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Last week I wrote a new post for the Scorch Agency blog called “Get More Twitter Followers.” I’m not actually sure everyone got to the end, because I started off the article all wrong on purpose. And some people thought I was serious. I like to make poignant observations with humor and sarcasm – what can I say?
Rest assured the second half of the blog post actually provided useful information on how good tweeters build a Twitter following. Have a read, and let me know what you think.
Over on Scorch Agency’s blog, I wrote about the high level of customer service that many companies are providing using Twitter. The real question is… why can’t companies provide this level of customer service across all platforms? Why are the people on the phones not taking care of problems in the same manner? Read the post and you’ll see what I mean – after contacting Adobe via Twitter, they fixed the problem in two hours. I wish our three previous phone calls would have done the trick. Nevertheless, kudos to Adobe for helping us out.
When you’re tweeting out links to pertinent industry news or opinion pieces, should you 100% agree with everything contained in the article? Or is it OK to present information that might actually differ with the way you think? If you do tweet something like that out, are your followers apt to get confused, thinking that you believe one thing when you really believe another?
Listen to my mini-podcast here and let me know what you think. My take is that it’s OK to tweet out interesting tidbits even if you don’t 100% agree with the contents. You might even post a little endcap on the tweet that says “I don’t completely agree with this, but what do you guys think?”
Leave a comment and give me your take!
I recorded this podcast in my local Panera Bread Company – forgive my daughter talking to herself in the background!
Gary nails it here in the first 30 seconds – real-time search has tremendous value. (video below). Companies need to pay hyper-attention to what people are saying about their brands, and they need to follow up with the proper kind of interaction.
Peter Kafka of All Things Digital says, “You don’t go to Twitter to search for stuff.” I highly disagree! (and I call him “highly confused” in only the nicest way!).
Like Gary says, Twitter can monetize with advertising, just like Google did. Google used to be so very simple, and now it’s so huge and monetized with 100 different services… and people are still flocking to Google. Frankly, like Chris Brogan said here just the other day, people are completely beholden to Skynet, er I mean Google. There has been no mass exodus from Google, and there probably won’t be from Twitter either once they decide to take the monetization plunge.
Contrary to what some of the panelists said, Twitter is a really big deal, and companies that are running in the other direction are making a huge mistake.
See the #2 video – it’s my presentation “Building Communities and Spending Time on Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs – Why Bother?” as delivered at David Siteman Garland’s RISE Lunch.
In the video, I provide my reasons for using Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging for business. Some of the effect (and humor) is lost without the Powerpoint that was displayed on the room’s flatscreens, but hopefully you get the idea!
My recent blog post on The Top 50 Tweets that Businesses Should Be Doing was quite the hit. Let’s go the other direction – what 10 tweets should businesses avoid making?
1.) Famous quotes – I say forget these – I don’t care what Frederick Douglas said. Just my personal opinion here. When I see someone’s Twitter page and it’s ten quotes in a row from Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins and yadda yadda, I throw up on myself. If all you have to say is what other people once said…… I know tweeting famous or inspiring quotes can generate lots of retweets, and that’s a good thing – I just can’t seem to care. There are so many other ways to generate retweets that actually mean something. I still love you more than bacon if you’re a quote tweeter. OK, rant over! I expect some blowback on this, but as Humphrey Bogart once said, “Frankly my dear…..”
2.) Politics – let people get to know you, but not that much. Politics are just too divisive – you may be the nicest person in the world, but people have a hard time getting past political affiliations (if they don’t like your choice). I don’t know why it has to get so ugly, but it does. The only time it’s OK as a business to tweet politics is if it’s your job to piss off liberals or conservatives.
3.) As I mention here, you probably shouldn’t curse too much, call people names, engage in even light racism, solicit sexual partners, fence stolen goods, or talk about how your farts smell.
4.) Pictures of your kids – go any way you want on this – I generally avoid it. And not because I’m paranoid….. I just don’t do it. My tummy just tells me it’s not right for me. Yes, I have pics of my kids on my Facebook page, but I don’t tweet them.
5.) Anything about not paying for whiter teeth. Seriously. As Chris Brogan would say, “Don’t be that guy!”
6.) Showing disrespect and contempt for a competitor – why bother? Just kick their ass at business and be done with them.
7.) No settling scores on Twitter. I had a t-shirt model that stiffed me for three tees. I never called her out in public. I wanted to, but didn’t. Man, I was dying to sick the crüe on her (that being my Twitter following). It’s three tees – I just let it go.
