Note: If you don’t use Twitter, you may want to skip this one.
Today I’d like to talk about how some people suck all the fun out of the internet.
I vacillated before finally deciding to write this because I don’t normally like to call people out unless they’re a republican or something; everybody is entitled to their opinion, but then I realized the person I’ll be writing about won’t ever read this anyway. And if he did, maybe it would be a good thing.
Yesterday, as I was fung shuiing my Google Reader, I came upon the feed for the blog of Tim Ferris, the author of Four Hour Work Week (a very interesting book indeed, and I can understand its cult following). If you’ve never heard of him, he is the king of efficiency and lives his life in a way that most people dream about: taking “mini retirements” and working, you guessed it, only a few hours a week.
I found his article, ”12+ Gems of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Plus: 200 Tweets - My Thoughts on Practical Twitter Use),” to be one of the more pristine examples of how the “how to make money” guru-types suck all of the joy out of the social web.
You see, all summer long I’ve stumbled upon articles with titles such as (I’m just making these up), “Ten ways to maximize Twitter” and “Twitter tips for beginners,” and thought to myself, “What has this series of tubes, nay, this society become that we now need instruction on the best practices of Twittering? It’s just Twittering!!”
To start, the author doesn’t follow anybody; here’s why:
Imagine that you send an email to 10 people inviting them to a party, but you BCC 100 more casual friends who are uninvited. How will those 100 feel? Offended and somewhat resentful, just as I would.
Twitter is like this: all followers and followees are transparent. I can’t follow a single person without risking irritating hundreds. This problem is the same for someone who has 40 followers as it is for someone with 40,000. I avoid the drama and politics by following no one. I do this because I don’t care to be a hypocrite (low-information diet, etc.) and do care about my followers, not because I’m uninterested in them. I track some of my followers regularly but don’t “follow” in the formal sense.
(First, “track some of my followers regularly” just sounds creepy.)
So the lesson here kids is that it’s practical to use thousands of Twitter followers to your advantage by asking them to take time out of their busy days to tell you where to stay, what to do, and where to eat ... so long as you establish a policy to not reciprocate. That’s most efficient, plus, you’ll be saving hundreds, maybe thousands (!), of people from excruciating, torturous heartache when they discover you haven’t followed them back. Also, that’s how you get to only work four hours in a week.
He goes on to define three “Twittiquette” rules of using Twitter, but the first one is my favorite:
1. Add value if you consume attention.
I use Twitter as a “micro-blogging” platform, exactly how it’s most often described. Just as I wouldn’t put up a blog post that reads “just ate a burrito. Mmmm… good,” as it consumes readers valuable attention without adding value, I wouldn’t put up such a post on Twitter. On the other hand, “Just had an incredible mahi-mahi burrito at [best unknown taco stand] in San Diego. Must-eat: http://www.website.com In NYC, try: http://www.website2.com” adds value with actionable details. Mundane perhaps, but still a cool “to-do” that ethnic food lovers can tuck in the back of their heads.
Some self-indulgent tweets are fine, but make sure 90%+ help or entertain your readers somehow. Information empty calories are parasitic.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the point, and I think it’s awesome to have a strategy. Whether blogging or micro-blogging, even if it is only peripherally related to your business, you need to not be an idiot about it. I, for example, don’t Tweet or blog about my clients unless I have something nice to say. More and more, I’m consulting with clients on how to use online social networking tools in a professional capacity, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I would argue that social interaction on the web is no different than in real life—all things equal, you’re more likely to do business with people you like—and who wants to do business with somebody who is always “on” and trying to sell you something, be it a product, service, or themselves?!
Sometimes you want to do business with the guy who tells you a story about the burrito he had for lunch, without a full on review of the restaurant he ate it in.
So I tweeted all of this yesterday and got some feedback, it went a little something like this:
me: Reading yet another “Practical Twitter Use” article. Er, so, you DON’T want to know when I eat a delicious burrito?!!
I’ll conclude with the replies that followed, I think it should sum up my point quite nicely:
@taughnee - mmmm yes we must know when you eat a delicious burrito! 11:35 AM July 30, 2008 from web in reply to taughnee
@taughnee I want to know about your burrito habits! 12:56 PM July 30, 2008 from web in reply to taughnee
@taughnee I think hearing about your delicious burrito makes me more likely to buy stuff from you.
@taughnee Burritos are fine, but general “men suck” tweets may be hazardous to some of our egos.(lesson learned—don’t do this.)
@taughnee - what are you eating? I’m having a burrito
What’s your take? To burrito or not to burrito? If nothing else, I just turned the word burrito into a verb. *bow*
UPDATE: There’s hope for the internet yet.
@taughnee I am a firm believer that one should almost always burrito when given the opportunity.
@taughnee All the burrito talk is impacting my social life… Bear Tooth tonight! It is imperative!
@taughnee I say BURRITO!!!
