Social media

Twitter Chat Rules & Tools for Beginners

By Paul B. Kaiser on September 16, 2018

Twitter chats have been around for years, but they seem to be increasing with industries like pharmaceutical, education, marketing and new business efforts. For example, see all these chats in the pharma industry. I thought laying down some of the rules and tools for Twitter Chats would be a good start for those just thinking about starting a chat. To begin you should know that twitter chats are great engagement and highly targeted to your audience.

The average engagement stats for popular Twitter chats are:

Posts – 1450
Users – 289
Reach – 1,456,928
Impressions – 13,993,986

And If you’re wondering if Twitter is still growing, know that;

There are 330M monthly active users
A total of 1.3 billion accounts have been created
Of those, 44% made an account and left before ever sending a Tweet
Only 550 million people have ever sent a Tweet
500 million people visit the site each month without logging in

So what is a Twitter Chat?

Twitter chats are public Twitter conversations that take place surrounding a specific hashtag at a predetermined date and time. The hashtag often provides some context for the topic or theme of the chat, and allows people to easily find the conversation and participate. Most often, Twitter chats are not one-off discussions, but rather recurring events.

A Twitter chat can help you:

Build authority and establish your brand’s leadership in your area
Enable members of your business to be identified as influencers
Make new connections with relevant Twitter users
Share valuable and informational content with your audience
Boost your brand awareness through increased mentions and discussions surrounding your brand

Tips to Make a Twitter Chat Worth Your Time

Participate in a chat before hosting your own.
Choose the right topic for your audience.
Find the right date and time.
Choose the right hashtag
- A hashtag chat is a way of organizing a conversation so that anyone on Twitter can follow, join, and contribute. It centers around a single hashtag, often including the word “chat”, that usually denotes the broad topic of conversation. Hashtag chats are pre-organized and occur at the same time every day, week or month..
- Do your research to find something unique.
- Keep it short and sweet..
Choose the right moderator.
Invite relevant influencers and community members to participate.
Create a Chat Brief.
Promote. Promote. Promote.

Tools to Host or Engage:

Chats can be very active, with a lot of people participating and a lot of new tweets coming in every moment, so there is a great chance you will miss something important and become frustrated after at first. Luckily, there are tools you can use to make this process easier and much more enjoyable.

if You’re Participating in a chat:

TweetChat

TweetChat is where the world comes to chat. A Twitter chat platform which allows users to participate in real-time hashtag conversations, visit and share their comments. To make things run as smoothly as possible, you can filter a Twitter chat conversation by hashtag from the aptly named TweetChat.

It also provides an easy-to-use share button that allows anyone to promote the chat from within the app.

Other major benefits include the ability to pause Tweets or choose the speed that new posts head your way, so you have a chance to read and reply. The minimum interval is five seconds, which for some Twitter users might be a slow in terms of updating Tweets.

Tchat

Tchat.io is a web service that makes it incredibly easy to participate in Twitter chats. You simply enter a hashtag that you want to follow and the tool will instantly load all the tweets with that hashtag. Tchat will update the stream with new tweets in real-time.

You can pause the stream whenever you like, hide retweets, or switch between hashtags if you are following more than one topic.

If You’re going to Host a chat – Hootsuite

Although Hootsuite is a very robust social media management tool, it’s also widely used to keep up with Twitter chats. It streams Tweets from chats to allow hosts to effectively moderate the conversation. Simply add a stream, search for the hashtag you want to track and join the conversation. You can add multiple streams, meaning you can track various Twitter chats along with your Tweets, scheduled posts, mentions, direct messages, and much more.

In addition, Hootsuite offers some great internal collaboration features, allowing you to assign Tweets to different team members and start internal chats regarding any particular tweet. Up to 3 social profiles, you can benefit from Hootsuite’s free version.

If You’re Watching Multiple Chats on Twitter – Tweetdeck

TweetDeck is one of the most popular free Twitter management tools because of its ability to add extra columns to target and customize streams of Tweets, making it easy to filter and keep up with lots of Twitter conversations.

