or just doing more, more, more. Social media provides companies of any size and stripe the opportunity to take a few considered, practical steps toward standing out amongst the pack and actually creating and providing value for the customers and prospects they serve.

1. Be Responsive

So much of being successful in social media is just about being present and responsive. Regardless of whether your competitors are being responsive themselves, you can stand out by being available, interested, and helpful in the moments when your customers and community need you to be.

For starters, that’s about answering compliments with a gracious “Thank you!”. Providing answers to questions that people ask you directly, or at least getting them to someone that can help them in another channel. And perhaps most importantly, responding – openly and publicly – to complaints or criticisms with a simple acknowledgement that you’re sorry, and would like to find a way to help.

If you really want to knock it out of the park, take your response to another level and learn to look for and spot the point of need in your communities. Be relevant, helpful, and friendly, and you’ll go a long way to making your mark in your industry simply by being willing to lend a hand (even when it might not net you an immediate benefit).

2. Share Knowledge

Your content is important, and sharing news or information about your products, services, expertise, or people is part of why you’re engaged in social media to begin with.

But if you really want to stand out? Become a resource, too. Share great, informational content that you find on your own adventures through the web (this is a great way to get your community team engaging between their typical points of response). That can be from industry resources, blogs you read, the mainstream news. Think about your customers and community *between* their moments of doing business with you; what interests them? What other things are they likely encountering in their lives or business? How about just sharing something interesting and fun that’s totally off the beaten path?

Sharing what you know and find – even if you didn’t create it – provides lots of opportunities for people to connect with you not just when they need what you provide, but when they’re looking for great resources. Be the curator and the resource for all sorts of great stuff and help your customers find value in their relationship with you for whole new reasons.

3. Act on Feedback

Listening is fundamental, and we talk about that a lot around here.

But acting on what you hear is important, and sharing and showing that action can be a differentiator indeed. If you’re gathering feedback about your products and services and using it to improve what you do, demonstrate that somehow. Use your online community to share the improvements you’re putting in place. Share the best and most useful feedback from your customers (yep, even if it suggests improvements) and respond to it publicly with how you’re putting that to use, and consider rewarding or at least acknowledging the contributors that are driving the changes you’re making.

No one expects a business or a product to be perfect all the time. And it’s true that social media success requires a sound product or service as table stakes.

But we love and respond to the companies that not only can acknowledge and pay attention to the feedback they get, but take it to heart and use it to make things better.

So what would you suggest?

How are you using social media engagement and participation to stand out in your market or industry? What are you doing that’s not just visible, but that’s building something that matters to the people that want to do business with you? How has social media helped you gain that competitive edge?

If you’re a customer, what makes one company stand out from another in your eyes? What are the factors that can help a company win your business?

Dialog im Unternehmen

Dialog im Unternehmen

Eines ist sicher: Der Dialog ist kein Allheilmittel zur Konfliktlösung! Andererseits kann der Dialogprozess einen Beitrag dazu leisten, dass Konflikte gar nicht entstehen. Wenn die Betroffenen im Vorfeld über ihre Meinungen, Ansichten, Blickwinkel, Stereotype und Vorurteile bewusst werden bzw. sind, kann man Konfliktpotenziale vermeiden. Bohm ist der Meinung, dass die meisten Konflikte durch die Begrenztheit des menschlichen Denkens entstehen. Menschen verstehen sich nicht wirklich, sondern verlassen sich oftmals auf das, was sie zu hören meinen, anstatt auf das Gesagte zu achten. Wir hören durch einen Filter von Emotionen und Vorurteilen zu. Menschen sollen sich den Unterschied zwischen Gesagtem und Gemeintem bewusst machen. Isaacs entwickelte eine Dialogtheorie und greift dabei auf die Ansichten Bohms zurück. Isaacs gliedert die Komponenten seiner Theorie in vier Kernprinzipien des Dialogs. Diese vier Komponenten sind:

· Beteiligung und Zuhören

· Kohärenz und Respektieren

· Bewusstheit und Suspendieren

· Entfaltung und Artikulieren.

