Why participate in social media or "what's in for me?"

For whatever reason my blog posts about social media (#socmed) have started to share a common thing: they were all responses to other people’s blog. Thinking about it for a few moments you understand that’s not too surprising though as being social implies that you are interacting (as in socializing). 

All in one

Today I’m up for something new. That’s just one of my credos when it comes to social media, blogging and the use of Twitter – try something new every day. It’s a great learning experience.

Last week I found myself in an ongoing discussions about dos and don’ts on Twitter. We talked about #FollowFriday, Retweets amd netiquette and naturally the usage and usefulness(!) of the platform was brought to the table. I’ll add Twitter Favorites to this mix and see how it all plays together – well at least for me. So, with this blog I aim at multiple things:

Re: the-top-five-dos-and-donts-for-tweeters/

During a coffee break I stumbled across a blog post by Natascha Thomson on her B2B marketing blog and wanted to reply right away. Yet, instead of writing a lengthy comment I opted for replying to her on my own blog – continuing our interchange on social media.

In fact, Natascha was among the first people I “got to know on Twitter first” before enjoying meeting her face-to-face during TechEd and Palo Alto afterwards. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the Natascha-2-TechEd tale by now, don’t you ;) Since that time we both have been exploring the twitterverse and for me it still feels like a a rewarding learning experience… the netiquette keeps evolving as do some of the rules.

Sure, some basics have established by now and one is well-advised to understand them, so it’s best to do a little of basic reading first before getting started. I’ve been strongly promoting twitter and its value for information gathering in this high fidelity business for a while now as well as sharing my own insights on a regular basis (with anyone willing to listen.) In this tradition, I just can resist the temptation to reply to Natascha’s post and share my own views… a 2nd opinion so to say. Here it goes…