Emotional face-twitter

The emotional face

of Twitter
by Luke Grange and Celia Prosser

The emotional
face of Twitter

by Luke Grange and Celia Prosser

First published December 2009

© Knowledge Solutions 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior
permission of the publishers, Knowledge Solutions. Requests and inquiries concerning
reproduction and rights should be addressed to Knowledge Solutions:

www.knowledge‐solutions.com.au

mailto:luke@knowledge‐solutions.com.au | mailto:celia@knowledge‐solutions.com.au
To purchase copies of this e‐book, please go to www.knowledge‐solutions.com.au

Disclaimer

This publication does not purport to be legal advice and is provided as a general guide only.
Some information may become superseded through changes to the law and as a result of
evolving technology and industry practices. Users should seek professional advice in relation to
their own online activities.

Edited by Jo Tayler www.jot.net.au
Typeset in 11/16pt Calibri by Jo Tayler www.jot.net.au

Cover image: © Photosani/Shutterstock
© KNOWLEDGE SOLUTIONS 2009

Images: © Steve Brandon (Flickr) p. 27; Richard Audet (Flickr) p. 30;
Shutterstock pp. 10, 12, 17, 23, 33, 37, 46.

2

Contents
About the authors ........................................................................................................................ 6
0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 7
1 What is online social media? ......................................................................................................... 9
What is microblogging? .............................................................................................................. 10
The reach of online social media ................................................................................................ 12
What is Twitter? ......................................................................................................................... 11
The emotional face of Twitter .................................................................................................... 11
Microblogging as a ‘segway engine’ ........................................................................................... 11
The reach of social media ........................................................................................................... 10
2 An introduction to the terms and concepts of Twitter ............................................................... 13
Your profile ................................................................................................................................. 13
Following .................................................................................................................................... 14
Followers .................................................................................................................................... 14
Unfollow ..................................................................................................................................... 14
Both ............................................................................................................................................ 15
Blocking ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Retweeting ................................................................................................................................. 15
The live tweet stream ................................................................................................................. 16
Looking at an individual’s tweets ............................................................................................... 16
Searching on topics .................................................................................................................... 16
Hash tags .................................................................................................................................... 16
3 Managing your online communities ............................................................................................ 19
Collaborative business networks ................................................................................................ 19
CBN tips .................................................................................................................................. 19
Friendly social network .............................................................................................................. 20
FSN tips ................................................................................................................................... 21
Linking CBNs and FSNs ............................................................................................................... 21
.
The reach of online social media ................................................................................................ 21

4 The place for online social media in business ............................................................................. 22
Is your business using online social media effectively? ............................................................. 23
Conference Twitter usage .......................................................................................................... 23

3

5 Emotional intelligence and online social media .......................................................................... 24
What is emotional intelligence? ................................................................................................. 24
Where did EI come from? .......................................................................................................... 24
.
Online social media as social science ......................................................................................... 25
Making sense of emotional intelligence .................................................................................... 25
.
6 Personal filtering ......................................................................................................................... 27
Filtering and EI ............................................................................................................................ 28
Inattention blindness.................................................................................................................. 28
Same words, different meaning ................................................................................................. 29
7 Using emotional intelligence in online social media ................................................................... 30
It's a new school playground and it takes time to establish yourself. ................................... 30
Thin slicing .................................................................................................................................. 31
Building trust online to build rapport ......................................................................................... 31
Being clear .................................................................................................................................. 31
You’re selling emotion ................................................................................................................ 32
Is your social media communication style working? .................................................................. 32
Keeping your audience in mind .................................................................................................. 32
8 Learning emotional intelligence .................................................................................................. 34
Stages of learning ....................................................................................................................... 34
Feel the love ............................................................................................................................... 35
Emotions influence our performance ........................................................................................ 36
How can I improve the way I communicate through social media channels? ........................... 36
How’s your reputation? .............................................................................................................. 36
9 Emotional intelligence and online communities ......................................................................... 37
Belonging .................................................................................................................................... 37
What is a value? ......................................................................................................................... 38
10 Applying emotional intelligence to online social media ........................................................... 39
.
Reflection exercise for EI ............................................................................................................ 39
11 Twitter – it's all about connection ............................................................................................. 42

Connecting people on Twitter .................................................................................................... 42
Rules for connecting ................................................................................................................... 43
The little fox ... ............................................................................................................................ 44

4

12 Twitter your business ................................................................................................................ 45
How can Twittering earn my business money? ......................................................................... 45
.
Building customer loyalty ........................................................................................................... 45
Customers research differently these days ................................................................................ 45
Measuring growth ...................................................................................................................... 46
Customer relationship management.......................................................................................... 47
00 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 48


5

THE EMOTIONAL FACE OF TWITTER

About the authors
Luke Grange

Luke is open minded, constantly revisiting communication concepts
to improve their timing, application and relevance. His three
passports are testament to an adventurous global career. Leading
Knowledge Solutions, together with the team, he helps clients take
part in new innovation and improving individual’s lives by
introducing online social media and open innovation. Client
engagement is the measure of online social media currency and Luke
has been developing and promoting online communities to help
companies develop their wealth of social media capital over the last
10 years. It’s his passion!

