Category: Social Media

Step Out of the Social Media Box to Reconsider X (Twitter)

by Billy Dees, posted in Media, Social Media

I have been a user of Twitter for a long time. I believe it is going on 14 years. This period covers the two full terms of Barack Obama, the term of Trump, and now the presidential cycle of President Biden.

As someone who, to one degree or another, has been involved with media since the mid-eighties, this period has been the most transformative, not only in terms of how we regard legacy media, but also how we get and process information. The striking rise and changing role of social media, especially in the pandemic laden last few years, has been a game changer.

Twitter has always been a great source for trending topics. In the early days, tweets were short. This had the platform termed as “micro blogging.” This combination of trending and short blasts of information made the platform fast and interesting. As my podcasting grew, it became my platform of choice.

However, for most of its history Twitter was not a huge financial success, especially when compared to the Facebook giant. Simultaneously, let’s say during the past five years, the old social media models began to change. Setting up the user base of a given platform to be targets of advertising was starting to become too familiar. Users had few rights to the service as “consumers” and popular creators were getting little recognition for playing a large role in the success of certain platforms.

If you miss the old Twitter, let me just say that its days were likely numbered had it stayed the old Twitter. Something had to change. TikTok was taking the world by storm. YouTube started “Shorts,” Instagram kicked off “Reels,” and so on. Facebook rebranded itself to Meta. Twitter was starting to lose its shine and was loaded with bots.

Enter Elon Musk. Twitter is now “X” and there is much talk of an “everything app.” I won’t go over “everything” but there are a few key changes that has me very hopeful for the future of the platform.

The following is from my perspective.

X is still very much real time regarding what may be termed as “breaking news.” There is a great deal of latency with other platforms. If your thing is showing pictures of your backyard barbecue this doesn’t matter and X is likely not the place for you. However, if you follow trending topics, X is a great place to be.

If you blog, podcast, or create video your audience is there. Authors, artists, musicians are all there in force. Do you have something you would like to raise awareness about? Influencers are there. I could go on.

Tweets, or posts as they are called now, can be much longer. For me, another big change is that long-form video content is also now possible on X. This is a very recent development.

Although I help others produce video and love the medium, for me and as a creator I have concentrated on podcast/radio styled content. Audio has been a passion of mine for my entire career.

When my podcast became successful enough for guests, especially authors and publishers, to start seeking me out, a common request was that they wanted to be seen in a professional forum and could share those links to their fans. YouTube was the obvious choice. I found the best software and developed techniques to facilitate good video interviews. However, I always made sure that audio quality remained a constant for the podcast platforms. That is where the listens happen for me after years of building a reputation. A quality shift can be a problem for multi-format creators.

My attitude was that YouTube was good supplement to the podcast. It is a search engine as well. This is all good, but it was never a strategy of mine to grow my YouTube channel.

In the past with Twitter, I would tweet out my episode YouTube link with all the appropriate hashtags and window dressing. Anyone interested in checking out the episode would have to click on the link and go to YouTube.

Enter Tucker Carlson on X. Not your cup of tea? No worries keep reading. This has nothing to do with politics. What is relevant is that his entire interviews are posted on X in video form and the views bury all the cable news channels combined. More media figures are now joining the club. The trending audience has always been native to X and now do not have to go off-platform to view video. Better yet, the video is in pre-roll as they are scrolling and is not just sitting there as a pasted link.

Live video is highlighted at the top of the X app. Live content in the form of Spaces is also a popular feature. Spaces are live audio sessions and presentations. Spaces started being a feature during the old Twitter and have now grown with the news-driven content on X. Live Spaces are also listed separately. This is clearly designed to use live content as a driver of the platform.

As a verified user of X, I began posting video interviews in long form and was very happy with the results. Recently, an associate of mine, ShamanIsis, suggested that we do a live video podcast on X. On Thursday Oct 12, 2023, we went live with the show and the results blew away any live-stream I have ever done on YouTube. The views and audience reach were in the thousands. Now, keep in mind I have a presence on X and am established as a podcaster, so these results aren’t necessarily to be expected starting out. None the less, these results spoke volumes about the platform.

