Twitter Fame can come from tweeting frantically, as if your butt is on fire and Twitter will bring you a bucket of water to put it out. If you have not already learned this tactic, I will explain it. According to many estimates, there is a very small percentage of “power users” who send the majority of all updates on Twitter. How extreme is it? As a Harvard Business study pointed out, 10 percent of Twitter users account for 90 percent of Twitter updates.
Allow me to shock you for a moment with an observation.
Twitter Politics, Pandering, and Popularity
Some of the most powerful Twitter users are using old school tactics of politics, pandering, and heavy handing to get their word out. When this happens, they throw the great notion of transparency and dignity out the window.
Why do they do this? Power is the best answer I can find. It is a power that is largely more about ego than money … it is a power that some hold dear as they seek to be “King of the Geeks” or “The Most Popular” on Twitter. To their regret, it still does not return all that they hoped. They just find a few pea-brains to clap their hands and make them feel important.
Sure, you may not see this behavior, but it is just another part of my job to tell you it is there, and that it is quite pervasive. It has an impact on the whole community, and I hope you can see why it matters.
When considering that “other” 90 percent of Twitter users, I find it tragic that so many people have not yet found the great enjoyment and value of reaching out and joining the great conversation of Twitter. More tragic than that, is that it can lead to an ever greater opportunity for the “power users” or “Twitterati” to influence Twitter with a narrowed view designed to suit their agenda. Sure, you can say that it still allows for the voice of the people, but when it gets too carried away with chasing an algorithm to appear as the most popular, it is still a deception in many ways.
The tactics that some seemingly “valuable” Twitter users will use is to play a role to make others believe “how Twitter really works” and what is “important” to the Twitter community. Fine, call them “leaders”, and in some ways, they are. I want to remind you that it is easy for many people to fall into a bad habit and think it is the right thing to do because “everybody else is doing it”. Your parents surely posed the question to you something like: “If all of your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you do it, too?”
Some of these “valuable” users (often called Twitterati) try to promote getting more Twitter followers, and others will try to manipulate and even threaten others to promote their message. I saw the latter in a really ugly way when somebody who previously unfollowed me and blocked me then joined into a petty power play asking people to unfollow my Twitter feed, hoping people would stop listening to me. It was totally political and childish, and it was not because I was poaching whales or beating up little kids. I was simply being honest, and being me … many people sent me messages of respect after that rant.
It was not too long before this person came to seek me out and talk up their respect for me while asking for favors again and asking me to retweet their latest promotion. I guess my retweet was valuable, but yet, not quite valuable enough to treat me like a real person, but rather a megaphone.
Quick, Twitter … Get Me a Bucket!
The type of user I am talking about will often tweet like their butt is on fire and somebody should bring them a bucket of water. They try to send enough Twitter updates to be sure that everybody will see their name, without regard for whether it is good, bad, or indifferent. I would never complain about somebody tweeting a lot, because I do that, but I try to keep it interesting, relevant, and a two-way communication. However when people just send a rapid-fire barrage of popular links from Google Trends, Digg, Stumble, and Alexa Hot Urls with some advertisements for their clients who hired them for their amazing social media acumen mixed in there, and sent with hopes and demands for others to retweet it for popularity, the relevance and value of Twitter suffers. Then they will retweet some random thing that you sent, just to remind you that you should be retweeting their agenda, and if you do it, you may get even more of their favor of retweeting something you sent that they never even read or cared a damn about. It can even be worse with an innuendo that if you do not cater to them, they will badmouth you and tell people to unfollow you. It all gets far too High School-like. Now, I have a different reason for asking for a bucket … See the video below. 😉
“Twitter can you hear me?” This is a question that many Twitter users are asking. At first, I was concerned that it was just me. Maybe people just didn’t hear me … maybe I didn’t bathe enough and stunk up the place. That would have been a great scenario for Twitter, but I have found without doubt that this is not limited to me, and that it is a widespread issue. There are some specific reasons for this, and I want to share my thoughts and I want to hear yours. I hope that we can get this all sorted out before the famous Twitter question of “What are you doing?” becomes “Are you there?”
