TwiTip

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 5 - Monetisation

Guest Poster — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:01:49 +0000

The following is Part 5 of a series of posts by Crystal N. Woods, from
Conscious Evolution, Success and Self Esteem (Follow her @CrystalsQuest) You can also read Part 1 - Journaling, Part 2 - Link Lists, Part 3 - Conversations, and Part 4 - Thought Leadership.

Making money online is not only one of the most frequent topics in blogging, it’s also one of the hottest searches on any search engine, and it’s becoming ever more popular on twitter too.

I’ve left this topic until now because most of the people who start out with the sole objective of creating money making blogs, and more recently twitter accounts, do tend to be a bit obvious. If they succeed, they also tend to get short-lived success, mostly along the lines of niche blogs - they build one tiny area up to be profitable, then move on to another area. We’re seeing something similar on twitter where people are setting up multiple accounts.

Trend-surfing this way may get you a few big wins, or enough small ones to support yourself, but it isn’t the same as being one of the big-guns of blogging, earning 6 or 7 figures a year in stable and ever increasing income. There are very, very few of those (and they all have big followings, as I mentioned in the last post). While the average income for blogs in 2008 was $6,000, that was influenced heavily by the top 1% of bloggers who earnt $200k plus. Look at the top 10%, and the average income is down to only $19k.

You may be surprised to know that most of the blogging big names didn’t start out earning their income that way. In fact, very few of them earnt their livelihood from blogs to start with. Some of them, like Cris Brogan and Robert Scoble, still have offline jobs. Darren Rowse of Problogger paid his bills with multiple part time jobs while he built his blog up to the level where it would support himself, and kept going from there to the income levels of today. Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey supported himself with an editing business and a gamers site before he grew big enough to earn a full time income from blogging. David Risley of davidrisley.com (Confessions of a 6 Figure Blogger) has made his income online for years, but when he started most of that income came from consulting work, not blogging.

Every single one of these Blogging-Income Masters say the same thing: you don’t get that level of income unless you treat it seriously. Blogging is a business. If you want to turn it into your income, you need to have a Business Plan.

Twitter is the same.

There are no shortage of ways to turn blogging into an income, although not quite so many on twitter yet. Already, though, the “Make Money with Twitter” offers are starting to flood in. A lot of them are going to make money for the people selling them, and not many others. The tried and true methods that have worked for the top names in blogging, though, are summarised below:

Have a plan. It’s as true on twitter as it is elsewhere. Failing to plan = planning to fail.

Build a list. Yes, twitter is a list of sorts, but if your follower has 348 other people tweeting at the same time, your update will be all too fleeting. Convert them to your mailing list, or at the very least your blog’s rss feed! Remember: the money’s in the list.

Over-deliver on value. Your followers are not going to throw money at you just because you put your hand out for it - especially not as any kind of sustainable income. Prove to them that you deliver the goods, and they’ll think of you down the track when they need what you have to offer.

Build a reputation. The trust and credibility people give you is the equivalent of brakes to your online income. If you don’t have much, you won’t get much. I saw a tweet not long ago by a well known social media expert on how someone with a tiny fraction of his follower count was trying to sell him a system to build more followers. Needless to say, there was zero credibility there.

Find out what your followers want. The way to make money is to offer solutions. You can’t do that until you know what problems people are facing, and decide which of them you have the skills and know-how to help them overcome.

Be Consistent and Persistent. This feeds back into all of the above. If you’ve created a plan, make sure you follow it - it’s sad but true that the majority of people give up before they succeed. Keep taking action past the point where others drop out, and you win the race by default.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 5 - Monetisation

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 4 - Thought Leadership

Guest Poster — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:00:44 +0000

The following is Part 4 of a series of posts by Crystal N. Woods, from
Conscious Evolution, Success and Self Esteem (Follow her @CrystalsQuest) You can also read Part 1 - Journaling and Part 2 - Link Lists or Part 3 - Conversations.

As blogging went mainstream, and more newcomers started flooding the market, the earliest bloggers were given a bit of momentum forward into the online equivalent of celebrity status - they were the trend-setters.

Not all of them took advantage of this push, though, while some of the newcomers rapidly adapted to blogging and took it by storm, getting their own place high up in the heirarchy with amazing speed.

