How Plurk Won Me Over

I admit, I wasn't a fan to start with. And I still feel a little hitchy with the user interface. But last evening, I figured out a few thing that Plurk has going for itself and that warrant hanging around and giving them a shot.

Threaded Conversation
At first, the only evidence I found of conversation threads were long strings of people telling each other "Good Night". Snore. But yesterday, I responded to a quick plurk by Mack Collier about what kind of advice us social media folks give to our clients about how much/often to blog. It spawned an impromptu Plurkshop (Connie Reece's witty term) on social media, which several people found helpful, and I think we all took a little something away from that conversation. It's a great demonstration of why Plurk's ability to thread a conversation can be a great group discussion forum. (Read it here)

Unexpected Community Support
There was a young woman on Plurk last night that lost a close friend in an accident. And I thought it was interesting that she chose to share her sad news in that forum. Of course, there was an outpouring of support and condolences, which I'm sure helped in some way, and it was touching to see some truly heartfelt notes of support. And I realized that Plurk's advantage over Twitter in this scenario wasn't a closer personal connection, per se. It was the opportunity to have an uninterrupted thread of support - one unfractured by "my new blog post is up" in the main Twitterstream - that kept it completely focused on the issue (and the person) at hand.

My takeaway for social media in small business was mostly from the Plurkshop and the overwhelming agreement by all of us about the importance of:

• Having a plan
• Starting before it's "perfect"
• Listening before you start
• Practice, tweak, and tweak again.
  

I continue to be amazed by the spontaneous ways that social media, piece by piece, transforms the landscape of both business and interpersonal relationships. It's going to be exciting to see what's next.