Even if you don't know exactly what Twitter is I'm sure you've heard of it. It's kind of all the rage these days with stories about it appearing everywhere from major newspapers and network news shows to coffee shop conversations and sitcoms.

The official definition of Twitter is: "a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time." That's kind of clear as mud isn't it?

Another definition of Twitter is "extreme microblogging." When I post something to Consuming Louisville I can (and often do) ramble on and on endlessly. When I post something to Twitter I have exactly 140 characters to work with. Not 140 words but 140 characters. Micro indeed.

What's the point of Twitter? The same point of all social media: to communicate and connect. I "follow" (that's the Twitter term for subscribing to someone's updates or "tweets) friends, family, business associates, musicians and writers, anyone who is interesting to me and says interesting things on Twitter. You might not find what a particular person says on Twitter interesting and that's ok, you don't have to follow him if he doesn't interest you. That's the beauty of the whole thing, it's all about you and what you're interested in.

While the vast majority of people on Twitter are there only as individuals there are many Twitterers who are representing companies and organizations, including several here in Louisville. Some of them are doing really cool things with Twitter, others of them, well not so much. I'm not going to pick on anybody though. Instead I'm going to list some of the Louisville businesses and organizations on Twitter, highlight a few I think are doing cool things and list a few a businesses that I really wish would participate on Twitter and what the specific potential of Twitter is for them.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to make suggestions for the list(s) in the comments.

I'm preparing for tonight's Social Media Club Louisville meeting on "What's in the Tool Box?" where the tools we use in social media will be the topic of conversation. Folks who use the tools every day, folks who want to learn more about the tools and folks who are saying "what tools?" will all be present for asking and answering questions. I'm excited about the meeting and specifically about sharing some of the tools that I personally use, because well, I'm a geek like that.

However I've seen a couple things today that have given me that gently reminder all geeks sometimes need which is:

It's not the tools or the technology, it's the people using the tools and how they use them that is most important. 

The first reminder came from the deck from presentation by Leah Jones that was posted on slideshare. The deck is super short, just 5 slides, and the third slide simply says "You Use the Technology, The Technology Does Not Use You." Simple, true.

The second reminder came from an unlikely source for me, the website of a print newspaper, the Lexington Herald Leader. Specifically a blog on the paper's site called "Lu-Ann's Kentucky News Review." The about blurb for the blog is fantastic:

Kentucky News Review is not an RSS feed, not a Google alert, not a machine. It is online researcher Lu-Ann Farrar who is amazed at the world and wants to share that with you by 8:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. If you would like to suggest an image, blog post, news story, video, whatever - as long as it's interesting - e-mail Lu-Ann Farrar.

I'd wager money that Lu-Ann uses RSS feeds, Google alerts as well as various and sundry machines to write her blog each day but she's right, it's her, the person using those technologies that make the blog interesting. She's wading through the feeds, the alerts, the reader tips. She's curating content and giving her thoughts and opinions. She's one individual sharing information. She's what it's all about.

A few weeks ago I met, in person at a social event, a PR professional who sends me press releases for Consuming Louisville. I have occasionally written posts based on information sent to me in this person's press releases but for the most part the releases go to the trash. Why? Well let me quote from the Blog Pitch Policy on Consuming Louisville.

Emails that sound like press releases, press release attachments without actual email messages and other communication that could have just as easily been sent to and from a robot do not hold my attention. Since I'm a real person and you're a real person I'd encourage you to make our interaction person-to-person conversation instead of an email blast to a marketing list. I like people, I don't like email marketing blasts.

Can you guess what kind of contact I get from the PR professional? If I were scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for content maybe I'd be interested in email marketing blasts. If I were one of a staff of many maybe I'd take the time to wade through all of the press releases I get that seem uninteresting at first glance. If I were a print journalist maybe I'd want to be on the email marketing blast list and get the exact same impersonal press releases.

After a couple drinks the PR professional wanted to discuss the frequency, or lack therefore, of posts relating to information he had sent me. He also took issue with my blog pitch policy. He was a little aggressive when he said "why do you have to have things differently than everyone else? All the other publications want it this way." Well see, there's the problem. By "all the other publications" he meant "all the other print publications." I'm not a print journalist. Consuming Louisville is not a newspaper or print magazine. It's a blog. It's a blog I take as seriously as a newspaper writer takes his daily paper but it's still a blog. So stop pitching me like I'm a print journalist. Let's have conversation, let's build a relationship. You, Mr. PR Professional, are one person, sending information to me, one other person. Remember that and plan your communication accordingly. 

