How to handle the Twitter Account

[egekorkan]

We have discussed how to use the Twitter account but it is not documented in the issues so far. The last call minutes about this topic are available at https://www.w3.org/2022/10/18-wot-marketing-minutes.html

I see different solutions. I will list them below and then give my opinion on why we should pick one or the other.

Relevant information:

• Marketing Wiki has a policy on this at https://www.w3.org/WoT/IG/wiki/Marketing_WebConf
• Account Information:
  • Link: https://twitter.com/W3C_WoT
  • Current Description: The Web of Things work at @w3c allows devices to work together, thus enabling the potential of the Internet of Things

Solutions:

1. Separate accounts for each WoT-related group if they want to have one. For example, WoT WG can have one, IG another, WoT CG another, WoT Japanese CG another, Webthing Protocol another
2. Same account but prefix the tweet according to the group. The prefix needs to be decided but for example, [wotcg] This is our next event OR [wotwg] new td version is published
3. Same account, no prefix but mentioning the group involved. For example, In the next event organized by group X, this will be discussed.

My opinion:
We should go with option 2 or 3 since we should not split our existing and future follower base and make people follow different Twitter accounts. If the CG will decide to get its own Twitter account, it will probably retweet everything from the WG/IG account, meaning that there will be much more content there which can lead to WG/IG account becoming less visited. Also, people who are interested in WoT may not notice the CG account and do not follow up with the updates there and miss out on what is happening in WoT in general. Additionally, the current description says nothing about the WG or IG, not even the account name or account handle is specific about this. It is already vague in the sense that it can be for anything about the Web of Things inside W3C and I think it should be. Web of Things in W3C is not a WG, IG or CG, it is an overall effort and we should reflect this. There was a mention that if we do this, this is sort of like Marcomm Team doing general Web of Things outreach, thus not tied to a certain group. I do not know if Marcomm team is intending to do this but I do not think that this is something that they usually do.

[egekorkan]

Call of 21.02: The TF thinks that option 2 is a good direction. Our current account description allows for this given that it is not saying WG or IG content. This means that all WoT-related group chairs have access to social media accounts. In case the platform allows for an organization accounts with individuals as admins, that should be also used.

Prefixes can simply be:

• [wotwg]
• [wotig]
• [wotcg]
• [wotjpcg]
• [wotwebthingprotocol] (they are not very active?)

[egekorkan]

Call of 28.02:

• Initial discussion: separate accounts but the main account reposting the original content of other groups.
• Prefixes might confuse newcomers. A hashtag at the end would be easier to read.
• We can aggregate blog posts from others (relinking).
• We should agree on who is producing the content and who is promoting the content.

[egekorkan]

Call of 04.04:

• We have reached a TF resolution that the social media accounts owned by the WoT IG/WG can promote content from other groups or people that are related to WoT. We have some requirements:
  • The link to the content itself has to be inserted. This can be a calendar entry, blog post, original tweet or post.
  • The owner should be indicated in the message (tweet, post etc.) itself. For example, this can be saying "... from WoT CG", "... from Node.js Summit 22".
  • If we are sharing a content that is from the same platform, a rendering of the original content generally happens and the two requirements above are generally automatically met. For example, on Twitter a retweet links to the content and shows the owner of the content.

Valid examples of promoted content:

• Check out the event from WoT CG: https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/322db7e4-1a9f-44c6-8ddf-af601043dfb9
• Retweeting https://twitter.com/relucri/status/1642937903939567635

Invalid examples of promoted content:

• Check out this WoT event: https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/322db7e4-1a9f-44c6-8ddf-af601043dfb9. (The owner is not clear from the text)
• MyOrganization does very advanced development of WoT. (The original content is not there and biased)

Further notes:

• We did not say this explicitly but the relationship to WoT should be clear from the promoted content. For example, if someone who usually talks about WoT also tweets about their vacation, we should not share it.
• We also did not say this but it is should be obvious: These requirements do not apply to content that we are generating, such as announcing a new version of WG specs, and events at TPAC or F2F.

[egekorkan]

This has been discussed in the main call and a group resolution has been reached. The policy at https://www.w3.org/WoT/IG/wiki/Marketing_WebConf#Policies_and_Publication_Procedures has been updated accordingly