A friend of mine once said he believes that we geeks live in a bubble of our own. We always know the world news before everybody else, we are always up to date with the latest gadgets, we claim we have invented the trends we are following. And of course we constantly cite famous people’s books we are reading right now.
Truth to be told, we are humans like everyone else, but we suffer from a narcissistic ego trip.
Which is the very reason why we are successful at what we’re doing, and—believe it or not—it actually helps the world tackling some of its current problems. Celebrity geeks are not only entertaining, they actually change things. In order to become a celebrity geek though, they must become a person-brand and make use of every channel they get their hands on.
Which leads to the common misconception that “spreading the word” across all channels is the proven new marketing strategy, and all you have to do is sign up for Twitter and you’ll have the masses listening to you.
If this was true, Robert Scoble wouldn’t have 69,631 followers and Barack Obama wouldn’t be President by now.
What is Twitter?
People often ask me what Twitter is. The common answer you may hear is, it’s a micro-blogging channel for people to share their thoughts with the world, using only 140 letters. But that only tells you about how it works, it doesn’t tell you what it is.
Twitter is your teacher. It’s a confession booth. It’s your announcement board. It can be entertaining, boring or overwhelming. It is a source of inspiration as much as a source of distraction. Twitter can make your day, or it can ruin it. It is a great way to meet great minds. It is a way to figure out great minds think alike.
In short, Twitter adds something to your life that wasn’t there before. It connects you with people like in a direct conversation, which is much more alive than any thread of blog comments or email exchange.
But is this useful for you? And how do you make Twitter work for you?
1) Say something!
You have a Twitter account. Sitting there and waiting doesn’t do anything. You need to add a couple of friends and say something. Don’t be shy, your first post doesn’t have to be brilliant. This isn’t blogging and it isn’t literature. But beware; this isn’t text messaging either. It is something in between of it all. The point is, and this may be the most crucial thing to understand how to make Twitter work for you: say something. Anything, just say it, dammit!
2) Start listening!
Once you got used to contribute to the crowd of sparrows, and once you added a few of your real life-friends who are already on Twitter, you may notice that they too have something to say. Don’t act surprised. Yes, you will actually have to work for being noticed, and starting to listen to people is not such a bad idea. Your friends, celebrities, even startups and brands may have to say something interesting. Behind great products are often great minds, after all. Not every celebrity or great thinker is automatically a great conversationalist, but many of them share what comes across their lives. And this is where Twitter actually starts making sense for you.
3) Follow the bright minds!
Listening to tweets (the unofficial term for Twitter-posts) of Al Gore, Barack Obama, Stephen Fry, Om Malik, Michael Arrington, Tim O’Reilly, Kevin Rose, Jason Kottke, John Gruber, Jeffrey Zeldman, Merlin Mann, Emily Chang, danah boyd or Julia Roy is probably more important than telling us what you had for lunch today. Think of any celebrity name that comes to your mind. Book authors, geeks, actors, musicians, politicians (but forget Paris Hilton and sorry, Seth Godin doesn’t use Twitter). If they published anything at all, chances are they are on Twitter. Like I said, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but if you want to learn something about life and succeeding with it, it is not a bad idea to follow brilliant minds on Twitter.
4) Be interesting!
You don’t need to copy-cat those bright minds you are following. You may have noticed that they sometimes sound pretty human, in fact to an extent, they might be humans after all. They too make typos, forget manners, say something just for the sake of having said something and they sometimes inform you that they’re sick, tired or hungry. They are as human as you are, and what distinguishes them from you is the only fact that more people are listening to them than to you. Why is that? Simply because they are more interesting. These people know what to say and how to say it. They have proven it by writing books, in interviews, blogs and Twitter posts. So when you say something, try avoiding to report on your cat’s increasing loss of hair. If you think something interesting, say it, but make sure you don’t look dull.
5) Don’t be stupid!
Which brings me to the next point. Don’t attempt to post formulas for propulsion-engine physics on Twitter. Don’t try acting smart. You are allowed to be mundane sometimes. What makes you interesting is your personality, your way of observing and sharing things. Your wit, your insights, your experiences. One bad Twitter message cannot ruin your life, but it can make you look pretty stupid.
The problem with “stupid” is, that every person you ask defines it differently. But we all seem to have a common belief that our personal idea of “stupid” is an accurate representation of what stupid actually is.
Stupidity online isn’t about being less brilliant or spreading dull messages. It’s about the opposite of what makes you interesting; it means taking money out of the account of your person-brand. Once you start spreading nonsense on Twitter, people will start blocking you. It’s almost impossible to get out of the blocking-pit.
6) Timing is crucial!
I’ve used the expression “crucial” one too many times already in this post. If it was just ok to use “crucial” previously, the next rule is really crucial if you want to get the most out of Twitter: Timing. A lot of people think “timing” means to say something at the right time. That is not all there is to it. You need to say the right thing at the right time.