My good friend and fellow Social Media Club Louisville board member Jason Falls was recently interviewed and had some interesting thoughts on pitching bloggers versus pitching traditional journalists. He agrees that pr folks shouldn't be pitching bloggers like pitch journals, instead he says they should be pitching print journalists like bloggers:

11. @jaybaer: Do you advocate distinctly different outreach methodologies for bloggers and traditional journalists?

• @jasonfalls: Absolutely NOT. Problem with most PR is they've been reaching out to traditional media wrong. Bloggers are teaching us that.

12. @jaybaer: Very interesting. You're saying treat journalists like bloggers, not the other way around? Relevant, focused pitching, etc.?

• @jasonfalls: Damn straight. Key to blogger outreach is relationships, same as traditional media. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

As always, Jason Falls cuts to the heart of the issue.

You might think, that after meeting me in person, and chatting with me about these issues PR professional would have taken a step or two toward building a working relationship with me. No go. The same old press releases and canned emails are still going to the same trash bin.

I recently instituted a comment policy on Consuming Louisville. It's funny, I always advise clients to have comment policies in place when they establish new blogs but I've been lax in taking my own advice. It's akin to doctors being bad patients I guess.

What's interesting to me though is that I haven't had to institute such a policy. For well over a year the site has been growing and running with very few comment(er) problems. The lesson in that for me is that you can go a really long way toward influencing the content and quality of your comments by setting a tone on your blog. In other words: lead by example.

Comment policies are still important though to explicitly let your audience know what you expect from them and what they can expect from you. 

The Consuming Louisville comment policy is incredibly simple, as I think all such policies should be. It only has two tenets: don't be mean and don't be a spammer. Not every comment policy can be that simple but the more simple and direct you can keep your policy the better (aka more humanspeak less legalese).

The analogy of commenters as guests in homes has already been overused like crazy but it's the most apt one so I'm going to use it too.

Consuming Louisville is my home and I've invited you in. I very much want you to have a good time here and enjoy interesting conversations. To make sure everyone has a good time I have a couple very simple rules for commenting on Consuming Louisville*.

Don't Be Mean
You can disagree with me, you can disagree with other commenters, you can disagree with politicians, you can disagree with anyone you like. You must, however, do that disagreeing in a polite, respectful manner.

I work very hard to make sure Consuming Louisville has a nice tone and feel strongly that the comments should have the same. There are 6 million other places on the internet where you can be mean to people but Consuming Louisville is not one of them. So no name calling, no personal attacks, no hostility, no pointless snark. My personal philosophy is that earnestness and heart wins over sarcasm and snark every single time. This is a philosophy that I've put into play on Consuming Louisville.

Don't Be a Spammer
Dropping a press release into a comment is a no-no. Adding nothing to a conversation other than "hey check out my band/site/product" is also a no-no. If you've got something you'd like to see written about on Consuming Louisville please contact me instead of spamming the comments.

Comments that are either mean or spam will not be published (or they'll be deleted if they accidentally slip through moderation).

*Just like I have rules for guests in my brick and mortar home. While you might think standing on the kitchen table and singing "Freebird" constitutes a good time I'm not going to let you do it in my house. I get to institute such rules because I'm the one paying to keep the lights on and I'm the one left cleaning up the house after you go home. 

Last week I was a guest on WFPL's State of Affairs discussing "Our Evolving Relationship with Technology. " It was a really wonderful experience that allowed me to talk about some of the reasons I think social media is so important and how we need to teach people (youth in particular) how to do with social media and technologies in smart ways.

You can listen to (and download for future listening) the show from WFPL's archives. The other two guests with me on the show were smart and interesting as were the callers, I think you'll enjoy the show.

I've been working with some non-profit and arts organizations recently and I'm at the beginning of a potential relationship with an arts organization I'd really like to work with. So how and why arts organizations can and should be using social media has been very much on my mind.

So here are Five Reasons Arts Organizations Should Be Using Social Media.

To reach and engage a younger demographic
The future stakeholders of your organization (board members, donors, ticket buyers, patrons) are digital natives. If you aren't speaking their language you aren't speaking to them.
 
