SHOW TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:00] Welcome to social media news live I’m Jeff Sieh and you’re not. 

[00:00:04] Grace Duffy: [00:00:04] I’m Grace Duffy and this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media. Today’s show is brought to you by Restream everything you need for your own professional live video podcast, a live video show and podcast right in your browser.

[00:00:20] So you can find out more about that at socialmedianewslive.com/restream 

[00:00:27] Jeff Sieh: [00:00:27] and today we are joined by my friend, Madeline Skylar, and we’re going to dive into Twitter spaces. You’re going to find out how to use spaces to promote your business, or expand your Twitter. Following where we should be putting our time, money, and attention when it comes to Twitter.

[00:00:42] And there’s always some new features just added or it’s coming soon to the platform. And Grace already mentioned that we had one of our sponsors Restream, but also I wanted to talk really quickly about another one who is amazing. And that’s what we’re using to switch the cameras. We’ll talk a little bit more about them later, but as Ecamm, so you can find out more about going by going tosocialmedianewslive.com/ecamm make sure you guys go and check them out. So if you don’t know who Madalyn Sklar as well, then you’re probably not on Twitter. She is a serial entrepreneur. She’s a community builder, a tattoo wearing social media evangelist, and the leading Twitter marketing expert. You can find her hosting the hashtag Twitter, smarter chat.

[00:01:25] On Thursdays at 1:00 PM Eastern time where she brings together hundreds of people in an active discussion around Twitter marketing and on Twitter spaces on Wednesdays at 3:00 PM, Eastern Thursdays at 5:00 PM, Eastern and Saturdays at 1:00 PM Eastern. So she of course is our spaces experts. We’re going to talk about that today.

[00:01:46] And she also has an awesome podcast, Twitter smarter, Madeline, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:53] Madalyn Sklar: [00:01:53] Hey, thank you so much for having me. I’m really thrilled to be here. Love what you’re doing with this 

[00:01:57] Jeff Sieh: [00:01:57] show. Thank you. I appreciate it. So I’m excited that you’re here with us. We’ve interviewed you before on some other places, but I’m just so glad you’re on our show.

[00:02:04]So grace, let’s talk about this, this section. I know Madeline’s got a hard stop, so I want to make sure we have time for questions. So take us away. 

[00:02:12] Grace Duffy: [00:02:12] Absolutely. Well, this week we found out that Twitter spaces is expanded to anyone with a following of over 600 people. So that’s over 600 followers. So starting Monday, anyone with over 600 followers can host their own conversation on spaces or in spaces on iOS.

Where Do You Find Twitter Spaces?

[00:02:30] Or on Android. So Madeline, can you give us just some insights into what it’s like to be on spaces? How do you, how do you even know you have access to spaces? Because I didn’t know, I had spaces until like I followed up a post from someone that said, Oh, you gotta press this button. I never would have known that.

[00:02:48] So let us know how we find out. How we fight, how do we find out about 

[00:02:53] Madalyn Sklar: [00:02:53] it? Well, first of all, everyone, it has the ability to go onto spaces. Whereas, you know, if someone you’re friends with is hosting a room, you should be able to see that over in the fleet section. So when you’re, and this is mobile only for both iOS and Android.

[00:03:08] So when you’re on the home screen and you look at the top where fleets are at. Normally you see fleets with a little blue circle around a profile picture to let you know, you know, those are different fleets you can look at when you see a purple and it kind of glows a little bit that lets you know, someone is broadcasting live.

[00:03:24] So the way this works is if, as someone you follow on Twitter and they’re either hosting a room or they’re speaking in a room, you should see that at the top. It’s not perfect. It’s still in beta, but it’s improving constantly. And so. Now that so many people are using spaces and then the big news with them adding more room hosts this week at any given time, you’re probably able to go into your fleet section and see.

[00:03:50] Multiple rooms going on at once. And it’s just a matter of tapping on it and going into a room. I mean, anyone can do that, but the big news this week is instead of having a small group of people that can host like myself, we’ve been beta testers for months. Now they’ve allowed. Users that have 600 followers or more.

[00:04:09] So if you got 600 or more followers on your Twitter, you should be able to start hosting your own rooms now, which is super exciting. We’re going to see so many people really harness the power of using audio. 

How Many People Can Host on Twitter Spaces?

[00:04:24] Grace Duffy: [00:04:24] Are there any restrictions on how many people can host? Because I know that you can share the speaking rights you’re speaking privileges.

[00:04:32] And is there a limit on how many people can be in a space at the same time? 

[00:04:36] Madalyn Sklar: [00:04:36] Those are awesome questions. It’s not like clubhouse we’re at this time. You can have multiple co-hosts. What you’re able to do is when you start a room, you’re the host. They’re saying co-host is coming really soon though. But for now you can just have up to 10 other speakers.

[00:04:53] So you plus 10 other speakers and it can be anyone you invite, or you can have a very open room and let anyone. Come speak, which I’m not a big fan of because that’s kind of asking for trouble. There’s a lot of interesting, interesting people out there that just want to go into rooms and recommend it. So it’s really best to either invite there’s a little invite.

[00:05:12] Part on the screen there, we can invite people and DMS them or people in the room can hit the request to speak button and you can accept it and let them speak. So you can have 10 plus yourself speaking at any given time when it comes to listeners. It’s unlimited. There’s no limit to how many listeners, which I think is awesome.

[00:05:30]

[00:05:30] Jeff Sieh: [00:05:30] Very cool. 

[00:05:31] Grace Duffy: [00:05:31] That’s awesome. Thank you. That it’s a mobile only experience and Eric over here, as just said, I’m curious if there’s any word on when this might be available to desktop. 

[00:05:41] Madalyn Sklar: [00:05:41] It’s coming, they’re working on that which will be super exciting because not everyone wants the mobile experience. They would rather listen to rooms while they’re on desktop and doing other things.

[00:05:52] Plus what I’m really excited about is using spaces to record for podcasting. Right. And so. Twitter has said publicly that they are going to work on a native record feature at some point. So I’m thinking that will come out once they have a desktop version, because that would make the most sense. Now I’ve been experimenting with recording my rooms, but I had to go buy some extra gear because I’m doing it through the phone.

