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Part 1: My Transparency on Twitter

When I started getting some momentum on Twitter, gaining up to 500 new followers a day during the craziest of my tweeting addiction, I turned off notifications of new followers. I couldn’t keep up with them all. I then had a choice, become a Twitter Diva (or “Twiva” if you want to annoy the eggnog out of people) and not follow anyone back, or auto-follow everyone back who followed me. I picked the latter, since I figured it was a nice way to say thanks for following me, and hey, if they followed me they at least have that going for them

This was a mistake for three reasons:

A pic of me in a cow costume seemed suitable for #1

1. I followed back spammers/porn accounts and other undesirables. I got nothing against porn stars. I’m sure they wake up and put on their latex pants like the rest of us, but I had no desire to hear about the sequel to Long Dong Silver in my tweet stream. Also, on your profile page, it shows a collection of people you’ve recently began to follow. Some of those profile pics don’t reflect fondly on your brand, and why are you following @WhipsAndChainsForMen anyways?

2. I ended up following 30,000 people. I barely look at my “All Tweets” screen. I’ve removed it from Tweetdeck. There is so much noise, that I’ve had to make custom groups called “rockstars” and “awesomesauce” to read the tweets of people are learn from/know. I should’ve stayed selective in those I followed back and now only follow those I learn from/laugh from or that engage with me and I find them interesting (a great tool for that is ReFollow.com I check off “Not Following” and down below check off “Users who have @ mentioned me” to see whose been engaging with me but I haven’t followed.) And don’t get me started on all the auto-dm’s it opened me up to. Even after using socialtoo.com to block most of them, if I get one more “it lets your Facebook friends find you on Twitter” DM’s I’m gonna start getting all stabby.

3. It was not being transparent. I was trading authenticity for automation. Efficiency for transparency. People would tweet or DM me that they were flattered I followed them back, and I winced every time. I couldn’t tell them that it was automated.

Twitter is different than a newsletter. There is a much more personal connection on it. Just like auto-tweeting, which I’ll go over in the next post in the series, as soon as you throw automation into your relationships, they stop being that. Is it worth deceiving people, if that’s how they might see it, for the sake of automation? I realized a little too late, my answer is “no”.

What’s yours? Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy if someone follows you and you get that notification? How do you feel about people auto-following back? Or any automation? Comment below! And sign-up for updates to get notified when the next post is up! I’ll cover what other people are doing with automation, and why it can kill your image.

PLEASE NOTE: I am refraining from naming each sin with a “TW” like “Tweed” or the “Twust” because legally you should be able to pour motor oil over someones Cheerios if they do that.

Ladies and gents, with a headache, bags under my eyes and a lighter wallet, I present you with: The 7 Deadly Twitter Sins:

Greed is quite a popular sin. Twitter by default is a self-centered tool. It’s about us. But it’s 100x better if used as a conversational tool versus a dictation. I see people use it as a glorified RSS feed for their blog or an ad-puker. So absent of personality, I wonder why they even try. Yes you are in business, but if you believe that business is built on relationships, you need to make building them your business.

This sin holds a special place for the people who only retweet compliments about themselves. I was talking to a colleague of mine, she was asking how I have built a large amount of followers and I mentioned that I get retweeted a lot and I retweet others. Her reply was “I retweet others all the time!” When I checked out her page, the only time she EVER retweeted anyone was if it was a compliment about her or a #FollowFriday mention with her in it. You may as well tweet while looking in a mirror telling yourself you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and gosh darnit, people like you.

GET FOLLOWERS FAST!!!! Most people on Twitter have seen tweets like this or thought of using a site that helps kickstart things for you. Seems innocent right? Let’s just have a look-see at this logic. Imagine the guy in the tweet below just followed you. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy that a new person is along for the Twitter journey with you, makes up for your lack of popularity in high school and the day is getting better! Then you see his next tweet:

I've blurred his eyes to hide his identification

How does that make you feel now? Still warm and fuzzy? Still getting tinglies? Didn’t think so. When you tweet out “follower system” tweets it says one thing: You’re in it for the numbers. I’ll bet the 3 cents I still have after Vegas that one of the next tweets will be about an amazing bizz opp or dick cream to add that precious extra inch or seven. Everything you tweet is an extension of your biz and your brand. If you want to scream about “GETTING THOUSANDS OF FOLLOWERS” be my guest, but the funniest part about the above tweet? He has 149 followers. Seriously. If you don’t see the irony in that, just shut down the computer and go see New Moon or something.