Beteiligung und Zuhören

Isaacs ist der Ansicht, dass man sich bewusst werden soll, welche reflexartigen Urteile über das Gehörte die Gedanken und Antworten beeinflussen. Dazu soll man andere Erfahrungen und Meinungen respektieren und das eigene Selbstgefühl erweitern. Voraussetzung dazu ist, dass:

· jeder Einzelne gleichzeitig Bestandteil und Beobachter des Ganzen ist;

· jedes Wort nicht nur seine satzspezifische Bedeutung, sondern auch den tieferen Kontext der Situation des Lebens des Sprechers bzw. des Zuhörers enthält;

· von unterschiedlichen Leuten also völlig anders interpretiert und mit unterschiedlichen Vorstellungen und Werten besetzt werden kann.

Kohärenz und Respektieren

Hier handelt es sich um das bewusste und aktive Herausschauen und Denken aus der Perspektive des anderen. Respektieren ist also wichtiger als akzeptieren. Es geht darum, Unterschiede zu erkennen, aber gleichzeitig den Blick auf die verbindenden Elemente im Verschiedenen zu lenken. Störfaktoren, wie Reflexe und Emotionen, die das Gesagte in einem hervorrufen, werden in den Dialog integriert, indem man das Problem in sich aufnimmt und ihm im eigenen Innern begegnet.

Bewusstheit und Suspendieren

Man soll sich seiner reaktiven Denkmuster bewusst werden. Dazu ist es erforderlich, dass man in der Lage ist, seine Fähigkeit, Urteile, Meinungen oder Denkmuster in der Schwebe zu halten, sie also abzusondern, zu suspendieren. Nur so kann man das Geschehen aus einer neuen Perspektive betrachten. Es ist also wichtig, innezuhalten und Annahmen oder Reaktionen volle Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken. Man soll sich ihnen nicht hingeben! Erst indem man Kritik suspendiert, eröffnet der Relativierungsprozess den Blick auf das Gemeinsame der Standpunkte, was dann wieder auf den vorherigen Punkt zurückgreift, in dem es darum ging, sich der verbindenden Elemente im Verschiedenen bewusst zu werden, also die Kohärenz zu finden.

Der Prozess des Suspendierens ermöglicht es, die normale Schlussfolgerungskette zu unterbrechen und statt dessen eine Reflexionsschleife zu gestalten. Diese Reflexionsschleife dient dazu, sich zu fragen, warum man bestimmte Daten ausgewählt hat, denen persönliche und kulturelle Bedeutung hinzugefügt wurden und andere Daten übersehen absichtlich oder unabsichtlich übersehen hat.

Das Suspendieren, das heißt in der Schwebe halten von Gedanken, Impulsen, Wertungen usw. bildet das Herzstück des Dialogs. Es ist einer seiner wichtigsten neuen Aspekte. Es ist nicht ganz leicht, diesen Aspekt verständlich zu machen, weil das Suspendieren ungewohnt und subtil ist. Er erfordert Aufmerksamkeit, Zuhören und Hinsehen und ist eine notwendige Voraussetzung für eingehendes Forschen. Sprechen ist beim Dialog natürlich notwendig, denn ohne Worte gäbe es wenig zu erforschen. Doch der Prozess des Nachforschens spielt sich beim Zuhören ab, sich selbst und anderen. Zum Suspendieren gehört es, eigene Reaktionen, Impulse, Gefühle und Meinungen so offenzulegen, dass andere in der Gruppe sie erkennen und spüren und zurückspiegeln können. Es bedeutet nicht, sie zurückzudrängen oder zu unterdrücken und auch nicht, sie aufzuschieben. Es bedeutet einfach nur, ihnen ernsthaft Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken, damit ihre Strukturen erkannt werden können, während sie stattfinden.