[00:06:17] So I’ve got to have like a zoom recorder and a whole bunch of cables and splitters and stuff, but I’ve been experimenting. It’s been working pretty 

[00:06:25] Jeff Sieh: [00:06:25] good. Oh, we need to talk. Cause I I’ve figured it out for a guy Kawasaki on his podcast, as well as here as being able to do that with the road casters, how we’re doing it.

[00:06:35] So we’ve got some great questions. So like Kristen says great tips already. Madeline loving Twitter spaces. And Mark says, good morning. Thank you Madeline. For coming on. Today’s show. Yeah, thanks Mark for tuning in as well. So one of the, you mentioned like people coming in to like wreck your room. And so I guess the question I was going to ask is like, how, how do you manage the conversation?

[00:06:58] What Have You Found to Keep Twitter Spaces Engaging?What, what are some tips that you found with all your experience with Twitter spaces, like to keep the conversation going or how to make them engaging and interesting. So you, you know, you can keep that audience. Do you have any advice for people. 

[00:07:10] Madalyn Sklar: [00:07:10] Yeah, sure. You want to have really good topics for discussion for sure.

[00:07:13] I mean, I’ve seen people just do rooms to do rooms and there’s nothing wrong with that because a lot of people are experimenting. This is a new feature people trying to figure out what’s the best way to do it. For myself personally, being a digital marketer for 25 years, teaching social media since 2005, you know, I’m always trying to think like when something is new, like this, what can I do to bring more of my community together to meet new people?

[00:07:39] And. Provide value. And so for me, it was a no brainer to use spaces as a Twitter, smarter after chat. So I do the Twitter smarter chat Thursdays at one o’clock Eastern. And we all know about Twitter chats. You know, you feel like you’re texting really, you know, you’re just typing and typing. So what we do is we meet up later.

[00:07:57] It would take a little break. Well go our separate ways, but we come back on Twitter, later into spaces where I bring the guest in, and now we have an active conversation to really dive in deeper to the topic. And that’s been really fun, really successful. People have come in and said, wow, I’ve gotten so much.

[00:08:15] Information and insights. They find they’re finding value in this. So that’s been, that was my first experiment was let’s just continue the conversation from the chat over into spaces. And then I’ve been going into a lot of rooms and just kind of looking to see how people are using it. And one thing that was in the back of my mind, and actually I had thought of this back in the clubhouse days, cause I was on clubhouse early on like early December before it exploded.

[00:08:41] And I thought this would be cool. To have a room where maybe I can bring people together and we share tips on how to make your Twitter profile look great. Like audit your profile. And finally, a few weeks ago, I just decided to go for it. So I just randomly started a room one Saturday afternoon. Didn’t really promote it much.

[00:09:01] And I just called it Madeline audits, Twitter profiles. So it’s exactly what is says. And. All bunch of people came out on a Saturday and hung out with me and we picked a few Twitter profiles. People said, you know, I would love to get your 2 cents and I didn’t want it to be just about me. I’m a fan of passing the mic.

[00:09:21] We all know people like to talk. So I think it’s best to not hog the mic as best to let others share as well. So. What I started doing was, you know, we pick a profile, I would give them my 2 cents and then I pass the mic around and let other people, you don’t necessarily have to be an expert to share good, valuable insights.

[00:09:39] So immediately this room was such a success. I said, okay, how about we do this every week? I will commit to one hour every Saturday afternoon. Let’s keep this going. So I’ve done two of them now. And a brand new feature that just came out yesterday is the tip jar. And they’re only testing it out to a small group, but I got it.

[00:09:58] And I’m really excited to see. Cause I’m all about experimenting. Like let’s try things and see if it works. It works great. If not. Okay. Let’s try another way or another angle at it. So, The tip jar. I was thinking, you know, I I’m okay with just meeting everybody each week and in sharing my thoughts on how to make your profile better.

[00:10:20] I’m not looking at this as a moneymaker for me. It’s really just sharing my knowledge and letting people see and learn more about me, get to know like, and trust me. And then maybe I can help them with something down the road. Maybe a paid course or a webinar or something. So. Now that we have this tipping feature.

[00:10:37] It’ll be very interesting when I host this next one and see if people feel compelled to. Send a few bucks. What I got the tip jar yesterday. It was right before my Twitter smarter after chat and during the chat three different people, I didn’t even, I mean, I just mentioned it was a new feature. I didn’t say give me money, you know, but three people were inclined to use the tip jar feature and send me money.

[00:11:02] And, and these were, this was not like a dollar like. Right. It was w you know, very nice one person sent a $20 tip. It’s like, Whoa. So I think this is going to be really interesting as they add all these features. They’re working on so many right now for spaces, but the fact that we can monetize this. So what I think everyone should really start thinking about now is.

[00:11:26] If you’re able to host a room because this is so new, maybe a lot of listeners have not hosted yet. You want to start thinking about what kind of rooms can you host? What kind of value can you bring? How can you bring people together? And then is it something that might be monetized? I wouldn’t make that your number one goal.

[00:11:43] I mean, of course we all want to make money, but I think. Bringing people together in this new way, this new medium is. So, I mean, we all know voices, super powerful, right? It’s a great way to connect. And I’m connecting with people from all over the world. When I do this, I mean, when I, when I’m doing these rooms, I get people in Africa that are coming on, people in India, all over Europe.

[00:12:05] It is so diverse and people in Australia, too. I mean, I have people come in and there’ll be like six in the morning for them and they’ll come into a room. Really a great way to connect people. 

[00:12:16] 

How Will You Use the Twitter Tip Jar?

Jeff Sieh: [00:12:16] So on that the new Twitter tip jar, are you going to have, like, are you going to have a call to action in your show?

[00:12:24] Like for right now we’re streaming live, should, should people think of like, Hey, by the way, if you wanna support the show, you need to do this, or should you just leave it to be passive? Like it’s there, if they want to. I’d love to know your, 

[00:12:35] Madalyn Sklar: [00:12:35] you know, this is such a great question. I think it just really depends on how you feel, you know, not everybody’s comfortable asking for money, like, you know, what’s the best approach.