Celia Prosser

While working in the field of injury management in Australia and New
Zealand for ten years, Celia discovered that many of the injuries were
of a psychological nature, caused from interpersonal conflict or
bullying. Most of these injuries stemmed from a breakdown in
communication, poor leadership capabilities and lack of trust. So she
built on her existing skills in health science to include accreditation in
Emotional Intelligence and Workplace Coaching. Celia’s wide range of
skills and experience enable individuals and organizations to improve
their workplace culture to better achieve effective employee social
networking.

The Emotional Intelligence instrument Celia uses is the only
assessment supported by numerous peer reviewed research findings
and publications as well as tangible business case studies.

6

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

0
Introduction
The concept of online social media isn’t really new. While it has only recently become part of
mainstream culture and the business world, people have been using digital media for
networking, socialising and information gathering for over 30 years. So whether you're a newbie
or have been using it for a while this e‐book is for you. It's is designed to give you practical
advice on how to use online social media and enhance improve and strengthen your experiences
of social media.

Online social media didn’t start with computers – it was born on 'line'... on the phone. However,
the invention of the telephone is not what we’re going to explore here. Let’s fast‐forward to
1997, to a social networking site by the name of Six Degrees. This innovative website sought to
bring people together online. But only three years later it closed down. The reasons for its
closure were mainly due to users feeling uncomfortable putting information online and
interacting with strangers – especially when the internet hadn’t caught on quite yet. Basically it
was too early for its time. At this point most people didn’t really ‘get it’ or understand what it
was for or how they could use it in the way we do today.

Despite the early demise of Six Degrees, this site helped establish the central characteristics of
online social media that would later be fine‐tuned and elaborated on.

The move to emerging web‐based technology allowed us to shrink the world – metaphorically
speaking, of course. It allowed us to have quick and easy conversations online. That's what the
world wide web is really all about ... conversation. Initially we thought of it as a big library. Then
we thought it would be a place to publish from. But it’s really always been about conversation
and will continue to be about conversation as we keep moving forward. The fact that it
connected people through email gave us a buzz back in the 90s, but that quickly wore off as our
inboxes overflowed. CCing and BCCing still meant we had to open and read all those emails (not
to mention spam). Basically the system connecting and allowing us to communicate called email

is no longer effective and efficient enough.

But we don't want to linger too much in the past so let's zoom forward to the current day, when
we have reached a tipping point for the technology of microblogging. In a 2009 report completed
by MarketingProfs Research Insights it was demonstrated that new media is on the rise.
With company websites and email marketing approaching saturation levels in terms of usage,
attention is now shifting to interactive online social media.

7


Twitter has grown over a thousand per
cent in Australia since early 2009. Its
annual growth since last April exceeds
3200% (ReadWriteWeb).
Terminology
With these staggering figures in mind,
You may see the terms ‘microblogging’ and let's look at how this is affecting our
‘twittering’ used interchangeably as you move relationships both on‐ and offline and
through this e‐book.   what this means for our ability to
communicate with each other.
Twittering is microblogging. Microblogging is a
concept and Twitter is one of the technical tools Let's face it: Twitter is powerful! It’s
used to execute this concept.   bringing more people together than
(We would prefer to have called microblogging any other technology in the history of
'microsharing', which is a term we first heard communication.
used by Laura Fitton @Pistachio – follow her,
Microblogging gives you 140
she really really gets it.)
characters to get your message across.
If it is not communicated effectively
then your audience has no option but
to make erroneous assumptions about
the meaning of that tweet.

This is why we feel it’s important to introduce Emotional Intelligence (EI) into the social media
arena. With microblogging there is even more scope for being misunderstood and more need for
people to think about how and what they say in each message. Because emotions affect the way
we think they ultimately affect the decisions we make.

Have you ever asked your boss for a pay rise when they were in a bad mood? Of course not!
So let me ask you this… how do you know they’re in a bad mood? Is it what they’re saying, or
how they’re saying it? Is it based on their body language and/or a combination of all of these
things?

Now imagine for a moment that you only communicate with your boss online ... How do you
think that would affect your messaging? (Or your ability to get a pay rise!)