Twitter is a conversation, it’s truly what I love about it. But imagine having a conversation with someone where they take an hour to reply to you, face-to-face. How awkward would that be: “How, how’s business?” and they blankly stare off for an hour, then reply “Good thanks!”. That’s how it feels if someone takes a week to reply to a tweet. I once had someone that took 79 days to reply to a retweet. 79 FREAKIN DAYS! If it takes you longer to reply than it would to walk over a hand-written reply to my home, you’re doing it wrong. I know, not everyone is a tweetaholic like me, and not everyone can devote a good chunk of their day to Twitter. So if you have a limited amount of resources/time, let’s say 5 hours a week, it’s better to spend 45 minutes a day, for the entire week, than 5 hours once a week. Consistency breeds familiarity which creates relationships.

Ya, I’m kind of a big deal on Twitter in my own mind, which at the end of the day means fark-all to the majority of the world, but everyday I get DM’s asking me to change my pic to add a “cause” or tweet about this or that. I’m all for causes, I’m a big charity guy, but mostly I’m a fan of choice. Meaning it’s your choice to support anything you want but every once in a while people try to guilt others into changing their avatar etc. When everyone changed their Twitter profile pics to a shade of green to support some cause I got asked daily why I hadn’t changed mine yet. My answer to them? It’s none of your damn business why. My lack of participation in your cause does not infer lack of support, just like changing my avatar does not make me a better person by default. Same goes for people who think you should be obligated to follow them back if they follow you. Things on Twitter, just like most things in life, is a choice.

One of the worst things about Twitter is the reactionary nature of it. Most of us don’t think before tweeting and for the most part it’s ok since most tweets are harmless/boring/innocent by nature. But once in a while we react/lash out above our better judgement. It takes 1000 tweets to build a reputation and 1 to change it all. There are many examples of this here or here. Twitter feels very intimate sometimes, like you’re on an episode of Friends, having a conversation with a few, except there are thousands “lurking” around. It’s like having a harem of stalkers, without the creepiness.

Being the object of someones wrath is also very common. For a full explanation on how to deal with these trolls, read the previous blog post about it, but in a nutshell: don’t feed them. They aren’t owed a reply, your time or your emotions. You’re better than that.

Twitter is filled with humans. And when you throw a bunch of humans into an environment, a few things are sure to be present: 20% of people will have bad breath, 30% will wonder how their hair looks, 60% like peanut butter and cheese sandwiches but are scared to say something (or maybe I’m the only one), and 100% will have hormones. It happens, we can pretend they don’t exist, but they’re always there. It’s one of the reasons to have a flattering picture as your Twitter profile, it catches the eye. The problem is when people turn creepy or obnoxious (and by people I mean guys). I’m truly blessed to know a lot of incredible women on Twitter who are not only brilliant in business but are attractive as well. The stories they tell me about direct messages or replies they get from some men make me shake my head. Seriously folks, I’m not sure what book told you the line “Your lips look tasty” works, but it makes me picture Silence of The Lambs, and not for the cool stuff. Every tweet, every DM represents your company and more specifically it’s you as a person. So if you want to be known as “that guy” who drinks hard liquor at the networking event straight-up and gets that smarmy smile on, be my guest.

You know what? Screw it. I have no problem with you being proud of something. I mean true pride. Something you accomplished, your kids, whatever. Scream it from the top of the mountains, good on you. Just do it in moderation. Don’t just talk about yourself, spread pride of others too. ReTweet their accomplishments. One sin out of seven ain’t so bad

What about you? What do you think? What bugs you about certain tweets? Maybe you disagree? Comment below!

