Note: This post should have been published a week ago, but I’ve been absolutely buried creating video lessons for the membership so this article was overlooked. You should probably read the last post on the topic of Twitter if you haven’t already. So, here we go…
Like donuts, Twitter can make your stomach churn like the cheap glazing that envelopes it.
I jumped into Twitter this week, because I was tired of the beatings I was getting from everyone who told me I needed to be on Twitter. Call it a turn-off, but being an introvert, I have never been comfortable with speed dating, much less telling my life story to potentially millions of people.
What I have discovered, is that people fall into 3 categories in Twitter:
- 1. Cliques
2. TV personalities
3. Salespeople
Very, very few people manage to be a real person on Twitter. I say that, because in general, once you begin selling things, you tend to lose the interest of your friends. Someone who can be honest yet still sell something, falls in the cracks between the Twitter types. We’ll just refer to them as “Crack Babies” from now on.
The Cool Clique
When you run across the Twitter user who is talking with friends, you get the distinct impression that you are walking up to the “cool” clique in high school wearing last year’s fad clothing (you know, the parachute pants that your mom finally saw on sale a year after they went out of fashion. Thanks, mom). You obviously weren’t meant to know what they are talking about and the only way you will ever find out, is if you follow every single person that they are following (i.e. that creepy guy in the corner who keeps looking at you. I promise, that wasn’t me).
So these friends are successfully using Twitter as another means to communicate. Obviously, email, phone, texting, and chat simply weren’t enough. Now they must take their private conversations into another forum where people can SEE that they are being private. I saw one fellow had 24 tweets in the last week screaming belligerently at people to UNFOLLOW him. Now, you would THINK that he would have just clicked on the checkbox in his settings that doesn’t let people follow him (i.e. “Protect my tweets”), but he sounded like screaming at people was his version of fun.
Heeeeerrrrrrreee’ssssss JOHNNY!!!!
TV people. Yes, there are quite a number of people who are proudly Tweeting to the world in their parachute pants and aren’t really talking to anyone in particular. They are there to tweet themselves without regard to social etiquette, making money, or any politically correct needs. This reminds me of what Bloggers began as. They wanted to put their ideas out there and see if anyone else in the world thinks like they do.
These people are fun to follow and read their thoughts, but there really isn’t any communication going on. It is all one-way. They will never follow you back, except as maybe a tip of the hat gesture.
“Where people’s eyes are, the marketing dollars (or marketing people) will follow”
Now my favorite ones. Someone whose sole goal is to profit off of everyone they meet. Here are the tweets from one person I ran across today:
- tweet: MAKE TONS OF MONEY ONLINE HERE ====> http://something or other
tweet: GENERATE MASSIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE FOR $$$$$$$
tweet: LEARN HOW TO USE TWITTER FOR MAJOR PROFIT
tweet: help, I can’t make my $2500 payment on my house this month and it is about to foreclose. can anyone do anything?
Yes, these were all from a single person. I admit, I was mesmerized by the all caps and that last tweet of hers gave me a good laugh. Obviously, she wasn’t following her own links since if she had, she wouldn’t be having these mortgage issues :)
All of this goes back to my original thought of “don’t sell me something, give me something to believe in…..you”. I’m a long term thinker and I tend to hang back and see if what someone is professing is really on the level. Usually, salespeople are long gone by then, so time is a great filter. Twitter is no different. If all I ever see from you is a sales pitch, then I see no reason to continue listening.
It’s not like you can’t spot these people a mile away. They immediately DM you via an automated tool and either try to send you to a website for a sales pitch, sell you something in the DM, or ask you a question ( which you can’t reply to because their automated tool hasn’t automatically followed you yet).
I tend to randomly follow the people who others I like are following. I figured that this would limit the number of followers that I would need to unfollow and it sort of fits into the whole “social objects” theory. This technique doesn’t seem to be working for me all that well.
Crack Babies
There are a handful of people who manage to make a living by just being themselves and recommending items they like and use. When they tweet, they are telling you the good, bad and ugly about whatever they are doing. Being transparent is a key ingredient to trust.
I went to an Affiliate Summit recently and people kept wanting me to recommend odd products that I have never used nor would want to (i.e. colon cleanser, face cream, online faxing, etc.). If I want to clean my colon, I can go to a any local Mexican food buffet for a lot cheaper. I would never tell someone to get a fax. If someone is still using a fax machine, they need some serious technical help, not an affiliate program.
So how do all of these salespeople elevate themselves to the rank of Crack Baby? Simple… BE HONEST.
Toff Ward
Open Source Marketer
> If someone is still using a fax machine, they need some serious technical help, not an affiliate program.
What do you do when somebody needs a signed document from you?
Sure, you can scan and email it, but that’s not really any more efficient, and it requires a scanner, which isn’t necessary for many people.
Fair question. My aversion for faxes, probably goes hand in hand with my hatred for printers (using paper and toner rather than staying all digital). The last three times I had to sign something and send it :
1. I pasted a scanned version of my signature onto the document and then emailed it. (I stopped doing that for security reasons).
2. I grabbed the webcam on top of my monitor, took an image of the signed version and then emailed it to them.
3. I took a picture from my iPhone (got that for Xmas) and sent it directly to them from my phone.
Most companies that want a signed document, also require the original (IRS, Banks, etc.). I worked for a DoD contractor for over a decade and I could never get them to accept a digital copy (neither scanned nor faxed).
I have the whole fax/copier/printer in one setup, but I rarely, if ever, use it. I also didn’t have to pay anything additional to send the files. I guess I’m just cheap and don’t want to pay for an Efax service or phone line when I have the ability to get the job done with the equipment I already have. To me, a fax machine is a single purpose scanner and represents a holdover from how people used to do business (me included). Rather than keep multiple large machines who all have a single purpose, you can consolidate your needs into the computer you already have.
of course, it could also relate to the “Toner Cartridge Incident of 1998″ but my therapist told me that I would eventually get over that :)
Fair enough – I have to deal with a lot of signed contracts, and fax them to get things moving with an original to follow in the mail.