Produced as we were streaming live on X (Twitter) Thursday Oct 12, 2023 at 7:00pm EST

I don’t know what your social media needs or expectations happen to be. However, if you are dismissing X because you feel it is just a place for people to post stupid stuff, or you have been dissuaded by negative things that you have been told, you are missing a possible opportunity to shape your brand and build a community. X has become more of a hybrid of media and social media.

Oh, and more is coming.

The free version will get you started.

@BillyDees and @ShamanIsis are our screen names on X.

All Things Media – Will Social Media Become Something More Than Social Media?

by Billy Dees, posted in Media, Podcast, Social Media
Twitter has now become “X.” Could it be an everything app?

Every so often I do an “All Things Media” podcast episode that generally centers around topics such as media, social media, and current events. That much isn’t new. What is new is how I presented the video version of this podcast.

The audio platforms are where much of my listenership resides. Therefore, I have always been careful to make sure the audio is as pristine as possible and guard against visual references during the shows.

However, many of my guests or their publicists wanted video links so that their clients could be showcased in a professional forum for their followers on social media.

The natural thing to do was to start a YouTube channel for the Billy Dees Podcast. I never really pushed the show on YouTube, it was a support platform for the podcast. YouTube has recently implemented a podcast tab which is long overdue. YouTube is also a major search engine, and I wanted our content to be discoverable on the platform. For all these reasons, maintaining a YouTube channel for the podcast is a good idea and I will continue to do so.

In the meantime, Twitter has always been my social media home. I have often said that Twitter was built for podcasting. If you are a creator of pretty much any category – author, advocate, or artist etc. – the audience that Twitter has built-in is enormous. For any news or trending topics, Twitter is about as good as it gets.

When the reported attempted coup was happening in Russia a short while back, I intensely followed the story on Twitter and TikTok. I anxiously tuned into the national news that evening anticipating detailed professional coverage of the event. All three major networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, lead with the submarine story at the Titanic location which by that time was already a week old. The tragic fate of the occupants was known, and the story had moved to the “how could this happen” phase. The following day, news promos on the networks said, “Tune in tonight for continuing coverage of the coup in Russia.” The only problem was by that time, it was already over.

NBC News always leads its program with the phrase “breaking news.” That’s broken news.

In the meantime, Tucker Carlson and other media figures began moving long-form media content to Twitter with much success. Elon Musk also rebranded Twitter into “X,” what some may call a move toward an “everything app.” This would include a new app with tweets, now referred to as “posts,” long form posts, audio and video content, and financial transactions.

Simultaneously, Meta launched “Threads,” a Twitter copy, by leveraging its users mostly from Instagram. Was I the only person who wondered how the same people, with the same contacts, sharing the same content, was going to be a grand slam? It wasn’t.

Also at the same time, cable news and news in general continued to flounder.

During this turmoil, I decided to give the video version of the podcast a try on X. I did my commentary about the branding move from Twitter to X and the recent UFO news – and placed the video version on the platform. It makes perfect sense to place video content native to the platform where the users are.

I have heard different things about the usage and traffic on X since the rebranding. There have also been other changes to the old Twitter platform that many users have not liked. So far, the platform seems stable to me. It is simply too early to say but so far I am not alarmed.

I do consider my full-length posting on X a success. The views and engagement were very strong. X has also made the paid boosting process for marketers much more streamlined than it was before on the old Twitter.

Granted, this was the first time I tried posting long-form content on Twitter X, so I don’t have a good gauge yet. For more discovery, I added another full-length podcast interview episode to Twitter X on August 6, 2023. This is a practice I plan to continue for the near future as the new incarnation of the platform starts to take form.

As it stands, I am cautiously optimistic about X. I have never been a Meta person, although strategic Facebook boosts do work for the right circumstances. Instagram has not caught fire for me. LinkedIn has its place, to be sure, especially with the B2B crowd. But, if you are counting on trending and active engagement, the LinkedIn “What’s My ROI Zombies” are not going to do it for you.