A good setup in TweetDeck could be one column for @mentions of your Twitter account, two columns for the hashtag (one to watch the stream, and one toe pause/scroll through specific tweets), one user column to see the Tweets you’ve put out and one column to follow the Tweets of the chat moderator to help you keep up with the questions.

Other benefits of TweetDeck include managing multiple Twitter accounts and the ability to synchronize your configuration when you use TweetDeck on different computers and mobile devices.

Finally

Getting involved in Twitter chats is a great way to attract new followers and actively participate in relevant conversations with peers from your niche or industry. You can use any of the above tools to start leveraging the benefits of Twitter chats for your clients or yourself. Just get involved in a few chats and you’ll pick up on what to do.

Facebook or not to Facebook – that is the question

By Paul B. Kaiser on April 15, 2018

In recent weeks the Facebook scandal has made people rethink their purpose and desire to be on Facebook, or any social media for that matter. But I’m here to give you a digital intervention. I feel your anger and frustration. And I considered heavily to delete my account as well. Not because of the scandal so much, but because I’ve grown tired of its extra baggage. But a few enlightening articles later and some deep thought, I’m back in the saddle again.

I think there are several good reasons to keep Facebook, but you should have a new perspective on Facebook. And use Facebooks strengths and get rid of the weaknesses. So below are a few reasons to keep your Facebook account. And then a few ways to clean your account up and give you a new perspective.

If after this you’re not happy, just delete the account. Just realize what you’re giving up and losing.

The Facebook Scandal in 10 seconds

The Cambridge Analytica scandal is not so complicated, but it is a mess.

A Cambridge University researcher created a personality quiz app for Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of people took the quiz, and because of the way Facebook worked at the time, millions of their friends also had their data collected.
The researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, then sold this data to Cambridge Analytica, a company specializing in data mining. Cambridge Analytica then sold that data, allowing political parties to target people during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook has since tightened the rules on how apps collect data on users and their friends, but the damage has already been done. And people are outraged, leading to some deleting their Facebook accounts.

Enter – the angry FB’er.

But before you hit the delete button on your account, consider the positives of Facebook and learn how to tighten up your privacy. Remember, more detailed personal data has been stolen/hacked by thieves this year than the data they got from Facebook – Check out Equifax

“143 million people has their personal data stolen from Equifax”

Reasons to stay on Facebook & Social Media

1. Facebook Helps You Stay in Touch

The reality is that Facebook is one of the main reasons families are more in touch now than ever before.

This is especially true for adults who grew up in a world without the internet and without social media. According to the Pew Research Institute,

“a quarter of all adults surveyed reported that they feel the internet and cellphones contribute to closer family relationships than they had when they were growing up.”

2. Facebook keeps you Informed – Quickly

Ever since Facebook became so widely used, I’m sure you’ve noticed how often you hear about breaking news on Facebook first. Whether it’s a social crisis, a weather disaster, a celebrity death, and unfortunately something like an active shooter, you’re far more likely to discover the news on Facebook. And getting news first-hand from the sources is invaluable and tends to be more accurate.

3. Facebook Helps You Feel Supported

Whenever you’re going through a tragedy or other difficult time in life, sharing your experience with others is a powerful form of therapy. Personally, I don’t always like using it for this, but many do. For some people, either the isolation of a disability or living in a remote location makes attending such support groups difficult, if not impossible. Being able to connect virtually truly is a gift for them.

While those are all positive reasons, you should give your account a spring cleaning and check your settings. Spring Cleaning your Facebook Account is a great idea right now. Here are a few things you can check up on.

6 Things you can do to Improve Your Privacy

1) DO A PRIVACY CHECKUP

Another new feature on Facebook is the “Privacy Checkup.” The three-step process walks you through the privacy settings and shows you how many third-party apps have access to your information. When you log into another app with Facebook, that company gains access to everything you’ve shared on Facebook including personal information, posts and friends lists. You might be surprised by how many apps you’ve logged into with your Facebook ID.

Click the question mark for a drop down to settings.

Then click on Privacy and you’ll see the areas you can adjust.

Also, its good to check your Facebook App Settings to see the third parties that have access to profile data through these steps. Go through all the third-party apps you’ve logged into and delete anything you’re not using regularly. Especially if you’ve never heard of them. I know this call seem a bit much but really its a 1/2 hr worth while. Heres a video that is good at walking you through.

