Swords Of 10 Thousand Men

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

A work colleague congratulated me last week, that I had reached ten thousand followers on Twitter. I have got to admit, I hadn't clocked it myself, but was quietly pleased to spot I had indeed reached 10.1K, the next time I bothered to check https://twitter.com/hotpixUK

I spend a fair bit of time on there and with a good set of tweeters followed, it's a bit like my own personal newspaper view of my world, in some respects. It brings me what's topical as well as big chunks of photo, housing and ICT news. I tend to follow active tweeters, who on the whole highlight lots of internet content and links that I would never find without it. I have got to say too, that my slightly dodgy twitter handle of @HotpixUK does not seem to have been a barrier.

I do regularly decline to 'buy followers'. The standard lately has plummeted, with most of the bots turned bi-sexual, with an un-natural interest in 'Booty' IMO. Also they wouldn't really have any interesting content to float my boat, so I have saved my $29 thus far.

It's always good to meet followers and who I follow in real life, in a bar or restaurant would be my preference, although a conference or exhibition is just as good. Many a meeting when everyone has gone around the table, someone new to me has asked "are you the Tony Smith who tweets about housing ICT from Twitter", or "are you Tony Smith That Housing IT Guy"? The latter always makes me smile and generally leads to some really good conversations after the (official) meeting.

One example is Boris Worrell (@BorisOrbitGroup - https://twitter.com/BorisOrbitGroup ), a good egg and a very interesting chap, either online or in real life.

I am occasionally asked, could I sign up to Twitter without tweeting, to just try it out?

Well you could just lurk quite easily, but it's the taking part and the interactions that can lead to some really interesting things.  One piece of good advice is, always reply to engagements, even if you just retweet, due to shortage of time. I have tailored a few individual course to organisations looking to use more social media, highlighting two models I use between @HotpixUK and the @FOLGrappenhall account that supports the local community library, I am on the board of, for publicity.   

While some troller's do inhabit Twitter, I think if you have an informed opinion, you should engage even if the responses coming back are in opposition to it. We are only going to change hearts & minds by engaging. I believe reaching to block a person on twitter, because their opinion differs to yours, is basically a cop out. Engage with it, or the drip-drip of that response becomes the accepted fact.

A bit like the assumption "Gordon Brown's deficit crashed the UK economy", became fact, instead of what really happened, "Global banks, including many in the UK, crashed the world economy, and bailing them out crashed the UK economy".  On Twitter, if all sensible #ukhousing folk blocked the "We have an affordable home supply problem, rentable and for mortgage" deniers,  before long everyone would believe RTB (Right To Buy 2.0) was the solution and social housing providers, were definitely the problem (not the solution).

I am often asked questions about social housing ICT and queries about systems software, procurements, problems with suppliers and how to make better choices with integrated housing management systems. For me, I am happy to help, and when I have asked questions on Twitter, I have generally found people extremely helpful. In one instance, finding 49 Win5.6 devices for a client still on some legacy mobile working system.  It helped pull them out of a tricky situation on that occasion. All with the help of Twitter 8-)

So a massive "Thank You" and "*Hug*" to all my Twitter followers. If you see me at the next conference free bar, make sure you introduce yourself, if you recognise me.

Related Post: Is your IT team really pants, why is it not delivering for the organisation?

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.


Tenpole Tudor - Swords of a thousand men.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here
Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.
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Independence Day

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

As an English person without a vote in the Scots referendum, I cannot fail to be amazed at how the Yes & No campaign has leverages social media to get their message across. The number of Facebook and Twitter posts, with a ‘Yes’ or a ‘Naw’ in the bottom left, has helped spread a viral message, quickly and painlessly.

Although not unknown in recent parliamentary elections, the proliferation of hashtags, such as #indyref, #BetterTogether, #SaorAlba , #LetsStayTogether and #VoteYes has helped galvanise public opinion and helped get as many as 97%, in some areas, registered to vote.
In comparison, for the last election, turnout in some areas in Scotland was down to 19%.

Facebook was a big battle ground, with some of the rich, famous and righteous wading in. Here is a 2d worth from Annie Lennox - https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152215730434589

All this stuff has certainly mobilised followers and helped to spread the message. What happens on-line then is taken off-line and Scots have joined meetings, marches and events, from their selected camps. Indeed, some would say that it is unthinkable these days to engage people in events such as the Referendum, without social media tools such as these.

So what could social housing learn from this? Could we and our staff be leveraging social media better? It can be easy sometimes to spot where some RSLs have just had some comms’ and social media training. All attendees join twitter with a name linked to their organisation, add their colleagues on the course to follow, some change the egg to a face, add a few tweets and go back to the day job. 

Is your organisation guilty of this?
One element of the comms training on SM, which may be missing, is advice on management guidelines. Without these, I doubt if staff can feel empowered to tweet and use our common hashtags, such as #UKhousing, #Housingcamp, #DigitalFirst or whatever, to reach the wider world and our peers.

Do a twitter person search using your organisation name and see how many eggs (not faces) and people with just a few tweets to their name, from last May (or before), with minimal followers are on there. Is it any wonder that we are generally struggling to get the #UKhousing message out?

I have noticed when assisting organisations with KPI’s and cleanly bringing data together across their organisations, for benchmarking etc, Twitter KPIs are on the rise. Would you dare measure number of staff registered on twitter for your organisation, no of monthly tweets, number of total staff followers, number of monthly re-tweets. Now, is that making you think? I hope so.

Maybe it’s time we helped our staff vote ‘Yes’, to engaging with the world on Twitter and other social media to help inform the world about ‘why social housing matters’ and ‘what we are for’.

Related Post: Social Fools, are you getting social?

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You can link with me on LinkedIn here - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy It would be great to connect !

The Comsat Angels – Independence Day.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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