The difference between these thought leaders and the majority of bloggers is the same difference we see affecting who gets promotions at work, makes it as a ’star’ in Hollywood, or even gets nominated to run the local Rotary Club. It’s simply this: in order to lead others, you have to be willing to get out the front and lead others. Much easier said than done, I know. After all, the ones that sit in front at school are picked on for questions, and it may be a movie cliché but the sketch about asking for volunteers to step forward, and one person gets picked because everyone else steps back, is more true than we’d like to think. Leadership is something we’re not only encouraged, but trained to avoid.

If you want to go professional, though - on twitter, on your blog, or in life - you have to be willing to step out in front and take the risks and responsibilities that go with it.

Let me be clear here, though. You don’t actually have to do this. It’s not only possible, but fairly easy, to build up a modest following by taking the lessons of the last 3 posts on board; sharing of yourself, offering solid value and building relationships. If you’re happy there, by all means stay there.For those willing to move on further, though, this is where you distinguish yourself from the pack.

The biggest lesson to advance yourself to this next level is: You have to be fearless - or at least appear to be (it’ll come if you fake it long enough).

You still need to edit what you say, but this is where you stop editing out those things you’re only holding back because of what others might think. Be up front about what you believe every now and then, and if you get some controversy going, great! People that don’t think along the same lines will either argue with you (getting you more publicity as well as giving you the chance to put your reasons forward) or if they’re really opposed to your thoughts, leave.

You may be surprised that this is where I tell you that’s a good thing.

The people who leave you because of something controversial you’ve said can actually get you more followers, believe it or not. They talk about your stand, so they can tell people how they disagree, and some people come looking for you so they can see your side of the story (or so they can pick a fight with you too). Some of them may stay.

To become a thought leader, you want to lead people who are happy to have you lead them. I’ve already mentioned that most people are happier being followers than leaders (to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, most people “prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.”) but the internet is big enough that you should find plenty of people who like your point of view, or at the very least admire you for having the strength of your convictions, and decide to keep watching. That’s the nuts and bolts of how you start to get a following.

Next issue, we’ll cover one of the biggest topics in blogging, and rapidly in twitter too - turning that following into an income. Monetisation.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 4 - Thought Leadership

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 3 - Conversations

Guest Poster — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:01:09 +0000

The following is Part 3 of a series of posts by Crystal N. Woods, from
Conscious Evolution, Success and Self Esteem (Follow Crystal @CrystalsQuest) You can read Part 1 of Lessons From The Evolution of Blogging - Journaling and Part 2 - Link Lists here.

The Blogging community grew bigger as more blogs were started, and existing blogs shared the love by linking to them. Of course if you know SEO, you’d know that this meant the search engines started paying attention to these, and more people started discovering blogs. The community stopped being small, but started to distinguish between the well known and established bloggers, and the newcomers who were still learning the ropes.

This is where conversations come in. Bloggers would read a new post by someone, with their editorial comments on it, and write an answering post on their own blogs. Naturally, this added fuel to the SEO fire, as cross linking gave blog sites some serious weight. As the art took off and gained momentum, and more people wanted to start blogging themselves, software started making it easier to create and update your blogs, and eventually the ability to comment was born.

Enter the era of interactivity. (Don’t try saying that after a few drinks, ok?) Bloggers could now do more than just put their opinions out there - they could get feedback and, more importantly, develop a following. For the bloggers that had come from the beginning, this was a major step forward - they could write responses, as well as just diarize their thoughts. They could build their own reputation and grow their audience.

Twitter uses the @reply for exactly the same thing. This is the essential tool for making contact with people you’re following, who are asking questions you know the answers to, or to catch the attention of people you’d like to connect with.

@replies turn twitter from a one way monologue into a dialogue. They’re an important part of any twitter user’s toolbox.

The lesson you need to take from the successful thought-leaders of the blogging world in this stage, though, is the importance of holding conversations that include, and don’t exclude, your other followers. Have you ever stood waiting at a party where someone you wanted to talk to was so involved in a one-on-one discussion that the rest of the room might as well not have existed? That’s what you want to avoid. Don’t cold-shoulder the room.