Think about this for a second. “The right thing” doesn’t mean it is the best thing or the necessary thing to say right now. It means it is the thing of interest, the topic of discussion, the one thing people are thinking about right now. Of course this is not singular: a lot of things are momentarily hot topics, and in many of those cases it’s debatable whether these things are actually important or not. But timing for your statements means you listen to the world, and when there’s something you have a valuable insight to add, just follow rule number one.
7) Don’t hesitate!
If you are a blogger, a journalist or a book author, you may be following many of these rules already. However, for media like blogs, books, newspapers or magazines, it makes a lot of sense to be thoughtful about what you are saying to the world. You are writing it down, you revise it and you think about it. In many cases you sleep a night over it before you actually reveal your words to the world.
I won’t go as far saying this isn’t true for Twitter. (See the rules of being stupid or interesting.) But there’s another element of timing, and that goes with the rule of being on top of the topics the world finds interesting: You need to be quick. I don’t mean the Western-style pull-or-be-dead kind of quick. But if you are thinking about something interesting, there is no point in holding it back. Make it a concise, simple line that fits in 140 signs and post it. You can show up late to the party and no one will bash you for it—just don’t wait for the right moment for too long.
8) Make sense!
It may not be obvious, but this is a little different than “Be interesting!” or “Don’t be stupid!”. Twitter is not text messaging and it isn’t a giant chat room. Remember, whatever you have to say on Twitter, the world is listening. If you respond to someone, try making sense. Think for your audience, don’t make them wonder what the hell you are talking about.
Making sense excludes tweets like “Hell, yeah!” or “What was that?”. It isn’t enough to add the names of the people you are responding to (which is done by adding an @-sign to a Twitter name). You can’t expect people to respond to your tweet out of context, let alone make them listen to you. On the long run, if you keep doing this, you may annoy a couple of people and they will end up thinking you are a douche bag.
9) Don’t abuse your powers!
Ever since Twitter started out, marketers in- and outside the blogosphere have been glancing at it with skeptical eyes. While many self-proclaimed experts engaged in long debates over the usefulness of Twitter, concluding in mutual agreement that Twitter wouldn’t survive the next year. Several years later, Twitter climbs the charts of Web 2.0 applications and by now it is often mentioned in one sentence with Facebook and the President of the United States.
Talking to people and have them listen to you is a powerful thing. It can change your life and make you rich, if you play your cards right. If you have a product like your music, your t-shirts or a dying brand, you might be intrigued by the idea of an audience of six million potential followers. To the outside world, Twitter looks like a giant mailbox system where you just have to open an account, post a message every thirty seconds, and people will just love it. They will cheer and celebrate your joining of Twitter, and boom, your brand or product will gain more market share.
I know it sounds tempting. But wake up. It won’t happen.
I admit this is a somewhat simplifying explanation, but never the less it is true to its core. Skittles recently tasted this medicine, when the brand tried to make its Twitter account its brand-homepage. Two days later they made the Wikipedia explanation of Skittles their home.
The truth is, most brands don’t know how to make Twitter useful for their marketing, so they are just blindly stumbling around in social applications, putting themselves in the middle of the party and hoping someone wants to dance with them. Most corporate heads simply don’t get it, but those who do get it actually do benefit from social media. They learn a great deal about their customers and they get the chance to improve their product-value based on this information.
10) Don’t be pretentious!
The thing about rock stars is, they actually rock. (Which you may apply as a general rule -of-thumb next time you attempt calling Madonna a rock star). Rock stars don’t need a stage or a guitar to rock, they usually rock all the time. It’s their life. A rock star can say anything and girls will start shrieking and jumping on their heels. Rock stars often suffer from their fame, but they usually got there because they were following the drug of fame like mosquitos being drawn towards street lights.
Becoming a rock star doesn’t happen over night; it is rock-hard work. You need to be up for this. You need to become numb for the question whether you really want to do this and lose your privacy or even your dignity over it. But all that aside, you can try as hard as you want and you’ll never be a rock star, unless you actually rock.
A lot of people try being rock stars, but they fail. Some of them make it to the charts, others actually manage to move the masses when they are on stage. They may call themselves rock stars, the media may call them rock stars, but in fact they are just people who figured out what people want. They don’t rock. They may even have talent, but the more they try being a rock star, the more pretentious they actually are.
And this is where this rule applies. Don’t try being a rock star. Just be yourself, be upfront, don’t hold back with the truth, say what’s on your mind, be helpful, insightful, interesting and naturally funny. Use all your talents but don’t think about them. If you hear someone saying “you rock!”, try to not let it go to your head.
Ok, I can see your where you’re coming from, but I still don’t have the hots for Twitter (and stop using exclamation marks, will you?)
By now you may have figured out what this post is all about. It is not only useful for Twitter nerds. Think about it: Apply the rules above to any situation in life, and you are actually better off with everything. Because the rules of life are not so much different than the rules for Twitter, or any other tool of communication. Your reality, your life consists of people surrounding you and interacting with you. Friends, family, co-workers, students, teachers, acquaintances and cashiers at the grocery store.
Be direct and upfront, honest but polite, interesting but not at any price. Talk to them about topics they are interested in and they will start paying attention. Who knows, they might even start following you.
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