Wenn Sie beispielsweise fähig sind, Aufmerksamkeit aufzubringen für die starken Gefühle, die vielleicht den Eindruck eines bestimmten Gedankens, eines eigenen oder den eines anderen, begleiten, und wenn es Ihnen gelingt, diese Aufmerksamkeit beizubehalten, dann wird sich der Denkprozess tendenziell verlangsamen. Und das erlaubt Ihnen vielleicht den tieferen Sinn, der Ihrem Gedankenprozess zugrundeliegt, zu erkennen und die oft inkohärente Struktur einer Handlung zu spüren, die Sie sonst vielleicht automatisch vollzogen hätten. Ähnlich kann, wenn eine Gruppe solche Gefühle suspendieren und ihnen Aufmerksamkeit schenken kann, der Prozess, der in der Gruppe vom Denken zum Fühlen zum Handeln fließt, sich ebenfalls verlangsamen und seinen tieferen, hintergründigeren Sinn und mögliche implizite Verzerrungen offenbaren und schließlich zu etwas führen, was wir als eine neue kohärente, gemeinsame Einsicht beschreiben könnten.

Gedanken, Impulse, Wertungen usw. zu suspendieren erfordert eine ernsthafte Aufmerksamkeit dem Gesamtprozeß gegenüber, den wir betrachtet haben, sowohl auf Seiten des einzelnen als auch der Gruppe. Damit ist Arbeit verbunden, eine Arbeit, die zunächst sehr mühselig erscheinen mag. Doch wenn diese Mühe aufgebracht wird, entwickelt sich die Fähigkeit, solche Aufmerksamkeit unaufhörlich aufzubringen, und dann wird immer weniger Anstrengung dazu erforderlich sein.

Entfaltung und Artikulieren

Wenn man imstande ist, seinen Gedanken im Gespräch zum Ausdruck zu bringen, ist es wichtig, von dem zu sprechen, was einem wirklich wichtig ist. Und zwar ohne Wortspielerei, die Gefühle und Gedanken verdecken. Dafür ist es wichtig, Vertrauen in die Gültigkeit des eigenen Denkens zu haben.

Im Rahmen ihrer Doktorarbeit hat Susanne Ehmer zwei international operierende Unternehmen untersucht. Beide Unternehmen betrachten aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln die Möglichkeit des Dialogprozesses zur positiven Beeinflussung ihres Unternehmenserfolgs. Sie hat festgestellt, dass der Dialogprozess bei Durchführung der vier Grundprinzipien von Isaacs positive Wirkung auf die Beteiligten und somit auch auf die betreffenden Unternehmen hat. Grundvoraussetzung für den Erfolg des Dialogprozesses sind die Erkenntnisse, dass auch Gefühle Ressourcen sind und dass Hierarchie im Dialogprozess ein Tabu ist.

Durch Beobachtung, Suspendieren und Kommunikation lernen die Beteiligten in Echtzeit. Dies löst aber eine Verlangsamung aus. Aber gerade durch diese Verlangsamung können die Beteiligten lernen, mit Komplexität und Widersprüchen umzugehen. Dazu benutzt man die Reflexionsschleife.

NL Zoetermeer

13-06-2011

© Copyright 2011

Über Professor C.J.M. Beniers

Prof. C.J.M. Beniers ist ein bekannter Fachmann auf dem Gebiet von modernen und internationalen Kommunikationstechniken und Entwickler vom Sechs-Komponenten-Modell. Damit können Firmen, Institutionen und Politiker mit Gesprächspartnern aus aller Welt erfolgreich kommunizieren und verhandeln. Seine Karriere begann als internationaler Manager bei Philips N.V. Später promovierte er als Professor und hat mittlerweile mehr als 35 Jahre Erfahrung als Manager und Management Trainer. Dadurch kennt er beide Seiten, die Theorie und die Praxis, sehr genau. Als Kommunikationsexperte veranstaltet er wissenschaftliche Forschungen im interkulturellen Bereich. Die interessanten Ergebnisse  dieser Forschungen sind in seinen E-Büchern nachzulesen, wie z.B. “Bridging The Cultural Gap”. Hier lernen moderne Manager sich erfolgreich auf Geschäfte mit Leuten aus Fremdkulturen vorzubereiten. Unter anderem werden aktuelle Themen wie Verhandlungen in Krisenzeiten, interkulturelle Barrieren, landesspezifische Kommunikationstechniken, persönliche kulturbedingte Wertesysteme und Missverständnisse behandelt und plausibel erklärt.

