I decided earlier this week to ask my Twitter friends a question. In the process I’ve learned a lot of what works, doesn’t work, and that you can hit a Direct Message Limit on Twitter (who knew??) What Works:

Direct Messages (w/Personal Feel)- I liked adding the person’s actual name (even if I had to search around to find it.) Ask The Question – Get to the point, and ask the direct question.  After all, it is called “Direct” Message.

Tell ’em Why You’re Asking – I made the mistake of sending out a number of questions without saying what my purpose was.  I had a lot of “why are you asking” responses.
Follow-up When Needed – Look for follow-up questions, and quickly respond.
What Doesn’t Work:
Survey Monkey – I thought I’d “make it easy” and create a link to a survey monkey survey with a quick and easy form to fill out.  Got about one response from Twitter folks, and a couple from my library list serv community.  So, that lead balloon didn’t fly at all!!
Badly Worded Question – The initial idea was to get people to promote a blog entry that they wrote, that they felt more people should have read.  So, I initially posted this:  “What Was the Best Blog Post of 2008 That No One Read?” — Cue Crickets!! [chirp — chirp]
Generic Question to My Entire Twitter Followers – Again, cue the crickets!!  Very little response to this one.
You often hear that Twitter is a “Social Networking Tool” – Well, I’m here today to say that it truly is.  What a great resource for surveying good people in the professional realm.
I’m compiling the results now, and will likely have it posted here on Friday.
If you have a great blog post you wrote (or read) in 2008, and you think others would also enjoy reading it, please let me know either via Twitter (@glambert) or at the 3 Geeks new email address (3geeksblog@gmail.com)