More Twitter Lingo Explained

My coworker Allison has getting been getting into the social media game! If you missed her two excellent articles about Twitter, you should check them out -- the first one is a more general introduction to Twitter and its terminology, and the second gets into more specific examples of how arts organizations have been (and should be!) using Twitter.

There's plenty of Twitter info that didn't make it into the main articles, so I'll be posting some of the "outtakes" from here on the blog. Here's the first!

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Allison Klein, guest blogger:

If you've been listening or have recently started tweeting yourself, you've probably noticed that a lot tweets that have "RT" peppered throughout them. Welcome to the world of the re-tweet.

What?
Abbreviated as "RT," the idea of the re-tweet is really just a way to indicate that you’re quoting another users’ tweet. If you find a tweet to be particularly interesting, full of useful information, or including call to action worth passing along, you may consider re-tweeting it.

How?
To re-tweet something, just copy and paste the content of the original tweet, and precede it with the letters “RT” to indicate that it includes something that you’re re-posting from another user. Follow that abbreviation with "@" and the username of the original tweeter to give them credit. If you that doesn't push you over the 140-character limit, you might also want to include your own comments, but the re-tweet can also stand alone. (And yes, you have to copy/paste -- just typing "RT" will not do anything "automatically" like I thought it would the first time I tried to re-tweet something.)

Why?
I find that re-tweeting comes very naturally -- I don't know about you, but I'm always sending links to useful Web sites or funny videos to my friends and co-workers. Re-tweeting is just the equivalent of this practice in the Twitterverse. So I guess what I'm saying is--why not use it? It's an easy way to become a more regular/active tweeter without having to come up with or find your own content.

PLUS, using the re-tweet is a great way to get a conversation going with another Twitter user that you might not know yet. Once you've re-tweeted them, many people (corporate accounts included) will send a thank you message (via @reply), which you in turn can reply to if you so choose, so it really does serve to help build new relationships on Twitter. You're putting yourself on the original tweeter's radar -- which means that they might very well start following you, and so might some of their own followers. So think of re-tweeting as a good karma measure! The more you re-tweet and give credit to other Twitter users, the more likely they will be to take notice of your tweets and do the same.


Here are a few examples of re-tweets that I've posted recently, so you have an idea of what this looks like and how they may be used.

After seeing Hair on Broadway:

(I didn't happen to catch the performance on Letterman after all, but as a result of my re-tweet, my colleague @seajo did!)


Regarding a giveaway I was missing while out of town:

Notice that this one's a DOUBLE re-tweet: Not only am I re-tweeting the tweet that @NewYorkology posted, but they're re-tweeting the original 'news' story from Twitter user @MidtownLunch. This is how things tend to go a bit viral on Twitter!


You're probably following and being followed by other Twitter folks in your field:

You're bound to come across tweets that will be useful to those followers professionally, so why not re-tweet that content and help get the word out?


I found this original tweet via Twitter search results:

...so I re-tweeted it to spread the word.


And the Atlantic Theater did the same here, when they saw my own tweet reviewing their current show:

I should add that finding out that something you've tweeted has been re-tweeted brings no small amount of pride -- so definitely consider re-tweeting your followers if you want to make them feel good! It also lets them know that you're listening to what they have to say!

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Thanks, Alli!

Hello, my name is _________.

We already talked about WHO should create your organization's Facebook Page; now let's continue on through the process of setting up the Page. There are a few more issues to take into consideration before you dive in. (If you're ready to take the plunge, though, here's a link!)

The first thing to do is to decide on your Page title and decide on your category.


These are the first two pieces of information that you enter, and they're also the two things that you can't edit once you submit them. (If you've created a Page already and you're unhappy with the name or category, you can delete and start over. That should be an option at the top of the "edit Page" page.)

So the name part is obvious: make sure you know whether you want to be the "Lab Theater" or the "Laboratory Theater," and make sure you don't make any typos, either! (A real life example: the first time I tried creating the Patron Technology Facebook Page, I was just testing things out and I named it "patron technology" -- all lower case! I had to delete that version and start over.)

As for categories, here's the list again.

Out of the arts organizations that I'm a "fan" of, it seems that the most popular choice of category is "Non-profit," closely followed by "Museum/Attraction" and "Other Business." I think all of those work perfectly well.

I've been specifically asked what category I recommend for a theater. I have to say, it really doesn't matter. These categories don't exactly DO anything anymore -- the category of your Page used to determine what kind of special features your Page could have, but ever since the big redesign in March, Pages are flexible enough that there's basically no functionality difference between categories.

And here's the real kicker: that category list I linked above is not the same list that you see when you're searching or browsing Fan Pages.

