• We Are Media - Beth Kanter’s crowd-sourced social media toolkit for nonprofits is full of useful tips.
• How to Pick Up Followers on Twitter - I loved these Twitter tips from Guy Kawasaki so much I re-tweeted them instantly using Twitthat, which is my pick of the bunch.
• 10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.7 - …or 10 reasons to get excited, if you’re a WP user.
• Measurementcamp: Tools For Measurement - Another pretty good round-up of measurement tools for social media. MeasurementCamp itself might be worth getting involved with.

It was set up and is run by my team, with input from colleagues in press office, policy teams and ministers’ offices. It’s working out well for us and we’re keen to grow its reach. But how?

We’re doing the obvious things: like cross-promoting the channel from the website, plugging it at the end of news releases and dropping it into offline communications. Promoted in these contexts, it’s just another push mechanism, like RSS feeds and email alerts.

But Twitter is more than that. It’s a two-way relationship, a network, and wherever possible we try to treat it that way.

But we can’t promote it that way. I’d love to, but we can’t.

For individual Twitterers, following your friends’ followers is one of the best ways to grow your network. It’s the norm. People can choose to follow you back, or not. I’ve done this with my personal Twitter account and can even converse with Stephen Fry as a result.

But if a government department starts to follow someone out of the blue, the followee is likely to feel a bit - well - followed. It has a whiff of Big Brother about it. Even if the user is already following other, similar channels, he or she could well wonder “Why is the department for X now monitoring my tweets?”

I floated this idea on Twitter over the weekend, and got some useful thoughts back. I asked:

Is it bad form for a corporate Twitterer (like a govt dept) to follow new people to gain followers?

These people answered:

• karl_straw I think its bad form for anyone to do this to gain followers. Twitter is organic and that seems to be bio-engineering.
• charmermark if the person running corporate feed is interested in what people are saying, great. If it’s JUST to get followers, I say bad
• draml I don’t think it’s bad form, but at some point the corp Twitterer will have to ‘deliver’ on that follow by engaging surely?
• russelltanner i’d say it’s a no, unless you follow other organisations, rather than individuals?
• anthonyzach depends on how scattershot the following is.
• picturetheuk IMO not spammy. I use Twitter to learn stuff so it’s v. useful.

Not quite a unanimous “no” from these early birds on Saturday morning, but a pretty clear “don’t be that guy“. After a bit more digging, I also found the same question being asked on this blog with one commenter reporting from direct experience:

I think corporate or govt use of twitter needs to observe some protocol when “following” folks.  I arrived home last night to a message that my local government council, @Mosmancouncil is now following me on Twitter.  Now, I am not a paranoid type and really quite out there, but I just found it creepy that a govt body is “following” me without a note or a message of why and no introduction and no identity of the person who is behind the twitter account, or explanation of how they plan to use Twitter.  So, what could have been a great and pleasant communication exercise was a bit weird and alienating.  It really boils down to good manners, introductions and permissions.

What I take from all this is that most people would definitely feel weird about a government channel following them, unless they followed the government body first. But - at least for some users - establishing a human, personal introduction at the point of initiating the follow or very soon after would mitigate the ill feeling.

But I’m not convinced that even then it’s the right way to go.

What are your thoughts? Is it OK for government channels (here, there and everywhere) to follow people on Twitter if it’s done in a personal, socially engaging way?

If not - how can government and other corporates build their Twitter following without following people on Twitter itself?

(This O’Reilly report may have some of the answers, but I’m not paying $250 to find out!)

Some related finds on corporate Twittering:

• Guidelines for brands using Twitter
• The evolution of brands on Twitter
• 5 ways to screw up your corporate Twitter account
• 50 ideas on using Twitter for business
• 101 business Twitter ideas, tactics and strategies

• 20 Great Online Image Editors - Who needs desktop software? One of these takes you a step closer to Installation Zero.
• IntenseDebate Wordpress plugin - Comment threading, replies by email. Potentially a powerful plugin for any Wordpress driven e-consultation.
• The miniskirt theory of web writing - “Good [web] writing should be like a skirt: Long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to stay interesting.” I really like this analogy, but probably won#039;t be using it around the office.
• The rise of the video republic - Great post about how young people are using online video to express their views, share opinions and shape the world views of their generation.
• The UKGovWeb Twitterverse - Dead handy roll call of UK government Twitter users.

