Teach a Man to Fish…or Tweet
One of my favorite sites recently posted an awesome article giving you 7 Reasons Not Not to Put All Your Eggs in the Twitter Basket. You should check it out when you get a second.
I’m going to try hard not to come across as a hypocrite here. After all, my company not only consults on Social Media but actually offers a service where we can ghost write Twitter posts and increase your followers. Of course I like to think we have a different approach to the Twitter thing than most companies out there. We don’t make lofty claims regarding your followers and we look to post relevant content that encourages conversation and trust between the public and our clients.
I’m very tired of the spammers on Twitter posting only ads for their products and not engaging the public all together. It’s just a one way sales pitch! Since being on Twitter, I’ve become more and more disenchanted with the platform all together. It’s becoming like MySpace to me; right about the time I left it for Facebook. It’s very impersonal, overwhelming and there is a lot of crap on there.
There are a lot of good points in the article. One that should not be forgotten while reading my post is this:
Twitter indeed should be part of almost every company’s social media tool kit.
I agree with this statement. If I didn’t we wouldn’t offer Twitter support in our long list of services. Social Media, by and large, is free (free in terms of money – not time). There is no reason you or your product should not have a Twitter presence. However, Twitter is not the end all be all for your brand and anyone who tells you otherwise should not be collecting a check from you.
For better or worse, Social Media is ever evolving. What makes it onto CNN today will be a punch line tomorrow. Anyone remember Friendster? What I suggest, is that you spend less time learning Twitter and more time learning Social Media. It’s the “teach a man to fish scenario.”
Teach a man to Tweet and he can make a sale. Teach a man Social Media and he can build a brand for a lifetime.
Twitter is just a tool in your vast marketing tool kit. Learn to use it, sure, but learning why it is effective is much more important. If you learn how social media works then it won’t matter what new platform comes out. You’ll know right away whether it is right for you or your company and how you can develop a plan incorporating that new tool. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this. “If I get really good at Twitter, what will I do when Twitter goes away?” It’s that simple.
There were a lot of design companies out there that heavily promoted Myspace backgrounds as a product offering. What do they do now when all the custom content slowed Myspace down and forced people to move over to a less customizable and cluttered Facebook?
YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter – It doesn’t matter what platform is popular today because it will change tomorrow.
Learn “why” and “how” and know that it doesn’t matter “what.”