Oh, and of course, here is a video of me riding a bull in Vegas. Explains the bruise on my thigh:

Thanks to my awesometastic friend Manya for filming and eiditing the train wreck!

]]> http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/2009/11/20/the-7-deadly-twitter-sins/feed/ 171 http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/2009/11/06/an-idiot-calling-the-kettle-black/ http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/2009/11/06/an-idiot-calling-the-kettle-black/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:54:33 +0000 unmarketing http://www.un-marketing.com/blog/?p=256 I get called a lot of names. I get it. It comes with the territory of someone who tweets non-stop with a strong opinion with an air of arrogance confidence.

However, when I get called something like “a complete idiot” from a spamming PR company, it gets my man-panties in a knot.

I hold PR companies to a higher standard since one of their functions is making others look good.

A few months ago, I put out a specific request for Vegas people to get in touch with me through a PR newsletter about a specific topic that I was going to be writing about. I received some great responses, so the world was a good place. About a week later I received a press release about a Vegas show that was a generic email blast.

Yep, I understand the logic. This PR company, seeing my request thinks I’m a media outlet, and using their 1994 way of thinking, they translated it to “this place NEEDS to see everything we promote”. So I decided to correct them, since this email was my personal one and I guard it and know it’s not supposed to be on any newsletter/blast and/or porn list (as opposed to my other addresses?)

So I replied to this very professional person (how did I know he was a pro? Because he was using an ISP email address of course. That’s one step-away from using aol or a hotmail address for business). I requested something very simple. “remove me”:

You can also see sign #2 that you’re a pro: ALL CAPS in the subject line.

I had to reply back to this person, since they didn’t have an unsubscribe link at the bottom, even though it’s required under the CAN-SPAM Act

I figured that was the end of that. But then I got another…. and another for months.

Now it was really starting to ruffle my poorly groomed facial hair. At this point some people (mostly those who spam, pacifists and people that read “The Secret”) argue “Just delete the email and move on. Positive energy!” but I don’t buy that. The onus should not be on the receiver to delete these emails. So after replying multiple times to “remove me” I took it up a notch:

You’ll notice there is also an email address to the Las Vegas Review Journal. No, I didn’t add that in to do the jackass move of “I’m going to tell the newspapers about you!”, he not only used the BCC function in his email (I can only assume using Outlook Express to send it out) but he used a newspaper contact in the “To:” in his original blast. It’s like he just completed the tri-fecta of moronic email blast moves. The only better move would’ve been putting everyone in the “To:” so everyone could reply-all about removing them from the list.

Amazingly enough, I finally got a reply:

Other than the fact that he replied in the subject line with nothing in the body, this is perfect, right? Yay! I wrote back to confirm, yes, the email that you sent the original spam PR to and that I was writing to you with was in fact the email I was asking about. (My reply was simply “yes”) which initiated a reply with something like:

“We will search for it. We have multiple databases that will take us a few days to go through”

I’m paraphrasing here since I deleted the original email. What puzzles me is… who takes a few days to go through email lists? Are they on the old tape reels that are in a storage closet? Is it by hand? Can’t you run a search in your Outlook Express or at least call AOL support to help out a wonderful customer?

After a few days, I received this reply from the potential tech-saviest PR company of all-time:

They just HAD to add the part of how they were a big deal in Vegas. Vegas, my fave place on earth. My home away from home. Oh no you didn’t. Everything else was fine! Let me know I’ve been removed, thank-you and we’re good. But something stuck me with that one clout line, so I decided to give them a little advice:

Was it necessary for me to reply like that? Of course not. But that one line smacked me of arrogance and I needed to let them know the irony of what they said. They’ve been using my personal email as their PR fax machine, I think I was entitled to give them my thoughts.

Which then brings us to the best part:

Really? I’m all for a good ole-fashioned pissing match, but come on. You don’t know how to use email properly, not to mention the compliance issue, you take days to find an email address and this is your stance?