Stephen Hale, by that rationale, is a man you can trust. He has started a blog about his work as Head of Engagement, Digital Diplomacy at the FCO. And he’s done it on the Department’s corporate blogging platform, which makes this something of a first among the UK gov web bloggers. It also means I am officially no longer the new boy.

I bring you this news third hand, but still wanted to spread the word. It’s a great blog, and I’m adding it to my must-read list. Here’s my favourite bit so far:

“To be honest, we’re still working out what we can achieve through digital diplomacy. We do have a plan… But what’s exciting about this work is that we really don’t know how it’s it going to play out.”

Just the sort of refreshing honesty you’d want a blogging expert to demonstrate. Nice work, Stephen.

• The UKGovWeb Twitterverse - Dead handy roll call of UK government Twitter users.
• People show government a better way - The results are in. The world will be a slightly better place. (If you’re trying to find a postbox, recycling centre or toilet in a hurry).
• Not getting it may be a worldview thing - David’s right: when people fail to understand social web stuff, it’s not the tools they don’t understand, it’s the new way of thinking and being.
• Wakoopa - Discover software games - But, for when you still need software, this discovery engine can help you find what you need.
• The Web Browser is the New Laptop - “At this point, who cares what operating system you run?” My thoughts exactly. As a certain Simon Dickson remarked recently, my operating system is called Firefox.

In this and a previous post, I’ve rounded up 40 of the best free tools, and suggested that, despite the bewildering choice, there are only four ways of putting those tools together in a listening strategy.

Part one covered 20 free tools and two methods: quick searches and email alerts. So I owe you 20 more tools and the other two methods, which are dashboards and aggregators. I’ll end with a list of essential RSS feeds (including, in case you don’t read that far, this little gem).

Method 3: ‘Start page’ dashboards

What is it? A single page showing mentions of your topic from across the web, arranged in a grid, updated in real time.
Advantages: Provides a fast, at-a-glance view; ideal for busy execs or non tech-savvy people; can be fine-tuned with laser accuracy.
Disadvantages: By far the most time-consuming option to build; easy to miss something important if not checked frequently.

Tools I use:

• Pageflakes - quickly and easily build a dashboard you can publish to the web or keep private. Here’s one I made delegated earlier. Each box was created the same way: using the ‘Add RSS Feed’ link on the left under the main menu.
• iGoogle - the same deal but with no equivalent of the publishing option in Pageflakes. Which means, if you’re sharing this with colleagues using a generic Google account, they will have to log out of their personal Gmail first. I love iGoogle for personal use but shy away from it at work for that reason.

Others worth trying:

• Netvibes - does the same thing as Pageflakes, right down to the ability to publish your dashboard.
• Djinngo, Odysen, My Yahoo, Symbaloo - it’s an increasingly crowded market. But with the first three  offering such an extensive set of widgets and easy interface, why shop around?

Know of a better way? Got good or bad experiences of rolling out dashboards in your organisation? Let me know via comments.

Method 4: RSS Readers/aggregators

What is it? Desktop or web-based software that allows you to combine an unlimited amount of web content in a single location.
Advantages: Hugely scalable; allows you to mark items as ‘read’ like email, ensuring you miss nothing; easy categorisation of content.
Disadvantages: Can overwhelm less technical users; harder to share than a dashboard, with one notable exception…

Tools I use:

• Google Reader - truthfully? I’d be lost without it. It’s got its annoyances but this web-based reader steals a march on all the rest by allowing you to share interesting reads in a number of ways. Those ways include widgets like the one on the right of this blog, humble links like so, or by outputting a feed for all your shared items or just for individual categories. This last point is where things get really interesting. It means you can use your Reader to power two of the other methods I’ve covered - email alerts and dashboards - collating multiple sources into one supercharged feed to consume whichever way you prefer. See this excellent instruction sheet from DIUS handyman Steph Gray on how to do just that using Google Reader and Netvibes.

Others worth trying:

• Bloglines - easier on the eye than Google Reader, but lacks the sharing features.
• Mac: Vienna, NetNewsWire Windows: FeedDemon Both: RSSOwl - If you only use one computer, desktop software is worth a look as it can provide better alerting for new content.

So that’s it: the four methods, listed in order from novice to pro. Do you agree with them? Are there any others? How do YOU do it?

Must-have RSS feeds

Before I go, here is my pick of the must have RSS feeds to plug into any dashboard, email alert or aggregator you may be building.

