Twitter Is Great But It's Still Not The Phone

In case none of you know, I'm tracybb on Twitter. And for months, I have fruitlessly been applying to contests on Twitter. Most of these involve winning an iPhone and since I still have an old school phone, that prize sounds great to me. I tweet for moonfruit, or other silly things, in hopes of that elusive iPhone.

The other day, at the last possible second, I saw a posting on Facebook for a contest to be a TJ (Twitter Jockey) for the twiistup event. Tweet your reason why you should be the twitter jockey by 1 pm that day. It was about 10 at the time. Since the event was currently out of my budget (but I REALLY wanted to go), I decided to apply. Instead of being cutesy or trying to be funny, I just typed up a few reasons why I should be picked and sent it off.*

Previously, I would furiously check the sites to see if I'd won the prize. But this time, I promptly forgot. I don't seem to win these contests anyway. Oh, and I had my TweetDeck open all that day. But SOMEHOW, through all those annoying beeps on my TweetDeck, I missed the tweet that I had actually won! Me! It was me!

I check my many email boxes (yes, I have several, don't you?) all day long. I have Facebook open all day long. I have my phone at my side. But somehow, I missed it. When I get a direct message on Twitter, I get an email alert and it tells me the message. But when you just get an @ reply, there is no message. I don't really check my @ replies and the twitter user interface doesn't show them that easily either. So, I missed @socialmediaclub's tweet. Didn't even notice it on TweetDeck, as I have set up several filters of my own.

But, here's the rub. My Twitter profile has my URL on it. My site has all my contact information including my phone number, my email address, my Facebook page, even my business address. I could be contacted in a multitude of ways. Twitter was still not effective enough to reach me. I got the message a day too late, sort of like Morse code.

Ironically, I actually learned about the contest on Social Media Club's Facebook page. So, if they had contacted me that way, I'd have been a twittering fool. As I mentioned, I'm parked on Facebook all day and find that interface much easier to follow -- and they send me constant emails all day so I'm sure not miss one thing from my friends.

While people may mock the phone, it is still one of our best social media tools. It is instant messaging without the carpel tunnel. You not only get instant feedback but hearing a voice is more personal. If only I'd gotten a call.



* The winning tweet: @socialmediaclub: TJ me. Reasons: cute, concise, good writer, tech & social savvy, know the players (by name), local, and not shy. Please!
9:58 AM Jul 29th from TweetDeck

If you can't fight 'em

If you can't fight 'em, join 'em. But where to start? PR has been evolving and changing with technology since there was such a thing. I'm sure press releases weren't always faxed before there was a fax machine!

I have been in the PR business for 15 years and when I began, most publicists were still using blast fax to get their releases out to reporters. Or, in some cases, even mailing them! I was an early adopter to the Internet, however, and from almost the inception of my career I have been working with Internet companies and using the Internet to publicize them. I worked for InterActive Agency in Los Angeles before anyone knew what "interactive" even meant. Those were the good old days when you could just get press about a company launching a Web site.

But times have changed. Now, you have to fight for every column inch you can get, cyber or otherwise. So it's important to keep up with all the newest tools. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, how do you fit all these things into your PR plans and budgets? What role do bloggers play? Is Second Life significant? There are constantly new platforms emerging and others on the wane.

Well, now there is a way to keep up with them here. I hope to aggregate all the best content on social media right here on this site, along with basic tutorials on how to use the technologies (with a slant toward PR and marketing). I'm also going to post information on free or low cost webinars and real life seminars to teach social media practices. And just like the social media sites themselves, I hope that this blog will be constantly evolving and changing to keep up with the industry. One thing that will probably remain true is that social media marketing has become part of the fabric of public relations. So it's time to join the ranks!