Kontakt:

Prof. C.J.M. Beniers

Amaliaplaats 2
2713 BJ Zoetermeer
Die Niederlande

The New Rules Of Handling Customer Complaints

The New Rules Of Handling Customer Complaints*

Want some old advice? The customer is always right. Okay, now you can stick that in your pocket. Today’s best service entrepreneurs are looking beyond old axioms in relating to customers. That’s because today’s best customer service isn’t something that can be faked: it’s personalized and it has a personality. Do you have the certainty you can harness all the feedback customers will give your company, act on it, and keep your best customers coming back for more? We’ve compiled highlights of new expert tips from articles in Inc. and guides on Inc.com to help you take a fresh look at making your customers happier and your business better.

1. Ditch the formalities and break the rules.

The last thing unsatisfied customers want to hear is a recitation of your company’s return policies, Tali Yahalom writes on Inc.com. “Today’s customer expects to be treated as an individual, not as just another number who’s complaining,” Ann Thomas, a senior consultant at Performance Research Associates, a Minnesota consulting firm, says. Consider the case of a department store with a 90-day deadline for returning an item. If there’s a customer who just got married, returned from her honeymoon and, at day 100, realized that a gravy plate adorned with doves is actually not her style, it’s worth looking into alternative options rather than sending her home right away. Your company should know that occasionally bending the rules will ultimately cost less it than it would to lose the customer or, worse, if the customer leaves and relays a negative story about your company.

2. Don’t give customers too much choice.

What happens when you give customers too much say in how you make what they buy? “Quite simply, overly-demanding customers can undercut your ability to grow a valuable business,” writes John Warrillow, serial entrepreneur, author, and Inc. contributor. He explains that when trying to scale up a subscription research offering similar to a Bloomberg or Forrester research program using a model by which a customer subscribes to a pre-set number of reports provided to all, things started to derail. His company was customizing each report for the 17 subscribers, meaning an annual 102 reports based on six studies, which was untenable for the company’s 20 employees. Warrillow shut down the program. The lesson? “In hindsight, I realize a big part of the problem was my involvement in the selling. I’m just too tempted to make a sale at just about any cost. Next time, I’ll know better than to let my sales instincts undermine my entire business model.”

3. Monitor your reputation online. All the time.

“Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp have become essential components of many companies’ online marketing strategies, but there are countless other sites on which customers rant and rave about their experiences,” writes Inc. reporter April Joyner. When customers rant online, it has the potential to tarnish a company’s brand—and scare away prospective buyers.  There is a host of new tools to monitor what’s been said about them online. “Eighty percent of companies do fine with Google Alerts,” says Andy Beal, founder of Trackur, an online monitoring software company. “But once you have 30 different keywords to monitor, you’ll outgrow it very quickly.” Companies such as Trackur, Radian6, and Viralheat offer Web-based dashboards specifically designed to monitor multiple brands. Though the most expensive of these can cost more than $6,000 a year to use, many services offer less expensive packages for small businesses, Joyner reports.

4. Shut up and listen.

It sounds simple, and it sounds easy, but it’s often not. When a customer starts ranting, just listen.  Tali Yahalom writes on Inc.com: “Often customers feel the needs to vent frustration with a product or service before even considering a proactive solution.” And Thomas told her: “Acknowledge the customer’s emotional state,” Thomas says. And don’t get defensive. Remember that a good empathy statement does not imply ownership of the problem. Another key communication tip involves asking open-ended questions that involve the customer, Thomas says. This technique will not only divert focus from emotional frustration but also generate copious information about the problem at hand and help you arrive at the appropriate solution. “Rather than getting defensive … I need to simply listen to the customer, accept the feedback, thank the person, and then decide what to do,” she adds. As a bonus, the customer might feel appreciated and cared about, alleviating some of their emotional frustration.

5. Collect lots and lots of customer feedback.

Several companies offer tools that let customers submit feedback and vote on suggestions. Although all of these services offer some basic features for free, they typically require business owners to pony up for paid versions in order to moderate customer comments and integrate the tools into their company websites. With Get Satisfaction, customers can report problems, ask questions, submit ideas, and offer compliments. The most popular package for small businesses, priced at $89 a month, includes design customization and an analytics dashboard. Other options, such as IdeaScale, UserVoice, and UserEcho, are priced from $15 to $589 a month.