Where's "Museum/Attraction"? Where's "Other Business"? Facebook is inconsistent with their terminology. (The category you end up choosing will show up under your Page title when people are browsing a list, but not on the main screen of your page itself.)

This is all to say: be aware that you're making a permanent choice, but don't worry too much about choosing correctly.

I think maybe some level of consistency through the arts industry might be nice, though. In the comments, let everyone know how you classified your organization! Let others learn from your example (or, you know, copy off of you).

Authorizing Multiple Page Admins

It's Q&A time!

Reposting a comment from last week:

What happens to the page when the person who's the administrator leaves the organization? Is there some way the page can be "reassigned" to another Facebook user? The potential for an unhappy ex-employee to sabotage the organization's FB page seems worrisome.

Main Street Theater's next comment got it right:

You can make admins out of any of the fans or any of your friends.

After you create your Page, you can grant additional people in your organization Administrator access.

By doing that, you give them full authority over adding, deleting, and editing Page content -- AND full authority over adding/deleting other Admins as well. So if you're the Page creator, and you deputize someone else as an Admin, that person will have the power to remove you as an Admin later if you leave the company. And you'll have the power to remove other Admins yourself, too, if they're the ones leaving.

(Of course, that also means that if you're dealing with an "unhappy ex-employee" situation, you'd better make sure you delete her before she deletes you! There are no different "levels" of being an Admin; everyone has equal rights.)

You can change/add/delete Page Admins from the Page itself -- you should see an "Add Admins" link on the left side directly under the Page photo.

Your Facebook Account: All Play and No Work?

My next few blog posts will walk you through setting up your Facebook Page –- creating it and getting started with content. For today, though, I’m going off on a bit of a tangent. There seems to be a bit of concern about the connection between having a personal Facebook Account and being the administrator of a Page, so I’ll try to clear up some of that confusion.

To reiterate something I said in my webinar a few weeks ago: the first thing you need to do when creating your organization’s Facebook Page is sign in to Facebook.

If you’re accustomed to keeping “work” and “play” very separate in your life, you might be balking at the idea of using your personal Facebook account to administer your organization’s Facebook Page. The trouble is, you have to be a Facebook user to be a Page administrator.

"But Michelle, even when I’m not logged in to Facebook, it says right there at the bottom of the home page, 'To create a page for a celebrity, band or business, click here.'"

It's true -- you can click on that link and start the process of creating your page without logging in or even having an account. But once you get past the first screen of information, you'll be taken to a login screen and asked to sign in! This screen will also tell you that if you don't have a personal Facebook account already, you can enter your name and e-mail address and create something called a Business Account.

Huh. What’s a Business Account? A Business Account is a Facebook account with limited functionality, intended to be used by people who just want to administer Facebook Pages without actually "being on Facebook."

Sound goods, right? Does that mean you can create an extra throwaway account to administer your Page without linking it with your person account? NO. Here’s the catch (and I'm pulling this straight from Facebook's Help section):

"Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts."

Yes, maintaining your personal Facebook account ("look, pictures of my cat!") and a separate Business Account ("nothing to see here, just running my organization's Page...") COUNTS AS HAVING MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS.

Can you get away with it anyway? Possibly. I know that some people do. I just don't think it's worth the risk. If you're sneaking around with multiple accounts, and Facebook decides they don't like it, they'll probably delete BOTH of your accounts, and then you're out of luck in regard to administering your Page.

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Now, that was a whole lot of words to talk about something that, frankly, I don’t think is a big deal.

First of all, I’m assuming that everyone reading this blog has a personal account on Facebook already. I can't imagine why you'd want the job of being a Page admin if you're not on Facebook yourself -- if you're not part of the community, you're going to have a tough time understanding how the community works.

This is just common sense: you wouldn't try to serve as the creator of your organization's e-mail newsletters without ever having read an e-mail, would you? (And, incidentally, this is the main point of my colleague Allison's article about Twitter that came out last week – check it out if you missed it!)

Secondly, regarding the work/play separation: the actions you perform as a Page administrator are not linked to your personal account anyway! So even if you want privacy, you don't have to jump through hoops and try to game the system. Just keep these lists in mind:

Actions that will show up as Page actions:

* Posting pictures
* Creating events
* Posting on the Wall
* Sending Updates

Actions that will be linked to your personal account:

* Sending Event INVITATIONS
* “Sharing” things (directly inviting people to become fans, and reposting events)

As long as you stick to actions on that first list, you’re in the clear.

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This post is already epically long, but I have one last thing to add: from my own perspective, all the things I've written here are not all that important. As you may have noticed, I'm all over the place already -- I’m Facebook friends with many people I've met only through work (hi!). Facebook's privacy settings work well enough that I feel very comfortable using my personal account for all sorts of work purposes, and letting people see that I'm a real person behind the blog and webinars.