Remember that not everyone will know what you’re replying to when you send a response to someone else - try to phrase your reply so it’s not one-sided and people have no idea what you’re talking about. Put it in context, like the second example tweet below.

@questionasker Pirates of Carribbean. Years ago.

@questionasker - last movie I went to see was yrs ago: Pirates of Carribbean”

Anyone reading the second one knows what you’re answering, and may even join the conversation.

Finally, It’s important to remember that, just like any party, conversation should be mixed with mingling, too. Keep giving out comments and links that others can appreciate and/or react to (which can start more conversations). You build the community, AND your followers, that way.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 3 - Conversations

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 2 – Link Lists

Guest Poster — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:29:54 +0000

The following is Part 2 of a series of posts by Crystal N. Woods, from
Conscious Evolution, Success and Self Esteem (Follow Crystal @CrystalsQuest) You can read Part 1 of Lessons From The Evolution of Blogging here.

Since my last post, I hope you’ve had fun playing around with your storyline. This time, we’re going to look at how blogs shifted away from journaling, and started becoming lists of links.

Initially blogs were few and far between so, having shared themselves by journaling in this new medium, there was a sense of being part of a small community. Bloggers weren’t all that common still, so when a new blog was found other bloggers would link back to it, providing a way to follow other blogs for people who’d discovered (and liked) reading blogs.

These list posts over time evolved to include linking to other sites the blogger found interesting - creating a kind of filter for all the information on the web, through the lens of someone’s interests. If you shared those interests, you had a quick way to find things you’d probably like, without having to hunt them all down yourself. That meant people that weren’t bloggers, friends or family, started coming to visit these blogs, and their popularity grew.

Not all of those blogs continued through this stage of evolution, though. Some shifted entirely to links and went on to become portals, although not all portals started out as blogs. The blogs that kept growing were the ones that took a lesson from the last stage - journaling - and maintained that sense of friendship and sharing, putting themselves into their posts and keeping it personal, giving their editorial comments so people could get a sense of what they thought and why.

The blogs that thrived in this stage were the ones that had a clear focus - some particular topic they were passionate about, so you knew (mostly) what you’d be finding if you came back to visit again. If you were interested in the same topic, you’d make sure to come back. Having someone filter stuff for you and deliver up your interests saved you time, and with their editorial you had someone else’s opinion to guide you, too.

The rise of url shortening services sparked a similar trend in twitter. Once your focus changes from what you want to write, to what people want to read - a natural shift after journalling for a while - you’ll want to start sharing the things you’ve found interesting, just like those early bloggers. This is the start of ‘professionalising’ your twitter micro-blogging. You don’t update based on what you want to say, but on what you think your friends might like to hear about. In sharing with them, you’re delivering something that means they’re likely to a) appreciate what they get from you, b) come back for more, and c) possibly tell their friends.

There’s two things to remember when you start using link-sharing updates on twitter. Even though it’s got to be short, people want to know what they’re clicking - don’t waste their time sending them to links that just say something generic like “Check this funny video out.” Let your friends and followers decide if this is something they want to check out for themselves. Even better, if you can describe it in only a few words, put a comment of your own to personalise it. As an example, Chris Brogan recently posted:

chrisbrogan Thanks, Seth. I needed this post on saying no - http://bit.ly/IASR

Your challenge for the next week is to find at least one interesting link to share with your friends (followers) on twitter, and post it with BOTH a description and comment. They can be combined, like the one above, or you can add your note onto the end. If you look at the tweets that get most retweets, you’ll find a large number of them do exactly that.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 2 – Link Lists

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 1 - Journaling

Guest Poster — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:11:13 +0000

Well, TwiTip readers… I’ve got one heckuva treat for you! Crystal N. Woods, from
Conscious Evolution, Success and Self Esteem has SO kindly taken the time to write a series of posts for TwiTip for beginners, that I’m honored to share with you over the next week or so. Take it not only as a series for Twitter newbies though… it’s something we should all read as a reminder of Twitiquette! (Follow Crystal @CrystalsQuest)

Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 1: Journaling

Twitter is called “micro-blogging” because, even though it’s limited to only 140 characters, it’s evolved out of, and is still similar to, blogging. That’s great, because while Twitter may be new, blogging has developed over time, transforming from early personal journals to where they are now, and every stage has grown it a bit closer to an art form, until it’s now recognised as a fully-fledged profession.