Do You Hear Me?
I may not be the best example to pull from, but I have used Twitter, a lot. In fact, I used it so much that I tweeted my answer to “What are you doing?” over 20,000 times and found so many interesting facets of Twitter that I wrote a book about it. Yeah, a book! I have met some amazing friends, and learned a lot along the way. I have encountered some of the very best things Twitter has to offer, and I am a huge fan. My list of reasons for loving Twitter is long.
Most people would perhaps never even imagine a book’s worth of useful insight about Twitter, and much less publishing it to share with the world. I did, and it was done to preemptively meet the challenges of Twitter growth to the point of deafness. Deafness from people who tried it and did not understand Twitter and left. Deafness from those who saw little value because they are just out to look popular with a lot of followers. Deafness from many other ailments due to an explosive growth curve.
It has been my attempt to help new and existing users to find the greatest value of Twitter and help them to make it more useful. Am I too late? I do not think so, but we will all determine the outcome.
Measuring Twitter Engagement
You may wonder how I measure whether Twitter is listening. There are many ways, but I will show you a couple which cannot be denied. I ask questions of people, and I watch statistics … I am a marketing guy, after all. Some people even tease that I may be leaning toward autism in my watchful eye on trends and numbers. It is easy to see when somebody reads a message, and I will show you how. First, I want to start with a very social question that I asked, and it was really just because I wanted to know. I was trying to connect and start a conversation with people. I recently asked a question as follows:
I received a lot of replies. After all, it was a good question. I loved reading the replies and it started some fun conversations. So does this message really answer a question of deafness? Yes! It was an engaging question that encouraged a response. I was delighted with the response. All the same, as a studier of numbers, I would bet dollars for tweets that I would have had ten times the response rate in May.
Another measurable way to see the deafness cloud hovering over Twitter is to look at any Bit.ly link. Bit.ly is a massively used URL shortening service that will allow any user to see how many people have actually clicked on a given link. I will give you a fantastic example. Here is a tweet sent by the number one most followed user of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). His tweet was about The White House wanting people’s input on health care reform. It encompassed topics of government, health care, and small business, all at once. These are wildly hot topics, so one could assume it would have a lot of clicks. Go see for yourself … you can click here to see how many people actually clicked on the link. It died on the vine, and gives a view of how people are busier sending tweets than actually paying attention. This is coming from a guy with nearly 3,000,000 followers! What do your followers do?
When Did Twitter Go Deaf?
This all begs the questions of “When did Twitter go deaf?” and “What can we do about it?” I hope to have an answer, but I do not have the only answer. We can decide the right answers collectively. My answer is to help people understand the best assets of Twitter (relationships) and how to be sure they are seeing what they want to see. This may be a long way around, but the idea is that if you, and you, and you and the rest of you are able to manage your use of Twitter more efficiently, the whole service is improved.
In the past couple months, as I was staring into my monitor for days on end seeking inspiration and working on my LCD tan, I seem to have lost Twitter. Somehow, as I was writing until my fingers hurt, the deafness of “The Twitter broadcast” has grown like that little bump under your arm that gets bigger and bigger, until it is time for a biopsy to check for cancer.
Maybe you can say that I am manstruating and I just need to change my manpon, but I know that many others have noticed the same issues. I think it would be really nice if we could all listen again, and perhaps that way maybe we can be heard, too.
Do you have a Twitter success story, or do you know somebody who does? If the answer is yes, I want to hear about it.
If you have heard something that gave you a smile, made you cry, or just made you think about why you use Twitter, you are not alone. Every day we see “tweets” that reinforce our belief in people and prove that we are not alone. It may be a story of a restauranteur who was able to bring more smiles with their culinary delights, or the person who found a job and saved their home and kept their family secure.
