Crowdsourced tips from my Twitter community

Alright, you know I like Rob Cottingham’s Noise to Signal cartoons, they are awesome. I am once again lifting one of Rob’s cartoons (with permission of course) because it fits well with this post.

Twitter, like any other social media channel, has its upper echelon, its average users, its new users, and so on and so forth. So often people forget that they are engaging with real people and real organizations and simply make foolish choices.  We’ve all done it, to be honest, but we do not want to make a habit of it.  On the flip side, there are many, many, people and organizations doing great work which I try to constantly celebrate in my various case studies and interviews.

First, in honor of those that have lost their way, much as our well-followed friend in the cartoon, here are some of the things not to  do any longer:

• Stop referring to yourself as a visionary, ninja, guru, expert, or something similar. My friends @JoeManna, @TheMaria, @Eric_Andersen, @WendyWooWho, and @BillShander were discussing this recently and all agreed that this is a real turn-off.  If someone else refers to you in this way, fine, but please never write these phrases into your profile.
• @AntOf9 shared this:  ”10+ “listening to ___ song” tweets in a row (not same as I LOVE THIS SONG! tweets), w/ meaningless foursquare posts a close 2nd.”
• From @MikeSmithDev, “auto DMs. About as productive as having a conversation with an answering machine.”
• @JNJosh points out “The word “Crowdsource” ” .  Of course, he was also laughing at my attempt to crowd-source this blog post.
• @LoisMelbourne shared this pet-peeve, “people that stuff my twitter stream with multiple tweets all at once intentionally”.
• @Mattrdmn shares a much more practical issue as he notes “I have a hard time finding new people to follow. I find myself searching and searching but a lot of the things I’m interested in are tweeted by spam feeds.”
• Then @Story_Jon looks at two extremes when he notes “Broad: Self serving twitter strategies. Narrow: Automation, paid tweets, and not tweeting for yourself (ie Britney Spears)”
• @Quinno99 notes “How To Make Money on Twitter” spam, followed by news orgs tweeting celebrity gossip.” while @wilsonsway also notes “Spam and pushy sales #Twitter”
• My friend, @StephMcDonald, noted the one that disturbed me the most when she pointed out “People who randomly send you their blog w naked pics of themselves b/c you mentioned “cooking” in a tweet. Not kidding.”

In terms of positives, there is a huge list, as I have noted, of organizations and individuals doing it right.

• @wilsonsway noted “How to improve content, learning new things about Linux, for example. #twitter”
• @MattRdmn notes “I love the way news travels on twitter. How a story can break here and I only hear about it on the news the next day.”

Equally as important, never forget that many organizations are delivering real value through collaborative solutions and social media driven support, marketing, and sales.  Companies are reducing operational costs, increasing collaboration internally and externally, and often times breaking down the walls that should never have been erected in the first place.

John

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