All posts tagged digitalsista

#Diversity in Online & Tech Arenas – Interview w/ @DigitalSista

by jaywalk1 on August 23, 2010 in Diversity, Socially Diverse with No comments

*This is a repost of the latest content from the Socially Diverse Project.

Without a doubt, this has been my favorite interview to date. I say this for a few of reasons:

  1. I had the opportunity to speak with the one and only @DigitalSista - Shireen Mitchell. I am so happy that Shireen agreed to take part because she (and unknowingly a few colleagues of hers) helped generate the first spark of the idea that became the Socially Diverse project.
  2. Aside from being a great person to chat with in DC, Shireen is a truly accomplished individual and is starting get recognized for the decades of work that she has done in the space. I’m glad that I can introduce her to some of you.
  3. I decided to hold onto the video clips for a bit and really get acquainted with some of the features in iMovie. Check out the video below. Let me know what you think about Shireen’s comments and the little tech upgrade I made via the video!

Hope you enjoyed the interview! Please let me know what you think.

Also, in case you were interested in checking out the recommendations that Shireen made regarding the next generation of women of color in tech, here they are:

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If you are interested in doing an interview about your site, blog or community, please send me a note – james.walker [at] prprescriptions.com. Thanks!

Talking "at" Not "to" Everyone: A Note on Twitter and Hashtag Use

by jaywalk1 on June 23, 2009 in Advertising, PR, Professional Development, Public Relations, Resource, Resources, Social Media with 3 Comments

Everyone knows that Twitter is all about the conversation, right? It’s about connecting with people, developing relationships and sharing information in 140 characters.

Some communicators are better at balancing the three than others, but this post is for the PR and Marketing folk who use this platform to share valuable information. Here’s my first question for you (“experts” can jump to question two):

Do you know what hashtags are?

hashtag cartoonHashtags.org defines them as “ a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to [your message].”

There aren’t any major rules when it comes to using hashtags. Simply throw in the “#” before the message and tweet away.

One of the most popular ways to use hashtags is to use the agreed upon hashtag when live tweeting from conferences. Here’s an example of that in action from BlogPotomac 2009:

“jaywalk1: @loryn24 Some would say YOU don’t determine your brand. The ppl you know and interact with do. I’m not buying that 100%. #blogpotomac“

The hashtag doesn’t need to go at the end of the message, but it often does, and as you can see, by using hashtags, you are able to track tweets posted by anyone using that same tag.
People create all kinds of tags and participate in themed discussions such as #followfriday and #charitytuesday. One extremely popular and useful tag at the moment is #iranelection. This brings me to my second question:
Are you using hashtags appropriately?
I know, I know. I just finished talking about how there were not any rules to this. I’m still sticking with that, and if you have been on twitter long enough, I’m sure you have a friend or two who get a little “hashtag happy” and create their own tags for everything. I’m not here to regulate, but I’d like to point out the fact that there are established communities forming around these tags…some you know about and some you don’t.
It was at BlogPotomac during a talk from Shireen Mitchell (@digitalsista) that I really began to give this some thought. Being in the District, I follow a healthy amount of people truly engaged in political discussion on twitter, and I thought I was decently clued in to the popular tags people used- #tcot (top conservatives on twitter) and #tlot (top liberals on twitter).
twitter-hashtag-logo
As someone who tends to throw in my own tags from time to time, I was foolish to think that these were the main ones. In her discussion, she listed a host of others that I had never even heard of and said something that really drove a message home. I use these tags to speak to groups, but I speak to everyone.
Through her use of these hashtags (and there are SEVERAL!), she is able to speak to and share information directly with groups all across the spectrum. She doesn’t simply put the message out there.
You may be thinking, well I do the same thing right now. But do you really?
Many of us simply tweet and put the information out there. There is a beauty to the way twitter works, the serendipity that can occur with the right person just happening to come across the information you shared, but how much stronger could our message be?
How much longer could the trail of the pass along or re-tweets be if really took more time to check out the communities of people we are trying to reach to determine the tags they use, the communities they interact with, the communities they would benefit from being connected to?
My final thought: you could talk “at” everyone  and dangle the fishing line, but you’ll do much better in connecting with the right people if you spend some time looking into the communities building around these hashtag conversations and speak to them directly.

Brands that Twitter

by jaywalk1 on January 13, 2009 in PR, Public Relations, Resources, Social Media with 4 Comments

twitter1

twitter-whale caterpillarTwitter is amazing…when it’s working! I have had my fair share of visits from the Fail Whale and Twitterpillar, but the benefits of twitter far  outweigh the moments of  frustration when I can’t  connect.

It has been a tremendous help when it comes to

connecting  to people with whom I share  personal and professional interests. It’s a huge source for general news, tips on the best places to go in the District, links to great social media efforts and updates from every media/pr/marketing conference I could ever think of attending.

I see tremendous value, and it turns out that I am not the only who feels this way. Top Brands have discovered Twitter’s potential and boldly moved into the land of 140 characters.

Paul Dunay, Global Director of Integrated Marketing BearingPoint, Inc. and author of the blog Buzz Marketing for Technology, posted a list of brands and C-level execs brave enough to engage.  Listed brands I’m following in include:

The full list is available here.