[00:12:44] So it doesn’t come off like is, you know, slimy car salesman type, you know, give me money. I will definitely, now that I have the tip jar and people have used it a few times and we see that it works well What I will probably do when I’m hosting my rooms is just let people, I probably mentioned at the beginning, maybe halfway through and again, at the end, like, Hey, you know, if you feel inclined, feel free to, to tip less with the tip jars for if you’re getting a lot of value today.

[00:13:10]But I, I’m certainly not going to make it a big part of what I’m trying to do, but one of the cool features in this tip jar is Patrion. Now, if you’re using Patrion as a creator, this could be a great way to get people over because listen, let me explain how Twitter is doing this. When you go and add these, when you’re a is, let me tell you what your choices are.

[00:13:31] Once you do get tip jar is band camp, which is for musicians is a website where bands can sell their music, cash app, Patrion, PayPal, and Venmo. What’s interesting with PayPal is all it’s doing is. You put in your user name or your, or your email, like PayPal, your PayPal, email username for your Venmo and cash app.

[00:13:53] Patrion your username. You’re not nobody’s logging in. Cause there was a big debate yesterday when this all came down and became live, people are like, well, wait a minute. We’re going to be giving Twitter, all this private information. Now your Twitter is just acting as a vehicle to send them over to these.

[00:14:12] So the other big thing that happened was, well, people were doing screenshots and showing that when you tip somebody with PayPal is sends the receiver of the money. The, the personal information, like the person’s name and address that they have on file with PayPal. And Twitter says, okay, we didn’t know this, thanks for bringing to our attention, but as a PayPal thing, and hopefully PayPal will listen to you that people don’t like that.

[00:14:36] I mean, who, who wants, you know, you may not want people to know where you live, right? So there, there’s still a lot of things to work out, but I’m excited that for us, marketers, We could take this new spaces, service this new feature and find ways to monetize it. And with my rooms that I’m hosting, I’m doing different things.

[00:14:56] The Twitter after chat, we’re on have the guests, this, this new auditing Twitter profiles where we’re providing a whole lot of value to help people. And my third room is a, is a really fun one to call it all things. Audio where a friend of mine, a colleague of mine in Europe. It just is so into audio.

[00:15:13] She’s an audio expert. So last month I said, Hey, why don’t we start a room together? We’ll be co-hosts. And let’s just talk about all things audio, and we’ve done it for about a month now, and it’s just been fun. And I don’t know if it’s monetized where we’re just getting together and just talking about things and bringing people in to connect and talk with us.

[00:15:30] And it’s just been a fun conversation, but now that that’s. Tip jar is, has been activated. And I don’t know how long it’s going to take for everyone to get it. They’ve said it’s just small group right now. But what’s great about this now makes you start thinking about, okay, how could I monetize this?

[00:15:46] Jeff Sieh: [00:15:46] Yeah. So I got the peg told me about it yesterday, picked Fitzpatrick. And so I said it, I had it too, so I set it up. So it is really easy. You just enter your username. And, and so I was really excited and Mark brings up a good point. He goes the tip jar could be a fantastic platform for donating to a current cause organized by the host, et cetera.

[00:16:05] Yeah, Mark. That’s a great great idea too. And Gary also said that says this. He says, my friend, Jason, Freddy. And sing songs on Saturday, Sunday, pageant of the mattress and he points to PayPal. So he could use this as well. It’s a great point. Gary and then Andy who, Hey, Andy, love you. She says, of course they came out on a Saturday morning.

[00:16:23] Madeline, we love your Twitter. Lusciousness so I love Andy Lyons. Thank you, Andy, for that over on YouTube. So, and Kristen brought up another great point, says. I do prefer rooms that have a purpose and aren’t just for open chatting, better use of my time to tune in. Is Twitter Spaces Rolling Out to Everyone?And the last question I wanted to pull up was by photography by Brian, he goes, is this now that the 600 you know, greater followers that you can apply for spaces? Is it rolling out to everybody’s or just us? Do you know the answer to 

[00:16:51] Madalyn Sklar: [00:16:51] that great question. So I just read something yesterday that says is for English account English speaking accounts. So apparently if your account is set to English, then you’re supposed to be able to get it. And you’ll know when you have it, because there’ll be a screen that pops up to let you know.

[00:17:11] And I have some screenshots I can kind of show off if you want, but here’s, here’s the tip I want to give though. That will be super helpful. Well, you want to do today is when we’re done with this conversation, or right now it’s up to you go to the app store I’m on iOS. So I go to the Apple app store. And for Android, go, go to where you can download, go to the Twitter app in the app store, a make sure you have the most current version.

[00:17:35] Twitter has been updating the app. Very frequently due to all of these updates, they’ve been constantly making changes to spaces for months now. So you want that most current version. Now my iPhone is set to auto download all new apps, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be doing it for my Twitter. So I make sure once a day I just go manually check in the app store just to make sure I’m using the current one.

[00:17:58] Jeff Sieh: [00:17:58] Right. Good, good tip there. Cause I had to do the same thing. So it is updating all the time. 

[00:18:04] Can You Schedule Twitter Spaces?

Grace Duffy: [00:18:04] Yeah, absolutely. So Madeline, can you space because I, I had a little sad experience in spaces early this week because I found out I got it and I got on there and then I was just like, crickets. Right. So there wasn’t really, I didn’t know if there was a way that you can let people know that, Hey, I’m going to be here.

[00:18:18] Like you have these set times that you’re, you’re there. Do you, is it something that you can schedule or is it something you’re just promoting and then you show up, how does that, how does that work on space? I’m 

[00:18:28] Madalyn Sklar: [00:18:28] having to promote it. Currently, as of right now, there’s not a scheduling feature. They are coming out with it.

[00:18:35] If you go to the Twitter spaces profile, it’s just at Twitter spaces, they did put a tweet out on Monday showing all the things they’re working on. That was the day they released the 600 or more followers. And it lists all these different things. They’re going to be offering a ticketing. System at some point where you can charge a ticket for admission to your room.

