Posts tagged Twitter best practices
Could too much tweeting cost you your job?
May 7th
This is not a blog post about any titanic trend or an insight into a new marketing strategy. This is about one little thing — tweeting when you’re not supposed to — and what it might mean to your career.
One of my favorite college football players is Geno Smith of West Virginia University. I have rarely seen a young athlete approach the game with more intelligence, intensity, and leadership.
Many people expected him to win college football’s highest honor, the Heisman trophy and perhaps be the first athlete picked up in the professional football draft last week.
It turns out, he wasn’t a contender for the Heisman honor and was not even the first player at his position to be chosen in the draft. Over the last six months, his stock has continued to slip among the professional football executives despite his breath-taking skills. Why?
Perhaps it is because he tweets too much.
The thrill of victory. The agony of de tweet.
Jason Cole of Yahoo! Sports reported that when Smith went on visits to prospective teams, rather than interact with coaches and front-office people who would be making the decision to hire (draft) him, he would spend much of his time by himself on his cell phone, texting friends and interacting with his Twitter stream.
One official said: “All these other players who were in there were talking to the coaches, trying to get to know people and he was over there by himself,” one of the sources said. “That’s not what you want out of your quarterback.”
Eventually Geno was drafted in the second round by the New York Jets, but his disconnected attitude may have cost him millions of dollars in salary, endorsements, and publicity as a first-round draft pick.
I have a friend who might actually lose his job over Twitter. He’s addicted to his Twitter stream and tweets constantly. His employer is upset about this habit and told him that he needs to concentrate at work. ”They just don’t understand me,” my friend lamented. “This is how I stay connected to my friends.”
A few weeks ago, I noticed that a well-known social media celebrity was tweeting and texting from a conference panel in front of a room filled with several hundred people. Instead of paying attention to the moderator and interacting with the other panelists, he disconnected from the conversation the entire time with his head down in his Twitter stream.
Be here now.
I imagine that some readers from Generation Text might be thinking “Who cares?”
Obviously the NFL team owners care. Even though Geno Smith is a remarkable talent, they wanted him to pay attention. I think that even in our text-frenzied world, it should be a priority to be present in the moment, to provide individual attention that communicates “I care about what is going on here, right now, instead of the action on my phone.”
I might not be an NFL team owner drafting a quarterback, but I have made a mental note to never hire or recommend that distracted social media celebrity panelist for a speaking engagement. There are a lot of choices out there. Being attentive and professional is important, even if you have loads of talent — as Geno found out.
Everything communicates. Everything becomes part of your personal brand … including how and when you use Twitter. Do you agree? Or, do you see expectations in the business world changing to conform to Generation Text?
Here’s why 100,000 people unfollowed me on Twitter
Apr 2nd
The other day, I was cleaning up my Twitter account and clicked on an analytics button that I had not used before. It showed me the number of people who had recently unfollowed me. What I saw made me gasp.
First, let’s state the obvious. No. I’m NOT going to tweet that.
Now, let’s put this situation in perspective. I currently have about 60,000 people following me on Twitter, all of them are real people to the best of my knowledge. These people found me and stuck with me over the last four years. This graphic implies that in just a few MONTHS nearly 100,000 people found me and dropped me.
My first reaction was “Whoa. Do I really suck that badly?” And your reaction is: “Yes, you really do.”
I know you don’t I?
The unfollow phenomenon
But of course I am not that sucky and neither are you. Nobody could possibly suck at Twitter so bad that 100,000 people followed and then dropped them moments later. Even Guy Kawasaki has kept people around his account while tweeting about socks and the sex life of plants. So, what is going on here?
There are a lot of people out there who are either gaming the system or just trying to look cool by getting lots of people to follow them while they follow few in return. They’re trying to look like a celebrity who is so in demand that they cannot keep up with their fans. Perhaps this pumps up a fragile ego or maybe makes them look cool for a job interview or something. They may even be employing automated programs to help them accomplish this.
It is rude and it is stupid. But apparently by the number I am showing here, there is just one ton of people trying to lure me into their ego trap.
