Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills

Although their staff do better RT @ckreutz No interaction! Twitter Analysis Development orgs & their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

You know, Christian, my former colleagues at GTZ (who are dealing with water & sanitation issues) recently adopted Twitter as an unofficial tool next to Facebook. I think they are slowly getting there, and have also been told to not only use it as another channel for press releases but also for communicating and replying to followers. Things like that take time + offliners need to be convinced (or ignored, depending on the organisation). And then, also, a subject like sanitation is probably not as sexy as “donating a well for a poor family in Africa” (sic!) via Charity Water & Co.

Twinfluence: sure, it is an interesting tool and has some smart algorithms, but to be honest: I care more about humans actually reading my tweets and replying (if applicable) then just being retweeted and reaching a bigger audience. So with regard to the Twitter activities of our beloved dev orgs, I would only take the interactive part (i.e. replies – what you already counted above) as a good indicator.

Oh, and I think it would help if orgs (dev & commercial) would just tweet as human beings. There are humans on both sides of the computer, and they are turning to twitter for human communication. Like what they already wrote on the Cluetrain manifest(o) in 1999:

“Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.”

Meaning: Tweets (or Facebook messages) do not have to represent the abstract opinion of an organisation. It’s ok if you act human because your reader also is. Tweets do not have to be perfect, there is no single truth, there’s no need for a proper “sign off” and most criterias for a sustainable knowledge management just do not apply to Twitter.

This – imo – is such a fundamental point a lot of the streamlined PR depts. forget about. In the end it’s the intern who runs the Twitter account “because young ppl have the time” for such things and also because they often do not care about the corporate rules (which have their right to exist, yes, but not 100% via Twitter).

RT @ jranck Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://bit.ly/9ZwXQG

Revealing RT @ckreutz No interaction! Twitter Analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

RT @danmcquillan @georg_neu @ckreutz No interaction! Twitter Analysis: organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

RT @ckreutz: @oecd congrats. One of the few organization interacting with their users on Twitter. http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

RT @npo_vernetzt: Wer Social Media nutzt, verhält sich nicht automatisch interaktiv, s. den kleinen Twitter-Test von @ckreutz http://cxed.net/bv0W7a #ICT4D

RT @npo_vernetzt: Wer Social Media nutzt, verhält sich nicht automatisch interaktiv, Twitter-Test @ckreutz http://cxed.net/bv0W7a #ICT4D

RT @UNICEFgermany: Interesting: #Twitter #Analysis from @ckreutz about intern. development organizations & their listening skills http://ow.ly/1E90Z #NGO

RT @ckreutz: No interaction! Twitter Analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

RT @UNICEFgermany: #Twitter #Analysis from @ckreutz about development intern. organizations & their listening skills http://ow.ly/1E90Z #NGO

A very interesting post, Christian!

Obviously this is a very small sample, but I would caution you against having an overly narrow view of what ‘interaction’ might be in this area. Twitter is just one channel; you can instigate something via Twitter and follow up through other means. (In fact, I would argue that Twitter is an excellent channel for instigation, in certain contexts, and not good for certain types of conversations or interactions –this is perhaps stating the obvious). I see no reason to preferentially value speaking in public in 140 characters via multiple @responses over other communication channels — these sorts of conversations don’t occur in a vacuum. I tweet from an official account representing a donor organization — this is explicitly one-to-many. I often follow up via a my professional *personal* Twitter account (which I use in pursuit of my offical duties), sometimes via Twitter (usally via a DM, if people follow me), or via other means (typically my professional email account, or sometimes a public blog post). Public conversations have their value — but even in the age of Twitter, private ones do too (especially where you need more than 140 characters). One last thing: Retweets are not always a terribly good proxy for influence, even in a web 2.0 world — or at least not the only one.

And: Even if we don’t always @reply or RT, at least some of us are indeed listening!

In general, your point that donor organziations do not make as good a use of tools like Twitter as they should — as one tool among many toward greater transparency and engagement — is well heard on this end.

Keep up your excellent work on your crisscrossed blog — I am devoter reader/follower (if only a very occasionally commenter/retweeter)!

Cheers,
Mike
(responding to something I saw on Twitter by posting to a blog )

Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://bit.ly/awwVIF

RT @rsamii: Great blogpost by @ckreutz Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://bit.ly/bHxU3P

RT @web2fordev: Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://bit.ly/awwVIF

Chris,
Nice, provocative piece! It reminded me of what has quickly become one of my favourite social media quotes recently, from Stowe Boyd:

“Most “social media” strategies have one or more of three goals: to “push product,” “build buzz,” or “engage consumers.” None of these lives up to the Internet’s promise of meaning. They’re just slightly cleverer ways to sell more of the same old junk. But the great challenge of the 21st century is making stuff radically better in the first place — stuff that creates what I’ve been calling thicker value.
Organizations don’t need “social media” strategies. They need social strategies: strategies that turn antisocial behavior on its head to maximize meaning. The right end of social tools is to help organizations stop being antisocial. In fact, it’s the key to advantage in the 2010s and beyond.
Using the social to “build buzz” and “push product” is about as smart as using a warp drive to visit your local Wal-Mart. Social tools today are used mostly as a new “channel” to push the same old useless stuff of the industrial era at hapless “consumers.” That’s meaninglessness at it’s finest. It’s the least productive — and most soul-deadening — use of a formidably powerful tool.”
http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/social-strategy-and-social-architecture.html

Perhaps the problem is that the behaviour in many development organisations is still fundamentally “antisocial”?

RT @ckreutz No interaction! Twitter Analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

RT @KatrinKiefer: RT @ckreutz No interaction! Twitter Analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a

Twitter analysis: Development organizations & their listening skills by @ckreutz http://bit.ly/9d5fce

Who listens? Development NGOs seem to be better in talking than listening. Real activism would start from conversation. http://bit.ly/cknmvy

Twitter Analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a via @ckreutz

Twitter analysis: Development organizations and their listening skills http://cxed.net/bv0W7a – CIDA praised for interaction w/ tweeters