There’s a great post on the early history of web-logs (blogs) by Rebecca Blood here, but it stops around 2000 - just about when blogs started taking off. This series is going to look at how blogging has developed since then, and show you the lessons to be learnt from each stage it went through - so you can apply these to develop your twitter micro-blogging skills, and avoid the critical newbie mistakes that cost you time and followers.

Back when blogging first went mainstream, blogs were mostly considered a form of online diary. Bloggers shared the details of their days, so friends and family could catch up with them without actually needing to connect by writing letters, emails or making phone calls. The internet let these early bloggers create a broadcast of all their exploits that all their friends could read, without having to get in touch with all of them individually and (heaven forbid) spend time offline. Yes, most early bloggers - myself included - were geeks.

Some blogs died out as their writers lost interest - much like journaling, but others grew as their writing skills expanded to fit this new medium. The most successful bloggers of this genre were the ones that had the ability to share of themselves, but put it across as a form of storytelling. Consider the writing of a novel - huge sections of the character’s days and lives are skipped, in favour of condensing the story down to significant points, but with enough detail to keep the reader engaged.

When most of us start using twitter, we use it the same way - as a personal journal. We struggle to develop the skill to get our thoughts across in only a sentence or two. It’s only natural to connect the small size of the post with the small details of our lives, and to post as frequently as we think of it.

As you grow in skill, though, you should be working to develop this storyteller’s art. Narrow your plotline down and edit out anything that would mean your reader could put the book down. When the novel of your personal life is written, you want it to be full of riveting moments, crucial turning points and momentous decisions or events.

Would your twitter-stream read this way?

Here’s an exercise for you: for the next few days, before you hit that ‘update’ button, take a moment to put on the editor’s hat. Should this tweet make it into your personal story; can it be given a ‘twist’ to make it more interesting; is there a way to tighten it up further; or is it something better left unsaid?

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 1 - Journaling

Why I Didn’t Tweet About Michael Jackson: How Your Twitter Niche Is More Than Skin Deep

Guest Poster — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:44:54 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

By Ethan Stanislawski of Prefix. Follow him @tynansanger.

As a music blogger, it would seem preposterous if I didn’t address Michael Jackson’s death in some way on June 25. As soon as I heard he was in the hospital, I knew it would dominate TwiTrends all day, not to mention the blogosphere, all major news sites, and CNN. Once Michael Jackson’s death was confirmed, I knew that it would go on for weeks. And yet, I stayed off Twitter that day because, well, I really had nothing to say about the matter that could ever be considered original.

Though I like just about everyone else had heard Michael Jackson’s music constantly throughout my lifetime, I was never that much of a fan of his music. I don’t even own any of his albums in any format. Ultimately, there was nothing I could say on Twitter about the news that would appeal to me, or, ultimately, my followers.

Of course, if I ran a music website that depended on traffic to make a profit; I would have had to address Michael Jackson, probably in as many ways as I could. In fact, every music site I have ever written for addressed Michael Jackson in more than just one post.

Personally, however, I make no money off twitter, and generally use it when an interesting discussion on music emerges to which I can make a significant contribution. Those who follow me for my tweets about music generally are interested in music that leans towards indie rock, though I certainly don’t limit myself to that. Nonetheless, if anyone was looking for me to tweet about music on that day, they would inevitably expect me to tweet about Michael Jackson, and I don’t blame them. If I let them down, however, I would lose more followers than I would gain.

To me, Twitter provides the flexibility in developing a conversation among likeminded people more than any other social media platform. I have followers who follow me for several different reasons, as I can post about things on Twitter I never could on any other platform. The problem many active Tweeters face is to get carried away with chasing trendy topics that produce little reward for the time and energy put into them. The important thing is not only to know what people follow you for, but do so while looking deeper than general categories (music, sports, restaurants in Brooklyn). The important thing is to develop a voice, and not belittle your followers by pretending to know about something you don’t in 140 characters or less. There isn’t enough time in the day.

