Social Media Thoughts

Twitter - Reply vs Quote

2022-10-21T21:44:00.016+02:00

I wrote, back in 2018, about how a Twitter reply is not a reply when it's a quote. Today many Twitter users habitually "respond" by quoting rather than using reply.

There are times where you should avoid that tweet-quote habit, I'll come to that shortly. But first a basic overview of reply vs quote.

A tweet ...

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. Users publish updates (tweets) which may be seen by their followers.

Tweets are generally public, so while they might be seen by the tweet authors followers, each tweet can be viewed by anyone on or off Twitter.

A reply ...

When a user replies, the reply tweet is shown below the original tweet. The tweet author is notified about your reply.

Your reply should not generally be seen by your followers. The reply will be seen by anyone who opens the tweet you replied to: that's most likely to be the followers of the original tweet author.

A quote ...

When you choose to respond with a "quote" instead of a reply the tweet author is still notified, but their tweet is embedded below the text of your tweet. This new tweet from you will appear to YOUR followers and is not visible from the original tweet page.

The takeaway ...

A reply is not presented to your followers.
A quote tweet is presented to your followers.

Avoid using quote here ...

There is one place where quoting a tweet will NOT be seen by your Twitter followers. That's when the quote tweet is in a Twitter Community.

While there may be good reasons to quote a tweet into a community, or out of a community for that matter, you should avoid quoting a community tweet into the same community.

The above example shows two tweets in Twitter's Feedback Community. One, "Do you ever feel ..." is asking community members a question. Then a response quote: "Everyday".

What's wrong with that? Well ... the quote tweet by BossTips isn't for his followers, it's for the same audience as the previous tweet. It's a reply, but technically it isn't. So instead it's noise, it's clutter.

When people do this often the community gets messy. You might not care, but the community owner and moderators who's community you are quoting into, they might care.

There will obviously be exceptions to this rule; but unless you are adding real value, avoid quoting tweets into the same community.

Follow @qwallis

Your Community on Twitter

2022-10-07T16:51:00.005+02:00

I recently wrote about Twitter's NEW (community) hashtags. Ending on, will people understand the difference?

Currently people do not understand.

".. I’ve begun hashtagging just about all my tweets in all communities now since they’re hard to find."

😑

".. I think when ppl search for HASHTAGS they should at least see them WHEREVER they are as long as it’s public."

🤦

Local not Global

If you run a Twitter community YOU need to understand that hashtags in your community are "local" not global. Meaning they will only show other tweets from within YOUR community.

Use that knowledge to decide on a hashtag strategy for your community. Then apply that strategy to your community tweets and communicate that strategy to your community members.

For example, if I owned the Dogs of Twitter community I would be using a dog-breed hashtag with each community tweet and be encouraging members to also "tag" the dog-breed in their community tweets. Giving people a way to view community content by dog breed.

In the "Köln" community I am adding a city-borough hashtag (example: Ehrenfeld), as well as a media type (video or photo) and a tag for food etc. There's also a "where am I" game tag.

Soon I'll write an article on the related blog to communicate that strategy and encourage others to join in.

It will take people time to learn how to use hashtags in Twitter communities.

They will make mistakes. So will you.

Keep your strategy simple, logical and useful. Make sure your moderators are all onboard and your community members should start to understand and join in.

If this has been helpful please follow me on Twitter. If you have questions ask in the comments, or here on Twitter.

Follow @qwallis

New twitter hashtags

2022-07-26T22:56:00.012+02:00

Adding hashtags to a social media post, (on Twitter or Instagram) associates the post with a common topic or theme.

Clicking on a hashtag performs a platform search; which returns other public posts tagged by other users on that platform.

Twitter's new Community hashtags are different!

we’re testing hashtags in Communities—a way to find the convos you wanna be a part of

hashtags used in a Community will populate at the top of the Communities page in order from most popular to least popular

now on Android and web, iOS coming soon! pic.twitter.com/upFFhU4UTC
— Twitter Communities (@HiCommunities) July 25, 2022

How are Community hashtags different?

When you click on a hashtag in a community the results are only tweets with the same hashtag from within the same community as the tweet you clicked on. No other public tweets using that hashtag from across Twitter. Only other tweets from the same community. If you are posting with, or clicking on Twitter hashtags, you need to understand that difference.

This new type of Twitter hashtag is kind of like using hashtags within a Telegram channel. But unlike Telegram channels, in a Twitter Community all members can add any hashtag to their posts that they want.

So, will this new community hashtag function as the Twitter Devs may have intended?

That depends on whether community members know of the difference, between a "normal hashtag" and community hashtag.

Follow @qwallis

Twitter Communities - Suggestion

2022-07-07T12:40:00.001+02:00

Communities on Twitter are a beta feature, currently with limited availability. I'm active in the official "Communities Feedback" community, where I recently suggested that communities should look and work more like Twitter profiles. In this article I'll give more details and add thoughts I've had since making that tweet.

Why?

For the community feature on Twitter to take hold, to become popular, there needs to be a killer aspect or use case which differentiates Twitter communities from other already established community features. Twitter communities need to do something better or differently to find their hook. My suggestion is that hook.

How Twitter profiles show content

When you visit a profile you land on the "tweets" tab showing tweets from that user. But not ALL the tweets from that user are shown. Replies on Twitter are also tweets. Replies the user has made are shown on the "Tweets & Replies" tab.

How could this work for communities?