Some success stories are more profound than others, but they all count. Some of the success stories of Twitter have changed the world for a few, and others have changed the world for many. I want to hear about all of them.
Please take just a moment of your time to tell the story of how Twitter has changed your life, or forward this article to somebody who will. Your story may be submitted as a comment to this blog post. You may also reach me to discuss the story by phone at my direct line, toll free, *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE* (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) or by Skype (username murnahan).
I will select stories to be included in my soon to be released book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. If I select your story, I will credit you in the book, and your copy is “on the house”.
Please be sure to include your Twitter username in your comment in the form of http://twitter.com/yourusername.
I do not often push my readers to retweet things, but in this case, I am asking you to spread the word and help me to find positive stories to show the readers of my new book positive and uplifting examples of what can happen when we work together.
Please help me to uncover the Twitter success stories that prove that Twitter really is the great social media resource that so many of us have come to enjoy.
I really did not plan to write a new blog post tonight, but this came to me so profoundly that I could not avoid it. I realized a topic that has really bothered me for a while, but I just never came out with it. Well, here it is … love it or hate it.
If you tweet, retweet, blog, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Stumble, or talk nicely about people because you are seeking favors, just stop!
I normally try to reciprocate kindness when it is due, as we all should. However, I must question where to draw the line. What I mean is if you hit me up asking for favors and you connect it to how you have done me a favor, you are not asking me to be a friend … you are placing expectations on me. It can almost feel like a threat in some strange way. It is like saying “I did something nice for you … shouldn’t you do something nice for me?” There is no kindness in that, there is no favor, and there is less room for the human filter that each of us represents. If you believe in my message and you think it is worth spreading, I certainly invite your favors. If I like your message, and I think it is worth spreading, I will do the same. If I write something that holds no merit and is unworthy of attention, or if it is disagreeable to you, I would never expect your favor.
I suppose the Good Old Boys club is still open for new members, but is it still relevant to today’s information channels? I guess the answer is both yes and no. As I wrote in my blog post “Social Media: How the Big Dogs Get Paid“ people in the social media field often build relationships in which they will work together to spread a message. As long as there is honesty and integrity in the message, I am generally happy to help. However, I have been hit over the head with some of this recently. It seems that I get a lot of requests to scratch somebody’s back. It is all fine and good to be reciprocal, but is it good to take away the human filter that makes us who we are?
If all I was doing was tweeting, retweeting, blogging, Facebooking, YouTubing, Digging, Stumbling, and etcetera because I hoped people would return the favor, would people still care what I had to say? I do not imagine the answer is yes.
Maybe I deserve this for asking my blog readers to help me spread the word about my upcoming book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends”. I would like to note, that I stated this as follows: “I hope that you will join me in this effort. If so, I humbly thank you, and assure you that I will do my best to not let you down.” The stated effort is to help me spread the word about a book that I sincerely believe can help others to understand and enjoy Twitter better. A part of this effort is to help people see greater value in Twitter and that will not happen if each of us is doing what we do because somebody is expecting something from us in return.
Be true to yourself, be true to others, and keep your human filter functioning. Do not do things only to please others. As I have said before, “I do not try to please everybody, and that pleases some people very much.” This may not be very popular, but I would rather have your respect than your favors.
NOTABLE INSPIRATION: I wish to note a couple of things inspiring me to write this article. Actually, I would consider them the straw that broke the camel’s back. One is a recent blog post by Louis Gray titled “Are Authors or Publications Impacting How You Consume the News?” This article discussed the politics of blogging. Another inspiration was a direct message I received on Twitter from somebody I had just met that read “Tweeted about ur blog to my peeps, will be happy if u say something kind re http://xxxxxxxxx.xxx to urs :-)”.
I guess it just struck me that if we all start tweeting things because we had to be asked, what happens to tweeting things because we really wanted to or cared about it?