2. CLEAN YOUR POSTS

Moving forward, you should be taking better care to how you reply and what you say – if you care about what others think. But if you need to go back in time, there is an App for that. Scrubber is the one third-party app you actually want accessing your information because they’ll track down all those inappropriate posts and help you delete them. According to their website, Scrubber will find and flag;

Posts containing profanity
Flag posts with innuendo
Flag posts with mentions of drugs or alcohol
Scan through comments your friends make on your posts.
Flag political and religious posts (which we think are fine, but flag since our users have asked for it)
Allow you to search for custom keywords like the name of an ex, boss, family member, or coworker.

3. RE-ACCESS THE PEOPLE YOU FOLLOW

While you’re cleaning up your posts, consider the accounts you follow or the people you’re “friends” with who are just cluttering up your feed. Do you really care about what your high school lab partner is doing right now? If not, delete. Do you follow a bunch of accounts from that time in 2012 when you were really into skydiving, but have since moved on to other things? Unfollow. Take ten minutes off from mindlessly scrolling through your newsfeed and mindfully scroll through your follows to get rid of the people you just don’t need updates on.

4. USE YOUR BLOCK BUTTON

Take it one step further and use your block button to eliminate any negativity that’s ruining the online experience for you, especially on Twitter. People can be harsh, but thankfully, websites and apps give you a way to literally shut out the haters. If you don’t want to hear from someone, block them. Simple as that.

5. POST THE THINGS YOU ACTUALLY WANT PEOPLE TO SEE

Social media is about connecting and it’s a great way of staying in touch and networking. Update the parts of your life you want people to see. With all the Facebook talk, don’t neglect places like LinkedIn where you want to keep your job and experiences up-to-date in case business opportunities come along. Remember that sharing some info on social media can be a good thing. Just make sure you have control of it.

6. MAKE SEPARATE LISTS

Click on “Friends Lists” and you can make many lists like Family, Family all, Work, Friends and Friends all. This allows you to send the post to whom you want and to whom you don’t want to. You can name it what you want and add who you want. You can also add people to multiple lists.

While this is a great feature, I suggest keeping it simple. If you have to overthink who you are sending to all the time that can be a challenge as well. Just the basic groups will do.

Well thats it. Even if you’ve done a few things above, you are ahead of the game. A good percentage of FB users do not make any changes.

Be aware, be moral, be social.

Doctors Figure out Medical Mysteries with a Mobile App

By Paul B. Kaiser on April 22, 2017

The Figure 1 app has been labeled the “Instagram for doctors” and has hit 1 million subscribers. Figure 1 is used by doctors and healthcare students from a variety of specialties including medicine, nursing, and dentistry. Figure 1 said its free online mobile tool – used by medical practitioners around the world to share images of patient ailments and seek the opinions of others – has shared its medical images more than 1.5 billion times on its platform. The company estimates two-thirds of North American medical students now use the app, which is also used by institutions.

download Figure 1 on google play — *Click to download*

download figure 1 on itunes — *Click to download*

Doctors can now use direct messaging to their peers

Users typically share images of challenging or classic cases, and often seek help from the Figure1 community about how to treat patients, or even diagnose them. But now doctors can use peer to peer direct messaging for instant commentary and advice. This is a time saving measure and can be a valuable point of care situation.

What about Patient Privacy?

Figure 1 has to make sure patient privacy is a priority for healthcare professionals, and they have designed Figure 1 to maintain privacy.

In a Figure 1 profile, you can identify a name, workplace, and other information about yourself. However, you must remove identifying details related to patients from any case you post. (For example: faces and tattoos.) Click here for more information. There is also an automatic face-blocking feature detects faces and blocks them, and the manual block feature allows you to quickly and easily block anything else that might identify a patient.

Doctors can upload cases with comments and photos.

Once a case is uploaded, a medical officer and team of moderators at Figure 1 perform a review of each case to verify that all identifying information has been properly removed from it before it is shown on Figure 1. However, if you think that a case, comment, or description on Figure 1 may identify a patient (or supplies information that risks identifying the patient), you can report the case, and it will be immediately removed until our medical officer reviews it. Should a case be deemed to potentially identify a patient, Figure 1 will immediately and securely destroy it, and we will alert the healthcare professional who uploaded the case accordingly.

