Twitter

As much as I know that social media forums like Facebook and Twitter offer brilliant free marketing for small businesses when used strategically, there are a handful of things I’ve begun to hate, I mean…er…strongly dislike when it comes to socializing on those platforms. They are, sadly, things I could have done better or understood more fully if I had made it my entire life for a set period of time. I couldn’t, and can’t, and I’ll assume that you don’t have that kind of time, either. I really do work, and because I write for my living, quiet thought is my friend. That means long hours of intense mulling over and reading (the one thing I love about Twitter, by the way – things I read and learn from what is posted there.)

Please learn from my mistakes. I committed these social media crimes knowing full well what I was doing, and thought in time these problems would rectify themselves. They haven’t. And now I’m paying the price for poor planning.

I wanted to name this article, 6 Things I HATE About Social Media, but my sister and mentor scolded me and told me I needed to speak more effectively about my calamity, and also that I should share with you problems I could have avoided, rather than just throw the fit I was intending.

I learned social media for business and accidentally realized it was a good hook up for long lost family. That was cool, but I’m not in there constantly typing about my life, and I haven’t talked myself into purchasing the $400 phone that would let me Twitter and Facebook the only time I really would, (out and about with my unique, humorous perspective:-) I should be ashamed, because I endorse social media for my clients and really believe that a local business can use these tools with some really kick-a** results. But for me, I’ve been in it just long enough to know what I hate…er…strongly dislike.

1. I indiscriminately chose people to follow believing it was more important at the beginning to start a list and refine it later.  I thought it was O.K. to start my list with ‘who-evers’ but now I have to go in and fish through them to rid my list of them so I don’t accidentally get rid of someone I like. What a pain.
2. I followed marketers just because we were in the same industry. B-a-a-aad idea. Only a handful are really interesting, the rest just abuse the twittersphere.
3. I allowed strong political perspectives, but prejudice is prejudice, and I hate it. Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative – whatever, why must you decide you’re one thing and someone else is another? I’ll choose for myself, thank you, but political party certainly doesn’t define me and shouldn’t make you angry.
4. I don’t know how to get rid of the disreputable, vulgar and obscene people that for some reason decided to follow me. I report them, they come back. DON’T FOLLOW ME! I get updates in my email every once and awhile when checking my new followers. I look at their profile and see their updates and can’t for the life of me figure why they followed me. Yuck, go away. I’m not a part of any one’s harem.
5. I allowed automated quotes. I should have stopped following those eons ago. Thought it might keep me positive. Some are actually pretty insightful. Know what keeps me positive? REAL conversations and feedback. I’m a positive person, really.
6. I didn’t get that expensive phone so I can’t update when I’m out running errands. Trouble is, I really engage in conversations with people. Real people I can see. I talk to my favorite cashiers, neighbors, people waiting in lines, and just about anyone. If I’m zeroed in on my cell phone during those precious moments, I’m missing out in some rewarding interaction. That phone is a thorn in my side because I know for business, it would help me be more efficient. I don’t think it would help me as a person, though. Sometimes ya gotta make choices.

So, I guess that’s a shameful perspective for someone who thinks all small businesses should be represented on social forums. There’s only a handful of people I really enjoy, the rest I will delete soon, if I haven’t already. How I wish I had been more discriminating. It will easily take hours.

If only local businesses would represent themselves, they could completely tear up their industry giants. Marketers, on the other hand, seriously over-saturate.

Oh, there’s one more thing I strongly dislike...

I love God, and I’ll tell you all about it in person if our conversation ever goes that way. In no way would I ever publicly or otherwise disclaim God, I think that would be stupid because He’s been integrally involved in my life and I’m uber-thankful, but I really strongly dislike what’s happened to marketing-speak. Every time I try to forage new relationships with what I hope to be my peers, I end up with these people that scream Holier than Holy all over my Facebook page. Nothing wrong with inspiration, but what I’m talking about is over the top. Gonna have to thin that out.

I hope you’ve learned from my mistakes, I’ll try to do better, promise. For those of you who’ve stuck with me through the weird stuff, well…please accept my apology, and…thanks.

It was early fall, 2009. Our family was enjoying an incredibly beautiful view of the mountains in northern New Mexico. Antelope, elk, buffalo, trout of every kind; magical cloud shadows intermittently cooling the frugal warmth of the altitude, and then…

all of a sudden…

DID I LEAVE MY AUTO TWEETS ROTATING WITHOUT ANY CONTROL??

YES. Yes I did. I had a brilliant plan to test a group’s response to my various tweets for a 12 hour spell. Two and a half days later, I realized I had forgotten to turn it off before I left town. Something that rolls off my tongue when explaining how easy and effective auto-tweets can be for businesses everywhere desiring to reach audiences that vary their attention spans between hours of the day, immediately became an opportunity for me to lose my entire reputation due to the risk that I had become–Twitterspam.

