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Source: webcom wiki What is microblogging? Microblogging is a minor version of blogging that allows users to write entries of up to 140 characters. The messages can be viewed by anyone, or users can choose to “follow” an individual or a company. The difference between a traditional blog and microblogging is, that microblogs often are headlines of present activity, thoughts and news from a given source whereas blogging mostly is larger stories, with more background information, research including links and pictures since weblogs allow more content.

Related terms

The term lifestream or lifecasting is sometimes used in continuation of microblogging.
Lifestream presents all life activity, such as “changed IM status to: at coffee bar”, “posted a picture on Flickr” etc. Services like FriendFeed provides this overall life aggregation.
Lifecasting refers to micromedia broadcast such as video, photos or audio clips transmitted online.
This white paper will not cover these terms any further.

Microblogging services

There are several web services that provides microblog functionality such as:

• Twitter
• Jaiku
• Tumblr
• Yammer

Microblog feature i.e status updates:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Myspace

There are additional services that provides streaming of posts from your followers, for example: Twitterrific a desktop application that can be used to read and post entries to Twitter; Friendfeed that enables their users to keep up-to-date on web pages, photos, videos and music that friends and family are sharing.

User behavior

The behavior is that users post updates in text possibly combined with links to pictures, videos or websites. Entries are often a combination of personal thoughts, professional subjects and replies to the users you follow.

Companies also have accounts where they post company and product news, feedback to customers, surveillance and follow users that mention the company name in their microblogs.

As opposed to traditional blogs and newsfeeds, microblogs are far more foreseeable. Most hardened Internet users probably know the schism of subscribing to a bunch of feeds that they newer get to read. Microblogging is light information that you can choose to dig into if it has your immediate interest. It´s also a way to get an overview of what is present in your chosen network.

Organizational potential

So how can organizations benefit from this tool? Compared to a traditional blog it is far more straightforward. With 140 characters available, the need for time to reflect and research compared to writing a blog post, is significantly minimized, which maximizes the chance of activity.

Organizations have hesitated to use blogs in concern of opening up to a story told by employees. Microblogs is a lower risk because less content reveals less information, and therefore more realistic for organizations to use, and in many ways a good way to practice and adapt overall blogging.

Microblogging can be used in several ways, such as:

• Post news
• Link to other publicity sources
• Give feedback to customers
• Realtime communication covering events
• Humanize an organization by communicating with individuals
• Dialogue with stakeholders
• Marketing and awareness (be aware of the ethics)
• Recruiting
• Stock updates
• Internal knowledge sharing

The potential of using a microblog within an organization is quite profound. Many companies have tried to adapt traditional blogs as an internal knowledge platform. But sharing substantial information in blogs conflicts with the challenge of many organizations, wanting to share information. Again you can say a lot with 140 characters without revealing confidential or hidden information. Whether it is issues with budgets, employees, partners or other problems that are not in a departments interest to share – microblogs do not reveal.

When it comes to microblogging, departments can easily and frequently share knowledge, that will show if there are mutual interests that should be discussed or resources that can be joined. In theory most organizations want to share knowledge, because it is in the best interest of the company and it can often result in budget savings. But practically, departments are focused on keeping budgets, resources and assignments which conflicts with the desired behaviour of knowledge sharing.

Who should microblog within an organization

Who ever has an interest in informing or having a dialogue with their stakeholders should microblog. The advantage of microblogging is that it does not require the same demand of communication skills, thus it is easier to adapt.

Sometimes your followers reply to your post, and sometimes you might want to reply to theirs. What is vital is activity i.e frequency and of course quality. If you are active and interesting on your microblog you get more followers and thereby more participation.

Examples of departments that can benefit from this social tool.

Departments with an outward focus such as:

• Marketing
• Communication
• Human resource
• Sales
• Logistics
• Product development

Departments with an internal focus such as:

• IT
• Economy
• Human resource
• Management

Cases

To draw a picture of various opportunities, the following cases will be examples of implementation in different industries.

1. Public media organization – Delivering public media to a wide target audience.

Broadcasted throughout various channels and medias. This organization has the benefit of having an audience, so here is a chance of expanding communication through a new channel.

How they handled their breaking news:
They made IM channels that post breaking news including links to the news source on the chosen microblog channels. Giving the followers a realtime streaming of headlines, audience replies and dialogue.

How they merged radio broadcast with microblogging:
While broadcasting a radio program, the hosts and guests were posting comments about the atmosphere and activity that were not visible for the audience. One day the female host got a giggle, her male co-host posted her behavior and while they played a song he explained why she even started, and what kept her going on. Audience commented and some tuned in on the channel to get a feeling of the event.

The radio program department made categories that the audience could follow such as:

• SMS text posted online with breaking news and funny features.
• Where to tune in to hear radio foozle.
• Features concerning certain topics like recession, election debates, music genres etc.

How they combined microblogs with television:

• The same principles from radio broadcasts were used on television but with everything visible they posted topics about:
• Background information and updates about guests in programmes
• Research
• Live broadcast topics posted online – making people turn the TV on.

2. Public transport industry

Microblogging is an ideal media for realtime information. Organizations working with public transport have various updates throughout a day. How can they exploit microblogging:

• bus-, train-, metro line categories with posts about delays and other events influencing the departures.
• Major incidents affecting overall traffic. Posting latest realtime updates.
• Users that follow the posts can reply to each other with tips on getting through traffic.
• News about the organizations, public procurements etc.

3. Medical company

With departments in 5 different countries located across timezones, this medical company uses microblogging in these situations:

• Broadcast from the law and patented department about new published ISO and Sarbanes-Oxley standards
• Scientists posting new results that has global relevance for other research and scientists departments in the company
• News from product development on product launch dates
• Overall company news: Stock status, company acquirement’s and expansion, Management news
• Job adverts & recruiting news

This was a small section of opportunities to give an idea of microblogging potential.

How to get started

Whether you are an individual or an organization, you can join the desired services. Create a user, company or topic name/account. Select the media or channel to publish from such as mobile phones, IM or web.

If you are an organization, put together the team that is going to publish microblogs, educate them in this communication channel, consider topics, goals, ROI, opportunities and how to get a dialog with the followers.

Start using the tool, follow up, evaluate and participate.

7 Tips

1. Select the services that your target group uses
2. Be active and post frequently – Choose quality over quantity
3. Do not spam your audience with commercial information
4. If inserting links make the point clear without a click on the link is needed
5. Participate on other microblogs with replies and comments and join the dialogue with your followers
6. If you post from an organization – write as an individual
7. Be honest

Sources

• wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifecasting_(video_stream)
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging
• iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/
• microblink.com
• businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc2008117_806997.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis
• http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/69158/
• http://blog.esme.us/initial-thoughts-on-micro-blogging-metrics/
• http://microblogging.com