Show & Tell: How Community Managers Use Twitter

There are Twitter users and there are Twitter users. For those of us that have been on Twitter for a while, usage has evolved as the applications and the social norms have. In a recent member roundtable with Laura Fitton, it became clear how important the use of applications, hashtags, and search were to community managers but it was hard to explain some of how these things were used at a tactical level to individuals for whom Twitter was a newer tool.

We thought it would be interesting and instructive to do a little ‘Show & Tell’ from some community managers that are Twitter power users. While we don’t want to provide too much commentary on bahalf of those willing to share, we did see a wide range of different group, search, and color scheme strategies.  Also apparent were different levels of immersion – Twitter is a great listening tool but you can spend as much or as little time as you have available and striking a balance is one of the hardest things to do as a community manager.

First up, Chief Community Officer for Techrigy, Connie Bensen (TweetDeck):

Next, Dirk Shaw, Vignette‘s Social Media Strategist (TweetDeck):

Next, Guy Martin, Community Manager at Forge.mil:

Lastly, my own (Seesmic):

I am the only one in this set using Seesmic and while I can’t speak for the others as to their application choice, I can share why I use Seesmic. First and foremost, I am on a relatively old Mac and TweetDeck had some memory leaks that slowed my computer to a crawl after I hit 1,000 friends or so. Secondly, I needed an app that I could use for multiple accounts since I manage my personal account @rhappe and The Community Roundtable account @TheCR. What I’ve also liked about Seesmic is that it allows me to save groups and search terms without necessarily loading them all in my window which helps with application loading and my own focus.

One thing that I find interesting across these examples is how people choose to ‘listen’ – by brand, product name, influencers, terms, or competitors. There is clearly a lot to listen to but seeing what people prioritize is instructive.  Thanks and appreciation go to Connie, Dirk, & Guy for giving us a glimpse into how they use Twitter – and please jump in and add anything you would like to share about the application you use and how you’ve set it up.

What do you see in looking at these four examples? Patterns? Differences? Gaps?