Basically the same. When visiting a community show original tweets, what I referred to "conversation starters" and have a "Tweets & Replies" tab which shows all community tweets and replies.

The killer community setting

So imagine that communities show by default only those "conversation starters", just like Twitter profiles do. Now imagine that a community has a setting which allows admins to set a new member type: contributing member. When an admin turns this setting on only contributing members can start conversations in the community.

What do we have now?

It helps to think about what new community ideas could now be created. Are they appealing?

Your favourite band starts a community where band members (contributors) post backstage content just for their fans to interact with. The "Beatles" community where John, Paul, George and Ringo post regular updates.

I would suggest that this type of community space, which can be set up to show content from a smaller subset of community members, covers a larger number of community use cases; for clubs, bands, brands and so on.

What do you think?

Follow @qwallis

(Are you?) Too Dumb for Smart Replies

2021-11-23T19:39:00.017+01:00

Replies on Telegram are SMART. Are you too dumb to use them?

Telegram groups can be way bigger that on other messaging Apps. For example the (current) max number of people for a WhatsApp group is 256 participants, for Signal it is 1000, for Telegram it is 200,000! Personally I'm not in any Telegram groups that come close to that, but even small groups can get noisy. The answer to notification noise is of course to MUTE the group. That's where "smart replies" come in.

The logic goes like so: if you've muted a group that is because you class most of the group activity as noise, but there are some things which you'll still want to see. For example; replies to your messages, or messages where someone is directly addressing you with an @mention. This is exactly what smart replies are: notifications for high value actions.

Smart Replies: Dumb Users

Unfortunately smart replies can't help dumb users. Dumb users think the message they've sent after a previous message counts as a reply. It doesn't.

Smart users know the difference between a response and a reply. Smart users respond with a reply.

Be smart. Use REPLY.

Follow @qwallis

How to respond in Telegram

2021-06-01T08:40:00.005+02:00

Are you doing it wrong?

I have written on this topic before, but here I'll use a concrete example to illuminate the concept better than previous attempts.

What is a reply?

The definition seems simple enough right? So what is the problem?

When a response is NOT a reply

The screenshot above shows a "Good morning" message I posted in a public Telegram group, plus a response by Nobel posted shortly afterwards.

When viewed in the group these two messages are sequential, it"s apparent that they are contextually related. But Nobel's response is not technically a reply. It may sound like I'm splitting hairs, but this is a problem in a number of ways.

Message Isolation

Each message made in a public group or channel has its own message link. When a Telegram user clicks a message link it opens in the right place for that message in the group chat, but for users without the Telegram application the message link will open the message URL as a web page in a browser window just like any public web page.

A message's URL can be found in the message menu.

Nobel's message on its own web page, shows in isolation.

Shown on its own Nobel's response is now missing some context.

Here are a few more examples of isolated responses;

Messages seen in isolation often it makes no sense at all.

Telegram users might assume others will see their public message as they do; chronologically, presented alongside what they are responding to with other messages in the group. They may not know that their message could be seen on its own.

Provide more context by using reply!

Here is a screenshot of a message web page from a proper reply within the same group.

Plus how to scan it.

From: Logan Williams
Where: (in) English Cologne Group
In REPLY to: Nobel "You seem to be a very popular person 😅"
Message content (text): "It's the beard ;)"

Clicking the quoted part, (Nobel's "You seem to be ...") will open that message / page. So users outside of Telegram can navigate up the discussion thread to the previous message. Any response which is not technically a reply will break (appear as the start of) that discussion.

Swipe to Reply!

Note: using reply properly is not only about doing something so people outside of Telegram can keep track of discussions. There are benefits for the group members themselves when they and others use reply when responding.

Group Discussions

Inside of Telegram replies are threaded as "Discussions" and a discussion can be viewed by group members separately to the rest of the group content.

Any new message: meaning any message which is NOT a response to a previous message, becomes the start of a discussion when / if someone in the group replies.

Geek note: I reply to my own messages when a follow up is related, so everything is visible in the one discussion thread.

This is how discussions work in Telegram.

Group discussions outside of Telegram

Now we've come to the final piece of the puzzle.

Any public message can be embedded in a web page using the embed code generated on the message page.

The discussion thread (replies), can be presented on one page on any website using Telegram's Discussion widget.

Example

I have embedded my "Good Morning" post and the empty discussion container on the English Cologne blog here. Nobel's response to my message in the group is not shown on that page, why, because it wasn't technically a reply.

Try it out!

I have shared a link to this article on my "Social Media Talk" Telegram channel. Comments made on that channel post (technically replies in a connected group) will show in the discussion widget below. If you have any questions related to this article or Telegram replies in general please feel ask.

Follow @qwallis

You are crap at social media ... and it shows

2021-05-17T16:47:00.008+02:00

Context. Let's first qualify who "You" is.

I have recently finished a decade working in "social media" most of it based in central London. Over the years I worked with a lot of people from across multiple agencies. I loved my job, the people were great fun, especially those I worked closely with. It was a good time.

But, I was often frustrated by the lack of technical understanding within the industry.

Who should have a detailed understanding of social media?

Not everyone. The average user? No. Clients? Not at all. That's what they need experts for! But people who work for those clients; who work on social media strategy or activation? They should understand social media shouldn't they?

Would you take driving lessons from an instructor who couldn't drive?

Would you? No, of course you wouldn't. But for clients, who themselves struggle with social media and need social media experts it is not as straightforward to assess whether someone is an expert or not. I have met and worked with plenty of people who have great social media job titles: strategists, executives, directors and so on. These people generally look the part, have great powerpoint skills and are super comfortable in client meetings. They walk the walk and talk the talk. But most of them are crap at social media.

