Why I now have a third Twitter account
First there was the Twitter account that is associated with this blog. Then there was the one for my Mormon arts and culture group blog. Now I have added a third.
Is that crazy? Is that brand dilution? Is that spreading myself to thin? Perhaps. But I think it also makes a lot of sense in relation to how I personally prefer to use Twitter.
For many folks, and the current conventional wisdom now that we’re past the early adopters stage (and that was a nice stage — remember when everybody was following everybody else?), is that Twitter is mainly for broadcasting. It’s most useful for organizations, brands and public figures who can garner a ton of followers and then push out links and calls to action to them.
Call me a throwback, but I prefer Twitter as conversation. And I have begun to realize that Twitter makes me happiest when I’m interacting with just a few people who I either have offline social ties with or with whom I have a lot of overlapping interests. Or in other words, for me Twitter is about the @. And while, yes, I could use lists, that only helps me — it doesn’t do much for those who only want one side of me.
As a result, when I found myself wanting to talk more about comedy, literary and genre fiction, the publishing business, and writing fiction in general, I decided to add the third Twitter account. Along with that I followed several accounts from my other two that fit better there — or in some cases, double followed. And I’m going to let things grow slow with the new one. Also: I’ve pruned some follows out of my first two accounts. I also think that about 250-350 per account is the max that makes sense for me personally to follow.
And so far it seems to be working.
Welcome to morris.wm
The tag line for this blog is: where pr, higher ed, media, technology and culture collide. That verb is a bit strong, perhaps. But as anyone who works in higher education knows, media (especially social media) and technology are having a disruptive impact on the life of the university and are challenging and transforming educational culture. And, of course, because of this and because of the changing landscape of how our audiences consume and share information, it’s also having an impact on higher ed pr.
The good news is that it’s an exciting time to be telling the stories of our colleges and universities. And higher education pr/marketing is transforming in interesting ways. Anybody remember mailing out news releases? I’ve only been in the business nine years, and my day-to-day work has changed dramatically over that time (even as the basic need of a well-crafted message via the right medium for the intended audience remains the same).
What I intend to do with morris.wm is provide minor examples, anecdotes, speculations and analyses of where the nouns mentioned in the tag line intersect. My hope is that posts will be short but useful, infrequent but regular (most likely 1-2 per week) , and heavily rooted in the why and the what if more than the how. Your comments are welcome.
Wm’s Twitter stream- morriswm: Whole Foods on one end of Hennepin, Lund's on the other. Does that mean we should expect a Trader Joe's to go into Block E? February 8, 2012
- morriswm: RT @BusinessMN: Whole Foods commits to old Jaguar dealership site in Minneapolis http://t.co/QfwcbTF1 February 8, 2012
- morriswm: RT @fakebaldur: This: http://t.co/NTaIPRJx “Khan Academy: It’s Different This Time” February 5, 2012
- morriswm: RT @Nobilis: I figured out why I don't like Tumblr: There's no room for conversation. It's a place to put up billboards. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: @ImaginaryZina @mel_leilani Yep. That's what I do. But I only do it on 1 out of the 4 times that I would normally click. So. Lost pageviews. February 2, 2012
- morriswm: @HeidiTighe 3/4 of the time I will just forget it. The other 1/4 I'll just Google the headline. February 2, 2012
