We start out in this week’s Overflow podcast talking about the fact that you get out of Twitter what you put into it. If all you are doing is putting statements out there without engaging in actual conversations then you are missing the entire point of Twitter. Twitter is meant to be engaging, allowing you to communicate with other individuals no matter where they are in the world.
Cameron and I were involved in a conversation this past Friday evening with StorySeeker from the land down under. According to his bio: “Generation W – succeeding at not thinking old. Looking to help the ’scared to start’. I speak in the stupid english language” The night turned into a fun conversation about music and politics.
Unfortunately, the night had a negative moment when a user profile with a sexually explicit name started following me. I got really upset, not that I’m offended by seeing it, more that the entire Twitter experience could be completely undermined as new adopters come on board and are harassed by this type of communication.
Others quickly informed me that the Twitter folks are very active in keeping this type of thing out of the stream and have made concerted efforts to filter this type of spam. I have to give kudos to the team since this is the first time that it has happened to me, but should this issue become pervasive, the experience of the community will quickly disintegrate.
Cameron’s concern is also about auto reply message spam when picking up new followers. When the first impression of someone is a “thanks for following, now here is my link”, the pact between individuals is tainted in this social community. Blatant, pervasive selling is not the point of social media, the point is to engage in real human dialogue and if it also leads to connections and networking, fantastic. If selling is the first thing out of the gate, then you are the proverbial insurance salesman at the dinner party, hawking your business.
Amber Naslud (AmberCadabra) at AltitudeBranding.com did a great post about this topic, called Thanks For Following, Now Click On My Junk. She has taken it to a whole level of “rebeling against craptastic links” with a Click My Junk meme, plus apparel at Cafepress. In true community fashion, $1 of each item is given to Autism Research.
We also need to address a fine line regarding maintenance of social networks, while balancing a healthy home life. In the consultant role we need to be able to effectively recommend the best approaches for our clients, so are therefore burdened to adopt early and participate often. However, wives and children aren’t communicating with us via these tools … so we need to unplug and be available to them.
In our business roles we need to prioritize the most appropriate places for clients to see ROI, and to be in a position to respond when their customer base arrives on the scene. We want our clients to give their customers a great greeting when they arrive. It is a given that in order to understand a community, you must participate fully in the community.
One final question for social media marketers. Is it part of the job description to “ghost write” or communicate on behalf of a client in the social media space (with the caveat that you are not representing yourself as that person), but are spoon feeding words to the client and pointing out where to speak?
Let us know in the comments what you think.
