Twittering bad karma

At first, I thought Twitter was foolish, then, I tried it and became enamored. About six months later, I lost all respect for Twitter. A few months more, and I can finally see its strengths and weaknesses in balance.

The strengths are pretty easy - meet and interact with new people that interest you, market yourself, get to know your "friends" better, know what's going on right now and eavesdrop on conversations you'd never be privileged to hear in any other setting.

What's the downside? Here is my five step plan for entrepreneurs to entrap themselves in bad karma with Twitter:

5. Get in the race. Follow thousands of people indiscriminately - because when they follow you back and you have more followers than you could ever read, you'll be powerful, your websites will overflow with traffic and success will be yours.

4. Pump out crap. Write shallow stuff, better yet, let's call it crap. Let us know when you're waiting in line at the grocery store... promote your websites incessantly with any exaggerations that come to mind... tell us about your sports team... It's easy and as long as your follow count is rising, it's working, right?

3. Be clever. Use the same enigmatic titles that work best on your blog. Use lots of twitter jargon that shows how hip you are. Share lots of cool stuff that doesn't really have any meaning for you. Create a reputation!

2. Snub your customers, partners, or employees if necessary. If you haven't replied to business e-mails that have been waiting in your inbox but need to spend time Twittering about your favorite TV show or your favorite sports team - forget about your e-mails. Your twitter followers will forget about you faster and they need you more. The guys waiting for your e-mails might not be watching your twitters anyway.

1. Scratch your bellybutton faster. You need to spend more than a couple minutes everyday on Twitter if you want to hit the big time! Send out messages to everyone that follows you saying something like "thanks for the follow, I look forward to reading your tweets". Whatever you were doing before you found Twitter could not have been very productive... things like concentrating, reading blogs or books, thinking, or -god forbid- listening -- all a waste of time if they don't grow your followership. So keep your eye on the ball and don't get distracted by the little stuff!

And yep, I've probably done all these things and if I have missed any - there's always tomorrow. I'm keeping in mind what Andrew Keen says "most people don't have talent"... I won't expect to have thousands of followers. In the meantime, thanks for following me, it's great to connect with you. Tweet you later!

there's more! keep reading my twitter guide...

So what bugs you about twitter?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on April 18, 2009 at 12:12pm

People who don't answer your inquiries about their twitters - most people never do! It's like they think twittering is sposed to be like talking to a wall; maybe that's what most people think communication is - talking out loud to nobody in particular?

The best communicators are the ones who have (and ask) questions. Think about it.

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Permalink Reply by Slouch on April 18, 2009 at 6:58pm

it bothers me when I stop following someone and then they send me an email or a message asking why.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Shannon on April 18, 2009 at 7:29pm

lol, seems a bit like a game doesn't it...

Maureen Sharib said:

People who don't answer your inquiries about their twitters - most people never do! It's like they think twittering is sposed to be like talking to a wall; maybe that's what most people think communication is - talking out loud to nobody in particular?

The best communicators are the ones who have (and ask) questions. Think about it.

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Permalink Reply by Margaret Graziano on April 19, 2009 at 3:57am

Funny. I think Twitter can work, if someone is really bright and discerning...or i they are selling something like the silver bullet of dieting or 5 easy ways to meet the man your dreams. Shoot I'd follow that.

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Permalink Reply by Margaret Graziano on April 19, 2009 at 3:58am

All too true. Do you know my step sister too?

Heather Bussing said:

People who post a lot of things in multiple places so that I end up having to wade through the exact same 15 things on twitter and facebook. Facebook also multiplies the posts when they come from different sources. So I got 4 of the exact same things from one person the other day.

When someone takes up too much of my home page too many days in a row, I unfollow or hide their posts. I'm pretty territorial about my screen space--even with people I care about and am really interested in what they are doing. It's the social networking MUTE button. Wish I had one for the real world.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Shannon on April 20, 2009 at 11:11am

I just remembered that I followed Guy Kawasaki in the beginning - that lasted for about a week. he tweets at least once an hour... but then again, he has over 100,000 followers now. that must be good for something!

-e

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Permalink Reply by Margaret Graziano on April 20, 2009 at 11:12am

it sells his books. And his keynotes. Twitter is good for that.

Eric Shannon said:

I just remembered that I followed Guy Kawasaki in the beginning - that lasted for about a week. he tweets at least once an hour... but then again, he has over 100,000 followers now. that must be good for something!

-e