It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, YouTube or Flickr; your online
personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you,
personally, and, more specifically, the culture of your business.

We wrote this e‐book to help you navigate your way

around this new phenomenon and strengthen your
Wherever you see underlined text
experience of online social media in a productive way. in this e‐book, it’s a live link.
We also align emotional intelligence and online social Simply click on the link to open it
media for the purpose of enhancing effective in your browser.
communication through these channels – for your
business and in your personal life.

8

WHAT IS ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA?

1

What is online social media?
Online social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate
technology, social interaction and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio online.
This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied
perspectives and 'building' of shared meaning as people share their stories and understandings
(Wikipedia).

All online social media platforms share four main characteristics:
• public or semi‐public profiles for users
• members connect with one another because they have some sort of shared interest
• members can view and connect with other individuals (friends or friends of friends)
• online social media Services allow for user‐generated content.
Online social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable
publishing technologies. At its most basic, online social media is a shift in how people discover,
read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology,
transforming monologues (one‐to‐many) into dialogues (many‐to‐many) and it transforms
people from content readers into publishers.

Online social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the
online world and form relationships for personal, political and business reasons.

There are a number of technical tools that facilitate the connecting of individuals online (such as
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, Flickr and the various blogging sites). Each one
of these tools can be used for the reasons stated above however some are better suited for
different purposes.

For example, LinkedIn is better for establishing business relationships while Facebook has
traditionally been better suited to personal relationships (though this is changing as the drive for

the software to be all things to all people creeps in and we see added complexity.

9


What is microblogging?
Microblogging is a form of online
social media that allows users to
send brief text updates of 140
characters in length, or micromedia,
such as photos or audio clips, and
publish them – either to be viewed
by anyone or just by a restricted
group chosen by the user. These
messages can be submitted via an
increasing number of platforms,
including SMS, smart phone or the
web.

I often hear people say 'I don’t even
blog why would I microblog?'

Well for a start, there is a vast difference between blogging and microblogging. Very simply put,
the content of a microblog differs from a traditional blog in that it is much smaller in length and
aggregate file size. A single microblog entry can consist of a single sentence or fragment, an
image or a brief video.

Users microblog about particular topics; these can range from what one is doing or thinking at a
given moment to the thematic (such as sports cars), to business topics (such as brand
awareness).

Microblogs provide short commentary on a person‐to‐person level, share news about a
company's products and services, provide logs of the events of one's life and more.

Microblogging gives us the ability to communicate easily to people all over the world in an
instant. We can share stories, events and messages easily and quickly. It allows us to collaborate
with people all over the globe. It allows for brainstorming, problem solving and coordination of
activities in a relative instant.

Microblogging fosters cohesiveness, connections, accountability, leadership and authenticity – if
used in the right way.

The reach of social media
Facebook accounted for 14.5% of all UK Internet page views during September 2009,
equivalent to 1 in every 7 (Hitwise).

Twitter is now the 26th ranked website visited by Australian Internet users (week
ending 5 September 2009) (Hitwise).

10

WHAT IS ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA?

What is Twitter?
The microblogging tool Twitter grew out of a brainstorming session at a podcasting company
called Odeo in 2006. The idea was for individuals to use an SMS service to communicate with a
small group. The first Twitter prototype was used among Odeo employees. It was launched
publicly in July 2006.

Twitter became its own company in April 2007. Twitter really took off at the 2007 South by
Southwest Festival in the USA, where usage increased by 300%.

The emotional face of Twitter
Every one of us on Twitter looks different even
though, in its simplicity, it only has four LUKE: As I was growing up, my
fundamental facets: mother often used to say 'It's amazing,
• following
isn't it … we are brought into this
• being followed
• people you follow who also   world with two eyes, a nose and a
follow you (both) mouth, yet we all look so different'.
• blocking.

We all look different in Twitter based on the four facets in the face.

It's the combination of these four facets that determines your personal community surrounding
you in the twitterverse.

You can even go a step further and argue that we 'sense', 'listen' and
'communicate' through the face. Therefore understanding what you want your face to look like
on Twitter is essential.


11


Microblogging as a
‘segway engine’
Storytelling is so important and the internet
is the perfect platform for us to shoot the
breeze. This breeze may be about rocket
science, some new biotech discovery or the
latest Hollywood blockbuster.

Your knowledge doesn't all reside in your
head. There is a knowledge support network
that is hard at work trying to pass
knowledge to us and from us to others. The
internet allows us to do all this while having
a conversation – which is the most natural
way to pass on what we have in our heads.

A link in a tweet takes you to many places.
One of these is your awareness of the
proximity or alignment you feel with those
you have chosen to follow.