6. Sit tight and be nice.

Sometimes, necessary business-sustaining decisions irk customers. In the case of eMusic, an online subscription-based music service, in order to broaden the offering catalog, a price hike was needed. Customers lashed out online immediately. Adam Bluestein writes: “Over the next couple of weeks, Stein received more than 1,500 comments. ‘Good luck with your new major label friends,’ read one. ‘They will teach you so much more about screwing your customers,’ offered another. Over the summer, eMusic staff members worked to cool down the message boards and promote added-value features of the new pricing plan, such as album pricing, which allows customers to buy many complete albums at a discount on the regular per-track rate. The company also dispensed a flurry of virtual Band-Aids—giving customers ‘booster packs’ of free downloads and offering them free songs in exchange for rating or reviewing albums.” Lo and behold, a few months later the online dust had settled, with the site’s subscriber base holding steady.

7. Don’t fear using your QSA budget.

Clarissa Cruz writes that successful restaurants specialize in dealing with unappetizing situations with customers. “When a bug was recently discovered on a table at the Michelin-starred Jean Georges in New York City, management promptly moved the affected customers to another table and comped them drinks, dessert, and an additional course,” Cruz writes. Rajat Parr, wine director at Michael Mina in San Francisco, says: “Comps are built into our QSA [quality service assurance] budget. It makes up about one percent of the budget.” Consider that from the start, and don’t get bitter about using it, experts say. “It’s the cost of doing business,” adds Michael Madrigale, the head sommelier at Bar Boulud in New York City.

8. Focus on learning from the feedback.

Larry O’Toole, the founder of Gentle Giant movers, doesn’t get a lot of negative feedback from his customers. In fact, he tells Inc. magazine editor-at-large Leigh Buchanan that in order to solicit more criticism he broadened the rating spectrum or 1 to 10 he asked customers to place their service on to 1 through 14, where 12, 13, and 14 were all excellent. “That way people could give us a lower score and not seem too critical. They could circle 12, meaning you’re excellent but you could be better,” he says. But once you have feedback, it’s key to tune in to how you can actually use the criticism to make your company better. O’Toole tells a story: “I remember when my grandfather was teaching me how to drive. He told me, ‘If someone honks a horn at you, you probably could have done something a little bit better. Maybe they were being a jerk. But if you were a really good driver, that wouldn’t have happened. Instead of getting upset at that person, try to figure a way to improve.’ So if someone yells at me in traffic I just say to them, ‘Thanks for the feedback.’”

What Exactly Is A Business Model?

What Exactly Is A Business Model?*

Everyone in the tech world talks about business models. But I’ll bet that if you quizzed a random sample of these people, you’d find that they really don’t know what a business model is. I did just that with my students at UC-Berkeley. Most raised their hands, and MBA student Blake Brundidge’s attempt to answer the question was a valiant one—but none of them really had a clue.  The only one who got the answer right was Lionel Vital, a Stanford student gatecrashing my iSchool class.

The reality is that a business model is like the old saying about teenage sex: everyone talks about it all the time; everyone boasts about how well he or she is doing it; everyone thinks everyone else is doing it; almost no one really is; and the few who are are fumbling their way through it incompetently. (Yes, I know things have changed.)

I’ll tell you what a business model is, in case you are quizzed by your investors.

But first, let me answer the big question that is surely on your mind: what is a Stanford student doing at Berkeley? It may be that our classes at Berkeley are much better than those at Stanford. That is probably why Lionel approached me at the beginning of the semester and begged to be allowed to audit my class. To Lionel’s credit, he scored better than any of the Berkeley students. So perhaps some Stanford kids are a little smarter, but Berkeley students get better education? I know that our students certainly have a lot more fun. You just have to visit the campuses to note the stark difference.

Now let’s discuss business models. Sorry, the teenagers reading this will need to get their sex education somewhere else. I teach only entrepreneurship and globalization.

Step one in building a successful business is to learn what products or technologies your customers really need and are willing to buy. This is an iterative process that I explained in this piece. The vast majority of technology startups fail because too few customers buy or use their products. So don’t underestimate the importance of validating and testing your ideas.