How do you tell if someone is crap at social media?

People occasionally might make mistakes. There's no better way to go viral than to drop the ball on social for a client. Mistakes should be avoided obvs, but mistakes, unless regularly repeated, are not a good way to tell if someone is crap.

Social media platforms change often. Social media professionals need to keep up and they do that through use. Good usage. So here goes. I believe that you can see when a social media professional is crap: when they are not good.

They are professionals, they should be good at social media.

What is good social media use?

It depends, but let"s take Twitter* for example to start with. Most Twitter users consume content, treating Twitter as a news feed. Some mainly broadcast on the platform, in a bid to get eyes on their content. A small percentage enjoy trolling, or whinge and others use Twitter as a communication tool, to connect and engage with others.

What usage would one expect from a social media professional? Perhaps bit of everything, no?

Trolling would hopefully be limited to occasional whinging at airlines about flight delays or similar. If their profile seems deserted might they just consume? Never respond or engage? Don't be fooled by the oversharers; retweeting or sharing social media articles from Mashable, Techcrunch or god forbid Social Media Examiner.

On their profile switch to the Tweets & replies tab which will show Tweets directed at other users. Do they communicate with other people? Make a search on their @username to view recent tweets which @ mention them. Do they respond?

They don't use Twitter?

Okay .... we'll let that slide. Maybe personally they are not a Twitter fan, but this is a social media professional, they have social profiles right? Take a look at those. How information dense are they? From their social profiles, where do they link out to? Is there any consistent personal branding strategy applied across all social profiles?

This digital professional, web native, person trusted with the keys to drive your brand strategy across social. Do they not express their own original thoughts anywhere? Do they not have a blog, or at least a website? Or does a long ago acquired vanity URL just point to an about.me page, or worse their Instagram profile?

If they're crap at social media; it shows. Take a look and see!

Telegram users can comment here or on the share over on the Social Media Talk channel.

Or you are welcome to comment / feedback on: Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Interested in a social media consultation?

Get in touch! - About Robert Wallis

Follow @qwallis

Thoughts on YouTube's new CLIPS feature

2021-02-03T15:33:00.006+01:00

Clips is a new YouTube feature, currently in alpha, which allows people to highlight a specific section of a YouTube video for social sharing. If you know Twitch this feature will sound familiar and works in a similar fashion.

Clips produce a working embed when shared on Twitter and presumably elsewhere where standard YouTube video embeds work.

Testing >> Do YouTube CLIPS embed in tweets? https://t.co/FoQV9VBTs7
— Robert Wallis (@qwallis) February 3, 2021

I've tested embedding which does not work currently, but I'd expect that to be fixed in the short term.

Clips is a feature suited to gaming videos or livestreams, where there are interesting bits in between the boring stuff, but I can see it being useful for many VODs too.

Clips that you have made are saved at: youtube.com/feed/clips

Watch the full update and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Update: May 2021

An update on YouTube's Clips feature.
Will be available on 10x more channels (gaming first) and there's now a public watch count, for your clip. https://t.co/SuxgikRzu7
— Robert Wallis (@qwallis) May 12, 2021

Follow @qwallis

Telegram System Limits

2021-01-26T12:29:00.003+01:00

Every application has to define system limits. These limits are set to allow the system to function and help to curb user abuse.

Some of Telegram's limits are widely known or understood, some of them are less obvious and are not something the average user will bump up against.

Accounts

Username (e.g. @RobertWallis) - 5 to 32 characters
Bio - up to 70 characters
First Name length - from 1 to 64 characters
Last Name length - from 0 to 64 characters
Self-destruction period if no activity - 1, 3, 6 and 12 months (6 by default)
Spam ban - 3 days or more
Channels and supergroups number you can be member of - up to 500
(including ones you own)
Saved GIFs number - up to 200
Video-avatar duration - up to 10 seconds
Group and channel creation - up to 50 in a day
Accounts number (official clients) - up to 3

The account self-destruction period is a setting which I think other platforms should look at implementing. Nice one Telegram.

Chats and groups

Participants (limit can be raised) - up to 200,000
Number of admins in groups - up to 50
Number of bots in groups - up to 20
Pinned chats in main list - up to 5 chats or channels + 5 secret chats
Group name and description - up to 255 characters
Message editing - in 48 hours after sending; unlimited in Saved and for admins with pinning rights
Photo and video self-destruction - 1 to 60 seconds
Recent actions (subscriptions, posts, etc.) - last two days
Mentions number in a single message - up to 50, else notifications won't be sent
Visible messages number in group - 1,000,000 last messages
Pinned messages number - unlimited
Number of participants to see statistics - at least 500
Username change reservation - about 15-30 minutes
(time before username will be available for everyone, not just the original owner)
Group-promoted stickers - groups with 100+ participants

Messages / Channel posts

One message length - up to 4,096 characters
Media captions - up to 1,024 characters
File size limit - up to 2.0 GB
Video message duration - up to 1 minute
Images and videos in single message (album) - up to 10 items
Scheduled messages number - up to 100 items
Schedule range - up to 365 days

The media captions length limit is one I have personally bumped up against whilst using the react client, only because it is currently not indicated in that particular client yet.