Run a search and grab the feed:

• The Social Media Firehose - my new favourite toy.
• Technorati blog search
  
• Google web, blogs, news and video
• Digg
• Twitter search

Harder to find:

• Run this pipe to get feeds for Flickr
• Use this to get YouTube feeds
• In Delicious grab feeds for tags or login, subscribe to multiple tags, and pull the feed from your  subscriptions page

No feed? No problem:

• Feedmysearch - turns Google searches into RSS feeds
• Feed43 - turns ANY page into an RSS feed

Too much information?

• Feed Rinse - narrow down a broad feed to just the bits you want

Finally, some commercial options I’ve stumbled across while researching this piece:

• Trackur
• Filtrbox
• Moreover
• Techrigy’s SM2
• Buzz Logic
• Radian6
• Custom Scoop
• Imente

Further reading

• How to get more from Google Reader
• Beth Kanter on comment tracking tools
• Monitoring dashboards: why every company should have one
• How to set up a simple online monitoring system
• Top 15 tools for finding useful information online
• 10 steps to tracking your social reputation
• Create an online dashboard for your creative project
• Develop a social media plan in five easy steps
• 31 essential online tools for journalists

• How to Change the World Using Social Media - An inspiring article on the concept of ’social proof’ (or herd mentality) as relates to social media.
• Thirteen Blog Clichés - A fun article but seriously good advice to take on board yourself if you blog, and pass onto clients for corporate blogs back at work. I *think* I’ve avoided most of these.
• Change.gov - This site, for the President Elect, has sprung out of nowhere and looks amazing. Well worth a look.
• Blog platform cheat sheet - Amy Sample Ward has a great downloadable cheat sheet’ comparing the pros and cons of the most popular blogging platforms. Handy.
• Communities & Local Government engaging with bloggers - (Forgot to bookmark this at the time). We’re proud of this one, and want our officials to do more of it: joining the conversations out on blogs/networks where they’re happening.
• Spokeo People Search - Searches across all social networks (well, most) and shows you at a glance what everyone else you know is up to. It’s impressive, but feels a bit *wrong*.

Image credit: Hryckowian

It’s how you locate the people who are already talking online about your stuff, and how you figure out the best ways to talk to them. (And, in my experience, it’s how you get addicted).

But how do you do it?

I’ve been doing a lot of listening online recently, both professionally and personally. I’ve found that, while there are hundreds of different tools for doing it, there are - I think - only four different ways in which the tools can be consumed by the listener. (All of which I use in combination). I’ve listed those four ways below.

Do you agree with my list? How do you listen online? I’d love to hear about your experience of using the methods I’ve listed here, or other ways I have missed.

The 4 methods are:

1. Quick searches
2. Email alerts
3. ‘Start page’ dashboards
4. RSS aggregators/readers

I will cover methods 1 and 2 today, and 3 and 4 in a later post. There will also be a bonus list of the main sources I use for grabbing RSS feeds plus some commercial options for outsourcing your online monitoring.

Method 1: Quick searches

What is it? Keyword searches entered via specific websites
Advantages: Speed, ease of use, ideal for testing or refining query terms or getting an instant snapshot of the buzz about your topic
Disadvantages: Less fine-grained than other methods, can bring back irrelevant results (e.g. international or niche sources), one-time-only searching means you will need to repeat it manually

Tools I use:

• Addictomatic - lets you search up to 24 sources in one go including blogs, micro-blogs, news and video. Limited customisation means results are international, not UK. No RSS feed for search results but you can bookmark your results page and add an Addictomatic search box to your browser toolbar.
• Hittery - here you can build a personal search dashboard from an impressive range of engines. As above, you can’t refine parameters beyond certain limits, but you can plug a Hittery widget into your iGoogle or Netvibes start page thus combining this method with the dashboard approach (see method 3).
• Google blogsearch, Technorati, Twingly - a simple blog search can often be more informative than the meta searches above. These three are my blog searches of choice. What are yours?
• Monitter, Twitter search - it also pays to use tools like these two to keep take a more in-depth look at what’s being said on popular micro-blogging platform Twitter. Why so? Twitter is full of social media early adopters, so if someone is tweeting about your topic, chances are they’re blogging about it too.