What is the value of a Twitter follower to you? Is it going to make you the star of your high school football team? Will it make you prettier so you have a better shot in the cheerleader tryouts? Will you use that incredible popularity to turn it all into millions of dollars? What is it, really, that makes Twitter users so fascinated by gaining followers?
Why Do You Seek Twitter Followers?
It seems that having enough followers to fill a stadium provides some great sense of value, but unless you know what it is, or why you try so hard at increasing your fan base, perhaps it is best to slow the pace a bit and determine what you are after. This answer will be different for different people, but it is something I believe you should put your finger on before you try to game me for a follow and un-follow me as soon as I return-follow you. As one popular comedic act put it, “Homey don’t play dat!”
We all know that giving even the slightest glimpse of what you do to earn a living is totally taboo in social media. After all, this is social media folks … nobody here actually has a job or works for a living. If you have not already learned this lesson, you must not be following enough self-proclaimed social media experts or jealous antagonists who will try to sneak in their ads under the radar in hopes that people will swarm their Website and place orders without knowing that they are actually buying from somebody they follow on Twitter. O.K., you’ve got a whiff of my sarcasm, right?
The long and the short of it is that without either a desperate need for validation or a legitimate and useful business purpose, there should be no need to have a squillion followers!
The Nerdy Kid From Math Class
It is clear enough that many people using Twitter are doing so with the simple intent of having fun, meeting people, and enjoying learning the many wonders this smaller world offers. These are the ones so many of us like, because they pose little threat, and they are never trying to sell us something or teaching us how to get thousands of Twitter followers. They are also often the people without a massive base of followers, and not because they are not just as valued, but because they do not choose to participate in the popularity contest. Perhaps, in following my earlier comments regarding the star of the football team or cheerleader, this is the dork with the thick glasses and high-water pants. In this case, I feel right at home, because those are the kids I defended in school. Those are the kids I still talk to today. Those are the kids who somehow seemed real to me. Later, I found that they were also often the ones who avoided drug overdoses, divorce, jail, and many of the other things I watched the popular kids enjoy as their circle of friends crumbled and their popularity dwindled.
This nerdy kid from math class with only an itty-bitty follower count can be your best friend. I certainly find myself having meaningful chats with this nerd. The nerd knows me, and they know that I know them. They have earned my attention as I have theirs. They care what I have to say, and I care what they have to say. We may not always agree, but then, I disagreed with my wife once (but only once)! 😉
This nerdy kid I write about may have only heard me because there was nobody else talking to them, or because they were only listening to people who cared enough to reach out and be their friend. What may shock you is that the same nerdy kid may also decide that once they know you and your intentions, they want to hire you, buy from you, tell others about you, or leave their estate in Hawaii to you.
This nerdy kid is the majority. This nerdy kid has my respect and my loyalty.
How “Cool People” Have Many Twitter Followers
We all see the “cool” people with their amazing number of Twitter followers, but don’t you sometimes wonder why so many people are following them? I can tell you the top four ways it happens:
They repeatedly follow as many people as Twitter will allow, because the vast majority of people will return the follow.
They promptly unfollow anybody not following them, so Twitter will allow them to follow more.
They represent a value to other Twitter users, and people want to hear what they have to say.
They have a television, radio, print, Internet, or other history that draws people to follow them on Twitter.
With regard to number one, this is something I personally do not find to be of great value. However, some people that I actually kind of like to follow are engaging in this on a regular basis. This is their way, and I do not hold a grudge, but I also know that there is a very miniscule number of people doing this who will ever deliver the value which their popularity would seemingly represent. This is a tactic used by millions of Twitter users … perhaps even you. It also yields the lowest probability of users reading what you tweet, responding to it, or having any interaction with you whatsoever.