[00:18:54] That’s going to be interesting. Co-hosting scheduling and improved captions because they have been experimenting with captions. They’re not great, but they’re working to make it better, but that scheduling feature is going to be so important. Grace, because you’re so right. I mean, if I just go start a room right now, it’ll be crickets until people come across it, which can be hit or miss.

[00:19:15] And one thing I’ve noticed, and I think again, Because it’s still in beta. Is that okay? We know you can find it in the fleet section. Right. But there’ll be times where I know a friend of mine is doing one right now because they’ve scheduled it. And I look in the fleets and it’s not there. So what you want to do as a backup, if you know, there are, you know, that there’s one going on, go to their Twitter profile and hope that they tweeted out the link.

[00:19:41] Also currently you can’t tweet out a link until you go live. Like once the scheduling features in place, it’ll be like clubhouse where you’ll get a URL and you can promote it and you don’t have to worry about it anymore. Right. You can get the word out. And when you start the room, you don’t have to worry about fumbling to get that link out so quickly.

[00:19:57] But what I find is that every time I host a room, the first thing I do when I go live is once it connects, I go tap on the icon that lets me share. The link out to my Twitter feed, because again, not everyone’s going to see it in fleets. I want to make sure that if they go to my profile, they’ll see it there also over the weekend, another they’re testing us.

[00:20:19] I don’t know how many people have it yet, but I have it when you’re scrolling through your home feed. So when you’re on the home screen, you’re scrolling through and looking at everybody’s tweets that you follow. They’re now testing a new feature where if someone, as you’re scrolling and you see someone’s tweet, if they’re in a room right now, whether they’re hosting or speaking, it will also have that purple glow around them.

[00:20:40] And so I noticed it, I think it was last Sunday and I was like, Whoa, this is really cool. And sure enough, Twitter announced that they’re testing this as another way to discover rooms. So you can just be going through your Twitter feed and see who’s in a room. Awesome. Absolutely 

[00:20:56] Grace Duffy: [00:20:56] cool. Well, I was going to ask you too, if there’s some interesting ways that you can promote it.

[00:21:00] What About Using Twitter Spaces With Third Party Apps?

And Emily down here in the comments actually had a really cool question. She asks, what about using third party apps like zealous to create and post schedule events to promote? Does that work with spaces right 

[00:21:12] Madalyn Sklar: [00:21:12] now? Yes. Hi, I’m Molly. Absolutely a really good friend of mine has Celine, who I met through spaces.

[00:21:17] Didn’t know him prior to spaces getting on there and he’s been hosting amazing rooms. He he’s kind of become the Twitter spaces ambassador. He goes from room to room. He’ll promote them. He just spreads the word out about everything with spaces. And he uses Ellis. I had not heard of it until I saw it through him.

[00:21:36] So he’s using it to schedule and help people, you know, have that reminder, which is cool. So yes, a third party tool. Here’s the thing there’s only so many features at the moment is not. Anywhere near where clubhouse is getting there, but, but you know, a scheduling feature is so important. So what you want to do is find other ways to get around that roadblock.

[00:21:57] So using a third-party tool for scheduling is great for me personally, I I’m just. Big time, you know, let’s promote the heck out of it. That’s what I do. So I just do lots of tweets. I schedule them out. I make sure there there’s plenty of information so that people can and what rooms I’m hosting and know when I’m hosting it.

[00:22:16] And, and I just keep putting those out there. I hired a graphic designer to make some cool JPEGs for me to help promote my three different rooms. 

[00:22:25] Grace Duffy: [00:22:25] Awesome. That’s awesome. So at the beginning of 2021, maybe end of last year, you talked about you had to post on your blog about clubhouse, and I know you mentioned that you were active on it.

Will People Migrate from Clubhouse to Twitter Spaces?

[00:22:36] Now that Twitter spaces is open and it’s expanded. Have you seen  from clubhouse over to Twitter spaces? Are you still spending time in both or are you choosing spaces over clubhouse? How is you know, where where’s the audience right now? 

[00:22:53] Madalyn Sklar: [00:22:53] That’s such a great question. I think a lot of them are still on clubhouse.

[00:22:57] I’m seeing more and more clubhouse people coming over to spaces and people that host rooms in clubhouse are starting to host room in spaces. I think a lot of people are dipping their toe in the water to see what all can I do here. Is it worth me leaving clubhouse? You know, we have to remind ourselves clubhouse was a brand new app when he came out.

[00:23:16] So that means when we signed up. We started at zero. We had no followers. Nobody knew who we were. We had to build it up. The beauty of Twitter spaces is you’re using your Twitter, your existing Twitter with all your followers, your community, that you’ve already worked so hard to build up. So that’s a big plus to a lot of people.

[00:23:34] So I’m starting to see. More of a migration, but it looks like people are still holding onto clubhouse and not letting it go completely. I think we’re just going to see that less and less. I’m sure you’ve heard that there’s so many less downloads of clubhouse. Like seems like every month is going way, way down.

[00:23:52] It’s kind of reminded me when mere cat was the big live stream app and they were the big darling. I think it was 2015. And then here comes Facebook live and here comes Periscope and it just killed them, you know, 

[00:24:05] Jeff Sieh: [00:24:05] talking about that last night. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Well, that leads in right to some more news gray.

[00:24:11] So talk about this because I’m hoping Twitter may see this and follow it, or it may be a last ditch. Thing that clubhouse has tried a report on this for us. This clubhouse news, 

[00:24:22] Grace Duffy: [00:24:22] grace. Okay. I don’t know. 

[00:24:23] Clubhouse Announces It’s Funding Creators

This is really exciting. So clubhouse announced this week that they are actually funding the creation of 50 new audio shows by creators on the platform.

[00:24:32] So these people had to submit and compete, and these are the 50 that were chosen. So it ranges from everything from interview shows to a pair of shows, discussing the culture of hairstyles and a game show called serial killer speed dating. So it runs the gamut and participants each get $5,000 per month stipend for the next three months and all the gear and creator support that they would absolutely need to help them create their series.

