Main takeaways from #140Conf in LA

Above all, Twitter is a new way to express humanity: it allows people to share feelings and thoughts with all, in the moment. This new ability is triggering a systemic change in organizations of all types: industries need to adapt their design, marketing and customer service functions; marketing, advertising, journalism (among others) are transformed, small businesses can become brands, new communities are made possible (by social media in general – e.g. the homeless, moms…) , existing communities are strengthened. Celebrities converse directly with their fans, challenging the roles of agents and publicists. Fictional characters interact with fans in real life and enrich the narrative between shows.

Unfortunately, this new ability also brings new challenges: misinformation and disinformation, which are very hard to detect with current technologies. In response, certification of content trustworthiness, detection and reply to errors, lies and negative opinions, albeit very people-intensive,are very much needed by organizations large and small.

At a personal level, Twitter allows to establish personal relationships with thousands or even millions of others. By opening to others truthfully and contributing to the communities we join, we stand to gain support, get quick answers to our questions and make unplanned, fortunate discoveries. The flows of tweets offer many perspectives instantaneously that we can explore to better understand our current situation. For that, we need to adapt our mindset and raise our awareness of the present.

The dangers: we need to watch what we write and re-transmit to avoid damage to our personal brand; we also need to deal with criticism.

How should you tweet? Listen more than you tweet, tweet emotional headlines, use humor.

What could the future of Twitter look like? Twitter use is likely to become more private and Facebook more public, social graphs should open up. The tools of the Twitter-verse need to evolve significantly, become more transparent and easier to use (Loic Le Meur’s complete prediction list here).

Many other interesting points were made, but “better timely than perfect” as one of the speakers said. I count on you, readers and fellow participants, to improve this draft with your comments…

Note: many of the points above were expressed by several presenters, so the list of references is a large subset of the 140 presenters list… Post a comment if you want me to give you a specific reference.

Anything you would like to add?

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