This video was shot in January in Boston while James Dalman and I were at WordCamp Boston.

We were being tourists and visiting Harvard University and all the while hundreds of miles away from “home,” we were staying connected to thousands of people via social media, in particular Twitter.

Social media has been flamed for disconnecting people, which it can … but it also CONNECTS us in so many great ways. Like my bud Brad Ulrich says, “Twitter cuts out the small talk.” Using Twitter we’re keeping up BETTER with each other more than ever.

This story illustrates that I think:

I tweeted this status update yesterday and got such great response to it that I wanted to post the conversation that ensued here:

It’s sad that I use my blog reader maybe once a week now & Twitter everyday almost like a reader – how often do you use your reader?

Here’s just some of the awesome responses aka @replies I got:

benehrlich: I use my RSS reader every day. Though I should probably read some more worthwhile stuff.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 18:58:07 +0000 2010

chrisjean: I never used RSS. It demanded too much attention. I always felt it was an unproductive timesuck.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 18:24:54 +0000 2010

adbrad: about 250 posts a day. Every day.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 17:39:54 +0000 2010

rzen: not to mention regularly throughout the day

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 15:23:35 +0000 2010

rzen: I stopped checking my ggl rdr months ago. Twitter, though, is the last thing I check before bed & the 1st thing in the a.m.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 15:23:10 +0000 2010

kimparsell: I very rarely open my feed reader anymore. Usually find all the good stuff right here on Twitter via the ppl I follow.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:51:20 +0000 2010

rbhavesh: been 2 months since i opened google reader. RSS is dead?

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:40:47 +0000 2010

granata: Twitter will never replace my feed reader.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:35:55 +0000 2010

jasondlee: I use my reader a LOT still.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:19:39 +0000 2010

CraigTuller: I still use Reader every morning to get the latest news, etc. Twitter just doesn't provide everything.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:16:41 +0000 2010

conorpegypt: I haven't opened my reader in months. If an article is any good people will share it on Twitter.

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:14:11 +0000 2010

corymiller303: It's sad that I use my blog reader maybe once a week now & Twitter everyday almost like a reader – how often do you use your reader?

about a day ago

Sat Jan 16 14:10:52 +0000 2010

What did I learn from this conversation?

• Ask more questions in tweets … people want to participate in the conversation.
• Sometimes the best stuff is unplanned … be more compulsive about asking questions … I was reading my RSS feed subscriptions on my iPhone when the question or thought came to mind.
  
• Engage in the conversation back … this is called, yes, being interactive. I tried to respond to all the people who took the time to answer my question. I loved that and hope the people I did realized I valued their answers.
  
• Conversations build community … I was just thrilled to be in conversations with people who felt it was as relevant as me.
  
• I learned a lot … about the question and how people use RSS.
  

Simply put:

Ask questions.

Start conversations.

Let others have the microphone.

Interact with them.

Learn and grow.

Have fun doing it!

I’ve been using Twitter actively for over a year now. Initially I started using it because I saw its potential benefits for my business. But after a couple of months, I started to absolutely love it. It became a means of expression for quick thoughts, photos, links, whatever, that wouldn’t normally be a blog post.

And I’ve heard from a couple of people I highly respect that there is a tendency for narcissism on Twitter – that there is a tendency to make it ONLY about you.

But as I began to reflect on that, I realized I WANT those I follow to be narcissistic via Twitter.

I follow people because I want to know ALL about them and their lives and thoughts.

I want to know if they are in the Atlanta airport. I want to see photos of everything they do. I click on Twitpics all the time for people I’m not even interested in just to see what other people are like. I love photos! I think many other people do too.

Why? Because I feel connected to them in some way.

This includes business people.

I follow every relevant business person because I want to know what they are up to, if they have a new product coming out, or links to things they share.

I follow all our team on Twitter.

I do this because I’m genuinely interested in their lives. I want to know what movies they are seeing. I want to talk trash with them. I want to know about their adventures.

A good friend of mine said that “Twitter cuts out the small talk.” I love that!

Recently, one of my partners walked into our office and asked Matt if he was still in a good mood. Matt was a little shocked. But my partner follows Matt on Twitter and knew he had just tweeted about being in a great mood.

I’ve been at conferences and someone will come up and introduce themselves to me and they’ll start right in about something I’ve shared via Twitter.

If they follow me, they probably follow those on our team. And they probably know the TV shows I watch, that I have two Yorkies that are our kids. They probably know I had been to Vegas recently.