Channels

Public usernames number for a single account - up to 10
(including groups)
Length of @username - 5 to 32 characters
Channel name and description - up to 255 characters
Posts editing - unlimited
Channel subscribers number - unlimited
Visible subscribers for channel admin - 200 people
Channel deletion - channels with more than 1K subscribers can be deleted only with Telegram support
Private channel access without subscription - up to 5 minutes once a day
Inviting users - up to 200 people
Number of subscribers to see statistics - at least 50
Username change reservation - about 15-30 minutes
(time before username will be available for everyone, not just the original owner)

One channel limit I am still looking for is the channel admins limit. If you know that please let me know in the comments.

Folders

Folders amount - up to 10 folders
Pinned chats in a folder - up to 100 chats

Folders is a fantastic recent feature, well suited for power users.

People Nearby

Visibility range - about 12 kilometers
Visible users amount - up to 100 people
Visible geochats number - up to 10 closest

There has been some recent irresponsible media coverage of Telegram's people nearby feature. Keep front of mind that it is off by default and users turn this feature on: indicating that they wish to be visible to others nearby.

Bots

Bots number (created by @BotFather) - up to 20 items
Length of @username for bots - 5 to 32 characters
Bot info length (/setabouttext) - up to 120 characters
Bot description length - up to 512 characters
File upload limit (BotAPI) - up to 50 MB
File download limit (BotAPI) - up to 20 MB
Message forwarding - up to 2,000 per hour
Keyboard buttons number - up to 100 entities
Message formatting data - up to 10 KB
Messages frequency - up to 30 messages per second; 20 per minute for public chats and channels
(can be raised by BotSupport)
API requests frequency - up to 30 requests per second
(can be raised by BotSupport)
Commands amount (in BotFather) - 0 to 100 commands
Command length (in BotFather) - from 1 to 32 characters
Command description length (in BotFather) - from 2 to 256 characters
Bot /start payload length - up to 64 characters

Interesting for developers.

Search

Global search results - up to 10 items; up to 3 for Android
Minimal query length for global search - at least 4 characters

Discovery is Telegram's weak spot, but I would argue that a Telegram channel or group which supports your brand or activity should be discovered from links you have placed on your website!

Stickers

Added packs number - up to 200 items
Favorite stickers number - up to 5 items
Stickers in a pack number - up to 120 for static, up to 50 for animated
Sticker size - one side equal to 512px, the other side 512px or less; strictly 512x512 for animated
Animation duration - up to 3 seconds
Sticker file size - up to 512 KB for static, up to 64 KB for animated
FPS - either 30 or 60

People love Telegram for the huge variety of stickers.

Telegrah

Accounts number in @telegraph bot - up to 5 items
Article size - up to 64 KiB

A very useful micro-blogging addition to use with Telegram.

Miscellaneous

Video avatar properties - 800x800px, up to 2 MB

Conclusions

When I discovered these limits what struck me was how well thought out and reasonable they seem to be.

Do any of these cause you problems? Or need changing? Let me know in the comments.

Follow @qwallis

Credit / Source: https://limits.tginfo.me/en

More than One-to-many

2021-01-19T12:30:00.002+01:00

One-to-many communication - was every marketers dream

In the early days of social media one-to-many communication was a promise that, albeit briefly, seemed attainable, real. The wild west rush to create branded Facebook pages happened because page posts could be seen by many. Now marketers have mostly accepted one-to-many as a paid option: Ads.

The alternative to paying is to work hard to create value for your intended audience. It's that value which builds a following.

More-than-one ...

I work hard. I try to add value, but I also believe that others could add value. More-than-one (to many) is an idea I regularly come back to, even though to date I've had very limited success implementing the concept.

Telegram is my current favourite platform for trying to implement more-than-one to-many communication: it offers the level of permissions needed when giving others access to add their voice to a channel.

Here, as an example, are permissions which publishers to the London Photos channel receive.

Admins I'm adding can post, and invite others to follow.

I don't know Mahe, we've never met. But he asked: so I talked him through my hopes for the channel and gave him publisher access. He hasn't yet posted, but he can.

If I can persuade other London Photographers to join as publishers I believe it would bring diversity and a great deal more value to the London Photos channel.

Of my Telegram channels most of them were conceived as multi-admin channels.

I hope to be able to get others publishing to Inside Ford, before I finish working with Ford Europe.

I've done all I can.

Follow @qwallis

YouTube changes how hashtags work

2020-12-10T19:21:00.004+01:00

Youtube hashtags used to return videos on that "topic".

Things have changed. Now you'll land on a hashtag page within the App which will only show tagged videos.

Here's the update

What does this mean?

Communities, where members are uploading community videos across individual YouTube channels, should try to make sure that members coordinate: all use the same community hashtag.

This may tempt people to using hashtag stuffing. Make sure to comply with the hashtag use policies, which are summarised below.

Over-tagging: Don't add too many tags in a single video. The more tags you add to a video, the less relevant they become for viewers who are searching. If a video has more than 15 hashtags, we'll ignore all hashtags on that video. Over-tagging may result in the removal of your video from your uploads or from search.
Misleading content: Don't add hashtags that are not directly related to the video. Misleading or unrelated hashtags may result in the removal of your video. Learn more about our Misleading Metadata Policies.
Harassment: Don't add a hashtag with the purpose of harassing, humiliating, intimidating, exposing, or threatening an individual or group. Violating this policy will result in the removal of your video. Learn more about our Harassment & Cyber Bullying Policies.
Hate speech: Don't add any hashtags that promote violence or hatred against individuals or groups. Don't add hashtags that contain racist, sexist, or other slurs. Violating this policy will result in the removal of your video. Learn more about our Hate Speech Policy.
Sexual content: Adding sexual or explicit hashtags may result in the removal of your video. If a video is intended to be sexually provocative, it's less likely to be acceptable for YouTube. Learn more about our Sexual Content Policy.
Vulgar language: Use of profanity or offensive terms in your hashtags may lead to an age-restriction or removal of your video.
Non-hashtags: While adding hashtags is allowed, adding ordinary descriptive tags or repetitive sentences in the description is (still) prohibited. If you violate this policy, your video may be removed or penalized. Learn more about our Misleading Metadata Policies.