Whats the future for Figure 1?

Now its ambition is to become the dominant online platform for doctors, or “the operating system of health care,” said Boris Wertz, a Vancouver venture capitalist who has backed the company.

The app can be used for teaching, learning and for patient point of care.

Dr Joshua Landy, co-founder of Figure 1, said “you work in teams, you learn in teams, you study in groups and everything is about bouncing the ideas off, learning to see other people’s perspective and learning from your peers.” You will be able to share the knowledge of healthcare professionals through the network but also around the world.

He said that since they started the app in 2013, they have millions of healthcare professionals in 190 countries using it. “The ability to be able to reach out to someone in the moment that you need information and receive it means that you could access this worldwide network of healthcare professionals who are there to help you with your case.” All this provides better patient care, shorter wait times and hopefully lower costs in the healthcare system – in theory. It would be great if patients could share photos with a team of doctors to get insights and diagnosis. Check out the article on apps to connect with your doctor.

Technology in the Trump Era

By Paul B. Kaiser on November 10, 2016

As we head out of Obamaville and into the Trump 100 days soon, what is the future of the technology industry? Knowing Trump it could go either way but here is what I know. Please note that I’m more than willing to give Trump time to prove himself, but the signs and things he has said have not been promising.

During the Obama years, Silicon Valley has been an economic and social engine for the digital community. Smartphones and social networks have become as necessity to many and are as important to world business as oil is to the automobile. The big four (Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google) have become some of the most prosperous and valuable companies on the planet and have given the USA new hope for generating $$ in the USA.

Obama, has undeniably been a active supporter of these digital tools and his administration deferred to the tech industry for advice and consultation. Baring the recent Apple iPhone privacy debate, the tech industry and big government have worked well together. So how will Mr. Trump carry the baton?. “Mr. Trump had few kind words for tech giants during the campaign.”

He promised to “initiate antitrust actions against Amazon, repeatedly vowed to force Apple to make its products in the United States, and then called for a boycott of the company when it challenged the government’s order to unlock a terrorist’s iPhone.” And his immigration plans are dislike by about every company in tech.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have not commented about Trump’s win, or how the new administration’s stated policy goals would affect their businesses, but it seems clear that a shift is in the wind. For instance, last year, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, wrote a rebuke to Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from immigrating to the United States. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, told an audience of developers in April that “instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges.”

Behind closed doors, during the campaign, many tech leaders were positive that their vision would prevail over Trump’s. But when asked about whether they were preparing a strategy to deal with a Trump victory, they did not have an answer. They like many other thought it would never happen.

Among the tech community, there is concern that social media giants, Facebook and Twitter, have helped advance the decline of good and accurate news media. Social media seems to have contributed into the rise of trolling, racism and misogyny that seemed to follow so much of Trump’s campaign.

At the end of the day, I have to imagine that a “mover and shaker” like Trump would want these businesses to succeed and prosper in America. It seems that Trumps business side would rise and squash his inner negativity. Nobody really knows his internet privacy, security positions or technology plans. He barely touched on the issues during the campaign. Privacy and cyber-security aren’t mentioned at all on his website’s positions pages. Everyone buckle up for the ride.

President Obama Stresses Importance of Science and Technology to the Nations Future

Snapchat Making a Spectacle

By Paul B. Kaiser on September 24, 2016

February 20 – Snapchat opens up the sale for Spectacles to the public for $129.99 – buy them here.

Snapchat readies for an IPO worth $25 Billion – 1/30/17 Update

ORIGINAL POST:

The messaging app Snapchat and company will reportedly release its IPO filing the first week of March. Originally it was expected to be valued at $20 billion, but now sources are saying it will be worth $25 billion.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who is only 26, will undoubtedly be a wealthy dude. Welcome to the American Dream. The filing will reportedly take place on the New York Stock Exchange.

11/12 – Update Hands on with Spectacles

Exciting Unboxing Video

11/10/16 – Snapchat releases the spectacles today for sale.