Update: I’d like to request that folks keep the comments a part of the real topic here, which is NOT Michael Jackson’s life, his presumed guilt or innocence, or anything else… it’s about your niche on Twitter as a user, and how you use it. My choosing to publish this guest post when it was submitted was NOT to give people a forum for bashing each other about what their feelings are about Michael Jackson. Please let’s stick to the topic? Thank you. - Lara

Why I Didn’t Tweet About Michael Jackson: How Your Twitter Niche Is More Than Skin Deep

Quick Twitter Tool Review: Buzzom

Lara Kulpa — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 13:23:07 +0000

At some point in time, everyone who becomes a “Power Twitter User” bemoans the fact that it’s hard to follow too many people, or keep up with the emails telling us who’s following us. Twitter’s site interface doesn’t make checking your followers or adding/removing followees very easy or intuitive.

Introducing Buzzom, which uses Twitter’s API to make it all super easy to manage your follower/following list at lightning speed.

There are three things you can do at Buzzom:

Flush. You can unfollow people en masse simply by checking the boxes and clicking “Flush”.
Grow. You can follow new people, again by checking boxes and clicking. (I’m a teeny bit nervous about this one when the spammers find it, but still…)
Reciprocate. This one tells you who’s following you, that you’re not following, and you guessed it, allows you to follow back with checkboxes and a button.

All three sections also have what’s called “Lock”. This means, on the Flush page, if you “Lock” someone, you’ll prevent them from showing up on the Flush list again. It essentially is saying “I don’t ever want to flush that person, so stop asking me!”

Here’s a clipped screenshot of the “Grow” section:

If you take a look at the right sidebar, there’s also a section where you can send out an instant tweet. It’s pre-filled with a plug for buzzom, but if you really wanted to, you could tweet anything from there.

It also features numbers under some headings:

Stars: This means number of people who you are following but they are not following you back.
Friends: This is the number of people you are following, who are following you back.
Fans: This means number of people who are following you but you are not following them back.

All in all, yes, Buzzom does require your username and password in order to work, however I see it as a pretty neat tool to help manage and grow your Twitter account follower/following lists!

Have you tried it? What do you think?

Quick Twitter Tool Review: Buzzom

Did You Tweet About Michael Jackson’s Death?

Lara Kulpa — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:01:05 +0000

: Michael Jackson via last.fm

This past week or so has been pretty traumatic for some, what with the losses of Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays, and of course, Michael Jackson.

Up until the #moonfruit promotion had started (Tweeters would use the hashtag for a chance to win a free Macbook Pro), Michael Jackson or some version thereof was the top trending topic on Twitter after his untimely death.

So I give you, dear readers, this poll:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The reason I ask is because I happened to notice that many people truly did not send out even one single tweet about Michael Jackson. Sure, there were plenty of people being what I consider to be rude or disrespectful with their tasteless jokes and such… but I am honestly curious as to the percentages of people who did and did not tweet about “MJ” (as that was also in the trending topics, aside from his full name) after his passing.

Even if you only tweeted ONCE about it, please check the “Yes” box. I realize some people (like myself) tweeted about it several times. Also, even if your tweet was what I referred to above as rude or disrespectful, again, please choose “Yes” as your answer.

Happy Independence Day, America!

Did You Tweet About Michael Jackson’s Death?

How to Get Noticed on Twitter

Guest Poster — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:01:43 +0000

By Nathan Hangen, follow him @nhangen.

Once upon a time, Twitter was an innocent and casual place to hang out. Everyone was positive and was nearly over-interested in what everyone had to say. However, now that the initial “buzz has worn off and people are realizing how difficult it can be to manage thousands of follows and followers, the interaction has been reduced to tightly knit groups of key players and in turn leaves many people without the friends they once had. Sure, everyone has a base of friends, followers, and fans that they can rely on to spur conversation and reply to their requests, but overall it has become increasingly difficult to stand out in the crowd. Since getting noticed is one of the crucial aspects of getting more “legit” followers and building a following that converts into blog readers, buyers, and fans, finding ways to get noticed is extremely important.

The simple methods, like RT’ing, offering contests, quoting, and recommending friends for #followfriday no longer have the power they once did. Although those staples are still great ways to increase your influence, if you really want to get noticed on Twitter you’ll have to find other ways to create buzz and show up on the radar.