[00:24:58] And the goal is to develop and pilot new shows over these three months. And then from there, Just to see what might happen. So the verge, actually, this is pretty funny. They reported with, with competition competitors, circling like spaces, of course clubhouse success is likely to rely on the strength of their creators found on the platform.

[00:25:17] So initiatives like this accelerator program is appears to be designed to help with that. So my question to you is, is Twitter. Doing anything to encourage or support people and encouraging people to create space in spaces. Like, do you think Twitter might do something similar to kind of get the word out and to increase adoption?

[00:25:40] Madalyn Sklar: [00:25:40] I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter comes up with some kind of creator program like clubhouse. I can tell you this Twitter from the start with spaces have been very hands-on and transparent. They listened to us. I mean, this is never happened before with a social media platform. They encourage our feedback.

[00:25:59] When I first got access in early February, I was contacted by. Several developers at Twitter in engineer they have a new community manager. They all reached out to me. They’re like, you know, tell, tell us what you like. And don’t like, give us a, a wishlist of things. We want feedback and they don’t want it just from influencers like myself.

[00:26:18] They want it from everyone. When they first started testing spaces before I had access, they, I wa the very first room I stumbled upon because it wasn’t. Public knowledge that they were, that they were testing. And, you know, they talked about this would be coming, but we couldn’t find these anywhere.

[00:26:37] Apparently it’s all about following people. So I was, I follow some Twitter people. They don’t follow me back, but I followed them. And one day I’m looking on fleets on my phone. I see this purple glow and this was back in January. I’m like, what is this? And I tapped on it because spaces is completely public.

[00:26:57] At this time. There are no private rooms. I think that will change. At least with the ticketing, that’ll be private. So I go into this room and it’s all of these Twitter. I felt like I was in a Twitter. Meeting all these developers and product design people talking and testing. And I felt like a fly on the wall and I got to participate in some of the testing they were doing.

[00:27:16] And I was thinking, this is really interesting that they’re encouraging feedback from. Users. And they, they are always asking for help. They even put together a hashtag two hashtags that if you have if you come across any bugs or you have feedback, one is called spaces, research, hashtag spaces, research that’s for feedback.

[00:27:40] So if you had any feedback, you want to give them, and there’s also one called spaces bugs. If you do that, that’s for issues that you’re having. But also when you’re in spaces, there is at the bottom, you can tap and it says feedback and it just takes you to the Twitter spaces. DM there, they’re always encouraging this and they will come into rooms.

[00:27:59] Like when I was first hosting rooms, some of the top people behind Twitter spaces would be in my room. And I’m like, Whoa, like they’re so actively participating. So they want to help creators. But at this point there’s not like some kind of monetization behind it. It could come like clubhouse, but at least they’re actively holding people’s hands and helping and be very transparent with everything they’re doing.

[00:28:24] I think that’s. Huge. 

[00:28:26] Jeff Sieh: [00:28:26] That is cool. So also there, there tends to be from what I’ve seen, a lot of marketing and tech leaders kind of holding court on spaces, do you think this is, you know, an opera you mentioned, you’ve seen some people doing that and even helping promote it and just kind of be a cheerleader for it.

[00:28:41] So do you think there’s an opportunity or like a first mover to be maybe like a space influencer, not space force, space influencer who is actively using spaces that this could be like. You know, this is kind of the wild West right now, but you could really solidify your, you know, your spot there hosting a show on Twitter spaces.

What’s the Opportunity Now on Twitter Spaces?

[00:29:01] Madalyn Sklar: [00:29:01] Absolutely. Whenever these platforms or new features come out, it is like the wild West. So if you embrace it and work it, then you can be seen as an industry leader, you can be seen, you can elevate your presence, basically. So people know me for Twitter marketing, but you know, people know me. In the, you know, the digital marketers, you know, the social media, marketers, they already knew who I was.

[00:29:27] Right. But now that I’m hosting these rooms regularly is really opened me up to meeting so many more people that are learning about me that didn’t know who I was before. So my community. Is is wide open now. And you know, just by getting on there and doing this early on to establish myself. So with whatever you do in business, you go and embrace this feature while it’s new.

[00:29:51] You can really position yourself. It’s not necessarily about how many Twitter followers you have or where you’re at with your career. If you’ve got knowledge to share, this is a great way to bring people together and share, and then pass the mic and have other people share the. Fastest easiest way for people to get to know like, and trust you.

[00:30:10] So, yeah, I, I think this is the time to start plotting your plan for using spaces and using it to get more widely known. Awesome. 

[00:30:19]What’s the Experience Like on Twitter Spaces Compared to Clubhouse?

Jeff Sieh: [00:30:19] Our friend Ian Anderson gray had a great question. And he asked this, he goes, do you think that the high volume and frequency side of Twitter is going to make Twitter spaces slow?

[00:30:30] Whereas clubhouse is like a dedicated kind of audio room. Have you seen that so far when, and kind of in the beta testing? 

[00:30:37] Madalyn Sklar: [00:30:37] Not at all Twitter spaces is running on Periscope. So Twitter was very transparent about this at the beginning. You know, here’s, what’s interesting when I got on clubhouse and this was before spaces I get on clubhouse.

[00:30:50] I’m like, this is cool. This is fun. It’s given me a lot of ideas. But never once did I think, Oh, I might want to record my podcasts in here because the quality of the audio is not great. Right. And it’s still not great. The first time I got into spaces that very first one, when I was a fly on the wall with the, the Twitter employees.

[00:31:08] That very first thing I noticed was the audio is amazing in here. I cannot believe how crystal clear this is. And then very quickly Twitter, you know, was saying. Multiple times I would hear them say, Oh yeah, this is basically Periscope without the video part is just the audio. So, you know, we know that they’re, they’ve closed down Periscope.

[00:31:30]I know they’ve upstairs said a lot of Periscopers. Yeah. I’m thinking that move was probably so that they could just go all in on audio and utilize what they already have. They’ve got all that infrastructure in place. So I don’t think it’s going to slow it down. But one of the issues they’ve been talking about in the past few weeks is, you know, now that they’ve opened this up to people to host with 600 or more followers, that means.