I am interested to hear what you think, though. How do you manage your professional Facebook presence? Is the idea of work and play separate an important issue to you?

Why "Pages" might be better than Page Views

I realize that in these discussions about Facebook, both here on the blog and in my webinar last week, I've been spending a lot of time on the "how" without really addressing the "why," so I wanted to take a minute here to back up a bit. It's true that Facebook and social media are the things with all the buzz lately, but looking past that, what are the real reasons a Facebook page can help your organization?

Here's a question that came out of the webinar:

"What is the benefit of linking the facebook page to our company website? Meaning, why should we get more facebook fans if they are already visiting our website?"

My answer has two parts.

1) Here's a graphic you might have seen if you've been to any of Patron Tech's seminars in the past four or five years:


This illustrates the "e-marketing paradigm" of how your Web site and e-mail newsletters should work together.

"If I can get someone to join my e-mail list, I can market to them forever. But if they come and go without leaving a trace, I've missed a huge online marketing opportunity to contact them directly." (Web Sites for Culture, Eugene Carr)

Replace "e-mail list" with "Facebook Fan Page," and the concept stays the same. If a patron is on your site, that's great -- but who are they? What do they want? And how can you contact them again? By getting that visitor to become a Fan, you get to find out who they are, and you can continue to communicate with them in the future, rather than just passively waiting for them to visit your site again.

And my second point:

2) People spend a LOT of time on Facebook. They don't spend a lot of time on your site.

As of January, the average visit length on Facebook was just over 21 minutes (source). We know from our own research at Patron Technology that the average arts Web site visit is around 5 minutes long. Your patrons are already used to spending more time on Facebook than on arts sites. If you post your content on your Facebook Page, that means they won't need to go out of their way to see it.

Ticket purchases or donations are one thing, and you should certainly drive traffic to your Web site for those, but if you have content worth sharing, why do you need to coax people to visit your site at all? An article or photo or video that you post on Facebook is automatically an invitation for comments, for further interaction and engagement, and for people to easily share your content with their friends.

Coming later this week: more specifics about linking to your Fan Page from your site and e-mails.

I'm Going Live!

Just a heads up, in case you've missed our other announcements: I'm hosting a live webinar on Thursday, all about Facebook for arts organizations. Some of the information I'm presenting has already been posted here, but I do have some new stuff plus a live demonstration of at least a few "how-to's."

The webinar is on Thursday, April 2, at 1:00PM Eastern time.

If you're interested, just click here to register. Thanks!

Cultivating a Community

I keep promising to answer the excellent questions I got from readers in response to my first article (back in February), so here we go!

Stephanie from BRIC said:

I’m still conflicted on the Page vs. Group issue for non-profit arts organizations. Especially in New York, where the small and mid-size performing arts organizations are part of a network where everyone knows one another... Audiences who don’t come from within the community often want to be a part of it – make a personal connection, rather than feel like they are part of a commercial enterprise.

A friend of mine is a Fan of 245 pages. He’s a Fan of Kermit, The Daily Show, the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, The Little Prince, Spinach, Burberry, Muffins, Macbook, the IDF, Tommy Hilfigger, Sushi, Levis Footwear -- the list goes on. ...Pages become more of a statement of aesthetic than a place he actually visits and interacts with on a regular basis.

Stephanie raises a good point about creating a more community-oriented space on Facebook -- and it's evident that she wasn't the only one to think so! By now you all know my thoughts on the NEW Facebook Pages: They're designed to be so much more community-based and interaction-friendly than they were before. Now Page administrators have more control -- as long as you're posting compelling messages and discussion questions, the Page can be made to feel much less like a "commercial enterprise" now.

So I think that in some ways, her question might be answered already. Since "fans"can now interact much more directly, I think that the new Pages feel a lot more like the old Groups now.

I have to stand by my opinion that Groups are simply outdated technology, at this point. They still don't get News Feed real estate, they can't be customized, you can't add apps... (I know I haven't gone into technical detail yet about HOW to do some of those things with a Page, but I'm still waiting for Facebook to settle down and stop changing things.)

That said: I think that Groups can still be a valuable tool for arts organizations, especially in situations like Stephanie describes, where the organization's artists and managers DO want to be personally associated with the org. Maybe one solution is to create both, but be sure to delineate a separate purpose for each -- have a Facebook Page with more generalized, public content and event information, but also include a big link to join the organization's Group, which would have a more personal feel.

I'd love to hear more thoughts on this! What do you think? Do the new Pages seem like a better environment for making a personal connection than the old ones did?