The reach of online social media
• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber baby boomers. 96% of them will have joined an
online social network.

• Online social media has overtaken porn as the number‐one activity on the
web.

• Australians are now the third‐highest per‐capita group of Twitter users on the
planet.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 58 million users. TV took 13 years. The internet
took four years. iPods took three years. Facebook added 100 million users in
less than nine months!
• 80% of Twitter users are on mobile devices. Imagine what that means for bad
customer service.

• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.

These statistics were featured in the YouTube video ‘Social Media Revolution' – it
gives incredible statistics on how online social media continues to grow and is worth
a watch.

12

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TERMS AND CONCEPTS OF TWITTER

2

An introduction to the terms

and concepts of Twitter
Your profile
Help yourself and help others – start by making it easy
to see who you are. Set up your Twitter profile with a
photo and a bio. In your bio, you need to explain what
You cannot NOT
it is that you are all about. In Twitter you only have 160
characters to do so, which is not a lot, so you really have a persona online.
have to think before you start to describe yourself. It's
a good idea to explain your reason for being part of
Twitter and also give a little insight into your personality. For example, start with something
about how you want to change the world and then say how much you like eating ice cream on a
sunny day.

It’s really important to set your profile up (with photo and bio) before you start to try and follow
others. If you follow someone without having these two things set up don’t expect them to
follow you; you will probably be blocked. The internet is now a two‐way conversation and we all
want to know a little bit about the other people out there before we get into deep discussion.
Everyone has a softer side – it's a great ice breaker just to show a little of this side of yourself in
your tweets and your bio.

Think of a suitable name to use in Twitter as
LUKE: I often meet up with Twitter folk your username. This is really important as it

offline as well as online. If your name is makes up part of your identity. If you have a
Harry Collins, but you decide to call yourself really unique first name – which most of us
Spanner on Twitter, expect to be called don’t – you could use that. A combination of
Spanner when you meet others in the street your first and second names may be a good
who recognize your profile photo!   one to use. Think about the context of your
Twitter account

13


Following
In the microblogging world, just as in real life, we can choose who we want to associate with.
You can actively follow people – and we don't mean stalking them or following them home. You
simply decide that you would like to see their tweets in your 'following stream'. If they decide to
follow you back then they will see your tweets in their following stream.

And so communities get built and overlap and relationships form.

Each time you read a tweet from the people you are following you can unfollow the person with
one click if their tweets stop interesting you or their links are not relevant to you.

Followers
If you have a public profile, anyone can decide to follow you. If you have someone following you
then they will see your tweets in their following tweet stream.

There are tools to gather a lot of followers quickly, which are easy to sign up to online, but what
you quickly realize is that it's not the number of followers you have but the value of the
followers that is most important.

We each need to take time selecting who we want to follow and blocking those that it doesn't
make sense to have following you – those who most probably lack authenticity and would erode
the trust of others. It’s not a good idea to automatically follow anyone that follows you.

Unfollow
When you hit ‘unfollow’ you won't see that
LUKE: People selling to me without person again. So what drives us to do it? As it’s so
having developed a working easy to ‘unfollow’ we thought we should provide
relationship get the boot if they sell to a run‐down on how to manage your community
me in a 'buy this now' kind of way.   in Twitter.
The community I have, the people If we don't see sharing from someone we
who I follow, would not sell to me in unfollow them; that's life. We have to share the
this way.
‘luv’ or else we will be unfollowed. Not everyone
They let me know what they like and has worked this out just yet so don't believe the
why they like it and if I want I can ask stats about how many people follow each other;
them where they bought it and that's
it will change. Things will begin to settle down
it. It’s done in a conversation because

that is what the internet is becoming: and we will begin to see people managing their
a conversation online. following and followers more effectively.

14


Both LUKE: The other thing I look out for from my
In order to be able to send a direct followers is that they share.
message (DM) to another Twitter
user you need to be following them I recently asked my wife what it is that keeps us
and they need to be following you. loving each other. She replied that we share stuff.
A DM is really useful once you have online social media is all about sharing – that's
established a relationship with your what binds the communities online.
follower. It’s not something to be Currently the Twitter tools don’t make it easy to
overused, but it is a more secure get to grips with all our followers in one view.
way to send contact details, such as But someone out there is no doubt developing an
a phone number, to an individual application to do just that; by the time you read
without having to broadcast this they have probably convinced you to use it.
personal details to   Soon we will have the ability to fine tune our
the twitterverse.   community and tweak the untapped value
out there.

Blocking
There is a dark side to the tweetspace. Some people punt pornography through tweets. These
individuals will follow you on the offchance that you will click on a link they post, which will link
to a porn site. It’s a good idea to block these individuals as some of their links could lead you to
getting a virus online (or offline!)

