The document discusses evaluating the usefulness of social media tools, particularly Twitter, in professional contexts. It outlines practical approaches for assessing social media tools, including the purpose of use, target audience, integration into existing workflows, and the risks involved. The text also emphasizes experimentation and community learning, proposing a '15 minute test' to gauge the tool's usability and effectiveness.

1. Twittering: frittering or fabulous? Or…Twitter as a case study for assessing the usefulness of a social media tool in YOUR work context. Nancy White Full Circle Associates http://www.fullcirc.com

2. With seemingly endless opportunities to try yet another social media tool, how do we assess the value of any one of them in our work ?

3. Let’s look at as a case study to experiment and develop practical social media tool assessment and adoption approaches .

4. A couple of ways into the topic… Item Possible Measures Comments Purpose: WHY use it Supports identified organizational/personal goals Or…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!) Target “audience” – who do you want to engage with Value creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports work Getting Started: Find/install Ease of download (if applicable) - Product and related apps, etc. Successful registration (personal? org?) Firewall issues Device compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…) Getting Started: Figuring it out Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with Someone around to show me (my favorite!) Active user community Findable case studies/examples Available practice tips Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”) Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check) How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?) How it fits with time/attention availability Dependencies & risks Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience? Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

5. Item Possible Measures Comments Purpose: WHY use it Supports identified organizational/personal goals Or…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!) Target “audience” – who do you want to engage with Value creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports work Getting Started: Find/install Ease of download (if applicable) - Product and related apps, etc. Successful registration (personal? org?) Firewall issues Device compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…) Getting Started: Figuring it out Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with Someone around to show me (my favorite!) Active user community Findable case studies/examples Available practice tips Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”) Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check) How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?) How it fits with time/attention availability Dependencies & risks Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience? Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

6. Beth Kanter’s 7 Questions What is my objective for using this tool? What benefit? What is the work task that I want to make more effective or efficient? How does it fit into my workflow What are the tool’s features ? Does it support the above? 15 minute test: Can I figure it out in 15 minutes or find someone to help me figure it out? What is a use-case that I can test over the next week that won't be too time consuming? After using the tool for 10-15 minutes every day, what are the benefits ? What is driving me crazy? How does it compare to other tools I'm using for the same purpose? Enhance or replace? If there is value, can I make a commitment to using it?

7. Purpose I want to accomplish … … at the a)the individual, b)interpersonal, c) organizational, or d) societal level . I want to engage/interact with … Twitter might help by… This aligns with my other goals and activities in the following ways…

8. Item Possible Measures Comments Purpose: WHY use it Supports identified organizational/personal goals Or…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!) Target “audience” – who do you want to engage with Value creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports real work Decision – personal or organizational account? I’ll start w/ personal. Organization says yes/no… I’ll start personal and cross that bridge later I want to see if I can better connect w/ librarians like me. Getting Started: Find/install Ease of download (if applicable) - Product and related apps, etc. Successful registration (personal? org?) Firewall issues Device compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…) Getting Started: Figuring it out Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with Someone around to show me (my favorite!) Active user community Findable case studies/examples Available practice tips Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”) Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check) How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?) How it fits with time/attention availability Dependencies & risks Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience? Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

9. Installing Twitter Is this OK in my IT organization? Firewalls? Does it replicate, replace or fill a tool gap? Some rights reserved by Eleaf http://www.flickr.com/photos/eleaf/2536358399/sizes/m/in/photostream/

10. Item Possible Measures Comments Purpose: WHY use it Supports identified organizational/personal goals Or…simply an experiment? (that’s ok!) Target “audience” – who do you want to engage with Value creation (how you’d identify/measure) – supports real work Decision – personal or organizational account? I’ll start w/ personal. Organization says yes/no… I’ll start personal and cross that bridge later I want to see if I can better connect w/ librarians like me. Getting Started: Find/install Ease of download (if applicable) - Product and related apps, etc. Successful registration (personal? org?) Firewall issues Device compatibility issues (PC, Mac, mobile…) I’m starting only w/ web client but from what I hear, the downloaded clients make the tool more useable and useful! How is this different from Facebook? Getting Started: Figuring it out Useful vendor materials/examples Ease of experimentation Getting Started: Who can I learn from/with Someone around to show me (my favorite!) Active user community Findable case studies/examples Available practice tips Experimentation Small “Safe – Fail” experiments, iterate (Beth Kanter’s “15 minute test”) Workflow Am I really integrating it (reality check) How it integrates or competes w/ my current tools/practices/workflow (ready for uncertainty?) How it fits with time/attention availability Dependencies & risks Who needs to be involved? Willingness of intended target audience? Viruses, against organizational policy, risk of saying something stupid, other risks, etc.