Update: What hashtag pages now look like.

Are you using hashtags in your video titles, or descriptions?

Follow @qwallis

Social Media - Channel Security

2020-12-08T12:36:00.012+01:00

As I approach the end of my ten year term working in digital for Ford Europe I'll bang heads one last time on the subject of account security.

There are two types of social media accounts

Ones where a password exists.
Ones where no password exists.

An example where a password exists

A Twitter account: to create a Twitter account you "Sign Up" and in that process you are asked to choose a username and password. There is no way to create a separate account from within an already existing account.

Once an account has been created there may exist, as there does with Twitter, the possibility to give other users access to the account without giving them the account password: but a password does still exist.

An example where a password does NOT exist

A Google Brand account (used mostly for YouTube): a brand account is created when signed in: not by signing up.

During the brand account creation process no separate password is created. The creating (owning) account has access to manage the brand account and other user accounts can be given access to help manage the brand account, but no password for the brand account exists.

A password is like a KEY. A key is something you HAVE.

Why no key is the best key

People like THINGS, it's what they are used to. People have KEYS for things they care about: to gain entry to their home, to their car etc. They understand that the key gives entry to something of theirs which they value and it should be looked after.

But keys can be copied, duplicated, shared. The best key is no key.

But there is a key right? ..... the account that created the brand account does have a password: it does have a key.

Yes but that is MY KEY. And this is where security for the brand account comes from.

MY account contains MY STUFF. Lots of my stuff. MY PHOTOS, MY DOCUMENTS, MY STUFF!!!

I could not. I would not. Lend, duplicate or copy my personal account key (my account password) for others to use. No way. I look after access to my account. I have two factor authentication turned on. I use a very secure password which is not written down.

That is what secures brand accounts created through a user account.

The industry problem

"Hi Robert, could you add this email as a manager for the brand account please? ..... someteamofpeople@somestupid.agency - That's the email for our team shared Google account. Thanks!"

This happens often. It's chronic. So what is the problem?

It is someone's job to make sure that only the people who need access to the brand account have access.

They way to do that is to give each individual user access through an individual account. No shared keys.

An account that person is invested in. An account where that person would adamantly refuse to give the keys up: their personal account.

Giving access to a shared account, would be like adding a shared key for the brand account.

Worse it is a shared key with little to no personal value. Does the new person in the team need access? Email them the password! Who has an overview about who has access? No one. It's a situation where it's not possible to say with certainty who does and who does not have access.

No key is the best key

The current account owner, the person who's job it is to control access, possibly for an agency on behalf of the client, should be able to see at a glance who has access.

Any "MANAGE PERMISSIONS" button, like the one in the screenshot above, should show each person who has access.

Shared accounts, with shared keys should not be given access as they do not represent individuals. It would no longer be clear WHO has access.

Conclusion

It is hard to take a stand. Explaining again and again why you will not add a shared account as manager is a big pain in the arse.

You either take the security of the accounts you are responsible for seriously: or you don't.

Add your comments below, or on this Telegram post.

Follow @qwallis

Team Fordzilla on Telegram

2020-12-05T18:04:00.006+01:00

Articles I write on this site are usually written for a general audience, but this post is different. It's for all of Team Fordzilla: the social team, the captains, the drivers, the fans.

Below is an overview of the three elements I created for the Team Fordzilla community and how they work together.

The three elements are:

The Telegram channel.
A connected discussion group.
A private group for coordination of channel publishing.

I will assume that you understand the difference between a Telegram channel and a Telegram group. Read this post first if not, then come back.

From the Outside

The Team Fordzilla channel has this public URL 👉t.me/TeamFordzilla

Without having Telegram installed on the viewing device visiting the public URL you'll see a page like the screenshot below 👇

Do you see the words "Preview Channel" on the above screenshot?

That is the channel preview link: t.me/s/TeamFordzilla

A channel preview lets people, who don't have the Telegram installed, see the channel bio together with a preview of the channel posts.

The preview page looks like this 👇

In the bottom right of each post there's a number indicating how many times the post has been viewed then the account name of the Team Fordzilla publisher who created the post, followed by the time the post was published.

Post timestamps link to the post page. Example post page URL 👉 t.me/TeamFordzilla/68

The last channel post pictured above in the preview and below on the post page, is from Team Fordzilla was published by me and is signed with my account Telegram account name "Robert Wallis".

There is a post page for each update made to the Team Fordzilla Telegram channel.

Underneath any post, on the post page, you will see this 👇

< > Embed: will provide the post embed code, for people to copy and use on their website.
View in channel: opens the post in the Telegram application if you have it installed.
CONTEX: highlights the post on the preview page. Useful when it's not the last post made to the channel.

Here is that post embedded.

That is what people see from the outside. If they are not a Telegram user.

From the Inside

Here is what the channel looks like to me on Android.

