Social Media
Is Twitter Becoming An Echo Chamber of Marketers?
I’ve heard this claim before. The idea that Twitter is really only useful for people trying to sell things online. Do you think it is true?
I posed the question to my Twitter followers a few days ago. Here are some of the responses.
frankangelone
@davidrisley I’d say to some degree that Twitter is becoming that. I’ve heard many say that 2 years ago Twitter was used differently.
JRGriggs
@davidrisley I know it is not what it was 6 months ago for me
MarcEglon
@davidrisley Absolutely – it’s all links, retweets and quotes. There’s much more room for engagement and value…
djsartin
@davidrisley re: echo chamber…all depends on who one chooses to follow…me thinks. (or unfollow)
imjustagoyle
@davidrisley I think Twitter is still what you make it. I’m still having plenty of conversation but that’s the kind of peeps I follow.
djsartin
@davidrisley Do feel tho, internet has gone beyond saturation point as far as Internet Marketing and Social Media Experts/Gurus/Coaches…
ShotOfCoffee
@davidrisley I think that twitter has never been better…unless the marketer is trying to market directly on twitter
HowToMakeMyBlog
@davidrisley i thought it always was an echo chamber! but twitter lists do help a lot to remove the clutter…
What’s My Take?
I agree with @imjustagoyle. Twitter is what you make of it. If you follow all internet marketers, it’ll look like everybody on Twitter markets things online. If you auto-follow or go after sheer numbers, you’ll just be a magnet for the dumb marketers who also think huge Twitter follower counts mean they can spam people and make money without doing any actual work. Either way you slice it, you are in the driver seat in what Twitter looks like for you.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the very nature of Twitter makes it so that those with the most useful Twitter profiles are probably going to be in internet business in some fashion. Think about it, who has time to tweet that often unless they are online most of the day? And who is online most of the day? People who are online for work. And when new people come to Twitter looking for interesting people to follow, the people who are most active look the most interesting. So, essentially, it is human nature which fuels this – not the setup of Twitter as a platform.
So, that’s my take. What’s your’s?
Is It Just Me? [Social Media Gripes]
In this line of work, I see a lot of things. We all do. And some of those things are annoying.
So, I’m going to spill 10 gripes of mine when it comes to social media and blogging. You know, just to get it off my chest. 
- Calling yourself a social media expert is like saying you’re an expert in talking. It is just human interaction like we’ve been doing since we rubbed two sticks together and made fire. I know “social media” is a buzzword these days, but let’s just be honest here, shall we?
- Foursquare? Mafia Wars? I could not possibly give less of a sh*t.
- People who tweet quotes all day bug me. It tells me you cannot come up with an original thought on your own.
- I always get a little chuckle when I get an invite on Facebook to be a fan of the person who just invited me. OK, I understand why they’re doing it, but you gotta admit, it is ironic.
- Facebook. Your interface is frickin UNGODLY. Were you spiked on weed when you thought up that interface? Why does stuff have to be so hard to find?
- The people who fail to find value in Twitter are the ones who are socially inept in real life. Twitter is a platform. If you have nothing to offer on that platform, you’re hosed. You’re the problem, so stop saying that Twitter has jumped the shark. It hasn’t.
- People who declare email dead or blogging dead are idiots. We go through this circular wave of people declaring various things dead. Lately, its been blogging and email. Yeah, right. It is a shallow ploy for attention. Or perhaps trying to explain failure.
- To those bloggers who think that there is something wrong with making money as a blogger, that blogging is pure and that you are sacrificing your honesty to violate this pure medium with financial aims – bullshit.
- People who think there is a difference between a blog and a website just crack me up.
- People who say they don’t have time to tweet really don’t get it. How long does it take to type 140 characters? I mean, seriously.
So, do you agree with this? Disagree?
Tweet or Die, Big Corp
Back in 2008, I was walking inside the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. I was heading over to a party thrown by B5 Media inside one of the many restaurants inside Luxor. I couldn’t find it. I was straight-up lost.
Just to vent, I took out my phone and tweeted about it. Within a couple of minutes, I got a Twitter reply from the Luxor telling me where to find the restaurant. I was so damn impressed, I tweeted about it. They replied:
I am heading back to Vegas yet again (I seem to go there a few times per year for various conferences). I had reservations at Bally’s. Well, in following the #pubcon hashtag on Twitter, I saw the MGM Grand tweet about a special room rate.
