I realized this morning that I have some assumptions about Twitter and the people that follow me.

1. I assume that my followers’ time is valuable.  (I have a high value on time).  Thus….

• I must make every effort to have all my tweets add value to my followers’ lives.
• I will try to make my tweets high-impact and relevant.
• I will try to limit my tweets to 4-8 per day.
• I will try to minimize trivial things like, “I’m at the airport”, “I’m at McDonalds”, “I love pasta” (Do you notice some people only tweet when they are travelling?)  Showing you have a life, interests and friends is an important part of your Twitter persona, but I think I’m wasting people’s time just to tell them I’m in the boarding lounge.
• I will share only a selection of all that I’m reading, thinking about and doing.

2. I assume that my followers want to grow in influence and effectiveness. Thus…

• I try to share ideas, articles and thought provoking content.
• I try to identify and promote other influential people.

3.  I assume that ...

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By answering some of your email in a more collaborative way, you’ll increase your influence and help others be more effective.

Why?

• Others besides the original recipients can benefit from the conversation
• Others might be able to provide a better answer than you
• Others that didn’t even know they had a similar question can benefit from the conversation

Recently a colleague emailed Meredith and I to ask a question about how we do something in our ministry newsletter update process.  Instead of hitting reply and detailing the answer I suggested that Meredith, the resident expert on all things related to our newsletter, write a forum post on an internal discussion board so other staff, not just our colleague might also get the answer.

The result?

• 78 views
• 7 responses
• More tips and tricks posted
• More questions that people had
• Other colleagues helped provide even better answers to the original and subsequent questions

It took the same amount of time for Meredith to make the forum post as it would have to r...

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• I will read all of your tweets on my TweetDeck.
• I will skim all of your blog posts on my Google Reader.
• Foursquare will tell me where you are so I can come join you.
• I’ll keep my eye on your Facebook status via TweetDeck.
• If you notify me of a link to a video that’s less than three minutes I’ll start watching it.
• If you send me an email, I will likely file it for action unless it takes less than two minutes to deal with.
• If you send me mail, I’ll likely read it next Saturday alongside the pizza coupons.

Want to lead and influence me.  I’ve just told you how.

I work at helping students invest their lives in good causes.  I’m told, on average, worldwide, students spend six hours a day online.  I’ve been invigorated today by four conversations about using new mediums to reshape the way we are delivering our message.

Help your organization influence better by knowing what methods your audience is most influenced by.

(Note: I’m not a student, I’m not saying these are the best ways to reach students, I’m ju...

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