AW, CRAP.

No wireless in the cabins we were occupying. Since my husband, the Greatest Fisherman Of The Mountain, was quite a ways down stream (yet with the car, go figure) when I came to my realization, I had to bum a ride from a local to the civic center several miles away and work out my wireless muscle to see if I could remedy this mess.

Guess What I Learned About Tweet Automation?

NOT easy to remedy!! I use Social Oomph Professional for keyword research on the businesses I’m interested in following, and also for their somewhat simple method of rotating tweets. They allow several tweets to be posted in a certain format that causes random, rotated tweets that only need to be drafted in once, and from there you can schedule the frequency and pauses as necessary. Sounds groovy, right?

Trying to get a wireless connection in the back seat of a Ford Taurus with the excruciatingly bright, early morning sunlight–defying your ability to even see the screen let alone follow instructions, made for an irritation much like I imagine the chaffing of the buttocks after an eight-day, showerless excursion into the Arctic. But I digress…

Once in, having never been in this situation before and assuming an ‘off button’ would exist, I realized with trepidation that alas, it did not. EVERY SINGLE SCHEDULED TWEET, even though they were in the same family of tweets, had to be deleted from the text box where they originated, and from the published posts that had already gone out.

After an hour and a half, I was able to go through each and every one of the 22 published tweets and get rid of the origin, and then the published tweet. My logic being there would be nothing to recur if the tweet was deleted–right?

Even so, when I returned home to check the results of this mess, many of those tweets still existed in cyberland. What a booger.

I’m just telling it like it is. It’s one thing to schedule and monitor your activity on Twitter, but a brand new pain to leave your words un-escorted through a cyber-realm that possesses the right to tell you that you talk too much about the same thing.

I never meant to annoy, but where the heck was that ‘off button?’

If you’ve found one, will you please share with the rest of us?

FOLLOW-UP

Evidently there’s a pause button…

Twitter is absolutely blowing the socks off of rapid fire communication right now. Want in, but think its too difficult or time consuming? I’ve got a few quick steps to get you ‘twittering’ in practically no time at all!

• Sign up for an account at www.twitter.com. Your profile and picture are important, so take some time to think about how you want to be seen out there.

• “What are you doing right now?” doesn’t mean “I’m eating pizza,” or “I’m watching TV.” Be friendly and for your first post, its perfectly fine to say, “I’m just starting to tweet, want to meet people in the ____area,” or “I’m looking for people in the ___business.”

• You want to follow people who also know interesting people. Since you don’t know anyone yet, we suggest @ShariV, @skhamilton, @geraldvoigt, and @scottalberts. We have existing relationships that you can tap into to start your own following.

• Make sure that you acknowledge your new followers with a “Thanks for following me” direct message or response with the @ sign.

• Go ahead, be choosy! You won’t like everyone, and you don’t have to follow everyone following you. Look at their profiles and websites.

• Twitter itself is not real efficient for interactive conversations while doing other things. If you intend to multitask, as I do, I suggest the twhirl desktop application so that you don’t miss important things, but can weed out uninteresting things while you work.

• Decide how long you want to interact, and stick to it. Announce yourself with a “Good Morning!” tweet, and excuse yourself with a “I’ve gotta get back to work” tweet, or something on that level.

You don’t have to be on every day, and you don’t have to be on all day. Community Marketing Blog advocates using twitter only 60 minutes a week! I’m sure we don’t need to tell you to watch the language if you’re marketing. Manage your tweet time and you’ll find this a most valuable tool!

Was this useful information? We’d love to hear from you!

Everywhere you look these days, someone’s talking about Twitter. Last month (February ‘09), over 7,000,000 people logged in with some answer to the now famous question, “What are you doing?” It’s grown by 1382% since the same time last year, making it the fastest-grown community site in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Now, with widespread adoption of the news media, Twitter is bound to grow even faster.

Detractors are quick to point out that Twitter is noisy, a distraction, and they really don’t care what some stranger had for breakfast. All true; you can’t argue with the obvious. But, there are ways to filter out the noise, turn it off when you need to focus, and select folks to follow with more interesting things to talk about.

So what’s Twitter all about from a business perspective, and why should you care? Honestly, that’s a huge question, one that will take more than a single post to answer. We’ll get a start on that answer this week from Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter:

As a bonus, notice the marketing lesson in this clip: Twitter has grown really fast because it listens and responds to what its customers want.

Do you twitter? Are you using it for business? Please leave your twitter name with any comments. If you’d like to follow me, I’m @ShariV.

Related Off-Site Article:
Nielsen: Twitter’s growing really, really, really fast