How To Be A Clueless Twit and Social Media Failure
When I was a kid and I did something dumb my Dad would call me a Twit. Usually, in a somewhat loving way, He was trying to tell me that I should have given more thought to my actions. These days I seem to be running into a whole new breed of Twit. Yesterday I was having a good time making people chuckle on Twitter. It was Halloween and the din of the political vitriol was starting to really bug me. I thought I would lighten things up and make people laugh. As a result I started picking up a following that trended up more than the usual conversation flow that takes place on Twitter. Nothing earth shattering, but right in the middle of it someone that had just started following me posted this "Tweet".
It appears that someone was trying to interlope my conversation flow. Do I love the "Brand X*" baby carrier? WTH? I didn't say anything about baby carriers. You have a store? So what? My kids are grown, I bought my last baby carrier a long time ago. These days a baby carrier to me is the parent that walked into the house with the baby in the first place. Toys and candy I will do all day long. I'm not buying any more "equipment". I don't even think the conversation I was having had much to do with babies at all until I remembered I told someone earlier that my Grand Son was about to be born any day. Then it dawned on me that either through some slick automation or just plain Twitter stalking, someone jumped in with the full intention of trying to sell me and those in my sphere some over priced baby crap. FAIL! I immediately "unfollowed" the "person" and blocked them from being able to enter into the conversational flow that was taking place.
The sad fact? More and more people are completely missing the point of social media and trying to immediately sell into the spaces they are INVADING. It doesn't work that way. Never has, never will. I confirmed a real estate professional on Facebook the other day. He immediately answered with a post that tried to sell me on his secrets of short selling. The only thing short about it was how long it took to hit the delete key and block him. Do yourself a favor and look at Paul Chaney's power point deck that he presented to the attendees of the recent Real Estate BarCamp. Do your homework on what Social Media and Conversational Marketing is.
If you're the type of RE professional that looks for an immediate return on every investment you make, be it in time, or cash. Don't bother with social media or blogging. It's not for you. If you're the type of professional that understands that these tools are a means of establishing your brand, defining your niche and creating a long term ROI, rock on. There's really no such thing as a "social media butterfly" and the definition of Twit hasn't changed since the first time my old man slapped me on the back of the head 40 some odd years ago.
I'm not Dear Abby. I can't tell you how to act at a party or at Church. Use some common sense. If you wouldn't walk up to everyone in the receiving line after services and slap a business card in their hand and tell them you want to help them with "all of their real estate needs", don't do it online either. If you are the kind to do something like that, you're running the risk of someone writing a snippy blog post about or "Tweet" about. They may not be kind enough to do the following:
*Twitter Handle Removed To Protect The Clueless.
**Name of Lame Baby Carrier Brand Removed to Prevent The Brand From Getting Any Google Juice From The Clueless.
It appears that someone was trying to interlope my conversation flow. Do I love the "Brand X*" baby carrier? WTH? I didn't say anything about baby carriers. You have a store? So what? My kids are grown, I bought my last baby carrier a long time ago. These days a baby carrier to me is the parent that walked into the house with the baby in the first place. Toys and candy I will do all day long. I'm not buying any more "equipment". I don't even think the conversation I was having had much to do with babies at all until I remembered I told someone earlier that my Grand Son was about to be born any day. Then it dawned on me that either through some slick automation or just plain Twitter stalking, someone jumped in with the full intention of trying to sell me and those in my sphere some over priced baby crap. FAIL! I immediately "unfollowed" the "person" and blocked them from being able to enter into the conversational flow that was taking place.
The sad fact? More and more people are completely missing the point of social media and trying to immediately sell into the spaces they are INVADING. It doesn't work that way. Never has, never will. I confirmed a real estate professional on Facebook the other day. He immediately answered with a post that tried to sell me on his secrets of short selling. The only thing short about it was how long it took to hit the delete key and block him. Do yourself a favor and look at Paul Chaney's power point deck that he presented to the attendees of the recent Real Estate BarCamp. Do your homework on what Social Media and Conversational Marketing is.
If you're the type of RE professional that looks for an immediate return on every investment you make, be it in time, or cash. Don't bother with social media or blogging. It's not for you. If you're the type of professional that understands that these tools are a means of establishing your brand, defining your niche and creating a long term ROI, rock on. There's really no such thing as a "social media butterfly" and the definition of Twit hasn't changed since the first time my old man slapped me on the back of the head 40 some odd years ago.
I'm not Dear Abby. I can't tell you how to act at a party or at Church. Use some common sense. If you wouldn't walk up to everyone in the receiving line after services and slap a business card in their hand and tell them you want to help them with "all of their real estate needs", don't do it online either. If you are the kind to do something like that, you're running the risk of someone writing a snippy blog post about or "Tweet" about. They may not be kind enough to do the following:
*Twitter Handle Removed To Protect The Clueless.
**Name of Lame Baby Carrier Brand Removed to Prevent The Brand From Getting Any Google Juice From The Clueless.
Labels: conversational marketing, social media
posted by Mike Price at 7:13 PM
5 Comments:
Mike - This does indeed give new meaning to "twit", doesn't it? I have always liked the analogy of running into a cocktail party and handing out business cards feverishly before trying to engage anyone in a real conversation.
On a side note, thanks for the link to Paul Chaney's PowerPoint presentation. I may use this to train my agents. Have a great night!
Great post. Needs to be mandatory reading before you're granted a Twitter account :)
Baby Carriage...WTF is right.
Now if it was an offer for a deeply discounted case of Belvedere, or something useful...that'd be a different story. Seriously, it is shocking/amusing/annoying, sometimes to the point of comedy. On the shiny side, if there weren't dim bulbs, how would you recognize a bright one? Rock on brother, i'm with you, twits, knuckle heads and mental pygmies - come correct.
On point, starting to see a lot more 'clueless twits' out there. Two things that will get you unfollowed right away from me are if I see you use your website in every tweet or name and if you DM right after I accept you request to go to your website.
Twitter works for biz connections, believe me I have approached vendors to use their product after getting to know them.
A freaking men brotha!
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home