One such way to do this is to start or take a leadership role in local Twitter Mashups and Tweetups. Use a site like Twitter Grader (http://twittergrader.com) to find local Twitterers in your area to contact and ask for their help in creating a group and notifying others. When you do this, the following events will take place:

1. You will be looked to as a creator, leader, and as a key player in the market. Even if you don’t know what you are doing, you are taking on the responsibility that most don’t feel comfortable with. This gives you a great position of leverage within your local market, which can spread to other markets.

2. You will have the opportunity to create a local brand that can expand based on your effort. Start a website for your Tweetup group and post pics, notes, and blogs about the people involved. They’ll be happy to get noticed online and in turn will help you get noticed too. Over time, you’ll have the opportunity to gain traction as you travel or start groups for others.

If Tweetups are not your thing, then why not host an online mentorship group for people new to Twitter? Most of the Twitter pro’s already have their schedules booked and their feeds filled, so showing new people the ropes can help you share your knowledge and establish a very dedicated base of fans.

Lastly, if you really want to become a Twitter Rockstar, you will need to get noticed by the big dogs. Yeah, I know…bidding on popularity sounds juvenile, but I consider it a marketing effort suited to a specific audience. Spend time being responsive on the blogs and websites of the big dogs on Twitter and work to let them know you are there. If you are the most consistent fan in their feed, they can’t help but to notice your dedication. Once you’ve proven that you are an action taker, they’ll start to notice your work as well, especially if you turn your fans into fans of theirs. The same rules work for blogging and other content promotion methods.

Getting noticed on Twitter really isn’t that difficult if you create the time and dedicate the energy to doing so. If Twitter isn’t your main effort, then trying to become one of the gurus might be tough. However, if you simply implement a few key strategies and continue to offer great content, then you should have no trouble breaking away from the pack. Just like everywhere else, Twitter rewards creativity, originality, and honesty. Make that your creed and eventually you will become a leader in your niche.

[image credit: stephenpoff]

How to Get Noticed on Twitter

Streamlining Your Twitter Feed - Groups to the Rescue

Twitter: Remaking the Persona of the Physically Challenged

Guest Poster — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:00:05 +0000

By Carmen R. Gonzalez of Healthcare Communications Group. Follow her @crgonzalez.

American novelist James Baldwin once said, “An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.” The same can be said of those with physical disabilities who are using Twitter as their stage to create newfound identities, unconstrained by their bodies’ limitations. Intrigued by how Twitter has empowered people to find their voice and gain acceptance and recognition, I offer a brief overview of the new frontier being established on Twitter by these communities.

Connecting to the World

One of the more dramatic uses of Twitter by those with limited mobility involves University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student, Adam Wilson, who has designed a powerful communication system. His technological feat allows people with ALS, brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injuries to chat on Twitter. (Read here to watch a video about his invention.) Wilson’s computer interface allows people with mobility restrictions to select letters that flash on the computer screen with their thoughts. Brain waves are detected by his system using an electrode-wired cap. Still in its infancy, this technology is planned to enter clinical trial soon. While it is a slow-going process, as most users can select ten characters a minute, it offers a means to freely converse with the outside world without anyone knowing that the sender is disabled.

Yearning for a wider social playground, Glenda Watson Hyatt, a.k.a. The Left Thumb Blogger (@GlendaWH) and author of the popular DoItMyselfBlog, joined Twitter’s ranks. “Working from home can be lonely and isolating at times, but Twitter provides me with much needed water cooler chatter, so I no longer feel like I’m working in a vacuum,” says Hyatt. Given her steady blogging stream and active life, it is hard to describe Hyatt’s cerebral palsy as a physical challenge rather than a speed bump. Using only her left thumb, Hyatt can keep up with the pace of Twitter’s 140-character conversations, while its direct messaging features have become her preference over email. She has observed Twitter benefiting others with physical challenges too, e.g. serving as a listening tool by people with hearing impairment to monitor the Twitterstream at a recent Successful Outstanding Bloggers Conference, to gain a better sense of what presenters were talking about. “It’s not quite the same as real-time captioning, but it’s a helluva lot cheaper!” she says.

