Social Media Tip #3

5 December 2008 by Allison 829 views 8 Comments

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There is a time and a place for everything as the saying goes, but I fear in social media many in business and marketing believe that “any time – any place” is correct.

Uh-Huh time to think again. This is going to sound to some like I am teaching you to suck eggs, yet I have seen time and time again messages being lost, garbled or plain ignored because they were the right content in the wrong place.

Let’s look at the internet’s little darling at the moment, Twitter.

Twitter is very much a personal method of communication. This is hands on “what are you doing now”, some take that instruction and stretch it into making personal comments on the world. But it is very much in that vein and has stayed like that. I take proof of that in the fact that SMS language has not entered the 140 character discussions amongst the people I follow.

Now let’s look at FriendFeed which is a more automated delivery service of the feeds you have. and the things you like , read or dislike. Your FriendFeed feed need not have you say one single thing directly into the tool, your actions are saying it all for you. Interaction in rooms is where the mostly personal type conversation happens.

My next line is going to be in direct contrast to what is being advised by Ed Dale regarding leveraging of Twitter. I KNOW Ed gets social media and I know he loves it as much as I do, but I have to disagree with his recent report on how to leverage FriendFeed by feeding into Twitter. your FF likes. [correction as Ed quite rightly pointed out in Twitter: mae culpa putting in those three words when the point of this post was always that auto feeding into Twitter is not a good idea. Hence rest stands ]

You see (and this will make Lisa Hartwell laugh) seeing FriendFeed links in Twitter “sh*ts me”. Why does it cause me such a visceral reaction? Because it is NOT what we expect when we are engaging in the Twitter stream. We have grown accustomed to seeing the very personal, very immediate and very “my fingers are typing this right” now. It is reality TV without any editing.

Twitter is not FriendFeed. Twitter is….Twitter!

FriendFeed on the other hand is like a huge net that is cast out and collects information, including Twitter streams, and gathers it in one place to feast on like a giant smorgasbord. You wander around that magnificent buffet and you point out things you like to other people who are there with you…”ooh look at the size of those prawns”… “this mousse is divine!”….”did you say the soup is tasty?”. Like any banquet, the majority of the consumption takes place right there at the table, and only a small part is take away to be digested in blog posts and comments etc.

Imagine again you are standing around in a bunch of friends just watching the world go by and one of them suddenly says in a robotic voice “Carrot Prices Are Dropping http://www.carrotprices.com “. You would confused to say the least. If that friend continues to do that you will slowly move away while looking sideways, and eventually start ignoring them because their personal voice is being polluted by something foreign. This is the equivalent of an impersonal automated FriendFeed link into Twitter.

Perversely if you link to a URL that you got in FriendFeed (I mean after all we can’t see where you get all of your stuff) and you say in Twitter “Reading a great blog post on how carrot prices are dropping due to the drought http://www.carrotprices.com” I will go “click” immediately and check out what is on that link. Because I know it is you and you interest me, and what interests you is interesting.

8 Comments »

KarenKramer said:

I actually agree with you AND Ed Dale… I use my personal Twitter @KarenKramer for … well personal stuff. I’m very protective over what goes out on my personal twitter account.

But, I also have several other twitter accounts that I use more for marketing in my niche areas. These accounts work nicely with friendfeed and preset tweets using Shannon Cole’s Twit Response.

I also only follow a limited number of people on my personal account .. but follow everyone that follows me on my niche accounts.

That’s part of what makes Twitter so amazing… it can be all things to all people.

KarenKramer had something to say about I Used To Think I Was So Smart…

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Allison Reply:
December 6th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Truly it can be all things to all people, and it really is moderation in the end. I am a HUGE fan of leverage, but like anything in life there are pros and cons, and that is one con I can see in advocating without cautioning.

Marketers (especially new ones) rush in and try to bend the tool to their desires, rather than bending to the desires of the users that use it. Sure Ed talks about being a market leader and I do NOT disagree, in fact I do not disagree with anything he says in the whole article APART from autofeeding into Twitter. I wouldn’t have linked to it if I thought the information was totally incorrect (mind you a caution to the newbies about holding off till you understand how it all works would not have been out of place).

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JP Reply:
December 7th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

I like this idea of having numerous accounts, never thought of it. I, like you Karen are very thingy about my privacy. Thanks for the input

Great idea

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# 5 December 2008 at 11:55 pm

LisaHartwell (Lisa Hartwell) said:

Interesting blog post about feeding Friendfeed into Twitter from @AllisonR http://tinyurl.com/5zy6st

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# 6 December 2008 at 12:04 am

Oliver said:

Hey there!

