‘If you work really, really hard, and you’re kind… Amazing things will happen to you.’ — Conan O’Brien

With grace and dignity, Conan O’Brien left The Tonight Show after just 7 months on the air. Short enough and memorable enough to be re-tweeted, the quote at the top of the post became a trending topic on Twitter. Between speeches like this and his remarkable public statement about not accepting a later time slot, O’Brien won the hearts of many who probably wished they had watched his show more and given him the kind of ratings that could have kept him on the air. Regardless, despite being handed a bitter pill by executives at NBC, Conan either is genuinely that nice or that smart or has really good PR folks giving him advice that he actually follows.

Now, NBC on the other hand, apparently could have used more PR advice or more willingness to listen to any good advice that was given. Facing revolt from affiliates who were losing money hand over fist during their late local newscasts deprived of a good lead-in from the experimental Jay Leno show at 10:00PM, involved in a merger with Comcast, and watching The Tonight Show lose to Late Night with David Letterman, NBC had a crisis on its hands.  Wrap all this up with the new media landscape — advertising rates plummeting, profit margins dwindling and the internet further fracturing the viewership that cable cracked in the 80s — and you can see why NBC panicked. But panic never makes for a clear head or the best method to handle a tricky situation.

What happened to Conan O’Brien has been happening to local newscasters for years, and precipitously so in the last few years as media conglomerates own more and more stations. I have known some fine anchors and reporters who worked hard, did a good job and were loved by audiences. But they may have had too much longevity, too high a salary or were taken for granted by a hastily-convened focus group whose answers apparently represented the feelings of everyone in the market. Some of these fine broadcasters are still working in the biz, while others have left for greener pastures and more sane hours.

Regardless, onward come the Olympics — a few weeks of amazing accomplishments, highly-packaged athlete backstories, plus all the glitter and sequins the ice skaters and ice dancers can fit on a few yards of spandex. (Confession: I love ice skating. It’s probably a side effect of growing up in the iceless South.) I cry at least once during the Olympics. I’m just sentimental that way. But what I don’t know is if America’s heartstrings will be played so adeptly that we will forget the underdog we rooted for in Conan O’Brien, the soundbites from NBC execs who called names during the fracas or how we remembered that this wasn’t the first time Jay Leno found himself in a fight over The Tonight Show.

Does time really heal all wounds? Will watching the Olympics take over late night make you less likely to hold a grudge? Or are you just tired of the whole thing and OVER IT already?

The best way to follow a chat in Twitter is to use a client like Tweetgrid, HootSuite, Tweetdeck or Tweetchat. I’ve found it easiest to follow a chat if I do a search for the hashtag the chat is using, the moderator’s twitter stream, @ replies to my name for starters. I have consistently had the most luck with Tweetgrid, and I recently learned it was developed in my home state of North Carolina — so I’m recommending it to you. One more cool thing about Tweetgrid: you enter the hashtag of your chat and Tweetgrid adds it to all your tweets so you don’t have to re-enter it and the character counter includes it so you don’t go over 140 characters. Here’s a peek at one setup I use a lot.

Using Tweetgrid for #journchat

Now that you’ve seen how I keep up with a chat, here are some tips for participating without annoying regular chatters:

1. Check the moderator’s Twitter stream for preliminary information about how to join in.
Sometimes this is in the steam, sometimes there’s a link to a place where you can read some basic rules about how this chat likes its members to participate.

2.  Retweet the moderator’s questions to give everyone participating a chance to see them.
Depending on the speed of the Twitter client other folks are using, they may be answering questions 1 and 2 while your moderator is on 3 or 4. Retweeting the question helps pass along the information.

3. Use Q1, Q2, Q3 etc., when you are answering the question.
Example: Q2 No, the press release isn’t dead, but needs to be rethought.

4. Watch your character count.
If your answers are less than 140 characters, they are easy for fellow chat participants to retweet  without changing or with adding a quick comment. Aim to leave 10-15 characters free if you can.

5. When you see a good answer, go ahead and retweet it. Even if you don’t agree with it.
You can mention that you agree, disagree, or spit out your Diet Coke when you read it. Retweeting a comment is a great way to further the dialogue and keep the conversation going.

6. We don’t have to all agree, but we do need to respect other opinions.
There can be some good dialogue going on, but remember it’s a conversation and not an argument.

7. Follow people you find interesting or retweet.
It’s a great way to find new tweeps with a provocative point of view. And if you happen to be pithy and find a lot of new followers after a chat because of your comments, you can follow back, thank them or just engage in a conversation with the new folks you meet.

There are chats ranging from interest in journalism/PR to small businesses, to blogging to personal finances. Meryl K. Evans (@merylkevans) started a list on her blog that has since become a Google spreadsheet updated by many folks. Find a chat you might be interested and mark your calendar. Remember, the comments fly by quickly, and you might need a little practice before you keep up. If you  need more time, you can always perform a search using the hashtag after the event to read the comments at your leisure.

For those of you who are old pros at Twitter chats, what advice would you add?

As I clicked through the list, checking people out, I found that some people I thought I’d been following had dropped off my Twitter profile. There were some hiccups months ago with people being added and deleted accidentally all over Twitter.
So this list not only allowed me to find some new PR colleagues to follow, but to re-follow people I thought I’d been following in the first place. You follow?

Is there anyone you’d add to the list?

Twitter's new home page is designed to help newbies figure out the microblogging service.

You’ve probably heard someone say they don’t “get” Twitter. I hear that a lot, especially since I’m pretty active on Twitter and I tell all my colleagues and people I meet about it. I understand the confusion. It can be a lot like attending a huge party, solo, where you don’t know a soul. Everyone’s talking, they’re in a conversation. You could feel overwhelmed. Shy. Not sure which conversation to join, or even if there is a conversation out there that addresses your passion.

So use that party analogy to get your feet wet. You wouldn’t bust into the party and start shouting at the top of your lungs about your company, your product, your newscast, your blog or your children’s accomplishments, right? You’d probably walk around the room, smile on your face, looking for an opportunity to talk about something that interests you, meet some new people, maybe by starting with your neighbor at the bar or buffet line.

So here are some ideas for getting your conversation started on Twitter:

1. Listen. Use the Twitter search tools (there’s a search box right on the home page) to find conversations regarding topics you’re passionate about. You can search with a keyword to start with, like books, public relations, marketing, or health care. You can also search for Twitter users to follow by using sites like Twellow (a yellow pages-type listing), Twitter Grader or by checking out the people your Twitter friends are following. There are even sites that lists journalists who use Twitter, which is handy for my public relations colleagues.

2. Talk transparently. Be human and honest about what you are doing and who you represent. You don’t get all dressed up in a costume to go to the grocery store — you’re yourself there. Be yourself on Twitter.

3. Remember that Twitter is not a broadcast channel for your company, your blog posts or your personal branding efforts. You should be passing along good information that everyone can use. For every one Tweet about your branding/your company/your blog, you should be passing along 4-5 other Tweets about interesting information, responding to other people’s Tweets and otherwise genuinely conversing. I’ve seen some recommend a 10:1 ratio,  others say 80/20% or even 30/30/30.

As they say in Pirates of the Caribbean about the Pirate Code … “They’re more of a guideline, really”. So jump in the Twitter pool. The water’s fine. We’re starting a game of Marco Polo in a few minutes and you’re invited.