Developing the right product is hard. But what is harder is building a good business model. Fortunately, there’s nothing magical about a business model. It’s simply the nuts and bolts of how a business plans to generate revenue and profits. It details your long-term strategy and day-to-day operations.

Entrepreneurs put together elaborate business plans showing optimistic market-share projections. Even 1% of a billion-dollar market seems lucrative, right? Wishful thinking is great, but when it comes time to create your business model, you need to be realistic. The challenges differ from industry to industry, but here are seven basic components of a business model:

1. Reaching customers.

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said, “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” The reality is that even if you did, no one would find you. Even when you know who your prospects are, it’s usually difficult and costly to reach them. You have to find them via the Internet and e-mail, or the old-fashioned way—through broadcast media, print ads, direct mail, telemarketing, or references or by cold-calling. And these potential customers are not likely to be waiting to hear from you and may not respond to you. So be sure you know how you are going to find and reach them.

2. Differentiating your product.

You think you’ve got the very best solution, but so does the other gal (or guy). There’s always competition, whether you realize it or not. Smart marketing executives know how to develop unique product-positioning strategies that highlight a product’s true value. You need to thoroughly understand the competition and effectively communicate the unique advantages of your product.

3. Pricing.

One of the most basic decisions you have to make is how much you’re going to charge for your product or service. Giving your stuff away is the way to go on the web, but remember that you still need to figure out how you are eventually going to make money—you can’t make it up on volume. Start by understanding how much customers value what they’re gaining from you. Then you need to estimate your total costs, analyze the competitive landscape, and map out your long-term strategy. For your company to survive, your product’s price must be greater than its overall cost.

4. Selling.

Persuading customers to buy a product that they need is one of the most important skills an entrepreneur must learn (read It’s All About Selling for Survival). You’re going to be selling at every juncture. So you have to understand what it takes to close a deal and put together the necessary sales process. And this process has to be perfectly conceived. Be sure you test your selling strategy as you would your product.

5. Delivery/distribution.

This is easy on the Internet. But for big-ticket items, you usually require a direct sales force; for mid-range products, distributors or value-added resellers; and, for low-priced items, retail outlets or the Internet. It’s different in every industry and for every type of product, but you have to get this right. Your products need to be designed and packaged for the channel through which they will be distributed to customers.

6. Supporting Customers.

In addition to teaching customers how to use your product, you need to ensure that you can deal with defects and returns, answer product questions, and listen to and incorporate valuable suggestions for improvement. You may need to provide consulting services to help customers integrate and implement your products. If your product is a critical component of a business, you may also need to provide 24/7 onsite or web support.

7. Achieving customer satisfaction.

The ultimate success or failure of a business depends on how much it helps customers achieve their objectives. Happy customers will become your best sales people and buy more from you. Unhappy customers will become your biggest liability.

All the pieces have to come together like a jigsaw puzzle in your business model. The good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch when formulating it. You can give yourself a head start by learning from competitors and other markets. It is not only the successes that provide valuable lessons; it is also the failures.

You can innovate as much in your business model as you do in your products. Be prepared to evolve your innovation strategy as you gain experience and as your market changes. Like your products, it will probably take several versions to get your business model right; you get better with practice.

How important is diversity within an organization

How important is diversity within an organization*

By the implementation of latest technologies, the world has turned into the global village. Such modernization in communication has allowed several organizations to spread their businesses in different parts of the world. It is in fact very positive step according to the different aspects of life.

When multinational organizations start its operations in new places, it gives broader chances of employment to experts and skilled people of that particular area. Such activities take place on city, state, province or country level.

On one hand, an organization is extending its business, and on the hand the organization must build a diverse environment. Human resource department shouldn’t be bias in relation to age, gender, race, ethnicity, physical abilities or qualities, and nationality.

The only apparatus of judgment should be educational background, work experience and expertise. Differences may prevail on an interpersonal level due to inequality in personalities, work styles, communication styles, and organizational skills. However, organizational decisions should be taken by ignoring all these unethical things.

HR management officials should make such effort to apply diversity; effectively and meaningfully in the workplace. It is not sufficient to simply acknowledge differences among people. Knowing the similarities among a diverse workforce is important in building high performing work team.