When you send a tweet it will go into the main twitter stream for anyone to see. However,
though most Twitter users only look at the individuals they follow. With this in mind, it’s
probably a good idea to block those who you don’t feel need to see your tweets in their
following stream.

Retweeting
Retweeting (RT or Via) is a way to relay a tweet you found useful, funny or interesting to your
followers, thereby giving them value. By retweeting you also give the originator kudos for the
value you see in the message. In a retweet you can add a couple of words of your own to
embellish the argument of add your slant.

It’s polite to thank someone who RTs your messages in a short tweet or DM.

If those you follow tweet content (such as URLs), and they are in line with your objectives, they
would have read the content they are linking to. Each time they vet it on your behalf and you

begin to trust their judgment over time. If you retweet such tweets, it's important to double
check that the link is working and that the content that it takes you to is relevant to your
followers before you RT it out across the twitterverse.

15


Similarly, your followers rely on you feeding them valuable content from those you follow and
they will reward you by handing out compliments and returning the favor with relevant valuable
links and RTs into their community.

The live tweet stream
The live tweet stream means that a person taking part in twitter can see tweets as tweeters
around the world are pressing the send button. This takes the shape of a stream of Tweets that
just keep coming as people converse with each other, allude to news reports or simply say what
they are thinking.

Looking at an individual’s tweets
If you want to see the list of tweets that one particular
person has sent over time you can click on their profile
and read their tweet stream. This enables you to see
You’re unique ... just   who they have been making contact with and what
like everybody else! information they have been sharing with the
Twitterverse. It allows you to come to grips with what
interests them and what their passions are, how they
express sentiments and, ultimately, their emotions.

Searching on topics
Another way to see a stream of useful information would be to search on a particular topic in
Twitter. If, for example, you are interested in rugby you could run a search for the word ‘rugby’.
All the most recent tweets with the word ‘rugby’ would be listed as a stream. Running searches
is a great way to find people in Twitter who may have similar interests; you might decide to
follow some of these people with similar interests.

Hash tags
Searching online brings us another dimension of the real‐time interaction that microblogging
brings us.

A hash tag is the hash (#) symbol followed by a term or topic that describes a common interest

and develops a following.

For example, there’s a rugby game underway and tweets are flying out about it. A hash tag could
be brought into play (excuse the pun) to create a stream about that particular game.
Let’s say you decide to tweet about a World Series rugby game between Australia and New
Zealand that is taking place and you want to have others reply to your thoughts. You could put

16


‘#OzNZrugby’ at the start of your tweet. If others want to join in they would also put the hash
tag ‘#OzNZrugby’ into their tweets and a common search tag develops momentum. You can then
click on the tag and be taken to a stream of all tweets people have posted about the topic. It’s
like watching the game with a group of friends; you get to share your thoughts and feelings and
see what others watching the game think of a try or tackle.

Quite a few reality TV programs have had hash tags assigned to them; viewers add their opinions
about who should be given the prize or who should win. Once again, it’s like having everyone
who’s interested in the
same program that
you are watching
taking part in one huge
conversation as the
event unfolds in real
time.
This can have some
interesting results and
raise issues for TV
programmers, as can
be seen in the story
about MasterChef
below.

17


Mainstream media must come to terms
with realtime social media results
Twitter became a space for the crazed support of the most popular reality
show in the history of Australian TV: MasterChef. (The same was also true
in many other countries.)

But something fundamental was uncovered: airing the same competitive
show across a country with different time zones doesn’t work.

The MasterChef final went to air on the east coast of Australia at 7.30pm.
Due to the two‐hour time zone difference, it was to be aired two hours later
on the west coast of Australia (when it would be 7.30pm there).

MasterChef, during the series, gained a massive following on Twitter. Do a
search for #masterchef in Twitter and see for yourself. For many who use
Twitter, the series was made that much more special when shared with
new and old friends alike online. The advertisement breaks for once
became useful as Tweets leapt between the lounge rooms of viewers. This
is entertainment and we will see this concept grow and grow.

Have you guessed the problem? All the viewers on the west coast who use
Twitter had to endure the final results, which had been guarded till the last
moment, without having seen the show yet. Big letdown to watch the
suspenseful last episode already knowing the result! This is reality TV … if
the results get out beforehand, the shows rating will go down and the
entertainment appeal will decrease. Twitter could spell doom for many
very clever shows, some of which will never get a chance to air as there
may be no point until TV companies work it out.