To remove barriers between your organization and your audience
Your organization is made up of humans, your audience is made up of humans. Be human! Social Media adds human conversation and personality to your organization and your communications.

To build interest and ownership in your organization's brand
Social Media allows infinitely more and more direct communication from your audience. Listen to them. Solicit their feedback, their input. Elevate their engagement, reward their participation. Let them know what they want and what they say has the real potential to influence decisions and the direction of your organization.

To both show and tell
Show patrons what you're doing, tell them about what you're working on. Build anticipation and excitement. 

Brochure/static website=snapshot in a frame

Social Media= CNN news ticker

To give your audience more to connect with and link to
We are a society of all consuming media beasts. Feed us! If you don't someone else will. Share your organization's stories, we're interested in them.

Give us new, original content that adds to and compliments your main content. It will give us more reason to visit your sites and exhibits, more reason to talk about you both online and off.

Last week I wrote five tips for PR/marketers pitching bloggers. I had two objectives for writing those tips. The first was completely selfish, I'd really like to see a decrease in the number of irrelevant, uninteresting pitches I receive. The second was more altruistic, I want to, in my small way, help ease the relationship (and potential relationship) between bloggers and marketers.

The relationship between bloggers and pr people is so new the boundaries, rules and codes of conduct aren't set yet. Some bloggers want to be pitched, some don't. Some think press releases and pitches are potentially interesting pieces of information they might want to pass onto their readers. Others think pr pitches are nothing more than spam.

I've had my share of bad pitches and even pr spam but as fun as it is just to complain about bad pitches and watch from the sidelines as bloggers and pr folks spar it doesn't really improve anything does it? While I'd very much agree that it is the responsibility of the PR industry not to spam bloggers it would benefit bloggers to be more proactive in helping the PR industry figure out what is and isn't spam, what is and isn't appropriate in terms of pitches, etc. I'm willing to bet if you lay out your ground rules for being pitched most in the PR industry will respect them.

So I encourage bloggers to implement Blog Pitch Policies and very much encourage PR folks to respect them.

Here is my very brief outline and the Consuming Louisville Blog Pitch Policy. Do with it as you will. 

Social Media is a brand new world for many experienced pr and marketing world people. They can't count on all the old rules and procedures that have always been in place. Bloggers aren't newspaper writers, they aren't magazine editors. They are a new, unique entity all their own with different protocols and etiquette. It's rude not to mention inefficient to complain about bad pitches or bad pr people and not try to help them learn to be better when dealing with bloggers.

In the spirit of helpfulness here are five tips for marketers and pr staff to keep in mind when pitching bloggers.

1. Know why you're pitching a specific blogger
Read the blog. I don't mean read the three most recent articles, I mean spend some time in the archives, subscribe to the feed, become familiar with the writer's style and her subject matter. Don't just pitch her because she's a woman and your company or client wants to sell products to women. If you can't figure out a specific reason to pitch this blogger other than she fits into a certain demographic box then don't pitch her. And I'm talking a real reason here. If someone writes about Apple products almost exclusively then she isn't a generic tech blogger and doesn't want to hear about your new software for Vista. If he's a vegetarian food blogger interested in the slow food movement he probably doesn't want to hear about your client's new line of frozen dinners.

Difference number 1: Most Bloggers Want to Hear from You (Barriers to Feedback and Communication)
While I'm sure a blogger would probably never get the name of Social Media Club Louisville wrong, as a Business First story about SMC Louisville's next meeting did, with no serious barriers to comment and communicate the author would have been quickly made aware of such a mistake and fixed it.

I wanted to leave a comment on the story to nudge Business First toward correcting Social Media Club's name in their article. To do that however I  had to register for an account.

Simon Blint is the Director of Visitor Relations for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.  He is also a man who until last week had a very small online footprint. Until last week if you Googled Mr. Blint you might have found his Facebook profile and little more. That exercise now will bring you many, many results all discussing his alteracation with a photographer in the museum. Very few, if any, of these discussions put Mr. Blint in a positive light. IN fact most of them make Mr. Blint appear petty, controlling and absolutely not someone you'd want as the director of visitor relations. I say these conversations make Mr. Blint "appear" because neither Mr. Blint or the SF Moma is talking. He might have a perfectly logical explanation for kicking a photographer who was following the letter of the museum's photography policy but since he isn't saying anything we don't know that.