Number two is a sad after-effect of number one. I have wanted to be the guy who follows all of the people who were so “interested” that they would follow my tweets. I still test this on occasion, but it has become just about as useless as number one. I recently tested this by blindly re-following roughly 1,000 people who were following my tweets. To put it mildly, I will say that I found many opportunities to get thousands of Twitter followers, buy more real estate, read more SEO blogs, and join in more games. Yet, I still cannot determine a single user from this test group with which I have held a useful conversation, read an interesting message from, or grown my business. The amazing and wonderful result was that it did grow my follower count! So what gives? Well, number one and number two are closely joined. It seems that when I return-follow each user following my Twitter feed, my following grows massively. This is largely why at this moment, there are 15,682 users following my Twitter feed. If I did not follow them, many would not stick around long enough to find whether I hold any value or not. They simply use a combination of steps one and two above. I have commonly re-followed most people who follow my Twitter feed, which I believe is useful so that they may direct message me if they should choose. However, even when I follow them, they should know that I do not see everything they send publicly … nobody following a massive number of people will. If they want me to see everything they say, they will engage in conversation, become my friend, be added to one of my Seesmic Desktop groups, grow their way to my “Follow Close” group, and then I will read every last word they ever tweet. Short of that, just having me follow them is less useful than putting an @murnahan in the tweet, because I read 100% of those!
On to number three from the list, I really hope and believe that I am one of these people. I share what I think, I tweet some funny, entertaining, and useful stuff. I engage with anybody who will talk to me, and I am available outside Twitter at any time of night or day. I am the guy who really does care to hear from you … try me!
Number four … well, I know some. One that comes to mind is Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). I do follow Ashton, but that all started when Ashton followed my Twitter feed, and I wanted to be sure he could return message me directly after I sent him a direct message. Since that time, he has been pretty downright respectful toward me. We are not close buddies, but we do direct message back and forth once in a while. I sometimes suspect that he is actually seeing a lot more than people think he is. I have also heard through the grapevine that M. C. Hammer (@mchammer) is also a bit more saavy than one may anticipate. However, we can generally expect that this group will not show up for your next family reunion or holiday party.
Why Does Twitter Need Another Book?
After responding to a blog post criticizing this very topic of the hunt for huge numbers of followers, I read a response to my reply on that blog that said “If you need to read a book about Twitter, you’re doing it wrong“. Of course, to this, I found a great deal of inaccuracy. I would contend that the very greatest value of social media is to gain a greater understanding of those around us, and this applies to all of us, whether we are making friends or selling weight loss products and Viagra, like everybody else. To this point, I would suggest that I have a lot to share on the topic, and it seems that a good number of people have learned about Twitter from me.
Buy This or I Strangle The Nerdy Kid From Math Class!
Back to my high school bit from above: I try to joke, but I am also selling something here. I hope that you will buy it, read it, and learn a lot from it. Don’t worry … you are not alone. I will try my best to sell my upcoming book to millions of others who may need some help figuring out how to use Twitter better, what Twitter applications work the best, how to filter information better, and much more. I strongly believe and hope very much that my soon-to-be-released book will help people to realize a greater value from Twitter, relate to others better, respect the community of Twitter, and find it as more than an update service or spam venue.
I will not bug you about this, send you a ton of junk, or stoop to a level beneath me, but I would like to ask you to help me spread the word. If you have read this far, you clearly had some interest in what I have to say. If you are even in the slightest way inclined to help me get the word out, please enter a comment to this blog post. Tell me that you are interested in helping me to spread the word about my book, read my book, or that you are sick and tired of watching Twitter friends fade away because they are too flooded with new friends and don’t know how to add you to a group where they will still be reminded of you from time to time.
Ramble, ramble, ramble … note that I have recently been accustomed to writing lengthier topics. My book, Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends” will be completed later this week, and in print in just a couple weeks. It took longer than expected to finalize, but mostly because I keep adding useful stuff to help the Twitter community. I hope that you will join me in this effort. If so, I humbly thank you, and assure you that I will do my best to not let you down.