A significant way to approach similarities in organizations is to determine the goals and objectives to be met, and to form a team of individuals whose similarities will create synergy and whose differences will complement each other.

The end result of such diversity is a working environment that is inclusive. It is important for the HR officials to seek and recognize the individual talents and contributions that every employee brings to the workplace. In doing so, the differences and similarities will encourage accomplishment of the organization’s goals through a workforce that is prolific, creative, and effective.

Sometimes, organizations find very diverse consumer markets in terms of attitudes and preferences. In the workplace, these contradictory perspectives can contribute to the creativity that is needed for an organization to succeed. Thoughts developed in a diverse environment are very important because unique approaches and perspectives can lead to creative solutions for business issues.

Multinational organizations and groups deal with diversity in terms of cultural differences and are challenged to develop cultural competencies. Organizations must look for a mutual understanding among its diverse employees to achieve effective business results.

Twitter: Ten Psychological Insights

Twitter: Ten Psychological Insights*

Psychological research on Twitter reveals who tweets, how much, what they talk about and why.

There are now 190 million Twitter users around the world producing 65 million tweets each day. 19% of US internet users now say they use Twitter or a similar service to share updates about themselves—double the figure from the previous year (Pew, 2009).

So who tweets? Why? What are they talking about? And what is so engaging about all those little textual transmissions?

Since Twitter didn’t exist until 2006, psychologists have had little chance to explore it, but some of the early research suggests a social network unlike those that came before. Here are 10 of my favourite insights from this research, some less obvious than others.

Before we get onto the research, though, here’s a quick intro for Twitter newbies:

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a cross between a social network and a blog. The blog part is that users read and write 140 character ‘tweets’ which are largely public. The social network part is that people ‘follow’ each other then become part of each other’s Twitter conversations, they can also ‘retweet’ or retransmit other people’s messages to their own followers.

1. Twitter is like a game of broken telephone

Because messages are short and can be broadcast quickly and easily, Twitter can feel to its users like a fast-paced conversation (Boyd et al., 2010). The difference from a normal conversation is that people are taking part in a whole range of different interactions. It’s like being at a party and talking to 10 different groups at the same time.

All sorts of processes that you would recognise from conversations are also going on in Twitter: much information is simply repeated (retweeted) but messages are corrupted over time, like a game of broken telephone (UK: Chinese whispers), as people re-evaluate, re-interpret or misinterpret the meaning of the original tweet.

But Twitter doesn’t always feel like a conversation as people use it in different ways. In the same way that talking isn’t always conversation, sometimes it’s a command, an expression of surprise or an aid to thought. In other words, Twitter isn’t just social, it has a big informational component, which we’ll come on to.

2. People join Twitter to follow their friends

Network analysis of Twitter users in the early days by Java et al. (2007) suggested that people join because their friends are already using it. The networks resembled those seen in the analysis of cell phone networks.

The huge number of users is just what we’ve come to expect from the internet: people can easily conform to the technological norm because services are often free, and it’s well-known that free is a special price we can’t resist. The number of users is less interesting than what people are using it for and why.

3. Most tweets are babble

While not academic research, some insight into what people are talking about on Twitter comes from an analytics company who categorised 2,000 tweets collected over one week. They fell into six categories (similar percentages were found by Java et al., 2007):

1. Pointless babble: 41%

2. Conversational: 38%

3. Pass-along value: 9%

4. Self-promotion: 6%

5. Spam: 4%

6. News: 4%

What they call ‘pointless babble’ might better be called social pleasantries, social grooming or at least just babble. Like when someone says “How are you?” and you say “Fine.” It may be low-level, but it’s not pointless.

4. The average age is 31

The average (median) age for a Twitter user is 31, older than the median MySpace user who is 26, but younger than Facebook which is now 33. LinkedIn has the oldest users with the median being 39. Predictably the strongest growth in Twitter use is amongst those aged 18-24 (Pew, 2009).

5. Men are Twitter leaders

Some suggestions of sex differences come from Heil & Piskorski (2009). They found that there were slightly more women than men on Twitter (55% women), but that, on average, men had 15% more followers than women, with men twice as likely to follow another man as they were a woman, and women 25% more likely to follow men. Both men and women, however, were found to tweet at the same rate.