A possible solution would be to make the shows more localised and
actually incorporate online social media to boost the number of viewers. © KNOWLEDGE SOLUTIONS 2009

18

MANAGING YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITIES

3

Managing your online

communities
Let’s say there are, for simplicity’s sake, two types of community networks out there. (The word
'social' does not always apply in the context of online social media.) There are the more formal
collaborative business network (CBN) forums and there are the friendly social networks (FSN).
They both have separate benefits and you should try to manage them as separately as you can.
Following are some rules of thumb that might help establish sanity in your online social world.

Collaborative business networks
The collaborative business network (CBN) is a network of professionals with whom you have
come in contact over your working life. As you change jobs over time you may lose touch with
these people (some of whom knew more about you and felt as close as family, given the amount
of time you spent or spend with them). Some of these people may be ex‐bosses who will give
you a reference, which you can place in your profile of this forum. CBNs relate to your
professional life.
But be careful, these networks can also work against you. If you invite everyone you have ever
received a business card from or simply people who you never met who worked for the same
companies you once worked for, you begin to dilute the value of your CBN. This is not a sensible
approach and you may lose credibility as a result.

CBN tips

Here are some suggested rules to follow:
1 Don't dilute your network. Think before you invite or accept someone else’s invitation to
link with them.
2 Work it and it will work for you. (Invest the time.)
3 Maintain contact with the people on the network from time to time – even if it's just a
simple friendly hello.

19


4 Before posting any messages take a moment to reflect upon what emotional response you
are wanting to elicit from your audience.
5 You may disagree with this one (you’re welcome to do so!): keep your CBN and FSN
separate. Too many people allow far too many of their business contacts into their
Facebook network and live to regret it!
Sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo can be like a live CV or resume of all your career experience and
professional skills. Recruitment agents and companies are using these more and more to look for
new recruits and check up on job applicants.

These sites also allow fellow community
LUKE: Your Facebook profile photo is members to post references. This referencing
visible to the world so make sure you’re has lacked authenticity in the past, but is
wearing some clothes in it.   starting to be considered bone fide as a critical
mass develops.
I know someone who wasn't and the
whole office took great delight in Your own credibility hangs in the balance if you
emailing it around. give a reference for someone and it ends up
being untrue or inaccurate. These forums, as a
result, begin to self‐police themselves.

Friendly social network
Your friendly social network (FSN) is a circle of people who you choose to share personal stuff
with.

This is more of a leisure activity and, depending on your personality, you may spend hours each
day or evening uploading stuff and checking what your friends have uploaded and written
recently.

This is an absolutely wonderful place to stay in
LUKE: I don't have the energy to break touch with people while you are travelling. It’s
my Facebook site into multiple security also a great way to maintain contact with family
groups and compartmentalize my so and close friends living in different states or
called 'friends' into who can see what countries. It shouldn’t replace the phone. If used
videos or photos. I want to keep it as in conjunction with other communication tools,
simple as possible. this type of communication enhances the bond
you can develop with others.
FSNs must be used with a level of maturity. Too
CELIA: I have seen relationships break often we see a naïve approach to the FSN

up as a result of Facebook passwords concept. Think before inviting someone to be
being shared. On the flip side, I have your friend. Do you want to share everything
heard of longlost friends getting in you are going to upload onto the site with
touch and rekindling relationships ... them? Once you have made someone 'a friend'
some even falling in love! to later 'discard' or ‘block’ them could have
negative emotional consequences.

20

MANAGING YOUR ONLINE COMMUNITIES

FSN tips

Here are some suggested rules to follow:
1 Ask ‘do I really want them to see this stuff?’ before you invite or accept.
2 Consider the emotional consequences of a post or upload and, if in doubt, phone and
explain what you really mean.
3 It's a great way to share experience and have fun, but remember there is a serious side.

Linking CBNs and FSNs
FSNs and CBNs coming together is becoming more the norm. When you are explaining online
social media to someone, it’s far easier to separate them first and then explain that they often
do overlap. Facebook, for instance, has become a well‐recognized and effective business
platform.

The reach of online social media
YouTube 445 • #2 site in global minutes
million
• over one billion video views each day
users
• 17 billion searches in August 09
• 20hrs+ videos uploaded every minute.

Facebook   390 • #1 site in global minutes
million
• over 6 billion minutes spent each day
users
• over 2 billion pieces of content shared every week

• over 2 billion photos

• 6 million Australian visitors in June 09
• (the equivalent of the 4th‐largest ‘country’ on the
planet)

Twitter 55 million • Real‐time micro broadcasting
users
• 5,000 messages/second sent

• available via web and mobile

• 800,000 Australian visitors in June 09

21


4

The place for online social

media in business
Bringing online social networks into the mainstream and embracing them is a relatively new
concept for businesses. The MySpace and Facebook generation has grown up with them. As
these individuals take up management positions, online social networking is simply becoming a
part of the fabric of business – whether in a formal or informal way.