I upgraded. I canceled my reservation with Bally’s (who has no Twitter account, BTW) and switched to MGM. Its a better hotel anyway, but I like how MGM is actually actively interacting with their clientele.
I’ve had other similar experiences with Twitter:
- I was bitching about AT&T Wireless a few weeks ago and I had one of their company contacts tweet me and help me via Twitter. I was impressed given the ineptitude of the people on the phone.
- Made a comment about Aweber on Twitter recently and one of their guys replied.
- Made a comment about the Headway theme on Twitter and it ended up with meeting the guy in person at BlogWorld and getting an inside demo of the new version.
I’m Impressed, But I Shouldn’t Be
I shouldn’t be surprised when a company replies to me this way. It should be normal.
Big corporate, wake up!
Your customers are talking about you out there. Monitor the conversation and interact.
The days of finding corporate success by looking big and official are over. We don’t like calling on the phone and ending up in a phone maze. We’re not a case number. Companies that throw up those kinds of barriers are obviously TRYING to avoid their customers.
I think its about time to say this: Big companies… you better get active on Twitter or your days are numbered. Tweet or die.
Twitter Meets Multi-Level Marketing = Tweetglide [Review]
Tweetglide. The new Tweetdeck killer. Or so they would have you believe…
Last week, I got an email from Mike Filsaime. Now, Mike is a well-known internet marketer. I follow the world of internet marketing. After all, I’m, too, a marketer. What was surprising about this email from Mike was that he was talking about his new Twitter app – Tweetglide. This spiked my curiosity because “Mike Filsaime” and “Twitter app” just don’t go together in my mind.
Tweetglide is developed on Adobe AIR, just like Tweetdeck. The website is impressive. So, I was both surprised and impressed to see a guy like Filsaime getting involved in mainstream social media to this degree. He’s even got an Iphone version coming.
When you first open the app, you’ll immediately see that this was designed by a marketer. You’ll get a one-time offer (OTO) to upgrade to the “pro” account for $97. This will give you 500 ad credits and allow you to do things like customize your ad to make it stand out. Which brings me to the major difference between Tweetglide and another client…
Advertising on Twitter
Essentially, by using Tweetglide, you are able to send out advertisements for your own stuff. Plus, in an MLM approach, you can actually create your own downline and have your referrals help you earn more ad views. So, you’ll earn ad credits by:
- Tweeting. If you send 5 tweets in 3 hours (just normal conversation, not ads), you’ll earn an ad credit which shows your ad. They smartly put a cap on this, so tweeting 100 times isn’t going to earn you more ad views. No spam there.
- You refer people to Tweetglide and you get credit for all the tweet activity of your downline, up to 4 levels down. 5 tweets from you or anybody in your downline earns you an ad view.
- You can also pay for sponsored ads with Tweetglide.
Now, all of this uses the Tweetglide application to display advertising. What is unique about this is that the sponsored tweets show up in a separate column which you can close if you want. Now, I don’t believe you’ll get any credits if you shut down the sponsored column, but it will allow you to simply use Tweetglide as a Twitter client without using all this other stuff. The column separation also makes Tweetglide comply with the new FTC disclosure rules since we clearly know that these are sponsored messages.
Tweetdeck Versus Tweetglide
This app immediately will make you think of Tweetdeck. It uses columns in the same exact fashion. But, how else does it compare? Click Here To Continue Reading »
Debate Over Sponsored Conversations: Get Over It.
One of the keynote presentations at BlogWorld this year was a debate over sponsored conversations. I was warned ahead of time that it could get a little heated.
Essentially, the debate was over the ethics of it. As the reach and influence of bloggers increases, companies find themselves wanting to reach those audiences. The way to do that and have control over it is to engage in sponsored conversation. In short, things like paid blog posts, sponsored tweets, etc.
Izea, based in Orlando, is the poster child for sponsored conversation. The CEO, Ted Murphy, was on the panel along with a few others. Now, Ted has found himself under attack more than once over the nature of his business. Some people vehemently disagree with the very idea of receiving money for coverage.
The debate fired up again with the recent announcement from the FTC regarding disclosure requirements. In short, if you get stuff for coverage, you must disclose it to your readers.
Why Debate It?
For me, the panel proved a little boring for one simple reason: It didn’t matter. Not one bit.