The king of quick chat is seeing things differently this fall. Capturing memories and life moments has proved to be quite lucrative for Snapchat. And they’re looking to extend the experience outside the app. Snapchat is shortening their name to just Snap, and is in the hardware business now.

The company will release video-recording sunglasses called Spectacles this fall. They contain a 115-degree-angle lens that will allow the wearer to record up to 30 seconds of video, a Snap Inc. representative said, and will cost $129.99. Supplies will be limited at first, and they’ll come in one-size-fits-all variants of black, teal or coral.

How will the Spectacles camera work: A click on a button at the corner of the sunglasses will record up to 10 seconds of video. The camera has a wide-angle lens – similar to a fish-eye lens on GoPro cameras. The glasses connect wirelessly to a smartphone.

While reminiscent of Google Glass, I think Spectacles will have a big impact initially but eventually suffer from the same demise as Google. Why? They are dorky looking. Why not make these look like any other glasses or at least not so funky? and making them sunglasses limits them to outdoor activities. But this dorky look makes a clear connection to the Snapchat app, and that may be the deciding factor.

Quick Spectacle Facts

How do I use Spectacles?
Tap the button on the top left-hand corner of the sunglasses to begin recording a snap. It will automatically stop recording after 10 seconds — but if you want additional recording time, you can tap again to add another 10-second increment.

What’s the longest video that I can record?
You can record up to 30 seconds at a time.

How do I get my snaps onto my phone?
If you have an Android device, you have to transfer them via Wi-Fi. If you have an iOS device, they will transfer by default via the glasses’ Bluetooth connection. Or, you can choose to can transfer them at a higher resolution over Wi-Fi.

How do I charge them?
Spectacles will come with a dedicated charging case and cable. Snap says that when fully charged, the case can recharge your Spectacles up to four times.

Millennials choose Snapchat over Instagram

By Paul B. Kaiser on April 29, 2016

Snapchat swapped places with Instagram and jumps in front.

In November of 2015, Snapchat was the Third Most Popular Social Network Among Millennials. Snapchat, which allows users to send photo messages that automatically delete themselves shortly after being viewed, shocked many when they turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook last November.

But it’s spring time and for the first time, the messaging app Snapchat is the preferred social network for teens, according to a survey from research firm Piper Jaffray. The survey, which polled 6,500 teens in the U.S., found Snapchat use surged with 28% of them claiming it’s the most important social network. Instagram app was at 27%.

“Snapchat is the preferred social network for teens”

How big is it?

Snapchat has about 60 million total installs, making it larger than Instagram when it sold to Facebook for $1 billion. Of those 60 million installs, Snapchat has about 30 million monthly active users. Fifty-five percent of monthly active users use Snapchat daily. That’s 16.5 million people.

faceswap — **Face swap filter is creepy**

How many snaps?

Snapchat now shares 400 million snaps each day, according to CEO Evan Spiegel, who confirmed the number to TechCrunch. In September, Evan Spiegel announced on the Disrupt stage that the disappearing photo-sharing service was seeing 350 million snaps sent per day, up from 200 million in June.

How much is Snapchat worth?

Snapchat’s $10 billion valuation in the round vaulted Spiegel, 24, and Murphy, 26–who each own an estimated 15% of Snapchat–to a net worth of about $1.5 billion each.

Whats next for Snapchat?

Always a lot of rumors with the stories not disappearing but I think they are just going to make money. NBC just worked a deal with Snapchat, letting them provide video updates of the olympics. Snapchat will present “unique perspectives” from the games via the service’s “live stories.” Snapchat will have an NBC Rio Olympic Discover channel, which are snippets of action with a touch of filters and twists from the service.

Marketing Campaigns

Snapchat and Taco Bell did funny filter today for Cinco de Mayo. They added a filter turning everyones face into a giant taco. While it is a little creepy, it creeped across the web today in large numbers.

Adweek said that Snapchat’s Cinco de Mayo face lens sponsored by Taco Bell today might be up your alley if you ever wondered what its like to put your head in a taco. And for those who plan to get sauced tonight, Taco Bell’s got you covered with a packet of Diablo that promises to “turn up the heat.”

Do you need the App? iOS or Android