8.) The browbeating “why did you unfollow me” Tweet. “Hey you unfollowed me, WTF?” It’s a free country, they can unfollow you if they want. I’ve had people accidentally unfollow me. I’ve had people accidentally block me. I’ve had people purposely block me. It happens. Twitter is HUGE – there are millions of other people waiting to connect with you. Just move on. (Full disclosure of hypocrisy: I experiment in this area. If it’s someone that looks nice, or someone that I would not have expected to unfollow me, I will sometimes find a tweet of theirs and respond, “Oh man, I got kicked to the curb. LOL.” It turns out that sometimes people accidentally unfollow others.)
9.) Hey @so-and-so, I unfollowed you because….. There is no need for this. If you absolutely have to express yourself to the person you unfollowed, send them a direct message. It will be hilarious, because they won’t be able to DM you back! (you cannot DM those that aren’t following you).
10.) The response tweet that expresses confusion at a tweet of yours, like “who are you and what are you responding to?” This happens to me all the time, it drives me a little nuts, and it’s happening for two reasons, I think – let me explain with pictures.
A guy asks for assistance:
A few hours later, I provide the assistance he requested, and I let him know via this tweet:
He is confused as to what my “done!” tweet means:
Expressing such confusion is avoidable. All you have to do is drill backwards from my tweet to see what it was I was responding to. See below:
When @yogy05 goes to look at his “@” replies, he will see the tweet you see above. All he has to do is click on “in reply to yogy05” to go back to his original tweet – the one I was responding to. This will tell him what was “done.” I think some people don’t realize that you can do this, or is it possible that one doesn’t have the ability to drill backwards when using certain smartphone Twitter clients? Not sure, but it sometimes makes for disjointed and awkward conversations.
I was having an email conversation with a 60 year old person, telling them that I had met a friend of theirs while drinking at my favorite wine bar Robust.
They were excited that I had met their old friend, and asked about Robust. I told this person, “Robust is over in Webster Groves. Really cool wine bar and restaurant. I made friends with the owners thru Twitter, and now I go there and drink red wine to excess. Good times!”
And this person responded “How in the world would you make friends through Twitter…. I am so behind the times.”
There are still vast swaths of our society that aren’t using Social Media, that don’t understand it, and that have never even tried it. OPPORTUNITY!
Playing the part of Internet DJ, here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading the past few days.
1.) Peter Shankman’s post “Never Confuse Being A Nice Guy For Weakness” – there’s a lot of backstory, in my opinion, on why he may have penned this article. In the days preceding this post, Peter’s NYC attorneys fired off a cease & desist letter to a new competitor, as chronicled here. As the recipient of two cease & desist letters, I frowned upon the heavy-handed nature of the request (he wants ownership of the guy’s URL?). I even left a comment on his blog (#62) that admitted that, as much as I love HARO and like Peter’s efforts therein, this litigious baloney couldn’t help but change the way I feel about Peter as a person. Without going into too much detail, Peter contacted me and asked me to reserve judgment until all of the facts came out. I told him that was fair. I have since learned from another source that this new competitor may have used Peter’s image in some of its advertising. I have no confirmation of that – I did not see it myself – but if this is the case, obviously the C&D makes a little more sense.
2.) Ari Herzog’s post “How Flash Mobs Invoke Togetherness” is a short article with four awesome videos showcasing some awesome flashmobbery.
3.) Check out this article outlining the pros and cons of scheduling tweets. I understand the cons here, as I’m a huge believer in being interactive and responsive on Twitter. But for me, the pros outweigh the cons.
4.) Starting a business while you have a day job is a blast! Take it from me! Actually, while it’s financially much more viable than quitting your day job, it’s incredibly more tedious and fraught with peril. This post at A Smart Bear outlines in great detail the steps you might take to protect yourself as you explore your “hobby” outside of company time.
I recorded this video back in December 2009 in response to some hating I was witnessing on Twitter. I saw people reacting negatively to the presence of businesses on Twitter, and not just the MLM teeth-whitening jerks. As a business, it is true that poor marketing in any form can and should backfire on you – this includes Twitter. If you yap yap yap about your business, never join the community, never help others…. you will meet with adverse results, and you might even have a few people tell you how they feel about your business.
That aside, my point in the video is that there are many small business entrepreneurs out there that live their business – the business is them, and they are their business. This is their life’s passion. So if you’re on Twitter and you’re passionate about the TV show Lost, and someone else is passionate about their startup business, there really is no difference there – it’s just two people rapping about their passions in life. Respect the entrepreneur!