Don’t be Foolish, use Twitter

Posted: March 12th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tags: , , , | 7 Comments »

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7 Comments on “Don’t be Foolish, use Twitter”

  1. 1 Robert said at 5:00 AM on March 13th, 2009:

    I’m not convinced Twitter is here to stay. Many people comment about the signal to noise ratio. The one-trick-pony factor is there, too…

    Basically, I see Facebook to include the social elements, whereas Twitter is a utilitarian thing. Twitter has caught the eye of the mainstream, but is still a bit of a niche experience. It’s worth engaging with it professionally, but not socially. Of course I engage with it, but so far, I have not had any joyful experiences / fun through Twitter. And I really don’t appreciate that anyone can follow anyone by default – on FB, I get to approve any “friend” manually, rather than block them. In my head, that sends alarm bells ringing about Twitter’s potential. I do not feel secure, I do not get any fun from it, and it is a giant stream of spam. It is a user experience that does not have the same potential for long term mass engagement of the general public as other social networks.

  2. 2 Rachel said at 1:19 PM on March 13th, 2009:

    I’ve started using Facebook and Twitter differently. On Facebook, I’m less likely to join groups, become a fan of a product or show, etc because right now, it feels more public than Twitter. I have “friends” from high school and old jobs on Facebook, but my Twitter account is limited to the right now: current professional contacts, close friends and interesting bloggers. Do other people feel this way, too? For colleges and universities, I think its important to maintain a presence in Facebook and Twitter, and reach a broader audience.

  3. 3 Kyle James said at 7:20 PM on March 13th, 2009:

    All this coming from a man who not all that long ago I remember writing about how “twitter was pointless”… do I need to go dig up those past memories or are you truly a converted man now!? ;)

  4. 4 Ron said at 7:33 PM on March 13th, 2009:

    No sir. This is me learning from the masters of higher ed blogging. It’s all about the traffic. ;)

    It’s still pretty pointless. I can see the value now, though.

  5. 5 Warren Whitlock said at 3:02 PM on March 14th, 2009:

    Reminds me of our popular post:

    The 3 Stages of Twitter Acceptance

    http://budurl.com/3stages

    Normal to think that there isn’t much value in other people’s conversations.. the key difference comes when you engage with real people and talk about whatever IS important or relevant to you

  6. 6 Ron said at 10:43 PM on March 15th, 2009:

    I enjoyed that when I saw it initially.

    I don’t think the issue is so much about “not valuing” other people’s conversations. It’s a matter of time and engagement. People just don’t have the time to invest and for a lot of us, it’s about building real relationships. Many of us have existing networks with people we call, talk to and see on a regular basis and they’re hard enough to keep up with, so investing in a proto-network of folks you might see at conferences (provided you can afford to and can take the time to go) is really a different level of interaction that most folks simply can’t invest in.

    Twitter isn’t a zero-sum game, but like anything you want to get something out of, it requires a lot more work than most folks can realistically put into it. So evangelists need to realize that like all things social media, it’s not and will never be a panacea to everyone’s ills.

  7. 7 edustir | web strategy, higher education & life said at 2:53 PM on November 20th, 2009:

    [...] never thought I’d reach the point where explaining the effectiveness of Twitter would become such a big part of my conversations with people on social media. But it never fails [...]

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