[00:31:52] Everybody can start hosting rooms. When you go look and fleets, you know, people have already been asking, well, what about fleet? It’s like, it’s going to just take over that whole section. So Twitter is aware of this and they’re actively working on other ways for us to discover, because as we all know on clubhouse, how easy it is to discover rooms, you know, you’ve got that hallway, right?

[00:32:11] So Twitter is trying to work on a way to make it so much easier to discover rooms, which I think. We’ll make it even an even better experience than it already is, but no, to answer the question, I mean, it’s, I, I’m not seeing it slow down at all. Awesome. 

[00:32:27] Jeff Sieh: [00:32:27] Awesome. Thank you for that. 

[00:32:30] How Do You Discover Conversations on Twitter Spaces?

Grace Duffy: [00:32:30] So I have a question about about finding new rooms.

[00:32:33] You were talking about the discoverability. So at the moment, it seems like you can only see rooms from people that you’re following. So I saw yours because I follow you of course. But if I wanted to discover something like someone else talking about something that I’m interested in, like a TV show or whatever, is there a place on Twitter where you can discover rooms, even though you’re not following any of the speakers or the people in it?

[00:32:57] Madalyn Sklar: [00:32:57] You know, that’s such a great question. Well, first of all, it is not just someone hosting as someone speaking. So, I mean, I’m meeting so many people, I didn’t know with room Topics that that are beyond just what I do with my work. Just because it’s all about with who you’re following. So for instance, if you’re speaking in a room right now that has, and it could have nothing to do with social media and digital marketing, but you’re just in somebody’s room.

[00:33:24] And you’re one of the speakers I’m going to see that because I follow you. So I think that’s why it’s great that they’ve made this, that it’s not just about the host, it’s also the speakers. So I feel like that right there alone allows you to meet a whole lot of people you don’t already know and all kinds of topics that are not necessarily related to the work you do, or your current interests.

[00:33:48] So, there, somebody has hacked a link. I don’t. No one off the top of my head, but you using the advanced search and putting a a specific line of, of texts that will open up and show you just all live rooms at the moment, but it’s not, it’s just, it’s a little too much and it’s not really done well. So it’s just a hack that somebody figured out.

[00:34:10]But Twitter is actively working on making this an even better experience. So I have no doubt that they’re coming up with better ways for us discovering rooms. 

[00:34:20] Jeff Sieh: [00:34:20] Gotcha. Speaking of a great way to be well community, you know, you should have your own live show. Like what we’re doing right here with Ecammall this cool stuff, switching, screens, everything.

[00:34:30] Uh it’s it’s Ecamm. I just love Ecamm to death. And by the way you can go find out more at socialmedianewslive.com/ecamm you can also use it as a virtual camera. In fact, I use this camera when I’m doing a zoom call or something like that, and then I can bring up. My own call to actions and they can’t do anything about it.

[00:34:46] The little secret hack there, but anyway make sure you guys check them out at socialmedianewslive.com/ecammgo check them out as well. And that fits right in with econ. Grace you actually worked there. So talk about that real quick. 

[00:35:03] Grace Duffy: [00:35:03] So the reason why we’re going to Facebook and YouTube and LinkedIn and Amazon live right now is because of the power of Restream.

[00:35:13] So it allows you to go to up to, or know over 30 different platforms and download the audio. And so you can distribute your videos as podcasts as well. So you can find out more about that at socialmedianewslive.com/restream

[00:35:32] Jeff Sieh: [00:35:32] yes, we get so excited. We can’t even say that you are, but I know Madeline’s here because I’ve just been, she is, if you can’t tell she’s amazing on Twitter and by the way, I want to say this for the podcast.

[00:35:45] Make sure that if you’re trying to figure out how to find Madeline, make sure you go to at Madeline scholar. That’s where she is everywhere. And that’s spelled M a D a L Y N. S K L a R for all you guys listening on the podcast, make sure you go check her out. If you want to know how to do a Twitter chat, right.

[00:36:01] Or are interested in just being part of her community, make sure you go check out those at the hashtag Twitter smarter. But we have some more news. We’ve got to get this in real quick before Madeline has to leave, but I wanted to talk about this is Twitter acquires, this subscription service scroll.

[00:36:15] Twitter Acquires Newsletter Platform Review and Scroll

So earlier this year, Twitter acquired a newsletter creation platform review, and I guess it has been. There’ve been using this as an integration, and it’s allows you to create newsletters and subscribe and get people to subscribe to your, this subscription surface. And it’s slowly coming into focus. Now they have acquired scroll, and this is a startup that partners with publishers that can allow readers to view their content and free.

[00:36:38] So the company really hasn’t detailed exactly how such service is going to work, but in gadget reports that this review platform is also really. Has a really bunch of features that are really, really cool in that. So, Madeline, I want to know what your thought of this acquisition is. And this whole newsletter subscription thing to me is a little odd because I’m wondering where Twitter is heading.

[00:37:03] You know, do people really read like articles or newsletters on Twitter? Because I know a lot of people are there on mobile. I’d love to know your thoughts on this. 

[00:37:12] Madalyn Sklar: [00:37:12] Well, Twitter is trying to really Excel.  what all you can do when you’re on there. So they’re looking at this long form content as a next step in the direction that, you know, to just the core of using this platform to bring more people together.

[00:37:27] So. I’m for it. You know, when, when it, when Twitter went from one 40 to two 80 characters, I was pretty upset at first. Right. Cause you know, Twitter is Twitter because 140 characters, but over time it was like, okay, this isn’t so bad. I was really worried that people would go crazy and make every tweet super long.

[00:37:45] And it would, and you know, in a Twitter chat, it’d be hard to keep up, but really. Seriously for like one whole day when it went to 280 characters, everybody went crazy and then everybody went back to normal tweeting. So, yeah. So Twitter is still Twitter with the short, you know, like keeping it short and sweet w which is what attracted me to Twitter from the start.

