The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Twitter

Two Things That Are Killing Twitter

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ExhaustedI used a nifty service called When Did You Join Twitter to figure out that I signed up on December 30, 2008.

After four years I have seen a number of changes in how I use it as well as how others do. Not all of them are good.

I Hate AutoDms

I don’t have any scientific data to share with you about what sort of impact the AutoDm has and can only tell you that once upon a time I was guilty of using them too.

It seemed like an easy way to acknowledge new followers and to start building a relationship with them but I found them to rarely give me the warm fuzzy feeling that makes me feel like anything but a number.

The AutoDm doesn’t show me that you have taken the time to read my profile or tweets so I haven’t any clue whether you find me interesting or if I am just another number you use to build your following.

I have built real friendships with people I met online and know that there are real people on the other side of the keyboard but those relationships started because of the personal touch.

Twitter is Like a Cocktail Party Or Barbecue

Twitter is like a barbecue or cocktail party. It is a place to meet people and talk. The AutoDm reminds me of the sleazy man/woman who approaches you at a party with only one thing in mind and it is never with your best interests in mind.

It is an immediate turnoff.

I don’t have a problem with Internet marketers, brands or businesses trying to sell things online. All I ask is that you at least pretend to care about more than what is in my wallet.

Problem Number Two- Broadcast Is Not Engagement

The second challenge and one that is probably far more serious is the proliferation of people/brands/businesses that are using Twitter as a broadcast channel and not for engagement.

Twitter is noisy and cluttered because it is filled with Tweets promoting posts, reviews, sales and all sorts of other crap. It wasn’t always like this and I am well aware that I am part of the problem.

That is because Triberr is one of the biggest sources of traffic for my blog and the primary traffic driver for promoting posts through Triberr is Twitter.

If I want people to pump out my posts to their followers I need to reciprocate so it means that I can send out a large number of tweets in a short time.

A Solution

My solution is two fold:

  1. I try to make a point to engage as frequently as possible on Twitter so that my stream is not all links.
  2. I try to make sure the content I share is relevant, interesting and useful to my followers.

It is not a perfect solution but at the moment it does the best job of meeting my needs without completely alienating the community I am working to build.

What About You?

What about you? Do you use Twitter? Do you like it? Do you agree/disagree with me?

 

Twitter Is Dead!- Long Live Twitter!

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The rule of four is a law that establishes the number of social media platforms that a person can be upon. Said law was developed due to time constraints and an understanding that until the 32 hour day is created there simply isn’t time to participate in all of the available opportunities.

Long before I created said rule I had one that maintained that there wasn’t time for Twitter because it took too much time to maintain multiple blogs and I didn’t see how Twitter would add value.

Some time passes and in December of 2008 I determine that I cannot make an educated decision about Twitter without trying it out.

Hello ...

In less than two weeks I am convinced that Twitter is not only great fun but an excellent resource for making friends, gathering information and for promoting blog posts.

And for quite some time it was nothing but unicorns and rainbows for me- until it wasn’t. That is because we got lazy and started pumping out more links and engaging less.

That we isn’t the royal “we” it is you and I.

Yep, I include myself because when I took advantage of certain tools and resources I added to the chaos. In the midst of that I noticed that I wasn’t engaging as much as I used to. I didn’t have as many conversations and I began to wonder if we had killed Twitter.

Yep, the original Karate Kid and I once exchanged tweets. Pretty nifty stuff.

Anyhoo, a while back some blogging buddies told me that they also wondered if we had killed Twitter so I decided to conduct a little test to determine the truth of the matter.

I asked the Magic 8 Ball if Twitter was dead or alive and it told me that I should ask later. Well that doesn’t fly with me because as an all powerful blogger I am used to instant gratification so shook that sucker silly and found out that Twitter isn’t dead.

It has to be true because everyone knows that the Magic 8 ball doesn’t lie, unless we are talking about that time in college where it told me that the next girl I asked out would say yes. Or the many times it gave me the wrong numbers for the lotto.

Aside from those two situations it is always reliable, really.

Long live Twitter.

Is There A Benefit To Paying for Twitter Followers?

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listen to ‘Is There A Benefit To Paying for Twitter Followers?’ on Audioboo

Reciprocity In Blogging Part II

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One of the most effective ways to drive traffic and increase comments on your blog is to blog about blogging. I sometimes think that there is no other topic that bloggers love to write about than blogging.

It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a dad blogger, tech blogger or business blogger, write about blogging and the comments will come.

One of my favorite examples of this is a post called Reciprocity in Blogging. Every day without fail my stats show that tons of people are reading it. Today I am going to write about it again but with a slightly different twist. Today we’ll talk about other social media platforms.

But before we do that let me reset the table with an excerpt from the first post:

Many bloggers are fans of reciprocity in blogging but I am not one of those. Commenting on my blog isn’t a guarantee that I will read or comment on yours. The converse of that is true as well. I don’t expect that every blog I comment upon will lead to a comment on mine.

I haven’t changed my position regarding blogs and blogging. However when I look at Twitter I take a very different approach. On Twitter I expect more interaction and engagement. On Twitter I expect people to respond to Tweets that I direct to them just as I expect to respond to those that are directed to me.

The nature of the platform and the way that it works is different than on a blog. I don’t call myself a social media expert or a guru but after all these years I know a few things about it.

Social media is about being social. It is about engagement and interaction. It is about discussions, dialogue and thinking. It is about people. Twitter works better when you use it for dialogue than strictly for broadcasting messages.

If all you do is post links you end up creating a lot of noise that people begin to ignore. On a blog you can wax rhapsodic about various topics and you have a greater chance of creating engagement than on Twitter.

I attribute that to the difference in character limitations. When you only have 140 characters to work with there are some messages that don’t translate well. A blog isn’t limited like that. There are other challenges but that is not one of them.

Twitter is formatted to be similar to a giant conversation. That is why it doesn’t work as well for the link broadcasters. They don’t engage and consequently people begin to ignore them. They remind me a bit of the people on the bus/subway who sit there talking to themselves.

They may be normal. They could be wonderful but the impression they give scares others away.

If you want to make Twitter work for you start talking with and not to others and good things will happen.

What do you think?

Man Fired for ‘Thoughtless’ Tweets

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Never forget that the words you blog, tweet or and or post online can come back to haunt you later.

(CNN) — The Aflac duck lost its voice Monday after the insurance giant fired the comedian behind the commercial quack for tweeting jokes about the earthquake and tsunami that has devastated Japan.

The Columbus, Georgia-based company fired Gilbert Gottfried less than an hour after discovering the tweets, according to a news release from Aflac.

“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” Michael Zunda, the company’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, said in a statement.

 

The Great Twitter Experiment

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The premise of the great Twitter experiment is simple. Reach out, engage and interact with all of my followers and the people that I am following. Social media is all about being social. Let’s see what happens.
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