How to Thank Your Twitter Network: A Follow Friday and a Half

July 24, 2009 · by Joanna Paterson · in

How do you thank your Twitter network?

Some of the comments on the thank you, commenters post got me thinking about this.

I meant what I said in that post: the comments that I get here are priceless, and a large part of what allows me to keep blogging.  To keep the creative juices flowing and the motivation high.

But that’s not the whole story: there are other things that you’re doing to contribute, support and help build this blog, and that deserves some acknowledgement too.

Some of that is bookmarking, stumbling and promoting posts.  Some of it is talking about my work on Twitter – maybe a link, which is the equivalent of a recommendation as a good read, some comment and opinion on a piece, or a continuation of the conversation around the ideas and issues raised.

Comments are changing, on and off the pages of our blogs.

Here are some of the points that came up in reaction to the post:

We need to think of  readers as stake-holders as well as readers or commenters:

Thanks for giving recognition to your readers. Not only do we feel safe here, but we’re being acknowledged as stake-holders in your blog’s well-being as well. ~ Jan Geronimo, Writing to Exhale

And the impact of Twitter on comments:

In general, it seems to me that Twitter siphons off more and more blog comments every day, in the form of ReTweets and conversation around posts. Twitter does expand the participants in a conversation, but it would be a shame to lose the permanency of comments in the post itself ~ Brad Shorr, Word Sell

A thought about how to thank Twitter supporters (with a plugin, I wish!):

This is my first comment here, because I’ve limited all my earlier comments on your posts to Twitter! Is there a way to pull those in to the blog, and then have a plug-in display top Twitter commenters?! ;-p ~ Dr Mani, @drmani on twitter

And a question about how to integrate comments and tweets:

So why did I instantly respond to Joanna on Twitter, rather than on this page? Mainly I guess because it’s easy and quick and that’s where the conversation is. And I think this is why comments feel more valuable, because they’re generally longer and take more effort to create. Plus, they don’t disappear into Twitter history, never to be found again after a couple of days.

I just wish there was some easy way of aggregating Tweets replying to a blog post with the comments. Or is there? ~ Christopher Sleight, Small World Media

So how can you bring tweets and comments together on the pages of your blog?

And how can you say thank you to those that ‘comment’ elsewhere?

Building Twitter Reactions Onto the Blog

Well, the conversation in the comment boxes and on Twitter has pointed me towards some of the software solutions that are currently being used.

One is Tweetmeme, that I’ve just introduced at Confident Writing.  It’s an easy way to click on to the reactions to a particular post.  Here’s an example of some of the conversation around the recent ‘black belt’ post:

tweetmeme

That isn’t exactly integration though, and you’d need to know to go and look.

Some of the other suggestions that came up are: Connect from BackType, ChatCatcher, and Disqus.

At the moment I’m tempted by Disqus because of the way it encourages a flow of conversation (with replies to individual comments/ threads) as well as the integration with reactions on Twitter.

This is the example I mentioned in the comment box, from a post at Danny Brown’s blog – it shows Disqus in action.

But I’m open to ideas, suggestions, things to watch out for before I launch forth into a new comment system – not least given how important comments are to me / you here.

Are there systems you’ve used and would recommend, as a blogger, commenter, blog reader or tweeter?

Saying Thank You

Dr Mani’s comment about how to thank Twitter friends and supporters got me thinking too.

How do I say thank you to the people who support, connect, encourage and cheer lead?  Who give me ideas, link to my posts, ask questions, make me laugh, share songs, get me dancing?

One of the ways people say thanks on Twitter is to recommend other people on ‘Follow Friday’.  It’s a chance to highlight the names of people you enjoy following, and to find new people you’d want to connect with and follow yourself.

There are limitations and frustrations to Follow Friday: there’s never enough room to list the people you want to; do you go for a list of lots of names or single person recommendations; do you try and  include an explanation as to why; do you group and categorise, and does that mean you’re labelling others; what about the people you’ve forgotten for some reason to mention…

But still, it’s a good system.  So I thought I’d do a little Follow Friday thanking you here, with the same caveats – it’s not a perfect list, there are people I’ve no doubt forgotten, I haven’t had time to explain all the reasons why except…

The people on this 100 person list are all ‘real’ people.  They’re all conversational, friendly, engaging and positive.

They’re all good people to follow.

Links to Twitter aren’t quite the same value as links back to a blog, I know, but the list is here if you want to explore and find some more people to follow.

Plus I’ve just found and introduced Apture to the blog, which offers many fantastic features including, with the Twitter links:

A preview pane that opens up showing the picture, profile and most recent tweets, together with a ‘follow’ button so you can click and follow without leaving this site.  Pretty nifty!  To open up the preview pane, click on the little icon to the side of the link (in this case, a person icon).

@sarahnewton

@jen_b

@tracymueller

@CoolBeans3

@askdebra

@Chris_pinkapple

@tumblemoose

@lizcable

@lgedeon

@calliope

@Despil

@soniasimone

@Suw

@groovy_granny

@DuncanGreenhill

@Le_Shack

@hollib

@feline9

@lindiop

@drmani

@DebFrawley

@iGoMogul

@amyderby

@karenwallace

@BSwafford

@wchingya

@RobynMcMaster

@jpetersen

@rosasay

@DivinePurposeMV

@starbucker

@davidzinger

@samarowais

@shersteve

@thatwoman_soho

@dennisprice

@Starrybluesky

@SandyGuerriere

@DavinaH

@TheCharmQuark

@ullahe

@BeckyMcCray

@kwbridge

@ChrisCree

@amypalko

@__Deb

@LindaAbbit

@JJLhui

@jackiewalker

@jobucks

@ElasticMind

@avilbeckford

@JeffHurt

@ellenfweber

@deafmom

@SpaceAgeSage

@terryheath

@writerdad

@EmApocalyptic

@P_Diamond

@deb_opks

@hdbbstephen

@csleight

@OldPostcards

@rjacobse

@keltie63

@Jan_Geronimo

@andrewghayes

@obrown

@DannyBrown

@AnitaBruzzese

@GlendaWH

@EmilylaGrange

@bradshorr

@musecrossing

@merylkevans

@rosyblue

@jnswanson

@barbaraling

@jancartier

@jackiecameron1

@karenswim

@CherylSmith999

@alina_popescu

@leawoodward

@RobertHruzek

@bo_mackison

@AlexFayle

@eeUS

@wonderwebby

@DebNg

@Ribeezie

@MeghnaK

@28parkave

@rickmahn

@fraseredwards

@DawudMiracle

@zenatplay

@MattHaywardUK

@thecatat7

What ways have you found to thank your Twitter network? What else could I / should I try?

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