[00:38:04] But, you know, Twitter has been around a long time and they’re looking at other ways to have people come together and connect. And so I find it really interesting with review and, and having this newsletter feature. And now with scroll with ad-free content, I think all of this is to come up with ways to have a subscription service.

[00:38:25] You know, they’ve talked about. Well, you have a subscription service. It talked about super follows and a lot of people have been upset saying I’m not paying to see a tweet. And I don’t think that’s what Twitter is trying to do. I think what Twitter is trying to do is something very similar to Patrion where you pay some money and you get bonus content, you get extra content, you get stuff above and beyond was normally put out.

[00:38:47] I think that’s from everything I’ve read. I think that’s the direction they’re trying to go with this. So, you know, I thought. Getting the newsletter review was enough, but interesting. How now they’ve added scroll. So it looks like they’re just trying to make the best experience possible and really turning Twitter into an all-in-one platform so that there’s no reason to leave.

[00:39:08] Jeff Sieh: [00:39:08] Very, very cool. Yeah. I just it’s. It’s. I’m all for it. And like Eric said he’s he mentioned here like when you’re talking about, when they switched the character count, he goes to 40 double stuff. Twitter. Yeah. That’s exactly what it was. So, but I, I think it’s, you know, more features. It’ll be interesting to see if people pay for it, but yeah, I just.

[00:39:28] I I I’m so glad we got your take on that. And by the way, Amanda, I want to make sure that, because I know you have to leave here in a few minutes, but I want to make sure you got time to talk about this new kind of a giveaway that I can give giveaway, but it’s a, it’s a resource, I guess you’re giving people.

[00:39:44] So talk about what you’ve got going for Twitter spaces. Cause I wanna make sure you have time for 

[00:39:48] Madalyn Sklar: [00:39:48] that. Oh, thank you. Well, you know, with spaces being so new and a lot of, you know, I’m all about just helping people learn how to use Twitter better. That’s been my mission for so long. So with spaces being new, I know a lot of people are confused.

[00:40:02] They don’t know how to access it. They don’t know how to get into a room. They don’t know what it’s all about. So I put together this free guide. It’s just a real simple PDF real quick to go through that shows that to you. So Madalyn, sklar.com/spaces PDF. I I’m, I’m putting together. I’ve already put out.

[00:40:17] Several articles. I’ve already done a few case studies. That’s on my website and I’m even working on a paid course to help people that really want to grasp how to use this, how to make it work for them, how to monetize it. So, yeah, I just want to be that resource to help people understand how this works.

[00:40:36] Jeff Sieh: [00:40:36] Awesome. So, for you guys who are listening at home, it’s at Madalyn sklar.com forward slash spaces, PDF that’s Madeline skylar.com forward slash spaces PDF that’s of smashed together there at the end. So make sure you guys go check that out because I’m sure it’s an amazing resources. I’m going to go download it as soon as.

[00:40:55] We’re done here because she’s always got great stuff. So thanks Madeline for putting that together for us. I think that’s amazing. There was one more question, grace, that you had for this, this roll out of this newsletters. Do you want to ask that or do you want, 

[00:41:08] Grace Duffy: [00:41:08] Oh, no, absolutely. So I get the sense that Twitter is moving away from, from.

[00:41:15] Are Twitter Ads Still Worthwhile?

Generated from ad revenue or revenue based on, on just ads. Meanwhile, we have Apple and Facebook over here fighting over ad dollars. So in your opinion, do you think that Twitter ads are still a worthwhile investment for brands and for businesses? Or should we be working on that Twitter review newsletter content and building that subscription worthy articles that people are going to want to pay for?

[00:41:43] Madalyn Sklar: [00:41:43] Such a great question. I think ads work best for the big brands with big dollars. For us smaller brands, personal brands, small businesses I’ve yet to see ads work. Really well, the one thing you can get with Twitter ads is the impressions of course. And it doesn’t matter where you advertise. I mean, we know it’ll get seen, but will there be a return on the investment?

[00:42:07] Not necessarily. So I think looking at these new features that are gonna be coming out with a subscription model, I think that would be a good way to go. This is my 

[00:42:18] Jeff Sieh: [00:42:18] thought. Awesome. Well, Madeline, I know we’re at your time right now, so I want to let you go ahead and go. We’ve got one more piece of news that we’re going to cover it while, but everyone say thanks to Madeline in the comments and I’ll make sure to bring up all her little stuff that you can find out in all her giveaways and all that here in a second.

[00:42:34] So thanks Madeline. We appreciate you. 

[00:42:36] Madalyn Sklar: [00:42:36] Thank you both so much for having me. I just love the show. You both are doing a tremendous job, so, grace and Jeff. Thank you. This has been so much fun. Thank you. 

[00:42:47] Jeff Sieh: [00:42:47] Awesome. So we have one more piece of news that we want to cover, because I think it’s kinda cool. But it’s actually, this will came out from the verge and

[00:42:55]Twitter Has Rolled Out Full-Sized Image Previews on Mobile 

Twitter has rolled out full-sized image previews on mobile.

[00:42:59] So this is the headline from the verge. It says Twitter is running the open for surprise meme. They’re ruining, I’m sorry. Th Twitter is ruining the open for surprise meme with a better image crop. So Twitter is finally rolling out this long awaited feature to everyone on Android and iOS. Over the next few weeks, there’s going to be bigger images that don’t crop or compress in a weird way on mobile.

[00:43:20] So you can show off more of your pick when you tweet a single image. So users can now keep scrolling through their feed without having to stop and tap and see an image in all its full glory. So this is really great at first. And then everybody at Twitter hated it. Everybody on Twitter, let. Everybody on Twitter know that they hate it.

[00:43:35] So you can’t do that open for surprise meme anymore. But I like it because I like to see those images. And so, especially for artists graphic designers, when you’re scrolling through not having to do that, tap to see their full artwork is pretty cool in my opinion. So that’s the news. So, Grace. What do you think about this?

[00:43:51] Are you, or do you miss the open for the surprise meme or not? I wanted to know what you 

[00:43:56] Grace Duffy: [00:43:56] thought, but, but I thought that was really funny that that was the controversy. I think it was even covered in article that you sent me from force was like, people are hating it and I opened it up and it was like the, there.