Debating the ethics of sponsored conversations is meaningless because it IS happening and it will happen. And there is nothing any utopian blogger can do about it. It happens in magazines. It happens on TV. Radio. The internet. What’s the difference?
Each blogger needs to make up their own mind on how they want to approach it.
In short, the FTC ruling changed nothing. Any decent blogger was already disclosing. The FTC ruling only serves to specifically mention blogs, but essentially nothing has changed. As Ted mentioned, just makes sure you have a disclosure policy on your website.
Regardless of how you feel about sponsored tweets, it was a natural evolution. It was inevitable. Deal with it. Nobody is forcing you to participate.
Getting into debate over this issue is just mental masturbation for people with nothing better to do.
Photo Credit: Zac Johnson
Follow Friday Is Useless
OK, perhaps I should modify that statement by saying that it is useless the way most people engage in it.
On Twitter, a social tradition has popped up. Every Friday, you will see people tweeting out bunches of Twitter usernames, often with the hashtag #followfriday or #FF. Here is just a random image of Twitter search:
I don’t know any of these people. But, this is USELESS. Full tweets with nothing but a big long list of usernames. I wouldn’t follow any of them!
Personally, I don’t really participate in Follow Friday because I find the above practice to be annoying. But, here is how you would fix it. Follow these rules:
- Do not just recommend people randomly. Do so because you sincerely think that person would be of interest to your followers.
- Do not – I repeat, DO NOT – tweet a list of usernames. Instead, recommend ONE person with a clear reason for WHY we should follow that person.
You know, LinkedIn has a cool feature where you can post endorsements of other people. It works very well. Why not apply the same logic to Twitter? Let’s make a #followfriday recommendation mean something, shall we?
Sponsored Tweets: Polluting The Party?
The idea of sponsored tweets usually triggers a pretty emotional reaction. Most people when asked how they would react to a person tweeting an ad respond by saying they would immediately unfollow them.
Then my friend Ted Murphy launched Sponsored Tweets, the latest venture from his company Izea. It got me thinking about it. After all, I really like Ted and I have a lot of respect for him as an entrepreneur.
So, is this Sponsored Tweets thing a huge pile of crap? Or a natural progression of the medium?
Dicey Territory
You can clearly see how this is a dicey subject by looking at their own top menu bar:
An “Ethics” tab, right there plain as day. On that page, it clearly states that Izea requires people to disclose their relationship with marketers.
When an ad is set up in the system, one of the provided phrases must be selected to identify the tweet as an ad. The phrase uses various versions of the word “sponsored” or “advertisement”. The shortest possible version is the #ad hashtag.
As a tweeter, you will sign up, set your price, your ad category, keywords, etc. So, they give you control over the kinds of ads which appear in your tweet stream.
Also, Izea will not auto-inject ads into your Twitter stream. You have to manually approve it first.
In looking over their setup, it seems Izea has done everything to make this an honest platform. I really have no problem with their set up.
However, this doesn’t answer the question of whether it is a smart move for you to actually use it. How about that?
Click Here To Continue Reading »
Top 10 Signs You ARE Worth Following On Twitter
It was suggested by a few of my readers that I do a counterpart to my post on the Top 10 Signs You’re Not Worth Following on Twitter. It seems it is only fair. After all, I’ve done enough complaining.
So, without further ado, why would I follow you on Twitter?
Click Here To Continue Reading »
Stupidest DMs From The Last Month on Twitter
As you can probably tell if you follow me on Twitter, I’m on a rampage about Twitter spam. Right now, I’m rather fed up with it.
Today, I thought I would highlight some of the lamest DMs I have gotten in the last 30 days on Twitter. I have removed the links so as not to give them any free promotion on my blog.
Click Here To Continue Reading »
Top 10 Signs You’re Not Worth Following on Twitter
Since I stopped auto-following people on Twitter, I’ve really been trying to weed out all the spammers from my follow list.
I’m still pondering whether I should do a big mass-unfollow and then re-build my list. I still might do so. I was ready to do it on Friday, but then Twitter got hit with that big DDOS attack and I couldn’t pull it off.
As I (at this point) gradually remove people from my follow list, I am beginning to arrive at common traits that I personally find either annoying or classic signs of a spammer. I thought I’d share.
Click Here To Continue Reading »
I am a pro-blogger and Internet entrepreneur who generates six figures online per year. This blog is a plain-English, pull-no-punches tale of my life as an Internet entrepreneur and problogger. 