Others to try:

• Rollyo - ‘roll your own’ search engine, share it, or use ones others have shared
• Search me - a ‘visual’ search engine (like a kind of Cover Flow for websites). Potentially great for quick online brand monitoring.
• FriendFeed search - returns brilliantly relevant results because it’s based on the stuff friendfeed users (i.e. more of your friendly social media early adopters) have blogged, bookmarked or tweeted. Included here as a ‘quick search’ rather than a source because, unless I’m missing a trick, there’s no RSS feed for the results, which is a shame.
• Trendpedia - one of a number of free buzz metrics tools, this one shows you results from blogs with a nifty trending graph - great for tracking how discussion on your topic rises and falls in relation to the messages you put out.
• Twuzzer - if your listening campaign has a geographical element, e.g. you’re a local council, this location-based Twitter search could be just the thing.

Any big ones I’ve missed? What searches do you use and trust? Let me know via comments.

Method 2: Email alerts

What is it? Alerts sent direct to your email inbox either regularly (daily/weekly digest) or immediately on any new mentions of your search topic
Advantages: Reactive, doesn’t rely on you remembering to check, fast, easy to forward on to other people, familiar medium
Disadvantages: Limited sources, interruptive, no integration with other tools, one recipient only, can be time consuming to set up advanced alerts from multiple sources

Tools I use:

• Google alerts - the mother of all email alerts. It’s dead easy to sign up: just perform a news search on Google then click the ‘News Alerts’ link on the left menu to create an email alert for that result. You can set up as many as you need and don’t even need to create an account. Plus you can use the .co.uk or .com to return results that work for you.
• [Any RSS feed] +Feedburner - with a bit of jiggery-pokery, you can turn *any* RSS feed into an email alert by signing up for a Feedburner account and using the built in tools. (I can go into this in more depth if you want to know how: just ask). And, with Feedmysearch turning Google searches into RSS, it lets you fine tune your email alerts beyond Google’s own system (albeit more fiddly fiddlily?)
• Google Reader or Yahoo Pipes + Feedburner - we’re entering advanced territory here. But if you want to turn multiple RSS feeds into a single email alert, here’s one way to do it.  Combine multiple RSS sources into a single tag in Google reader, share that tag (settings > folders and tags > share) and then grab the RSS feed from the public page to take to Feedburner. Here’s one I made earlier, for my GTD tag. I’m assured you can do the same thing using Yahoo Pipes, but haven’t tried it myself.

Others worth trying:

• Tweetscan - set up email alerts for Twitter searches.
• Yahoo alerts, Windows Live alerts - two alternatives to Google but, unlike the big G, both of these require you to create an account.
• info4local - for human-edited email alerts from Government in the UK, trust i4l.
• [Edit] Social Media Firehose - this amazing tool searches a load of social sites and outputs as email or RSS.

So what do you think? Do you receive email alerts from tools other than those I’ve listed? Does anyone know a better way of turning RSS feeds into email alerts than Feedburner? (I’ve tried another: RSSFwd, but it seems to be inactive).

Stay tuned (via my RSS or email subscription) for part two, where I’ll cover how you can monitor the online buzz using dashboards and RSS aggregators. If you can’t wait until then, here’s some links to other blog posts on this topic.

Further reading:

• Mulqueeny on Addictomatic
• 26 free online tools for buzz monitoring
• Get a personal online dashboard with Hittery
• 10 tools for listening in social media
• Listen means more than you may think
• Monitoring social media before you have a budget
• 5 ways to sell social media to your boss (listening is one of them)
• Alternatives to Google Alerts
• 5 free tools for personal reputation management
• Buzz monitoring, observing and tracking

• Five ways to publish commentable documents online at Helpful Technology - A great post from Steph Gray rounding up the ways (or surprising lack of them) of making lengthy documents available for people to mark up with comments online.
• LineBuzz.com - Inline Blog Comments - Worth checking out as another way of making commentable documents?
• TweetLater.com - Takes the pain out of Twitter by auto-following your new followers, optionally sending them a message to welcome them, and optionally also tweeting a public welcome to all your new followers every hour. Great for corporate/business Twitter users.
• Get Satisfaction - Wow. This site offers authentic, people-powered customer service by connecting customers and company employees and claims to reduce the cost of repetitive enquiries. Describes itself as “real-time, dynamic customer support content that leverages the wisdom of crowds”. Seems all the cool corporates are using it already.
• Jing Project: Visual conversation starts here. Mac or Windows. - I’m new to this, even though it’s been around for ages. Another great tool for your social / rich media armoury.