Advocacy For and By the People

In a novel example of combined social media and activism, students at the University of Minnesota decided to take matters into their own hands when the problem of handicap parking abuse was raised. A writing instructor, John A. Hatcher, challenged his students to come up with a solution. They gathered their laptops, a map of the campus and their trusty new application, Twitter. (Read here to get the details of their project.) They canvassed the campus for parking violations and recorded their findings through Twitter messages flagged by the hashtag #umdparking. The students then wrote about their findings and submitted their article to the campus newspaper, encouraging readers to check out their results on Twitter The students then connected with a university student group dedicated to advancing disabled community issues. While it is unknown if the university leadership has decided to add more disabled-parking spaces, the simplicity and power of this experiment is testament to the new opportunities afforded by Twitter.

According to Pat Ramsey, founder of the technology consultancy firm Slash25, who spoke recently at AccessU, a conference dedicated to the disabled community, says, “Twitter is another channel where the disabled may be heard. This technology gives access not ordinarily available.” Ramsey promotes greater accessibility with social media tools among those with limited mobility, yet notes there are significant barriers to participation, including software incompatibility. “Aggregators like Tweetdeck are impossible to use because their controls and fields aren’t recognized by the interfacing software,” he observed. Ramsey added that without applications like AccessibleTwitter and McTwit, many in the disabled community would be not able to use Twitter at all.

That’s where groups like AbilityNet (@AbilityNet) take their cue in helping people keep pace with technology, no matter their age, health condition, or disability. Located in the UK, AbilityNet has harnessed a broad array of social media tools, including Twitter, to “expand digital inclusion for the disabled,” says David Banes, Director of Development. With the advent of applications like AcccessibleTwitter and McTwit, Banes does not see as many barriers to Twitter participation as before. Rather, “there is a great deal of sharing of new information on technology-as with the use of Microsoft Surface (the new tabletop desktop)- and other key issues on Twitter,” says Banes. He notes that as the disabled become more familiar with Twitter, they are adding new applications to expand its functionality and are “shaping their own community.”

One person already shaping her community’s identity is blogger Sandi Wassmer (@sandiwassmer), owner of Copious Ltd., a digital agency in the UK. Sandi, who is visually impaired, wanted to advance the work of Action for Blind People, a charity providing support services for blind and partially sighted people. She decided to blog for the organization, writing on all aspects of living with a disability-from the practical to the sublime. Unexpectedly, she has learned that, “my musings seem to be hitting home pan-disability,” she says. By promoting her blog on Twitter, she has expanded traditional views of what visually challenged people can do and demonstrated first-hand that all people have more in common than what our physical differences indicate.

Spreading the Word

Unsurprisingly, one of the most popular uses of Twitter by disabled community groups is to share resources, scientific research, and legal rights-related news and contacts. Melissa Loe, Communications Director for the Texas Council for Developmental Disabilities (@TxCDD), has harnessed the power of Twitter to, “help more people -disabled or not-to become connected with resources, services, support, and other information they might not know exist.”

The same is true for organizations such as The Autism News (@theautismnews) which reports legal rulings on behalf of those with autism and their caregivers. Likewise, the U.S. government has its own web site for people with disabilities (@Disabilitygov) promoting information about disability programs, services, laws, and benefits.

Sharing success stories of resilient individuals who overcome their disabilities is commonly performed by support groups and associations, as shown here by United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Houston (@Empower4All):

Plus, solidarity among the disabled is communicated through promotion of anniversary events and other gatherings. For example, the Paralyzed Veterans of America Chapter 1946 (@PVA1946) encouraged remembrances of their fallen military brothers and sisters over the 2009 Memorial Holiday.