I’ve had a couple of people ask me about this phenomenon, thinking that they were doing something wrong because so many people unfollow them so quickly. You’re not. It’s probably just spammers or people trying to look like a big shot.
But of course there is the possibility that you ARE legitimately losing followers, so let’s look at that, too.
The agony of delete
Maybe … just maybe … you are sucky at Twitter. So to find out, I asked my legitimate and wonderful Twitter followers to tell me why they unfollow people. I received so many great responses but they did fall into a few distinct categories. Here is a representative sample of responses (I edited slightly for punctuation and grammar)
Kevin Manne I may follow people for a specific event, and unfollow after the event ends when their posts aren’t as valuable to me anymore.
Kelli Schmith My “Twitter Why” has changed over the years (yes, years!). As ideas grow stale and overshared, I weed out the sources.
Brenda McDonald 5-10 posts in succession is too much when they are only posting for 10 minutes per day
Lois Martin My main reason to unfollow is when someone posts endless sales pitches.
Joe Kelly I unfollow when they repeat the same handful of tweets, over and over and over
Gina Schreck I always unfollow someone who is using TRUETWIT validation. I feel they are lazy for not checking people out themselves.
Allison Stoodley main reason is they complain too much, second, they disappear for months at a time.
Lori Wizdo I unfollow anyone too transparently promotional –even if the content is not that bad.
Ben Johnston I usually unfollow if their stream is nothing but RT’ing the same articles as everyone else is sharing
Marv Dorner Two reasons… dormant account for 90-120 days, or unacceptable posts (racists, vulgar, etc)
Jeff Machado I unfollow if they have shown no interest in interacting with me – if it’s obvious I’m just a number.
I think this gets down to a few “Maxims for Twitter Non-Suckiness”
1) Take control of your tribe and find/follow real people who will interact with you. It’s OK to give everybody a chance but you don’t have to follow spammy and rude people forever. Create your own experience.
2) Be kind and helpful. If you get into an argument, take it offline.
3) Share diverse, interesting content and try your best to space the tweets apart. Actually research shows an hour apart works pretty well.
4) Nothing says I love you like a RT now and then but add your own original content too.
5) I think this is most important — It’s OK to find business benefits through Twitter. But business comes through relationships. So focus on building relationships and making friends instead of selling your wares. Trust me. This really works.
And in introspection, I need to fine-tune my Twitter presence, too. The Twitter tribe has taught me something through this little exercise. I’m sure most of the 100,000 people who unfollowed me were not sincere but some of them are … and I could be doing a better job to respect my Twitter audience.
I want to end this post with an awesome quote from Twitter friend Timm McVaigh of Sydney wrote: “Twitter is a numbers game wrapped in a relationship.” I kind of like that.
What’s on your mind?
Illustration courtesy Toothpaste for Dinner
Does it pay to be honest on Twitter?
Nov 25th
Does it pay to be honest on Twitter? Increasingly, the answer may be “no.”
In the past, I’ve written a blog post about my life in social media each time I hit a milestone on Twitter. 10,000 followers, 20,000 followers, etc.
Last week I hit 50,000 followers so I thought I would reflect on one of the philosophical issues I’m dealing with. Maybe it will help and support you in your journey too.
I hit this milestone exactly one year after I hit 30,000 followers. If you do the math, that’s 400 new followers every single week. And actually, it has been a lot more than that because I still cull all the spammers out of my stream (with the help of my wife). So, to the best of my knowledge, all 50,000 of those folks in my Twitter audience are real people.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether it is worth the effort to evaluate every Twitter follower. In the long run, who cares if I let spammers in the door? So far, I have taken some pride and comfort in knowing that there is nothing fake about my Twitter audience. It is real, it is organic, and it is a very engaging and supportive group. So if I follow you, it means something. I am not “automated.”
But is worth it the time I put into it?
Why spammers help your business
This may sound counter-intuitive, but taking the time to cull spammers might actually be hurting my business and online reputation.