Other Telegram users viewing the channel would see "JOIN" at the bottom. For me and other publishers it says "Broadcast" that's where we would compose a new channel post.

Normal users who have joined the channel would see MUTE at the bottom. Where they can turn channel notifications off if they wish to.

Note that unlike post views from outside Telegram, each channel post has the "Leave a comment" option.

The channel's bio page looks like this👇

I added some info links to the bio. The chat symbol, which I have highlighted with a RED ring shows that the channel is connected to a group.

Remember the three elements I mentioned at the top of the page? The connected group is the second element.

The connected group (TFZ Discussions) hosts channel comments. Telegram users who leave comments on a channel post are in effect replying to the forwarded post in the connected discussion group. Commenting does not require joining the connected discussion group: just tap "Leave a comment" and comment. But users can, if they wish, join the connected discussion group.

If you join the connected discussion group you can "comment" on any post by replying to the forwarded channel post. You can also start discussions of your own, or reply to posts made by others in the discussion group.

The connected discussion group is the community space for Team Fordzilla and groups can have up to 200,000 members!

Here is a screenshot of the connected discussion group bio 👇

The connected group is not public. It does not have a public URL.

But there is a public doorway to the TFZ Discussion group for Telegram users, from the Team Fordzilla channel bio.

Each channel post is automatically Forwarded and Pinned in the discussion group.

Note the pinned message at the top of the group 👇

People can easily tap to navigate between pinned messages. Or view them all on one page.

Group admins can pin community discussions too and unpin posts if needed.

Finally

Finally the third element is a private group which is technically unconnected to the channel or the discussion group.

Team Fordzilla captains and drivers who would like to publish to the Team Fordzilla channel are first invited into the TFZ Channel Admins group to get them up to speed. In the private group the channel publishers coordinate and discuss how best to craft Team Fordzilla channel posts.

All clear? Do you have any questions?

Feel free to ask below. Or comment on this post. It's the same thing 🤓

Follow @qwallis

Social embeds - Instagram vs Twitter vs Telegram

2020-12-03T21:39:00.006+01:00

We often see embed social content in webpages. People might embed their own social content or posts from from other users.

Here are my thoughts on embeds from three platforms: Facebook owned Instagram which you probably use, Twitter which you might not use personally but will likely have knowledge of and Telegram which may be new to at least some of you.

Please note: I published the example posts featured below in support of a story I published on the Ford Europe blog, but the views I express here are mine and not affiliated with Ford.

Instagram

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ford Europe (@fordeurope)

Instagram embeds support images and video. You can only embed public grid posts and have the choice to include or exclude the post caption when copying the embed code. I chose the default option for this example.

Instagram embeds show how many "Likes" the post has. A comments box implies you can add comments directly, but doing so will take the user over to Instagram and any existing comments on the post are not shown with the embed.

Hashtags are hyperlinked and open the hashtag page showing tagged content from across Instagram.

Instagram is a platform with billions of users and is highly visual, making it an easy choice to turn to for embedded content. But it is quite a restrictive platform. It is not possible to add links to Instagram posts for example, so embeds are literally a window into Instagram.

Twitter

Our new #FordKuga Hybrid uses artificial intelligence and “fuzzy logic” to decide, in one-tenth the time it takes to blink, to reconnect all-wheel drive and be ready to provide more grip. https://t.co/CQt1qKi6i7
— Ford Europe (@FordEu) December 3, 2020

It is possible to embed any public Tweet which can contain text, polls, images or video, but also links either in the tweet text or as image or video "cards" which vastly improve the clickable area for the link.

In this example I included a Twitter website card linking to the Ford Europe blog post.

Hashtags are hyperlinked and take the viewer to a search page on Twitter.

Twitter embeds used to offer greater value, but recently changes have been made which mean interacting with the embed likely takes the user away from the page they are viewing. Embedded Tweets with video no longer play when clicked. Embedded tweets with images no longer expand the image, instead the user is taken to Twitter.

Twitter offers other embed options the most notable being the ability to embed a Twitter list. You can see an example of an embedded list in this page.

Telegram is the less well known of the three platforms, but the most interesting. Posts from a public Telegram channel can be embedded. Like the other embeds they can contain images or video, but channel posts can contain a wide variety of filetypes including voice notes for example.

To embed any post open the post page, click < > EMBED and copy the code provided.

Get any post page link from within Telegram or by clicking the timestamp on a channel preview page.

Telegram posts are like micro-blog posts. There is some text formatting options (bold and italics) as well as text hyperlinking!

Recently Telegram started offering a discussion widget which embeds comments left on a channel post, here's an example. That's a great community building feature.

Hashtags in Telegram post are not rendered as hyperlinks in embeds. But they are well worth using strategically in posts as unlike Instagram or Twitter they return content from the same channel, I go into some detail about hashtags on Telegram here.

Conclusion

Instagram embeds provide merely a window into Instagram. Twitter embeds are more flexible, with the ability to use links, but will commonly take your audience over to Twitter. Telegram embeds offer greater strategic opportunities, but have lower brand recognition.

What content do you embed and why?

Follow @qwallis

Less is more

2020-11-27T09:53:00.001+01:00

Upload the same video to multiple YouTube channels?

Below is an example of the same video content uploaded to different YouTube channels.

Seventeen separate channels with the same content. I have placed the videos together in a playlist, to better illustrate them alongside one another.

That is a bad idea.

This practice works directly against the YouTube algorithm.

Instead of views being focused on one video version, views are split across many versions.

