UPDATE Feb 12th, ‘09: Ella and I met with Twitter co-founder and Chairman of the Board Jack Dorsey yesterday and had a really great talk… post is here
I’ve done it. I’ve taken the leap to Twitter. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, and I’m definitely not yet “drinking the kool aid”, but I figured it was my socio-professional responsibility as a marketer/blogger to test the waters. That, and I was just damn curious what all the buzz is about. So far, I’m less than impressed…
UPDATE Feb 6th, ‘09: I’ve seen the light, or had a change of heart, or insert another similar cliche [here]. I’ll need to write a full-fledged “Twitter: Second Impression” follow-up article over the weekend, but for now suffice to say that I’ve un-followed the spammy mcspamalots, made myself post at least a couple interesting updates a day, and finally started replying to others’ updates. And that, my friends, is when the magic happened…
I’m a huge fan of the Marketing Profs blog, so when I joined Twitter I started following Ann Handley @MarketingProfs… Then a few days ago Ann asked her followers if they knew of any good job boards other than Careerbuilder and Monster, and since I had just written a lengthy post on How to Find a Job in a Recession, I made my first reply ever and linked Ann to my post with a note to check out “bullet # 9.” Within 5 minutes Ann sent me a direct message saying she’d love to run a version of my article geared specifically for Marketers on MarketingProfs. Um, huge. Thanks to Ann and thanks to… Twitter.
Let’s recap real quick: After months spent ignoring Twitter and weeks spent acknowledging it but hesitating to join it, I finally joined it last week and found myself disappointed and confused, but instead of walking away I stepped up my level of involvement and posted a reply, and within 5 minutes the editor of one of my favorite blogs tells me she’d like me to repurpose one of my articles for her audience. So THAT’s the social networking ROI everyone was talking about! Look for a detailed Second Impression early next week.
A brief history of my decision making process
I first heard of Twitter quite a while ago but completely ignored it. Too many new products/services/social networking platforms spring up on a weekly basis; I need to see that something has staying power before investing my time and effort. A month ago I covered a great post by Glenn Murray of Divine Write, in which he posed the question, If Twitter’s So Great, Why Don’t I Get It? 10 Tips for Twitter Beginners. My curiosity had been building and that post piqued it all the more, since Glenn’s take on Twitter was spot on with mine. Then, on Jan 19th I wrote an article still being on the fence, which made Mike Vicchitto, one of our editors, decide to finally check it out a week or so ago (you can follow him here.) Then another of our esteemed editors, Ella Keeven, signed up on Friday (you can follow her here.) So basically I sat on the fence long enough to see my colleagues take the jump before I did, and I figured it was high time to check it out.
My first impression
- Twitter SPAM. Twitter is dominated by megalomaniacal personalities who post self-promotional updates at such a rate that it becomes nothing other than SPAM. All those big-timers who I’ve been told I should follow? Whose blogs I love? Yeah, it was a freaking disaster trying to follow them. My update-roll was being asphyxiated by the chronic twitterers who post an update every 15 or 30 minutes. Do they work? Seriously? Or are they writing their blog and they have an assistant making these updates? Judging from the quality of some of the posts, I seriously hope it’s not these marketing moguls themselves.
- Fluff. Even though the essential premise behind Twitter is that you’re supposed to answer the question “what am I doing right now?” in 140 characters or less, not a single person seems to take that seriously. It makes sense why they don’t stick to that question, but if only 1% of the people on Twitter actually answer the Big Question, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Twitter to prompt people to, “tell us every thought that crosses your mind every 15 minutes, even if its not worth sharing and you’d be ashamed to offer such conversational tidbits in real life.”
- So what DO people post updates about? Mainly either their company/website, or a link to something they found interesting, which was probably published on their website. “For news on bacon, click here…” “To see cool snow globes click here.” I wish I was kidding.
- At least make it interesting. Listen, don’t get me wrong, the sole reason I’m trying to get started on Twitter is to help promote The Daily Anchor. I don’t have the time to do it for any other reason, as it is I’m on Facebook for all of about 20 minutes a week. What I have a problem with is that although some people leave thoughtful, insightful, interesting updates, the vast majority of updates I’ve seen thus far amount to self-propagandizing verbal diarrhea. I’ll read your blog if you write interesting updates that make me think you have something worthwhile to offer me, not because you tell me to or because you post an update every 15 minutes.
- The fallout. As a result of all this, I’ve stopped following 5 people that I started out having a great interest in following. I find great content on their blogs and thought I’d find the same quality in their Twitter updates, and then found myself being bombarded with, well, fluff, crap, and more crap.
- Downtime. Twitter was down the other day – for a while, too. I’ve heard a lot about Twitter having issues – server issues? – but even if that’s a testament to their growing adoption rate, I can’t remember the last time Facebook was down or Google was down, and for the time being they’re blowing you out of the water, Twitter, so get your act together. I understand when smaller sites get overwhelmed by traffic surges, but not the next mega-site.
- At a loss for words. Honestly? I have no idea what to Twitter about. I’m sure a lot of that is due to the fact that I have 9 followers right now and am all-to-conscious of them as individuals rather than “the masses” (some Twitterers have 50,000+ followers.) Based on my experience thus far I know that 1.) I don’t want to post an update unless I have something interesting or valuable to say, 2.) no matter how interesting or valuable I think my thoughts to be, I don’t want to send out an update more often than every couple of hours, 3.) I do want to promote The Daily Anchor, but need to find a balance betwen relevance and shamless self promotion.
There you have it. My first impression is actually pretty negative. I’m annoyed by half the people I read I should follow and I don’t yet “get” how I’m going to make use of Twitter.
My next step? Try to find and follow people who have legitimately interesting/valuable things to say, stop following anyone who’s making me feel like I’m opting-in to be SPAMmed, and try to get on a routine of posting thoughtful updates.
I have yet to check out any of these Twitter-related tools, so rather than give any sort of review, I figured I’ll just share the list of the products/services I’ll be checking out over the next couple of days…
Twilert
TweetDeck
TwitterBar
Adjix
TwitPic
Wordpress Twitter Tools
MyTweetSpace
PollDaddy
Twhirl
SocialToo
Twitter Search…
What do you think about Twitter? Know of any other tools I should check out?
So I guess this is where I close the post by saying, you can follow me on Twitter here.