But even though younger generations live their lives
bathed in social media 24/7, this does not mean that
they immediately see the relevance of it in business.
The benefits of using
The organizations that work out now how to integrate
online social media for online social media into their operations will be the
business are about return most successful.
on engagement: Connect This seems like a simple equation on the surface, but
with people. Build in reality it's a complex task that needs to be
opportunities through addressed by effective emotional intelligence skills at
each point along the communication journey by
dialogue that would not
everyone involved in the conversation. (This includes
have otherwise occurred. those who only listen – don't forget them!)
Then connect them with
Twitter is incredibly powerful. It’s bringing more
your business. people together than any technology in the history of
communication.

22

THE PLACE OF ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS

Is your business using online social media
effectively?
As you become more aware of how you communicate online you will engage more and more
effectively, which strengthens your ability to communicate over all social media channels –
including Twitter. It’s important to establish a common strategy for application in each of your
social media channels in order to remain effective online. You can repurpose content from
different channels, but it’s essential that you don’t simply repeat the message, but revise or edit
according to the environment and audience.

Conference Twitter usage
Twitter is really taking off at conference venues – this
brings a whole raft of value to the experience of the
event. As the speakers are describing ground‐breaking Imagine if you could
findings or concepts, twitterers in the audience are hook up with all the
tweeting the essence of the information to their people you would
followers.
consider just brilliant ...
This has an amazing effect in that it brings the outside
We hope this section
world into the room and followers start to build on the
ideas as they are being expressed, so aggregating
generates some
value. conversations!
Typically a common conference hash tag is used and Let us know what you
followers start to cluster around the threads of think.
information.

Some people following the information coming
out of a session will simply
take it all in while others will
start to participate and add
their own views and ideas.

We have often seen people
inside the auditorium think
that the tweets are coming
from within – not so. People
outside simply need to get

hold of the context and they
can build on the value being
given and propagate that to
the twitterverse for others
to contribute to.

23


5

Emotional intelligence and

online social media
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence (EI) can be defined as a set of skills that demonstrate how often we
perceive, understand, reason with and manage our own and others' feelings, emotions and
mood states. If that's too much of a mouthful, another definition is: an awareness of and ability
to manage emotions in a healthy and productive manner.

After all, emotions give us vital information and we need to learn to listen to that information.

Where did EI come from?
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions.

Since 1990, Peter Salovey and John D Mayer have been the leading researchers on emotional
intelligence. They defined emotional intelligence as 'the subset of social intelligence that
involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate
among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions'.1

Salovey and Mayer proposed a model that identified four different factors of emotional
intelligence:
• the perception of emotion
• the ability to reason using emotions

• the ability to understand emotion
• the ability to manage emotions.


1
P Salvoney & JD Mayer 1993, ‘The Intelligence of Emotional Intelligence’ in Intelligence,
17(4), pp. 433–42.

24

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA

In 1995 the concept of emotional intelligence was
popularized after the publication of psychologist and
New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman’s
book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More So do you place enough
Than IQ. emphasis on how
effectively you are
Online social media as communicating online?
... Seriously ... Do you?
social science
We would love to have
Realistically, online social media is about social science
loads of discussion on
and not technology. Social science can be defined as
the scientific study of human society and social
this point so feel free to
relationships. It can be argued that these days digital build upon what we
communication channels: have laid open.
• can act as your receptionist or first point of
contact
• are your spokesperson
• are the main contact for your talkative customers.
So it makes perfect sense that we should be working out how to use emotional intelligence to
make sure our online communications, especially those in online social media, have the best
chance of being clear and unambiguous, engaging and represent our business accurately.

Making sense of emotional intelligence
Below is a table showing the seven skills that define how effectively we perceive, understand,
reason with and manage our own and others’ feelings. We have simplified it so it is not too
overwhelming. We have done this because emotional intelligence is a new concept in the space
of social media. Whether you are new to Twitter or have been tweeting for ages we want to help
you enhance, improve and strengthen your experience of the tools.

Don’t get too hung up on each of the skills. The first step is awareness. There is a reflection
exercise at the end of this section to help with that.

Don’t over‐analyze yourself. Because we try to be aware of how often we demonstrate
emotionally intelligent behaviors, you may think you are low in certain skills. But, in fact, other
people may have a different view of you.

Or vice versa – you may believe you demonstrate We admit it ... we also want

certain behaviors regularly, but other people may not
to open up some dialogue,
see it as being so.
so have a read and let us
It is by developing awareness that the gap can be
closed, creating an opportunity for growth and
know what you think.
learning.