Each video has fewer views. Is subsequently regarded by the algorithm as less interesting and therefore suggested less by YouTube.

Add your voice to this discussion. Comment below or reply here.

Follow @qwallis

A hashtag strategy for Telegram channels

2020-11-24T14:40:00.003+01:00

Change how you think about hashtags

On instagram or Twitter; when a user clicks a hashtag they are performing a type of search and will see tagged content from across the platform. Not your content. The messaging platform Telegram, which supports channels, is rather different.

Telegram channel search returns tagged content from that channel.

If you don't use Telegram the best way to view a channel is via it's preview page.

Below is a screenshot of the preview page from Team Fordzilla's Telegram channel. We'll use that as an example.

Channel admins, of which I am one, can add hashtags to posts when publishing.

See above how a channel's preview page has a search box (highlighted).

Users are more likely though, to perform a channel search by clicking a hashtag (or search trigger) contained within a channel post.

In practical terms, hashtags should be considered as channel themes, which can be clicked to show more posts related to the same theme.

Below are a couple of examples.

The hashtag #helpTFZ is active.

The hashtag #P1 is active.

Strategy

Any text can be turned into a hashtag. Admins simply add # immediately proceeding the word they wish to be a search trigger.

Remember search terms are local. Not global. So it makes sense to use tags which are, or will be, applied to multiple posts.

Hashtags should not be used ironically. They are a tool for admins to present alternative views of similarly themed channel content.

On Inside Ford I am applying product related tags. Above is a screenshot of the #FordGT tag. There exists content already for #PumaST, #FordTransit, #MustangMachE etc.

As well as product tags there are theme tags for: #Tech (technology), #EV (Electric Vehicle), #Performance and #AV (Autonomous Vehicle).

Conclusion

Hashtags for public Telegram channels are an easy way for channel admins to organise the presentation of channel content around themes which they define.

This is a powerful feature, but requires a consistent strategic approach in order to yield value.

Follow @qwallis

The foundation of Communication

2020-11-23T15:17:00.007+01:00

There are two elements with communication

A START - A RESPONSE

When we are in the same place we understand, seemingly without effort, whether a communication represents THE START of a conversation, or more commonly a RESPONSE to one ongoing.

That understanding comes from many clues: body language, tone, referencing something previously alluded to and so on. Almost everything adds context.

When communicating with people digitally we're usually not in the same locality. We are robbed of this additional context. We have to learn the methods and conventions which help give digital conversations that additional context.

For example: you have learnt that when someone starts a conversation by email, that responding with a "reply" is better than starting anew. Replying by starting in a new email would be user error.

A less basic example would be Twitter retweets. The Retweet button no longer in the first instance retweets to your followers. It now, first appends the tweet and prompts for additional user input, with space for a message. This is now a quote tweet format, which for many users has muddied how one should reply on the platform. This confusion will reduce as users learn and platform culture adapts.

The continual need to learn, with new communication methods, is difficult for adults. It can prevent some being comfortable enough to try something new.

My top communication tip

Go back to basics. Are you responding or starting a new discussion?

Make that as clear as you can.

Follow @qwallis

Hire Me

2020-11-20T16:18:00.015+01:00

2020 was an odd year. ....

Here's some good news for 2021.

Hire my brain for your digital needs!

What's in my brain?

Ten plus years working in digital: from home, from the office, on location.
Rapid content creation and deployment.
A passion to understand and innovate.

How can I help?

Loading… Not ready to contact Robert just yet? 👉 See more info about Robert here 👍

Follow @qwallis

Telegram channel comments - Do not exist

2020-11-15T13:54:00.001+01:00

I've written about context when responding and how replies to a new Telegram group message show in a thread. If you've read those articles my statement that Telegram comments do not exist should make sense.

When a Telegram channel uses native comments, the channel is connected to a Discussion group.

Everything posted to the channel is forwarded to the discussion group.

Channel comments are in effect replies to the forwarded channel post in the discussion group.

When you add a "comment" to a Telegram channel post: you are in fact posting a reply to the forwarded post in the connected group discussion thread.

Simple Right?
Discuss in the "comments" ..... which are replies to this post. 🤓

Follow @qwallis

How Telegram threads work

2020-11-14T08:15:00.001+01:00

Last time I wrote about Telegram, I wrote about context when responding.

At the end of that article I mentioned that replies are grouped into a threads.

Even if you are a longterm Telegram user the idea of reply threads is new and possibly quite confusing.

So what are Telegram threads?

Discussion started

How do threads work?

On Twitter threads are yours. You start one by replying or adding to a tweet you have made.

On Telegram a thread potential exists when a new message is made.

A thread is created when a reply is made to that new message.

Note how, when I reply to Soph's new message a separate space is made, and you can enter that space afterwards by clicking "View X replies" on the original message.

In smaller groups this may seem unnecessary, but Telegram groups can be big, hold up to 200,000 users. Features like this make navigating discussions in groups a joy. When people understand to reply.

Follow @qwallis

How to customise your YouTube channel

2020-11-12T08:29:00.003+01:00

Since customising a YouTube channel has now moved into YouTube Studio, there's a new help video which you can watch here.

One thing I found slightly disconcerting is that changes sometimes take a short while to actually show on the channel and I think it's implied that clicking publish will show changes instantly.

Do you have any gripes, or tips, for channel customisation? Share in the comments.

Follow @qwallis

Context is key

2020-11-11T14:59:00.002+01:00

I've written previously how people fail, to reply ...