This finding is unusual given that it’s normally women who are the focus of attention on social networks, from both other men and other women.

I’m always cautious about reporting sex differences and keen to point out that psychologically men and women are very similar. But perhaps there’s something about Twitter that, on average, fits slightly more with men.

6. 20 per cent are ‘informers’, 80 per cent are ‘meformers

After examining 350 messages collected from Twitter, Naaman (2010) found two different types of user:

Informers: 20% shared information and replied to other users

Meformers: 80% mostly sent out information about themselves.

Informers tended to have larger social networks, perhaps because they passed on more interesting things and weren’t talking about themselves all the time.

This split hints at the different ways that people use Twitter. It also suggests that the conversational aspects of Twitter may have been overstated. If 80% of users don’t reply to others then it’s not that social.

7. Trends are one-time and short-lived

Tweets on a particular topic (Twitter trends) rarely last longer than a week and usually no more than a few days (Kwak et al., 2010). Most topics only trend once, then die, usually never to return. 85% of these trends are news-related.

Perhaps the reason for this is that trends, which are attached to the use of particular words or phrases, are often very specific.

8. Average tweet frequency is 1

The average (median) lifetime number of tweets for a Twitter user is 1 (Heil & Piskorski, 2009). This means most people who sign up are just following others or don’t use it at all. Once again, the power of ‘free’ and very low barriers to entry.

At the other end of the scale 10% of Twitter users contribute 90% of the tweets. This finding is unusual compared to other social networks where the use isn’t nearly so top-heavy. Heil & Piskorski note that in this respect Twitter is more like Wikipedia, which has a similar rate of top-heavy usage. Many but not all of the most-followed Twitter users are, unsurprisingly, celebrities.

This top-heavy usage reflects the fact that being interesting is a talent that not everyone can acquire (without relying on the halo effect of being famous that is). Occasionally, though, some manage the trick of being famous and quite interesting, e.g. Stephen Fry.

9. Existential angst can motivate users

Twitter is often uncharitably said to be perfect for our narcissistic age. It enables people to gather followers, talk about themselves, all without having to listen to anyone else.

A small study conducted by Qiu et al. (2010) has suggested that amongst the extroverted it really is existential angst that motivates tweeting. The same wasn’t found, though, for those who weren’t so extroverted.

I’d put forward a more positive argument: Twitter is simply a fun toy that’s easy to use. It’s much easier than blogging, you can mess around, you don’t have to say much and it makes the web a little more homely. At the same time it’s not as obsessed as Facebook and other social networks with gathering and displaying huge amounts of information about you. It’s less social than Facebook, which people seem to like.

10. Twitter is less social and more informational

Support for the idea that Twitter is more informational and less social than other social networks comes from Johnson and Yang (2009) who found that people treat other Twitter users primarily as interesting information sources.

In this study people also gained the most gratification from information they had found through Twitter. The social aspect of it, however, participants didn’t find particularly gratifying, despite a positive expectation.

Network analysis also tends to play down the social aspects of the site. Twitter shows relatively low levels of reciprocity compared with other social networking sites. Only 22% of Twitter users have reciprocal links between them, compared with 68% on Flickr and 84% on Yahoo! 360.

Kwak et al. (2010) found that the average path length is 4.12 with 93.5% of people within 5 or fewer hops of everyone else. This is mostly because Twitter is dominated by a small number of celebrities, making many more big nodes than would be expected in a social network.

Future Twitter

Of course these are only the first insights emerging from the research and people are evolving new and interesting ways of using and analysing Twitter all the time. Here are a few that I came across on my virtual travels.

Hughes and Palen (2009) looked at the use of Twitter in mass and emergency events. Tweets during two hurricanes and two political conventions suggested that people are increasingly using Twitter to share information with each other.

Here’s another way in which the informational nature of Twitter has come to the fore. Twitter is perfect for a crisis when information needs to be moved quickly and efficiently around social networks. Indeed researchers can detect emergency events like earthquakes by monitoring Twitter (Sakaki et al., 2010).

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