Part of why Twitter is so successful is because “it is purely text-based,” says Internet broadcaster and IT executive Jonathan Mosen. Blind from birth, Mosen was an early Twitter adopter and uses the platform to promote his radio show, while also leveraging it for advocacy. Mosen tells a story involving an international treaty in the works on material development standards for the disabled community, noting that there was resistance from the U.S. to such guidelines. Once that piece of political news hit the Twitter fan, he said, “a hashtag was created (#sccr18) for all to comment upon and thus began an organizing movement directed at the White House.” The effort paid off. “Before you knew it, the White House announced that it would back down and not impede the progress of the treaty’s development,” he says. While such immediate grassroots activism is assisted by Twitter, Mosen cautions, “the challenge remains to make Twitter as user-friendly as possible for those who aren’t tech-savvy.” He believes that innovations like JAWS and TwInBox are improving accessibility, so the trend is moving in the right direction. Interestingly, Mosen has even taken to acting as an ersatz program debugger, rooting out incompatibility issues and suggesting solutions by connecting with technicians via Twitter.

Fundraising Through Community Building

Just as disease-oriented groups like the American Cancer Society (@AmericanCancer) have created Twitter profiles to advance their organization and provide awareness on treatment and prevention, so too have philanthropic groups for various physically disabled communities. The Special Olympics (@SpecialO) and its related chapter organizations across the United States have set up shop on Twitter, promoting their fundraising events while also connecting with supporters. By encouraging their fans to retweet their messages, they created their own viral marketing campaign on the fly.

Crowdsourcing

While it is common for business people to network on Twitter, it is a positive sign of autonomy and confidence for disabled community-based folks to stake out the same for their audience. In one recent experience by AbilityNet, two disabled entrepreneurs polled their followers to determine the likely success of their software idea, dedicated to assisting physically challenged persons. The community responded clearly that the idea would not be profitable since similar software already existed on the market for free. “That was highly valuable information that saved these business people countless sums of money,” says Banes.

Gaming for All

Beyond the world of business, trendsetters are expanding access across the realm of digital technology, and those opportunities include gaming. Assistive technology provided by purveyors such as OneSwitch (@OneSwitch) bridge the link between people with cerebral palsy and other mobility disorders to the gaming frontier. This company has a variety of tools that make popular games/consoles easier for disabled individuals to control, including Playstation 2. As described by Barry Ellis on the OneSwitch web site, “I like the thinking that a person is disabled by their environment rather than their condition.”

The Road to an Improved Twitter

One of the most common refrains from active Twitter users with physical challenges is that Twitter’s most serious flaw is not necessarily about technical accessibility, but about its general reach. Pratik Patel, President and CEO of EZFire, which provides IT tech solutions and support to non-profit organizations, thinks that, “Twitter has a larger problem about general accessibility to the platform.” Patel notes that Twitter hasn’t done a very good job of explaining its technology to people, and while that may give flight to one’s imagination, it prevents ordinary users “from understanding what the implementation actually does.”

As a blind user, Patel relies on TwInBox as his plug-in that integrates Twitter into his Microsoft Outlook application. Given his technical background, Patel has high expectations for Twitter that include greater transparency with developers, to make the program more robust. He also sees an opportunity for Twitter to highlight clients that are accessible to the disabled community on its home page, rather than featuring celebrity profiles as it does now. Hyatt chimes in with her recommendation for Twitter to provide for adjustable font sizes, to assist the visually challenged.

Some of Twitter’s biggest accessibility issues could be more easily resolved by lending a helping hand to developers. One software engineer, Jamal Mazrui, created a program called McTwit to assist visually challenged persons to gain access to Twitter. Relying on his understanding of the Python computer language, and every resource he could scout in the library, Mazrui built an extremely robust application with features that are not found elsewhere (e.g. using a hot key to generate a list of the followers of one person). Ordinarily, when Twitter users send tweets, the application they are using is indicated at the bottom of their message, such as Twitterfeed, Tweetdeck, and others. Unfortunately, Twitter’s new authorization rules aren’t compatible with McTwit, so there’s no mention of McTwit on Twitter messages issuing from it. The irony here is that few people who could actually benefit from it are aware of McTwit, and by hiding its name, it remains a secret. Mazrui, who is blind, also advises how Twitter could make its program easier to use by visually challenged persons: Judiciously use headings so screen-reading equipment can more easily navigate page content.

Essentially, Twitter has the ability to champion full participation among all users, even those whose bodies are challenged. Despite its shortcomings, Patel makes clear that, “Twitter has allowed my natural voice to emerge.” How tweet it is.

Twitter: Remaking the Persona of the Physically Challenged

TwitterHawk - Targeted Marketing on Twitter