It seems to me that a PR company has a vested interest in sending out targeted releases, with compliant lists and should be happy they weren’t reported.

But what do I know, I’m a complete idiot.

What says you? I would love your thoughts on not only this exchange but PR’s responsibility in general when it comes to email/press releases and client representation. Comment below!

(Note: I debated showing their name/email but after a few days of thinking it over and discussing with some awesome friends, I figured I could get my point across without being “sensational” with it. Would love your thoughts on that as well)

*UPDATE*

I sent him the link to the post so he could enjoy it. I guess he did:

I don’t think he gets it. So I tried to clear it up:

Good times on a Friday!

*UPDATED AGAIN*

Seems our superstar of PR thinks that press releases aren’t covered under the CAN-SPAM Act because he’s not “Selling anything”

Any thoughts on press releases not being spam? My response:

Someone let PRSA know I’ll speak at their event about proper email practices for PR. I’ll even waive my fee. Hell, I’ll waive travel costs

(note: one of my readers called PRSA just now, they said they’re months away from choosing a keynote for the conference. Awesome)

I can haz ur passwerd?

Heeeere phishy phishy phishy! (to quote the great Ernie from Sesame Street)

Like anything that gets popular, there are unruly folk out there trying to fark up our fun. Lately its been attacks against the fine people in Twittertown.

Phishing is nothing new. It happened years ago with emails from Paypal, eBay, your bank etc that mentions you must go “RIGHT NOW” to this website to do something for your account or it would be terminated/explode/massive bum rash if you didn’t. (btw, phishing isn’t “hacking”. No one is sweating for hours, banging out code trying to get into your account)

Phishing is “the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.” (via Wikipedia.)

This is what happens on a Twitter phishing expedition:

1. You get a Direct Message from someone you follow:
2. Being the narcissistic ego-maniacs “self-interested” people that we are, we obviously want to see what great video we may be in (or not-so-great) so we click on the link
3. Up pops a login screen asking for your Twitter name and password
4. People thinking it’s something to do with Twitter, they login
5. SET THE HOOK!!! You’ve now been phished.
6. The people who now have your login info use it to send other people DM’s with the same trick
7. A little while later they start sending out spam notices like this:

Now it looks like you are raving about the $19 you made using Google, etc, and you are none the wiser until you start getting DM replies back from “friends” with gems like “WTF??” and “SPAMMER!!! BURN HER!!”

So this is where I ask you to go easy on your fellow Twits. I know people should be vigilant in checking URL’s and not giving away their private information but the kicker about phishing through DM’s on Twitter is that they leverage trust from people. The wording is so basic and innocent, I’ve even clicked on them (See kids, this is called being transparent in a blog). Now I haven’t given my info to any of them, but that’s because I spend more time online than a 15 year old who just hit puberty so I’ve dealt with this stuff all the time.

What to do if you have been phished

1. Change your password. No one got access to your account because you used your pet’s name as your password (you do don’t you??). It doesn’t matter how crafty you’ve made it, if you hand them your login info, it’s like they’re psychic like John Edward, except they actually know stuff
2. Check who has access to your account by going here. It shows who you have authorized to use your account. Now don’t crap the bed if there are companies listed there. I have 18 apps that have access to my account for various reasons. But if you don’t recognize one and want to yank them out, just click “revoke access”.
3. Stop giving your info out! You should never give your info to any site that asks for it unless you are wanting them to. It’s your reputation/business here. Giving out your login to anyone is like wearing your bank card PIN on your t shirt and wandering the back streets of Vegas at 3am. Not saying I’ve done that…. ummm…

So if someone sends you a DM that is out of character, be nice, reply back to them that they should change their password. It could happen to you, you’d already feel bad enough and could probably use a helpful reply

Thoughts? Comment below!

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UnBootCamp just launched! Wicked.

And so it begins. Another reason why a business claims it doesn’t need to engage their marketplace. For geographic based businesses it’s always brought up that they have no need to connect with someone in Toronto if they run a pizza place in Dallas. Fair enough (although connecting on a large scale has many benefits, but that’s a rant post for another day.)

