"Dear Mel. I'm asking a favor, can you please enlighten me... what Twitter really adds to my life and business...?"
That's an excerpt from an email I received last night from a friend and colleague who I respect. She's new to Twitter in the last month or so. I can sense her disillusionment.
Her profile suggests the following:
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she's following less than 20 people;
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she herself has less than 20 people following her;
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she has made about 30 updates since starting about a month ago.
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all updates, save two, were made through Twitter's web interface.
I don't know that I'd have a quick response to my friend's question. So I invited her to call me directly by phone. I hope she takes me up on it and we'll have a chance to chat.
The fact is, I understand her disillusionment. Twitter is an interesting little imp. It's simple, yet complex in the noise it can generate. And, while I've been known to tout the benefits I've derived from it, I'll also be the first to say it isn't for everybody. Like so many tools, its utility depends so much on the wielder of the tool and his/her objectives for those tools.
I attended a live Twitter meetup (a "tweetup") in my local area last week. (Live meetups, btw, is one of the many beneficial byproducts of any social network. It speaks to the question of, how do you extend and leverage the social networking tools you use?)
One of the many topics that came up in our meet was the importance of not approaching Twitter -- or any single social network, for that matter -- as a point-solution for your networking objectives.
It's like building a house.
The way I've explained it to someone before is that any social network, when viewed as a single/closed system, is like a single tool in a homebuilder's toolbox. A hammer has a purpose that's related, yet separate, from the role of a screw driver. Use either one as a point-solution and you won't get past the framework. But together (along with other tools) they're effective in helping the user march steadily, and over a period of time, towards the completion of a finished home.
Social networking, in the larger sense of the term, encompasses many tools. Twitter is one, LinkedIn may be another. But so are: live networking events, exchanges of paper business cards, using a pen to write notes of interest about people you meet, swapping of phone calls and live meetings over coffee.
It's also like a live (offline) networking meeting.
Let's say you attend a live meeting in a brick-and-mortar locale. You may agree that if all you do is show up intending only to hand out as many business cards as you can, you'll fall flat pretty quick.
Similarly, showing up with no more of a plan than to stay for only a few minutes to make an appearance, or showing up with no proactive effort to interact and engage others will likely yield ineffective results, as well.
But here's another thing to consider. Let's say you stand the thing on its ear. Let's say you show up to a live event intending to proactively use a multitude of tools: swap business cards, use a pencil and paper to jot interesting notes about people, engage in interesting dialog, use wit and comedy, share experiences, and so forth.
So you do all those things but the meeting is attended by only two or five other people. There's no "critical mass," as they say.
Depth of Relationship vs. Breadth of Contacts.
Most of us would say it's still possible to have an effective event. And I'd be among those to agree. But wouldn't you also agree that so much now depends on how deeply you're willing to engage with each attendee and (notice the "and") the other attendees' willingness to engage deeply with you. For all you know, they may have "shut down" the moment they walked in the door and saw "nobody else" at the meeting, then allowed that sentiment to carry over to their interaction with you. Figure how that first impression juices up the convo. If they won't reciprocate for whatever reason, it helps to have enough other attendees to glad-hand with.
I think social networks are a lot like that. Twitter included. Maybe especially.
I remember early in my Twitterdom thinking "this experiment ain't gonna last." I said that when I had 5 followers, and I following less than 10. And those 10 weren't tweeting but maybe only once or twice a day.
I invited a few of my non-Twitter friends to the party hoping to goose it up a bit. But they, like me, didn't get it at that early stage, either. Some didn't bother coming. Those who did, were like me. We were all waiting for somebody else to say something.
The problem: From my angle on Twitterverse at the time, I hadn't achieved critical mass. Had I been able to engage more "deeply" with other tweeps, that would probably have made up for the lack of attendance. But nobody was havin' it. Nobody in my netowrk was talking because everybody was waiting for somebody else to say something. In that environment, quantity can make up for lack of depth. Quantity, properly nurtured with other tools, can give many more opportunities to have depth of relationships.
A Social Network Isn't a Point-solution.
Like a party, online social networking isn't about using just one tool. After engaging in one social network, it helps when you can find people of interest. When you find them, perhaps you then invite them to another social network you're comfortable with, like LinkedIn and/or Facebook, to continue the dialog in a slightly different manner. (Each social network has a different group culture and a different way of interacting.) And across all those environments you might leverage different features (such as the Calendaring and notification features in Facebook, for example) to arrange a live meetup. Or, perhaps a webinar (yet another social networking tool that isn't often thought of as such) to share information in areas where you have expertise. But notice what's implied here is the integrated approach with which you use your tools.
That kind of integration is what I'm talking about when I say a social network isn't a point-solution. Like building a house, it takes a lot of different tools used in different and often creative ways. (Webinars and live meetups, for example.)
Twitter is but one of those tools in the proverbial toolbox.
Six Things.
But let's get back to Twitter for a moment. What do you do if you're new and you're not yet seeing the love? Maybe you're active in other social networks but don't know if Twitter is a fit for your toolbox. Before you call it a day on Twitter, do these six very specific things:
1. Go to Twellow.com.
2. Click on one of the Twellow Categories that matches your interest or industry. (Food for thought: Do you click "Real Estate / Realtor" if you, yourself are a Realtor? Or, Business Services / Virtual Assistants if you are a Virtual Assistant yourself? Hmmm... I'll save this thought for another post. But for now, let's say yes.)
3. Then, in the next page that appears, click the "Follow" button for each of the profiles of people that interest you. Tip: If you're a newbie, don't stop until you've clicked at least twenty profiles. (I think it's a little like making the rounds to say "hi" to twenty people at a live networking party.)
4. Wash, rinse, repeat every other day for the next 7 days.
5. Finally, download and install a little piece of software called Tweetdeck. Run this application in the background on your desktop or laptop while you're working on it during the day. (In a follow up post, I'll write about the settings I like to use in Tweetdeck that you may want to start with.)
6. (Assuming networking is important to you.) Make a commitment to "making the rounds". That is:
- Read the Twitter bios for tweeps who post interesting tweets.
- Reply to those who interest you by using the "Reply" feature in Tweetdeck. (That minimizes the newbie error of forgetting to inlcude the "@" symbol. Doing so may cause the other person to never see your reply.)
- No less than 4 times a day (initially), tweet your own quips and interesting web links that either you find interesting or reveals a little something about yourself.
Follow the six steps above before hanging it up on Twitter. Do them for a week. Then see if there's a change. If yes, I'd love to hear your comments.
If no, well I'd like to hear about that, too, in the comments section below.
Like I said at the beginning of this post. It isn't for everybody. So in this eventuality, if you do hang up Twitter, then the last thing I'll say is, please check out my profile on LinkedIn and feel free to connect with me there! :)
Are you a fellow "Tweep"? Follow me on Twitter (@melaclaro).
Or, connect with me on LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/melaclaro.
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