And when we meet in person for the first time, it’s probably like connecting with friends you haven’t seen in a long time but keep up with in a passive way. I love those experiences, because we can indeed skip all that small talk and talk like we see each other every day. For me, this all helps further deepen a relationship we’ve built online through Twitter.

So I’m all for narcissism on Twitter … and if I don’t care about you, then I’ll unfollow. Just like you’ll do to me!

Twitter has been described as a microblogging service for a LONG time, but that aspect really set in with me this week.

For a while, I’ve considered it good therapy. I get to express and share what I want, when I want — from photos, links, quotes and thoughts. And I have to admit I enjoy that.

I like getting responses to posting photos of our dogs, or asking for software or plugin recommendations and getting 10 responses in 10 minutes.

When I first signed up for Twitter, I let my account sit for almost 8 months before I actively used it. Then after getting linked on some WordPress developer lists, and finding I had a large number of people following me, I realized I needed to start engaging those people with it.

(Anyone that signs up to get any kind of notifications — whether email, feed or Twitter — of what you do or talk about is EXTREMELY valuable.)

So after a couple of months of tweeting actively, I started to actually like it. A lot.

I switched from taking a strictly business and reserved approach, to sharing anything I wanted. It was something with my blogs that I wanted to do — in fact, I’ve always reserved this blog for doing whatever I want, when I want. For other blogs, I tried to stay focused on a topic.

So this week, I started thinking about my Twitter account like a blog. These people have asked to get notifications from me and I want to be responsible with that trust.

So I asked myself, why do my Twitter followers follow me, and get updates from me?

If Twitter is a blog, what’s my blog topic? How can I engage them more? How can I be more relevant to them?

I can segment three groups on Twitter for me personally ….

• Greater WordPress community — these people know I lead a WordPress theme company and I’m attached to topics in the bigger WP community since I’ve been involved with it for over 4 years now; I think these initial people followed me after I was linked in big Twitter WordPress developer lists
• Our customer community — I’ve met a number of our customers who follow our entire team on Twitter; they like to know when we trash talk each other, or what things we’re working on, or even where are. These are THE most important followers on Twitter for me. I love to engage our customers through Twitter. The beauty of this was illustrated when we were at a WordCamp and two ladies came up to us and introduced themselves and said they’ve been following us on Twitter. I love that! Those are real connections built through social media.
• Personal friends – these are people I typically see (in persona) throughout the week. Our banter is usually irrelevant to the other groups, but I also think engaging my friends on Twitter, and when the other groups see that, it makes me a real person — something I’ve tried to demonstrate in our recent videos. I laugh because a number of these people follow my tweets about business or WordPress and say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I like to read them.” What’s interesting is that the majority of people I know use Twitter for personal use only. They have about 100 followers, sometimes protect their updates, and just use it to stay in touch with their buddies when they’re at the mall, or whatever. If I’m being  honest, I’m jealous of this. I’ve almost thought about starting a new Twitter account just to talk about anything I want without regard to who might un-follow me.

So those are the types of things I’ve been thinking about … but thinking of it like a blog, with an audience and subscribers who have real topics and interest in mind, is helping me frame the next stage of how I use Twitter.

What about you?

The last few months, I’ve started to use social mega-network Facebook for two reasons:

1. To communicate better with our church’s college ministry student (99% of them use it and love it)
2. To use it as a great networking platform for my business (I like it much better than LinkedIn)

It’s an incredible platform. As has been said too many times to count, the power is in the user base. And as more and more bloggers have joined it I’ve been able to make some connections with many of them — some I’ve don’t really know that well or at all.

Here’s a couple of things I’ve loved about Facebook (and by the way, here’s my Profile):

• Creating an event and inviting people to it is SUPER easy. It’s the best event planning software I’ve ever used.
• Making friends and connections is SUPER easy too. And finding old friends and new network opportunities is something I’ve cherished with this service.
• Using it for my business just got better with Pages. Now I can highlight my products and services and ask peopel to be “fans.” (Look for this announcement soon.)

BUT … I still haven’t dove head first into Facebook … I haven’t wrapped my whole communication world around it yet (much like many of our college students have).

And I think here’s the key … like many “older” people I don’t stay logged into Facebook. I have notifications set to email me when someone writes on my Wall, or asks to add me as a Friend.

So I’ve realized … if Facebook wants to get my total buy-in, so that I use the platform for everything I do, including email … they’re going to have to create a way for me to use Facebook as my email client too. In other words, they need to make their platform the center of my universe and that includes this old-fashioned thing called EMAIL.

Oh, and a good calendar system would be good too!