Last night’s meeting did not go quite as I expected. Well, that just goes to show I need to practice what I preach = no control! Instead of discussing how both political parties are using social media tools, the conversation migrated to the subject of hashtags.
Do you incorporate hashtags?
Todd (@ronin691) asked how many of us were using Twitter for crowdsourcing. Todd noticed those involved in social media in both political parties were using Twitter and other forms of communication to vet certain topics before releasing information or positioning. Several of us acknowledged we found Twitter to be a valuable tool in the vetting process and had either used Twitter in this way or recognized another using the tool to crowdsource.
Todd’s follow-up question was how many of us use hashtags when we crowdsource? Nothing. We observed hashtags are generally used to track conference backchannels. For example, I found the individual panel hashtags at BWE to be so much easier to follow than the one large list of tweets one must cull through to find any value.
But what about all the questions that are asked on Twitter? How can we follow the responses if we are not following all of the people following the person who asked the original question? Are more people willing to incorporate hashtags into their crowdsourcing tweets? Then the conversation took a twist… Are you REALLY willing to incorporate hashtags into your tweets and share such information? Well, of course! Isn’t that what the semantic web is all about? OR is it? Is any such information proprietary? What is your take?
SMC Fort Worth Challenge
Next month, we are challenging each member of SMC Fort Worth to bring three people they know using social media (in any industry) to our October meeting. Think Fort Worth can beat Dallas?
(Photo courtesy vogelwarte.)