If I were not blocking spam Twitter accounts, I estimate I would be approaching 100,000 followers by now. I’m convinced that the social proof of numbers like “likes,” “followers,” and yes, even a Klout score matter in our online world. Few, if any, people are going to take the time to examine my career and accomplishments before deciding to follow me, read my blog, or even buy my books. But they may look at 100,000 Twitter followers and decide that I am an authority. It is just the way of the world.
I was recently introduced at a speech like this: ”I’d like to introduce our keynote speaker Mark Schaefer. He is the author of Return On Influence
Being honest. A fool’s errand?
So, in review, I am probably wasting resources by cleansing my Twitter account. Nobody really knows or cares about it, I’m probably the only blogger doing it, and it might even be hurting my business in some way.
But I’ve decided to keep doing it.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what other people think or know. It matters what I think and know. I’ve come this far without “doping” my Twitter stream with fake accounts to inflate the numbers. I just can’t quit now. If somebody asks me how many Twitter followers I have, I don’t want a voice in the back of my head saying, “yeah, but most of them are not even real.”
In 2009 I wrote a little manifesto called “Why I Block on Twitter.” I still believe in this:
1) My Twitter Tribe matters. If I follow you, I choose to do so. No auto-follows, ever. Before I follow, I have read your bio, some of your tweets and probably clicked your link. I have a quality audience and it’s staying that way.
2) I want an audience to be proud of. This probably sounds old-fashioned but I don’t want to do anything in my life that I wouldn’t be proud to disclose to my children. And if they examined my Twitter audience, I would not want them to see a bunch of nymphs peddling their videos. Anybody can see who you’re following. What does your audience say about you?
3) I want to protect you. If I block the spamaholics I keep them from my tweets and I keep them, in a small way, from you. I see so many of these folks who copy “Follow Friday” lists trying to lure followers. No. Stay away from my friends dammit.
4) Because I just do not want to play that game. I’m not going to be passive and imply that what they’re doing is OK.
Blocking sends a message. If we ALL blocked them, they would have to go away, right?
What do you think? Would you spend the time to go through 400 new Twitter followers every week?
Should you out-source your tweets?
Sep 25th
Should you out-source your tweets? No.
But having said that, I recognize there is enormous pressure to do just that. It’s a reality of busy life isn’t it? We just want somebody to “do it for us.”
Let’s look at the risk of this strategy that I recounted in The Tao of Twitter: I have a friend who had been building a Twitter relationship with a business executive she admired. They had tweeted back and forth a few times and he had provided some helpful career advice to her. When they had a chance to finally meet at a networking event, she introduced herself and was met with a puzzled stare. He had never heard of her before, and sheepishly explained that his PR agency was tweeting for him. Obviously his reputation was ruined for this young woman … and also to all those she talked to about the incident!
In a well-publicized snafu, a PR agency rep tweeting on behalf of Chrysler Corporation sent out this tweet: “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity when no one here knows how to f**cking drive.”
He thought he was tweeting from his personal account but in fact, it came from Chrysler’s Twitter account by mistake. He lost his job and the agency lost the account.
Faking it on Twitter is dangerous business.
But you may be in a situation where you have no other practical choice than to “team-tweet” behind a brand name, then you could outsource or share the tweeting between a few trusted individuals. If you do outsource:
- Be clear and realistic on your objectives.
- Have clear lines of who owns what.
- Have a clear plan for content, tone and frequency.
- Be prepared to take advice and listen to it. Most experts know what they are doing and it’s in their best interests to make it work for you.
Make sure that you have a disaster recovery plan in case of a PR upset. If you’re using an agency, ask them to show you how they are managing your account distinctly from personal/other client accounts, so that tweets aren’t mistakenly sent via the wrong account – easy to do when you’re using a sharing platform. Ask to meet everyone that will be tweeting via your account and create some rules or guidelines for tweeting. Outsourcing doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility – make sure you are involved and holding everyone to account.
Before you outsource, carefully weigh the risks and benefits. One of the biggest opportunities of social media is “humanizing” the brand and even the biggest brands are finding ways to do that successfully. In the long-term, businesses should aim at involving their own employees to be “brand beacons” on Twitter instead of relying on an outside agency.
Agree?
Illustration: I doctored up an original illustration from BigStock.com
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