How, when and why I Tweet and Blog

I’m often asked how I use social media, so I thought it might be helpful to do a quick blog about it. Not because you really care about me, but because it might help spark some thoughts about how you use social media and because it might help you get more out of this website and TomorrowToday’s other resources.

Firstly, then, this blog site. I use it as my filing cabinet for good ideas and good stuff I’ve seen. I focus on tracking trends that are shaping the new world of work, with a particular focus on demography and shifting societal values. But I’m also interested in the impact of other major forces, such as technology, institutional shifts, the environment and ethical consumption. I use this blog as a way of capturing case studies, ideas, trends and especially for writing up bits and pieces that I can later use in longer articles, white papers and books. The categories on the right hand side are linked to existing and expected frameworks (which we use as presentations or workshops with our clients).

As an author, I try and keep a discipline of writing about 200-400 words every day. Sometimes these words are rubbish – those are filed in fragmentary documents on my hard drive. Sometimes they start something that then inspires me to develop an article length entry – most recently, for example, I wrote a monster entry about Good to Great – that took nearly a week to complete. But every now and again, the 200-400 words produce a great thought – and that becomes a blog entry. My aim is one of these every other day.

Our blog has an automatic widget that then reports the new blog entry on Twitter (the feed is at @tomorrowtodayza). I wait about 30 minutes and then Retweet that auto notice using my own Twitter account (@codrington).

I use Twitter as an index card for the blog entries I read. As I am doing research or my daily scan of the Web, if I see something I know I might use later, I Tweet a summary and a trimmed web link. When I am writing blogs, white papers or bits of my books, I go back to my archived Twitter feed and go back to the websites I referenced and refresh my memory in the content. I usually also mark key items as favourites – just to help me in the future. If your Twitter feed shows favourites, that will help you see what I think is most important.

I follow a few hundred people but don’t read all their tweets. Normally I only read tweets when I am sitting on a train or waiting somewhere with nothing else to do. I have an iPhone and use Tweetdeck and Facebook apps that allow me to follow my news feeds, add content and retweet. I also check my Twitter feed when I am doing research – which I spend two half says a week doing. So my tweets tend to come in spurts. I don’t use an automated Twitter scheduler – that’s not why I use Twitter!

I use Facebook in a different way. If Twitter is more about what I know, then FB is about who I know – and where I am. On FB I try and give people a little more insight into some if my personal interests – including music, movies, humour, travel, sport – mainly cricket – and my family. I try to let people know where I will be travelling. I often get people interested that I’ll be in their city and asking to connect with me – or just giving me good travel and cultural sensitivity insights.

I actively promote both FB and Twitter to my audience participants and accept all friend requests. So, I don’t really have 2,500 actual friends – see my Facebook page.

Every now and again I cross post from FB to Twitter or vice versa.

I use YouTube to upload video snippets of myself in action. This is important for clients to see. But that’s it – I don’t use YouTube for social media purposes.

I also use LinkedIn, but probably not as much as I could. There are so many options – I’ve got to draw a line somewhere. In fact, I’d be keen to hear from you about how to better leverage LinkedIn or if there are other social networks I should consider.

There it is. Maybe you weren’t interested – but, then, why did you read right to here? If you were interested, let me gave your comments or questions.

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