If your business is “local” there are a few things you can do to help focus your Twitter efforts:

1. Use a keyword location-specific search in Twitter for people in your area.

A lot of people suggest using keyword terms to search for potential customers, but it doesn’t work very well for a local business. Even if you put the name of your city/town, that would mean the person who tweeted would have to put both IN the tweet (i.e. I need a massage in Toronto VS I need a massage). The way to solve this is to do a “near” search. By putting “near:Toronto” beside your keyword, it will bring up all tweets from people who listed in their profile their location that are near Toronto. So now the person who tweets “I want a pizza” can now be found geographically. Use either the “search” bar on the right-side of Twitter, or Summize.

The screenshot above shows all the results for searching “Massage near:Toronto”.

NOW JUST YOU WAIT!!!

This isn’t an excuse to start replying to everyone on this list to say “COME USE US!! WE RULEZ TEH UNIVERSSSE! LOLZ!”. Reply to some people, say something like “Heya, we could help you out! Let us know, hope u feel better soon!”.

I’M NOT DONE WITH YOU!!

Please for the love of The Jesus and Mary Chain do not set-up a auto-reply system that will send replies to anyone that mentions a certain word in a tweet. Seriously, I will hunt you down and give you a stink-eye of epic proportions. These people have potentially raised their hand, the last thing you need to do is hit them up with a pre-written auto-tweet and then when they check out your profile, all they see is that same tweet to hundreds of others. Doesn’t make them feel all warm and fuzzy.

Most importantly, this tool should be used to see people in your area to start engaging with. Actually give a damn about them. Get to know them. You’re a person, and amazingly, so are they!

Set this search up in a program like TweetDeck so it automatically refreshes the search.

2. Use Twitter Grader to find the best in your area.

Twitter Grader ranks users by awesomeness (my word) not just by follower count. Using its location search you can find the best in your area to get to know.

Same rule applies here. Don’t be a jackass and follow just to send them ads. Engage, get to know people. It’s like a live networking event, except you can’t be cornered by the creepy-dude drinking scotch.

3. Twellow Pages. It’s like the Yellow Pages but people actually use it.

Using their Search function, you can search both by interests and location. This is a great site for finding people in specific industries.

Make sure you also list your own Twitter account in the directory under the “Register for FREE” link on the homepage

4. Tell them you’re there!

It sounds silly, but tell people you’re on Twitter. Put it in the company newsletter, in ads, at the check-out. You’d be amazed how many people are on Twitter and if they like you, they can spread the word to others in the Twitter world.

Any other tips you’d like to share? Any local biz that you know does a great job of this? Leave them in the comments and if they rock the casbah, I’ll add it to the post!

Be sure to sign-up for updates in the sign-up box below! It also makes you 43% cooler to others.

Other great posts on the topic:

Using Social Media to Market Your Montana Brand

How to Use Social Media to Build Your Brand Locally

But what about if you want to add your own few characters to the original tweet?

I’m about to show you why comments before the RT is the only way to go, but before you do, don’t get your Snuggie in a bunch. Spare me about how Twitter has “NO RULES” or “Who the hell are you to say what I should do??”. I’m Scott, nice to meet you. I’m not saying you have to do it this way, it’s just my opinion, and since this is my blog there is a rule, and that is: I rule here.

I’m not telling you what to do, I’ve learned over 30,000+ tweets that some things work and some don’t. I’ve learned that best intentions can get mis-interpreted, and people can start sticking words in your mouth and you don’t want to know where their mouse has been.

So if you want to RT and add your comment, this is the way I suggest. Let’s say @UnMarketing (he rules) states something he has seen in a study about beef saying “Studies show that men like steak”. He has given no opinion, just passed along a statement he read somewhere and you, being @UnTesting, want to retweet it and add your opinion that you find that study to be “crap”. I use a harsh word like that to illustrate the point. Imagine if I used a real swear word!

Here’s what the tweet would look like with the comment before the RT:

There is no debate here. UnMarketing’s tweet and content are all after the “RT” and @untesting added his thoughts to the start, yes?