[00:44:07] They’re practical jokes are just not funny anymore. I like it because I used to find it. I find it really distracting to you see a tweet, you see an image and then you have to click on it and then it takes a while to load. And, you know, as Ian mentioned there, you know, there’s been there’s been bugs with the images on Twitter.

[00:44:23] So it was always just kind of cover some and distracting to have to click, to see the full size image. And so this to me makes it a lot easier when you’re scrolling on mobile. I like 

[00:44:33] Jeff Sieh: [00:44:33] it. Graphic design task master, I guess I would call him Dustin stout says, yo, it’s a crop. So he’s, he’s, I’m sure he, he’s the one who comes out every year with this incredible image size guide that you can always check out.

[00:44:47] And I’m sure. So Dustin says there is a slight crop, so I need to go check that out. All I know is Twitter was upset. And there was news articles about it. So it was pretty amazing. So I will make sure to check that out. Thanks, Dustin, for letting us know. And in, you know, probably cause we’re so old and he says, I never saw the open for surprise meme anyway.

[00:45:06]So I don’t remember seeing tons of those either in, until this article came out, but. You know, I’m on old man Twitter, so it’s what my kids call it. 

[00:45:14] Closing Thoughts

So, by the way, thank you guys so much for being here. Don’t forget. Madeline’s her download@madalynsklar.com forward slash spaces PDF that helps you get set up if you haven’t done spaces before.

[00:45:25] So we want to make sure to give her a big shout out for all her great Tools and advice today. Also just want to let you guys know, thank you so much for being here. We’ve got so many great people. Dustin’s in the house. We’ve got, you know, he says, yay. I made it. Deb Mitchell says, Hey guys. So all of our friends are in the audience, which you guys make it so worthwhile every week.

[00:45:45] And you know what, if you guys don’t know about it, if you’d like to go And actually get reminders about this show. If you forget, you can always text us at nine Oh three, two eight seven nine zero eight eight. It actually comes to us. There’s no algorithm. If you’d like to be reminded about the show, we tweet that out.

[00:46:00] We don’t do spammy stuff at all, but if you want to have a, you know, some reminders go to 903, two eight seven nine zero eight eight. Grace, tell us where we can find more about you. 

[00:46:12] Grace Duffy: [00:46:12] You can find me over at the restream community on Facebook. We launched that a couple of weeks ago last week. No, a couple of weeks ago, you can find that over@facebookrestream.community, and then you can also find me on over on the restream YouTube channel.

[00:46:26] So we host a whole. Slew of show. So if you are interested in launching your live show, if you’re interested in improving your live show, if you’re interested in even what it takes to produce something like this, join us over at the restream YouTube channel and find out all about 

[00:46:45] Jeff Sieh: [00:46:45] that. Yeah. And so also want to give a shout out to our other sponsor.

[00:46:49] He cam who’s amazing. Lets us do these cool. Switcheroos where I can go to grace like this. I can have overlays all this cool stuff. They have a virtual camera where you can use in zoom, all sorts of things. Very, very cool. You can set up. If you can dream your life show ECAN can make it happen. You can find them out at social media news, live.com forward slash e-com.

[00:47:07] Thank you guys so much for being here. We’re also a podcast. You guys can find us over on all the socials. You can go to, I mean, all the, not the socials, all the podcast apps where we’re at every single one of them, Apple, you know, Google play, Google, play Stitcher, all those, you can find them there. So go check us out, leave us a rating and review.

[00:47:26] And our next show is next Friday at May 14th at 11:00 AM. Eastern time, 10:00 AM central, and we are super excited to have the amazing Brooke Celis. She is the co-host along with Mark Schaefer on that amazing podcast. They have, she’s coming to buy to talk about post pandemic, social media landscape.

[00:47:43] Cause I don’t know, but. We’re starting to see like people coming outside and letting people out in public, they have to wear pants again. So we’re going to be talking all about that. What does that mean for social media? With Brooke sellers, it’s going to be amazing social, make sure to check us out and we’re going to be on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Amazon live.

[00:48:01] Thanks to Madeline. Thank you audience. We appreciate you and we will see you next time. Bye 

[00:48:06] Grace Duffy: [00:48:06] everybody have a good week.

[00:48:08]Jeff Sieh: [00:48:08] All right. The podcast is over, but we’re still alive. Thank you guys for showing up, man. Got a lot of questions. There’s Rhonda saying? Hello? Yeah, so great. Martin says I’m going to try spaces as a result of this webinar.

[00:48:22] Martin you’re going to, you’re going to be awesome at it. So I’m sure that’s going to be a cool one. Let me know, just kind of mentioned me or call me in some way, and I want to check out your space if I, if I’m around. So, Rhonda, I’m so glad you’re here. Even if you’re late, it’s fine. Perfectly fine. You can watch the replay.

[00:48:39]

[00:48:39] Grace Duffy: [00:48:39] I really tried very hard this entire episode to never say the word space ranger, but I’ve said it now 

[00:48:46] Jeff Sieh: [00:48:46] based ranger based force is space for space and wonder space force will be in Twitter spaces. That’ll be interesting. So where’s the best place to watch this wherever you can. You know what, I’m really trying to build up my YouTube channel.

[00:48:58] If you guys can go to social media news, live YouTube and watch it there and subscribe to that, that would help me out where I’m trying to get to a hundred subscribers so we can get that cool URL. And then it’s just, you know, it’s a grind over there on YouTube. It really is, but I would love it. If you guys would go check out our channel and subscribe to that.

[00:49:14] Thanks for asking that’s in your awesome Thank you, Darcy great content like useful, like usual. That is very cool. I appreciate it. So space ranger anyway, folks, I’m hoping you had a good show today. I love Madeline to death. Make sure you guys go check her out and we will see you guys next week. Same place, same channel.

[00:49:35] Appreciate all of you guys. Talk to you later. Bye now. Hi 

[00:49:37] Grace Duffy: [00:49:37] everyone.