First, I’m a guy.. hope that’s okay here.

I, too, agree with both of you. As a twitter consumer, I must say that I don’t mind automatic FF -> Twitter forwards, as long as it’s RELEVANT and used correctly. If you do nothing else, it probably will annoy your followers. But if you sprinkle these inbetween your personal tweets, the Twitterer comes across like a personal reporter. He keeps you updated on stuff and drops a cool link from time to time. I prefer the format “TOPIC – link” because I can quickly see if I wanna click that or not.

Some people do nothing else besides “Linktweets” and they are still popular in the Twitterverse… take doshdosh or Guy Kawasaki for instance. I just love going through their tweets during a break to find something interesting or entertaining.

And I say all that as a happy Twitter-Consumer and Contributor.

On the bottom line: I think it comes down to personal taste. Ed said it quite nicely… “If you annoy your followers… click and you’re gone.”

So, when I use it for marketing, I just measure the unfollow-rate against my tweet-behavior and I know how my market “wants it”.

Oliver had something to say about Ollie_R: Off into the week end, to a friend’s second concert with his metal band Men Behind The Sun. \m/

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Allison Reply:
December 6th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

Of course it is Ok Oliver Diversity in EVERYTHING we say here at SWBN – opinion, gender , cocktail choice* lol

Here’s how I see the bigger picture. The Us and Them if you like.

US
Trout fishermen who are already on Twitter will have already figured out what they like about Twitter. If they don’t like the personal stuff they won’t even be on Twitter any more, because Twitter is based solely around being personal. Maybe they drop in for the chat, maybe they are always here…

THEM
The trout fishermen you want to get onto Twitter so they can see “your stuff” who won’t really know what to expect and so will also make the choice one way or another when they get here.

So you already have a market that is here, and you have to make some form of effort (non-leverage type effort) to get the others here. Because I am pretty energy conscious [that does NOT mean lazy ] I would be working to keep the “us” crowd happy and letting the “them” crowd decide if it is for them.

For the new marketer that will mean understanding how we US people think. Using Ed’s example of waiting for the water to warm, I would LOVE to hear a fellow enthusiast is “Waiting for water to warm on Black River. Hurry up! Reading cool article on duck down tying http://www.bla.com” rather than “Duck down Tying http://www.bla.com“. Personal choice, but surely it has to be more proof to your market that you actually KNOW what you are talking about.

My personal 2c

* I prefer the creamy, chocolaty ones

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# 6 December 2008 at 1:52 am

Ed Dale said:

Hey Allison,

Thanks for the clarification about the Likes

Now lets talk about AUTOMATIC…

The report did not advocate AUTOMATIC anything (except for the actual process of using friendfeed triggering the actual tweet) – I carefully think about what I think my market would be interested in before I hit the share button. The process is VERY editorial and so far south of AUTOMATIC it’s not funny!!

I hate any content set on automatic (Even the beloved WordPressdirect – which I adore – I personally would never use the auto post function on full Automatic – sure gather up stuff you think might be relevant but then use your judgment and knowledge of your market place to work out what to actually publish)

There is another element to this which is an “Internet Marketing” market only phenom. As a market in general – we see A LOT of repeat material and probably a lot more after Fridays report. That’s going to be/is a pain. But don’t let the sophistication of this market place cloud you to the extraordinary power of this when you use it in a “real market” selling to “Real People”

Thanks as always for the opportunity to respond

Ed

Ed Dale had something to say about Testing a game changer — The Canon 5D MKII

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# 7 December 2008 at 4:14 pm

Allison (author) said:

Ed thanks for dropping in, much appreciated .

I am in no way against providing information to a market using Twitter, it is a fabulous tool for disseminating information. It is GREAT for bypassing a lot of mental barriers that will go up in any other medium

BUT

As others have said above, they treat their private Twitter account differently to their business. Thing is in the NON-IM market ALL client’s twitter accounts are private. Why treat them differently in how you present links?

I know you want to differentiate the persona as being an “expert”, but without warning the newbies that this should be used SPARINGLY and that personal opinion going along with that link is going to add to the persona. Why go to all the trouble of using social media and then take the “social” part out?

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree about this one. I prefer my Twitter links to have a dash of the personal with them

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# 8 December 2008 at 1:19 am