Human interaction in social networking pays off in goodwill, trust

Part of the value of social networking is building trust. That’s why, in a world of angry phone calls and rabid story comments, the feedback The Palm Beach Post receives from readers who follow us on social media tends to be more positive.

Here are just a few recent examples from our Twitter followers:

@VirtualJenn is a Palm Beach Gardens woman who thanked us for responding so quickly to her question about a situation at the north county courthouse:

Suzanne Boyd, news anchor for CBS 12 and FOX 29, gave us a shout-out for alerting her to breaking news:

Kristin Carr, a Palm Beach County mom who had to wait at her kids’ school one day before she was allowed to pick them up, had a running conversation on Twitter with web producer Tory Malmer one afternoon about the situation. (Turns out the school was temporarily on lockdown because of a suspect on the loose in the area.)

Informally, we hear from the community how much they enjoy following us on Twitter. One compliment that comes up a lot is that we make an effort to be more than just a links dump or RSS feed of stories. The human interaction pays off in goodwill and trust.

Quick hits

A roundup of noteworthy social media news from the past couple of weeks:

✓ This summer, Twitter will roll out its own link shortener, t.co.

✓ Twitter has joined the location game by allowing users to add a specific place to their tweets. Users must opt in to this by checking the “Tweet Location” box on your settings page. A Mashable blog post illustrates how it works. This option and others that Twitter continues to add will have important repercussions for news websites and more, because the changes will allow tweets to further integrate into the real-time web.

✓ This one’s worth bookmarking: Twitter has launched a support center that includes all kinds of helpful information. There’s something here for every level of tweeter, from beginner to advanced. There are also several video tutorials.

✓ A quirky corporate memeo: Forbes asked its employees to help Steve Forbes get more Twitter followers.

✓ MTV is looking to hire its first “Twitter Jockey.”