Please read the following concept aloud:

"When responding, it is important that the context of your response, is completely clear to others."

This is true everywhere.

If you take nothing else away from here, take that one concept.

Telegram user? .... 🙏 please read on 🤓

It is especially important (for both you and others) to show your response is a reply.

Let's put it another way ... Unless your message is new: i.e. not a response to anything in the group, then your intention is to reply. Make that clear!

Embedded below👇 are comments made to this channel post (embedded ☝️above).

What's going on ☝️ exactly?

Well .... those comments are, in truth, replies. .... Stay with me.

Channel comments are hosted in a connected group.

When a post is made to a channel which has comments enabled what happens is, that post is automatically forwarded into the connected group.

People who go to leave a "comment" on that channel posts actually make a reply to the forwarded channel post, in the connected group.

The "comments" embedded above are grouped replies to the forwarded channel post: displayed as a thread.

"Replies, displayed as a thread."

Concept: Replies are grouped as a thread.

Replies are grouped into a thread. So, ... If you do not respond with a reply, your response cannot be shown in the reply thread.

I hope that information helps you, in any conversation with others, on Telegram.

Follow @qwallis

Telegram Discussions Widget

2020-11-10T09:09:00.008+01:00

You can embed discussions from any public Telegram channel on your website using the Discussion widget.

You only need a link to a post with comments to embed it together with the complete discussion.

Follow @qwallis

YouTube channel setup notes

2020-11-09T08:21:00.003+01:00

There aren't many occasions one gets a blank sheet on the web. Starting a YouTube channel is one of those occasions and that's what presented itself when I recently set Team Fordzilla up on YouTube.

Here are a few notes on setting up a new YouTube channel. I hope you find it useful 🤓

Home - Channel Art, Branding and Sections

First comes channel art!

The channel art appears across the while channel, but I always consider it a home page feature.

I added a few sections to the home page: mostly playlists, which you need to create before you can add them.

I also added a channel trailer and featured video for subscribed users. Though, as this is a new channel with no subscribers ,I set the same "Who We Are" video for both features.

Videos - More branding

The videos tab shows all public videos on the channel.

Each video has a custom thumbnail.

Currently the main job for these thumbnails is branding and awareness.

Playlists - YouTube secret sauce

The playlist tab shows ..... playlists.

Playlists are the secret sauce for YouTube channels. They help surface more, related content from your channel and should really be built up around themes.

A little used YouTube playlist feature is collaboration.

Collaborate

Team Fordzilla is made up of team captains in a few European countries, who build out their own teams.

Those team captains all have their own presence on YouTube, so the playlist collaborate feature makes a lot of sense to allow us to pull Team Fordzilla content from across other channel together.

My aim is to add the team captains as collaborators for some playlists and they can then add content themselves, both their own Team Fordzilla content and any related videos from their team members.

If this becomes approach chaotic with just one playlist we might split things up into country playlist later on, but first of all I need to establish the collaboration and get people used to the idea of adding videos.

Channels - Build your network!

The channels tab is a networking opportunity.

I have already added some channels, and will be adding more team member channels as I am made aware of them.

Hopefully some team members will add the Team Fordzilla channel back from their channels, thus strengthening the network.

About - Description and links

The About tab carries a short Team Fordzilla description, helpful for SEO / search etc and links to other Team Fordzilla social channels and website.

Future & Advanced options

Team Fordzilla is by nature multi-lingual, so I plan on making sure that we take advantage of all YouTube's translation features as much as possible: starting soon with the channel description.

There are also translation opportunities for video titles, descriptions and captions.

So I have already started providing caption files, which team members can translate intio their own language and pass back to me for applying to the videos.

That's all I've done so far. There are a few things I've skipped, such as the community tab, which is only available after a channel has X number of subscribers. So until the channel hits that threshold I have hidden the inferior discussion tab.

Was this helpful? Did I miss anything?

Sound off in the comments! 👍

Follow @qwallis

Native comments for Telegram channels

2020-10-01T11:16:00.006+02:00

Yesterday Telegram made significant platform updates including "Search Filters, Anonymous Admins, Channel Comments and More", you can check them all out here.

Let's look more closely at native Telegram Channel comments and how they work.

I've set them up on my social media tips channel "SocialKnowhow". After setup new posts have "Leave a comment" appended. Clicking on leave a comment within the app opens up a chat thread with the post pinned at the top: this thread hosts comments for that channel post.

These post threads are hosted in a connected discussion group.

So adding native commenting to a public Telegram channel involves connecting the channel to a group, which hosts the threads.

To add a discussion group to a channel edit the channel and link a group, you can link an existing related chat or super easily create a new one. I created a new group.

This is where things get really clever.

As your discussion place is a group, you have control over the permissions for that group. So you can control whether people can add media to comments, whether they can send stickers etc etc ...

You can also control the speed at which people can comment.

Ban or reduce permissions of people who join the discussion group.

Note: people who comment on a channel post without joining the discussion group would have default group permissions.

All this control over "comments" is really excellent.

Admin settings.

Again, as the commenting "space" is a group you can make any group member into an admin, with permissions of your choosing, to help manage the commenting space for large channels this is awesome.

This is also how anonymous group admins works. Toggling the send anonymously switch mean comments by that admin will either use the group name, with any custom title you assign, or the admins account name. That's great, both for admins who wish to remain anonymous, but also differentiating between multiple anonymous admins with custom titles.

Again, excellent.

So how do you feel now about native channel comments?

Follow @qwallis