Now, the worst thing to do is just add your comment directly to the end of the original, like so:

Now @untesting has added his comment to the end of the original tweet, making it look like the original tweeter (@unmarketing) says the study finding is crap. That’s huge. Imagine if one of his followers is a client that is in the beef industry (ask Oprah about how sensitive they are). Words were now put in his mouth, and everyone who retweets this RT now put words in his mouth.

So one solution is to put lines after the original tweet to “show” that it’s you commenting on the original tweet, like this:

That certainly isn’t clearly @untesting’s comment. It can be perceived as a comment from the original tweeter. At the very least, it’s subjective and that’s not a good thing when a strong opinion is stated.

Same goes for brackets:

And some people go the length of adding “me:” in the bracket:

Again, it’s up for debate who “me” is, especially if it gets retweeted by a third person. If one of the rules of Twitter is to keep things under 140 characters, why are you adding unnecessary ones, be it even brackets or an arrow (<–)

I’ve also heard a few times that people don’t want to read “backwards” meaning having the huge slaving task of reading after the RT and THEN HAVING TO GO BACK to read before the RT. It’s not War & Peace people, it’s 140 characters. You can do it, I believe in you.

Remember, do whatever you want on Twitter, or anywhere else for that matter. But if you start sticking things in tweeters mouths that they don’t want, they may bite ya.

Comments? Leave em below! Like this? Subscribe at the top-right!

(On another note: if you want something to be ReTweeted, make it under 120 characters, not 140. The RT plus your @ name take up space and the comment, written before the RT of course

Everytime, bar none, he would appear. The troll:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. (wikipedia)

Usually this sorry excuse for a human being would type something like “Your mom is hot” or “That’s what your mom said”. (the irony of this is that the troll usually resides in his mom’s basement, and is horribly, horribly alone)

Nowadays, trolls have moved into the social media stream, leaving nasty blog comments, sending meathead tweets or insulting Facebook comments.

I had to look-up "self prophetic"

How do you deal with them? How do I deal with them? (and why am I asking myself questions?)

Here are some tips to get you out of the troll spiral:

1. DFTT: Don’t Feed The Trolls: This is by far the best piece of advice I ever received back in the day. I was getting pissy about a guy baiting me in a chat, and someone sent me a private message with that line. Trolls feel horrible about their lives, their haircut and are angry that a bowtie has not become acceptable attire in society. And they are hungry. If you don’t feed them, they eventually go look for food elsewhere.
2. Don’t Expose Them: I’ll admit, my first reaction to these jackasses is to reply back with my sharp wit, but never forget this: If they tweet something to you, only their followers will see it (and they usually have 20 followers, my mom not being one of them, contrary to their apparent liking of said mom). BUT if you reply, if you take the bait, you now have the tweet on your main profile page, feeding the troll exponentially! Not only do you give them the satisfaction of being fed, but you’ve also given them a platform to be exposed to all your followers. The pic above was a tweet sent to me yesterday, I didn’t reply, I just blocked and went on with my day. Sure, I don’t like seeing it, but found it kind of funny and it isn’t entirely false
3. Pick Who Gets Your Emotional Currency: For a detailed explanation of Emotional Currency, go here, but in a nutshell, you only have so much emotion to go around. It should be spent on people who value it, who value you, not some douchenozzle that just finished a 36-hour bender on World of Warcraft and is pissed his wizard lost an epic battle on the island of Corinthian. There are way too many incredible people in this world, and Twitter especially that are worth your time.
4. Realize Where They’re Aiming: It is their lack of self-esteem that brews the hate. It actually has nothing to do with you. Do they know you? Do they have tea and crumpets with you? No. So screw em.

This isn’t about living in a bubble and only listening to happy things. Constructive criticism is one thing, being an asshole is another.

You’re worth more than troll bait. Don’t listen, don’t acknowledge. Just be you, and do it at the highest level possible, because I think you rule.

For a few more great views on this, visit my pal ElizabethPW and Seth Godin

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