Twitter makes it easier to be human

Twitter has announced it is trialling a new business tool. It should mean an end to faceless accounts such as @brandX.

Instead the same account can share multiple users. Multiple human users.
And when a different human being 'takes the helm' you'll know so, and what they tweet will be individually ascribed against that particular human.

So where @btcare currently has to update their profile to tell you which human you are connecting with, now the metadata with each tweet reflect its use by each individual human.

Now, not every business is going to go for this. Can't imagine the multiple heavy users at Zappos or Dell turning in their IDs, for example.

But a lot will. And what I think is truly wonderful here is that with this tool Twitter says loudly and unequivically that Twitter is a human, person-to-person environment where broadcasting your brand = fail.

It's a breadcrumb trail for those orgs who would otherwise default to voice-of-the-brand blandness.

They are led by the nose toward finding out what Twitter is all about. And in doing so they just may discover the principles of this human way, this better way of being part of the lives of their communities of users.

"It's up to business to accomodate itself to (the human shape) of twitter, not for twitter to accomodate itself to business," as @stephenfry put it at #140conf

One small experimental step. A giant leap for businesskind.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New survey: 54% of CIOs ban social media (heidi-miller.com)
• SM Global Report: Shel Holtz [Part 1] (redcouch.typepad.com)
• How to Extend Your Customer Experience Through Social Media (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• What got #140con Twittering? (brandstrategy.wordpress.com)

The King of advice, alerts and assistance

I was fortunate enough to attend #140conf as one of the 'characters' at the O2 in London yesterday (courtesy of @jeffpulver).

I was therefore able to witness the crowning (quite literally folks) of one @stephenfry as 'King of Twitter'.

Stephen spoke brilliantly about many of the themes I hold dear and bang on about myself - though clearly not as well as the great Danceciser himself.

"It's up to business to accomodate itself to (the human shape) of twitter, not for twitter to accomodate itself to business," among the many bon mots.

Which I why I'm delighted to share this video of his talk, thanks to beegod (who shot it and posted it on his blog).



And if anyone recorded JP Rangaswami's wonderful words on twitter as a peer-to-peer information service at #140conf (for alerts, advice and assistance) please do point me - I would love to share that too.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Death Of Email: What Does Dead Mean, Exactly? (stoweboyd.com)
• The Importance of Digital Touch (chrisbrogan.com)
• Twitter Rolling Out Retweets, Rolling Over Trends Spam (marketingpilgrim.com)
• ConversationList.com - Conversational Twitter Lists (killerstartups.com)
• The impact and the etiquette of social media (fasterfuture.blogspot.com)

The impact and the etiquette of social media

Here's the slides I presented to the 157Group last week.
The 157Group are the marcomms pros from the UK's leading colleges (judged by size and quality).
I'm hoping I was able to help.

The impact and etiquette of social media

View more presentations from david cushman.

By the way, I'll be at the #140Conf at the O2 in London tomorrow mostly to see Stephen Fry, Andrew Keen and JP Rangaswami speak. Wanted to say a big thank you to organiser Jeff Pulver for my ticket.

Can't be there all day, I'm chairing a panel at Monitoring Social Media in central London at 12:30pm.

See you at either - or both!