25


EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT
SKILL OF EI DEFINITION
LEADERS USE THIS SKILL TO …
Emotional self‐ The skill of perceiving • recognise how feelings are impacting
awareness and understanding one’s thoughts, decisions, behaviour and
own emotions performance at work

Emotional expression The skill of expressing • generate trust and perceptions of
one’s own emotions genuineness with others
effectively
• inspire commitment from those they lead
when presenting the organisation’s vision

Emotional awareness   The skill of perceiving • better understand others and how to
of others and understanding engage, respond, motivate and connect with
others emotions them

It is a fundamental element of interpersonal
success and quality of interpersonal
relationships

Emotional reasoning The skill of utilising • influence marketing strategies (as they take
emotional information in into account how customers may feel
decision‐making towards a product or service).

(Low scores may indicate an individual has a
more fact‐based decision‐making style.)

Emotional self‐ The skill of effectively • improve their ability to cope with work
management managing one’s own demands
emotions
• practice effective self‐leadership

• manage stress levels

Emotional management The skill of influencing • create positive work environments for those
of others the moods and emotions they lead
of others
• generate greater productivity and
performance from others

Emotional self‐control The skill of effectively • improve their emotional wellbeing

controlling strong
emotions experienced • think and lead others clearly in stressful
situations

Source: adapted from Genos EI (Research partner, The Brain
Sciences Institute, Swinburne University).

26

PERSONAL FILTERING

6

Personal filtering
According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, we gather information from the world.2 Out
of approximately two million bits of information surrounding us, we are only consciously aware
of around 134 bits per second (BPS). At every waking moment we are literally inundated at a
conscious and unconscious level with information.

Imagine going to the supermarket. You walk into the store and you are surrounded by external
stimuli (such as signs, color, noises and pricing) and your body responds. Perhaps your heart
beats a little bit faster, the sound of a crying child disturbs you, you feel warm or cool, you have
self‐talk reminding you to buy milk or you mentally add up the cost of your groceries as you push
your trolley around the aisles.

If we had to be consciously aware of everything we see, taste, touch, smell and feel and pay
attention to it we would be overwhelmed. So we
have a filter Csikszentmihalyi calls the ‘reticular
activating system’, which filters most of the
information for us. We are only aware of a small
piece of the actual reality occurring around us.
Some of us pay more attention to what we see,
some to what we hear. Some of us are more aware
of how things feel and some of us pay more
attention to data, facts and figures.

What that means is that none of us perceive
reality as it really is. We each only perceive a
different set of 134 bits of reality per second. We
all have a different perception of reality. This

explains why ten different witnesses at an accident
scene can have ten different experiences of what
occurred, based on what they have seen, heard,
felt and calculated.


2
Csikszentmihalyi, M 1990, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper and Row, New York.

27


Inattention blindness
Daniel Simons (University of Illinois) and Christopher Chabris (Harvard University)
conducted a study to demonstrate how much we can actually delete information.

In their study subjects were asked to watch video footage of people throwing a
basketball back and forth. They were asked to focus and count how many times the
basketball was passed. In the middle of the video clip a person in a gorilla suit
passed through the middle of the game for nine seconds and then out of sight.

When asked, an average of 50 per cent of the subjects didn’t see the gorilla pass
through the game! Why? Some people were focusing so much on the counting and
data that they missed out on the visual detail of a gorilla in the middle of their view.

As we gather information from the world the mind deletes, distorts and generalizes information
based on the beliefs we hold internally. If someone believes they are stupid, they may delete
from their experience any time they do something clever. Their mind will distort information, so
if someone says to them ‘You are so clever’ they may hear a sarcastic tone where there is none.
Their mind will generalize their experiences to support the belief they are stupid so they create
experiences, such as always failing exams, to support that theory.

Of course this is all unconscious. None of us would want to do this consciously. It’s human
nature to want to be happy and successful. Yet we have so much fear that we fabricate stories
to keep ourselves ‘safe’. Our unconscious minds then control and run programs automatically
for us – sometimes even programs that give us a result we don’t want, one that we struggle
to turn off.
The deletion of information also has an impact on how
we communicate online with other people. Whenever
we judge someone or have negative opinions about
Do we ever know with
someone or something, we tend to justify our own
100% certainty what is reality and make that person wrong. We effectively
going on in someone delete anything good about them from our reality.
else’s mind? ... Unlikely! Because of this, when we communicate through online
social media channels our minds will arrange
information in such a way that makes sense to us.

Filtering and EI
The existence of these filters and the need to become aware of our emotional intelligence is the
reason we wrote this e‐book. We want to get everyone thinking about what life is like in

28

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