This is an interesting time for how news gets disseminated. I’ll just leave that right there for now…

…and if X turns out to be what it is intended to be, I want to be a part of it.

Hey, follow me on Twitter! I mean X! @BillyDees

You can find the full-length commentary podcast on X here.

Spotify and YouTube are below.

Shaman Isis Talks About Wellness and Healing

by Billy Dees, posted in Media, Podcast, Social Media
Shaman Isis

On the podcast for this episode is trauma survivor, mental wellness advocate, and educator, Shaman Isis.

She is also the author of the book, “Unleash the Empress.”

Central to her message is that people can come to terms with their trauma and mental wellness challenges and find the courage within themselves to heal and build a life they will love. Shaman Isis grew up in care and endured a shocking list of traumas that had her steeped in shame and depression. She felt at times that her future looked bleak…but it wasn’t, and through courage, she found freedom.

Shaman Isis’ most important message for anybody going through trauma is that hope endures.

During this podcast she also discusses why it can feel impossible to heal and how to know when it is indeed time for healing to begin.

You can find out more about Shaman Isis on her website: www.shamanisis.com.

You can find the Billy Dees Podcast on your favorite podcasting platform. For your convenience the podcast along with the webcam version is below.

Twitter is Now Owned by Elon Musk

by Billy Dees, posted in Media, Podcast, Social Media

Unless you have been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably heard that Elon Musk has purchased Twitter.

I have been an avid user of Twitter almost since the very beginning, my @BillyDees account is over 12 years old. I first started with Twitter as a blogger. I hosted my own blog and was an editorialist for several other blogs circa 2010-11. There is absolutely no question that Twitter drove readers to my posts. The topical and trending nature of Twitter complimented my editorial writing like a charm.

During this time, I was also a multimedia specialist and continue in that capacity in 2022. In fact, I have been an audio professional for 30 some odd years. As 2012 rolled by, podcasting entered a phase of rapid growth. Several crime podcasts garnered national attention and high-ranking politicians and newsmakers began granting interviews. Internet and streaming capabilities in phones and mobile devices started to become more common. As podcasting grew, given my background, podcasting became a natural fit for me. Twitter, in my opinion, is tailor made for the fast and trending topics covered by podcasters.

I often state that Twitter is my social media home. I now have incorporated Twitter Spaces, an audio forum similar to Clubhouse, as part of my content mix. What happens to that feature, along with other aspects of Twitter, are a large part of the speculation around Musk’s acquisition.

What will Elon Musk do with Twitter? Why did he buy it?

Simply put, I don’t know. However, I am a fan of Elon Musk, and I am optimistic about the future of Twitter. It needed a reset.

Elon Musk’s Twitter account Oct 30, 2022

Musk has often stated that he wants to champion “free speech” on the platform. Elon has suggested he would reconsider Twitter’s approach to content moderation and permanent bans from the platform, all of which could impact the political landscape. At the same time, Musk has reassured advertisers that he doesn’t plan to turn the platform into a “free-for-all hellscape.” In my opinion, Elon also very rightly has mentioned his desire to rid the platform of bots. So much so, that he made the number of bots central to his argument to abandon the deal during this roller coaster ride of the last six months.

The notion that Twitter may also expand the idea of paid subscriptions has also arisen. I, so far, have no issue with this overall concept. I already subscribe to Twitter Blue and feel this would certainly cut down on fake accounts and give a greater consumer voice to users.

As to why Elon decided to buy Twitter, I can only guess. Unlike most of the speculation I have run across online, I do not feel there is anything regarding the technology of Twitter or any intrinsic value Twitter has within it, that could be that intriguing to someone who lands rockets vertically.  

I do feel, the megaphone that Twitter wields, has enormous value. Tesla and SpaceX have no advertising budget. He now has a pick-line directly into the bloodstream of the marketplace. Twitter also has a celebrity aura around its brim. Along with being one of the most successful businessmen in the world, Elon Musk is now a pop-culture icon. Not to mention, in 2024 which is drawing ever so closer, he could be a dominate political force.

Stay tuned.