Twitter as an Advisory Board

March 18, 2008 · Comments

Twitter users range from the smartest people I know to the run-of-the-mill-but-have-an-opinion types. BOTH are vitally important to understanding things about the world around us. If you’re still wondering why you use Twitter, yet another great way to use it is to ask your community questions and seek advice.

Here, I asked Twitter whether it mattered that the brands they loved used social media or not. Here are some answers:

twitter1

twitter2

See? Easy as that, I got about 60 answers.

What would YOU ask Twitter?

Screenshots uploaded with Plasq’s Skitch! app.

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  • Yeah, but the problem is that it was a kludge to assemble the answers - they're not searchable or indexable easily (you took screen shots). I'd love to do this with more regularity if there was a twitter-question-to-blog mechanism. :/
  • do i have to wait and collect thousands of users before the magic works?
  • If we'd have been organized with a hashtag like #ysm (Why social media?), you could have easily provided a link for people to see all (of the properly tagged) responses. That might have been nice.

    Great responses, though, eh? JamesOClark and DJLitton are on to something.
  • I guess I don't have that many followers...usually when I ask a question, I might possibly get one answer if I'm lucky. I'm a nice guy, honestly! :D
  • I answered you too! Maybe I was the 61st to answer you! ; )
  • I said I wished Tivo would use social media tools and start a social network for its users. We could even share recorded shows (legally).
  • Chris (Pirillo),

    TweetScan actually does a great job of indexing..as long as you do it relatively soon after the question is asked. Enter @chrisbrogan into Tweetscan.com. Pretty cool.
  • Maybe I should pay you to ask questions for me :-) Awesome to read through the comments or tweets I should say.
  • gaeyia
    I was thinking about how to communicate the value of twitter, so I checked my twitter feed, and like magic, brilliant magic, your tweet appeared. I love it.
  • @antonio @Stephen Risking a bit of self-promotion, I've actually been thinking about the Q/A issue for the 90% of users that don't have a huge following since I wrote a blog post about it last week. So far, the best answer I've been able to find is #question on hashtags.org; the only remaining piece is finding a way to assemble responses to any particular question.
  • I love posts like this. I've been hearing a lot lately from those who think Twitter is a complete waste. We can see here that there's some real value there. Value plus fun...Who can resist? :)
  • What I like is that there are pretty much 11 great ways to solve the problem right in the post. The more folks who come and comment, I imagine someone will help answer.

    I *tried* making something for people to follow the answers, but it mysteriously broke 4 months ago. : (
  • I asked if I should buy the movie "I Am Legend" since it came out today. I got a few responses, but nothing definitive yet. It's kind of cool that I can ask just about anything and get a wide variety of answers.
  • James
    "Twitter users range from the smartest people I know to the run-of-the-mill-but-have-an-opinion types."

    If you buy into the "Wisdom of the Crowds" argument you actually need to get both the smartest people you know AND the run of the mill types. :)
  • Per your note on Twitter, your is the first of 10 comments I plan on leaving today. I have found Twitter to be an excellent way to get feedback on questions, posts and such quickly from people I wouldn't normally feel comfortable bothering for an answer.
  • I have used LinkedIN and Yahoo!Answers answers for this type of surveying in the past, but I like your idea much better. It combines a targeted, appropriate, and (more) trusted audience to the query.

    Plus, based on the quality of the responses may introduce you to great new intelligent voices.

    Another great idea from the mind of Brogan.
  • Chris:

    Great post and great take on a use for Twitter. I'm lucky enough to have my company's IT department protecting me from the evils of Twitter by blocking access. Whew...I'm safe!

    Kevin
  • I asked a simple question last night and got 6 answers within 5 minutes. I do it all the time, even if I just get one response it usually opens a dialog.
  • Chris, thanks for doing this.

    I've been trying to explain to people how Twitter is my new opinion aggregator (I get tons of answers to my questions, even with a tenth of the followers you have) but it means so much more to them when they hear it from someone like you. =)
  • Social media is kind of grass roots -- mom & pop businesses, creative individuals -- real people, not "heads".

    I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but how much of the offering would be pure propaganda?
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