Topic: Class Cloud Assignment

On Wednesday, I had the most interesting assignment for a class. We were to tweet at someone to join in on some discussion about social media using the #socmeddiscuss. I chose to tweet at my boss, Lance Lyons, Monumetrics, and the Tailwind App.

Here is me inviting my boss:

And here is my question for the discussion:

I had hopes, because I had tweeted at them, that they would participate. However, as the class discussion began and other tweets popped up on my feed, I noticed that a lot of people had used the words "class discussion" in their tweets, driving away potential discussion. I think that that alone shows why the discussion didn't go as planned. I felt jipped in this discussion because no one took it seriously or used the hashtags appropriately.

Here is one of my tweets that I made that day:

As you can see, I tried to get a conversation going between me and my class mate, but nothing past my reply. I think that a lot of people were more interested in the not-so-interesting love affair blossoming on Twitter through the hashtag. It really bothered me that that was what people were excited about. Here we had this great opportunity to learn how to manage a live Twitter-feed, a skill many of us will most likely need in the future, and all we were concerned about was "Are you single?" That's not how I choose to spend my tuition. 

I did enjoy, however, reading the +Wendy's tweets to users. It showed me how to have creativity on Twitter, something that I struggle with when dealing with company complaints. That alone saved the experience for me. I learned that it's ok to be a little casual on Twitter, for a food brand like Wendy's. They can do that without ruining their reputation. 

My biggest struggle when replying to peers' questions, was the limited characters. Because I have so much that I'd like to say about social media and the topics asked, I could have maybe linked out to longer blog posts that summarized what I wanted to say. 

I liked doing a live feed just to see how flexible social media can get. It's crazy to think about all the different directions and voices that can be a part of this conversation. 

After the class, the next day at work, I talked to my boss and asked why he hadn't joined in on the conversation. "I didn't get your tweet!" he said "Or I would have totally participated. From that, I learned that if you really want someone to be a part of your conversation, you need to more than just tweet at them. Really good preparation is required to have successful live Twitter discussion.