The trouble with twitter, a guest post by @Essex_Courier.
The trouble with twitter is now that it is so mainstream that everyone has an opinion on it and are not afraid to share it.
Fortunately they all conflict on how to get the best from twitter, so it’s still fun
Tweet what you eat?
I was reading on Facebook the other day where someone had updated their Facebook status with ‘Stop sharing what you eat on twitter”.
There were 5 or 6 ‘likes’ and 3 or 4 comments agreeing with them. I didn’t agree because it’s the little things that make a person a whole and enables me to decide to continue following them, or not. Building a relationship and starting a conversation is easier when talking about the smaller things like whether to have cheese or ham in your sandwich…
All work makes Jack such a dull boy…
Have you ever seen a tweetstream with no personal references in it?
Do you follow any?
Does that person engage with you?
My experience is no, someone who solely tweets about business doesn’t engage, They are there to broadcast their business message and it’s dull to read! But what they do get is relevancy when you do a search in the twitter stream for particular information. I have found 2 business tweets a day work well for our same day courier business. If you do a search, we are near the top everytime, something we have been unable achieve with our website until recently. So do the solely business tweeters have the edge over the non business tweets? What do you think?
Who are you and what do you do?
When I gain a follower I always ask what they do, and sometimes I get a response back that I find rather rude… “Read my bio”. Yes, rather than participate in a conversation the person tells you to read their twitter bio. Their 160 characters defines them as a person and tells you everything you need to know, of course it does.
Imagine walking down the street, meeting an old friend and asking them what they are up to now and they respond with “Google me” or worse still “look at my website” or they thrust a business card into your hand and you have to look, rather than listen and get to know then. Imagine chatting to another parent at the school gates and you ask what they do and “read my bio” is the response. Even worse you get chatting in your local pub and ask the person you are talking and drinking with what they do… and getting “read my bio” as a response.
“Read my bio” is a conversation killer. There is no worse conversation killer than “read my bio”, it’s almost like saying I am too important to bother with you.
BUT…
But people still tweet what they eat, send each other links to describe themselves, start a conversation and gain business from twitter. Being a person works.
I know, I get phonecalls everyday from people who say “how are the kids? how are the dogs? and can you move XYZ for us”. Over the last year we have won huge amount of business through twitter, and long may it continue. It starts with being a person first and a business second, and that may involve mentioning food, drink, fun, sharing jokes and participating in the community, sharing the wins and commiserating the losses. But most of all, it involves being a person.
Sarah Arrow
Sarah is the most followed courier on twitter in the UK, possibly the world. Not a bad achievement for a regional courier with national coverage.
What a great article, I have unfollowed so many people lately that just rabbit on about business and boring links, came here though an interesting Tweet
Hi Denise
Glad you liked the article. I find people more interesting when they tweet a variety of things as well as business.
Sarah
It is a very poignant article Sarah and needs to continue being communicated. I refer to this as “the lost art of conversation”: People broadcast because they can rarely be bothered to engage others (lazy) or because they want to sell at all costs.
It can be a lot of people that get to see you being a bore an idiot or just out there for yourself… or not as the number of followers dwindles.
Thanks for another quality post!