11. Make an account at http://www.twitter.com Personal or organizational? Set up Twitter home page Bio? Logos? How to do it well? Tips? Twitter applications and clients Tweetdeck Hootsuite Facebook Useful resources (more at end ) Using Twitter http://www.flickr.com/photos/beardenb/59207597/

12. http://kindofdigital.com/useful-stuff/what-is-guides/ Get me some great resources!!

13. http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437

14. Learn from a Puppet! http://vimeo.com/20008272

15. Figuring Out Twitter Listen and Connect: Create an initial network Followers/following Lists Tools to find other “tweeple” Some rights reserved by abrinsky

16. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-psychology_b12776

17. “ Talk” Your Twitter goals What kind of Tweets? Frequency Crossposting Responding Monitoring Some rights reserved by gin_able

18. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-psychology_b12776

19. A Few More Application Realities Who do you want to interact with and how much do they/are they willing to use the tool you are considering? Because this is online, how does it represent you? ( Identity )

20. Safe-Fail /15 Minute Experiments Some rights reserved by Josef Dunne http://www.flickr.com/photos/josefdunne/4319306255/sizes/z/in/photostream/

21. http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437

22. http://artssocialmedia.wikispaces.com/file/view/what%20to%20tweet%20worksheet.pdf or http://bit.ly/rbFLAf

23. August 17h around 10:30 am PDT

27. Twitter Evaluation Tools Social Mention http://www.socialmention.com/ TweetReach http://www.tweetreach.com/: Put in a brand, tag or phrase and it will tell you how many Twitter users were reached. Free sample search, then paid. 4 – Twitalyzer http://www.twitalyzer.com/ : Gives you various influence scores for a Twitter account. Some seem a little convoluted, but the charts it throws up are useful 5 – Twitter Grader http://www.twittergrader.com/ : Gives you a Twitter score based on various different criteria, such as followers and followers / following ratio. Used to be popular a year or so ago, still worth looking at sometimes if you want to compare two IDs 6 – Mention Map http://apps.asterisq.com/mentionmap/#user-dirktherabbit : Put in Twitter ID and see closest relationships to other Twitter users. Klout.com More on social media measurement for non profits http://www.scoop.it/t/social-media-and-nonprofits-measurement/p/395169768/bloom-s-taxonomy-and-ipad-apps-langwitches-blog Beth Kanter’s Twitter measurement project wiki http://socialmedia-strategy.wikispaces.com/Twitter

28. So what did you learn? How do you measure your success ? How do you learn from any failures ?

29. What’s next?

30. More , More , More Resources What is Twitter http://www.slideshare.net/kindofdigital/what-is-twitter-8687602 Facebook NPO/Social Media group -ask me, I can add you http://www.facebook.com/groups/158023107553360/ Beth Kanters slides on Twitter practices http://www.slideshare.net/kanter/habits-of-highly-effective-tweeple-5571437 A more general piece on social media strategy http://socialmedia-strategy.wikispaces.com/Twitter More on social media http://www.scoop.it/t/social-networking-for-information-professionals/ My Twitter related bookmarks (oversharing!) h ttp://www.delicious.com/choconancy/twitter Great slide deck on social media and learning in the workplace as context for tool exploration http://c4lpt.co.uk/library/janes-articles-and-presentations/social-media-and-its-impact-on-how-we-learn-in-the-workplace-2/ A tool selection process described for educationalists http://web2survivalguide.wordpress.com/web-20-and-education/choosing-the-right-tool/ A deeper example about dependencies with your target people http://www.freireproject.org/blogs/putting-social-justice-social-media%3A-assessing-tools-trends Past Webjunction artifact that explores Flickr as a storytelling tool https://www.webjunction.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=94460991&name=DLFE-25280001.pdf