Twitter- an expanded thought

My last post dealt with the importance of Social Media and business in general and dispelled the thought that social media was just a fad that will come and go like the pet rock, Vanilla Ice, and parachute pants.

I wanted to take the time to expand a bit on just one form of Social Media–Twitter.

I read an interesting e-newsletter from a pretty smart internet marketer by the name of John Reese today. (I’ve learned about some pretty cool stuff from this newsletter so if you want to subscribe, you can click here. It’s free and I don’t know him so I’m not pawning you off on some product, although he does occasionally sell stuff)

ANYWAY, he recently shut down his Twitter account which had over 25,000 followers. This counter-intuitive thinking prompted the thoughts I’ll write here.

First, I don’t claim to know the best way to use Twitter. I don’t make claims that Twitter is the new “hotness” or that Twitter will transform your business. Hell, I don’t even claim that I use Twitter that well. (At the time of this posting i have only 441 followers) That said, I know that I use Twitter differently that even many of my friends do.

I use Twitter to watch. I’m a Twitter voyeur if you will. I watch how big companies interact with their clients. I watch how start-ups and local companies spread their message. I watch people tweet mindless babble out into the ether. I watch businesses get on Twitter and screw it up royally. And occasionally I tweet, normally to friends and people around me locally. But that’s just how I use Twitter. Everyone has their own approach.

The larger, expanded question here (and this is something I’ve wrestled back and forth with quite a bit) is the amount of time people spend on Twitter (for business purposes for the sake of this blog) worth it? Largely, I’d have to say no. But there’s a very large caveat here.

The caveat is that it depends on HOW the company is using Twitter and WHO they have using it. Done correctly, I’ve seen big business use Twitter to defuse potentially negative scenarios and win over new customers. I’ve seen small businesses successfully put customers in their stores and stimulate buzz. Done poorly, I’ve seen other businesses use Twitter as social hour (or hours…) and I’ve seen their social use of Twitter hurt their business and turn potential customers away.

The great thing about big companies is that they have the budget to hire a “Social Media Director” or some other person whose primary function is to understand Social Media, the internet, and how best to use it to build customer relations. The downside for many start-ups and small businesses is that they can’t afford to hire a full-time Social Media wiz that they trust with the voice of their company. That usually means the owner becomes the voice.

If you own a small company, and you are on Twitter 4 hours a day, off and on, with TweetDeck running in the background, how is that affecting you? Twitter can become a huge vacuum of time and accomplishment and this is something to carefully watch for. You can become dependent on checking your smart phone for Twitter updates and it can have a negative affect on your focus and accomplishment. As John Reese points on his newsletter, Twitter can also become a high school-esque EGO fest where he/she with the most followers has a superiority complex. Nothing good comes from that nonsense.

So for the reader who uses Twitter, my advice is to monitor your Twitter usage. For one week, take the time to document how often you are on Twitter. You may just be shocked how much time you use. ( I recently clocked my usage of Twitter for just one day and was amazed that I spent nearly 3 hours on Twitter in one form or another). Once you have a number, an average amount of time you spend on Twitter, ask yourself, is it worth it? What is the payoff?

These can be difficult questions to answer because some of the payoff from actively using Twitter is qualitative, not quantitative. New friendships, social invites, discounts to your favorite restaurant that you wouldn’t have know about otherwise, these things are important but hard to measure. Remember, we are focusing on Twitter for business here, so try to think in terms of how you used Twitter to build relationships that resulted in sales, new customers, new business. Again, since there are no “Twit-alytics” that can super accurately measure sales, this will take some close monitoring.

I guess the real answer here is that there is no cut and dry answer. If you have 25,000 followers on Twitter, I certainly would not recommend closing your Twitter account. At the minimum you’ve built a herd of followers who could potentially be customers, blog readers, referral sources or JV partners. But I would suggest monitoring your usage and at least try to be honest with yourself about how successfully or unsuccessfully you are using Twitter for your business. (By the way, even if you “just use Twitter for personal use” it could be cutting into your work time, big time)

Until next time,

-Brian

Keeping Up With It All (Information Overload)

Info Overload?  Feeling like there is no way to keep up with everything going on around you?  This is the age of speed and the average Joe (and Jane) have been empowered through blogging and social media to deliver news even faster than many mainstream media like radio and T.V.  That means that news and other very valuable information is now available from thousands of sources which update all day, every day.  Keeping track of blogs you read, news, Twitter, Facebook, forums… yeah, it can be difficult.

So what can you do about it?

First, realize that you can’t keep up with all of it.  There is no way to process that much information.  The sooner you come to this conclusion, the better you will sleep.

Second, organize.    I subscribe to 50 or so feeds (which is probably a relatively small number compared to many of my friends) so one day of not checking my RSS Reader and I’ve suddenly got hundreds of possible articles to read.  The cool thing about the Google Reader I use (and there are many others, like Feed Burner) is that you can organize your info so that it comes to you in a form you can digest.   I’ll skim headlines until I see something I like.  If I notice I’m not reading a particular feed ever, I may just cancel the feed.  Get a RSS reader if you don’t already have one, it will change your life.  Basically think of it as a newspaper where you pick the content.  Pretty sweet!

Third, prioritize.  I’ve got a list of at least 30 books I want to read, I’ve got my RSS feeds, Twitter account (@rbrianforrester), Facebook, Foursquare and I’ve got my educational research…all of this is constantly happening.  So prioritization is key.  Make a list of how what you want to get done, and factor in your reading time throughout the day. Find your favorite blogs that deliver the best content, and put those higher on the list. The key is to make sure you absorb the information that is most important to you, without worrying about missing out on something. Just accept that you will inadvertently miss out on something- it’s O.K.

Get a system for organization.  Preferably one that works across platforms and projects.  I’ve been recommended a little service called Evernote which has been working out great for me.  It syncs with my phone, my desktop and online so I can access my lists and ideas from basically anywhere.

Got any tools that you use to stay organized in the ever-clutter digital world?  Feel free to share them with me.