“Expert” Steve Strauss Doesn’t Think Your Business Should Tweet
4. What can you say in 140 characters? That’s the Twitter limit, and that pretty much means any tweet will be personal. A business tweet would necessarily have to be longer than that to be of any use, so what’s the use?
3. It requires too much time: When you tweet, or follow someone’s tweets, that means you are not doing something else.
• Twitter takes time to learn, and to learn how to make it work
2. It offers just too much information: Do people really want to know what you are doing at 3:47 tomorrow afternoon, what you are thinking, who you are meeting?
– Since when did the rules of business change to dictate that your customers have to be so incredibly engaged in your business?
These are some exerpts from a USA Today article in a column called “Ask An Expert”. The expert in this case is Steve Strauss.
Do you agree? Is Twitter a passing fad on which businesses are wasting time right now? Nope. Notice the obvious sign that he simply doesn’t get the point of Twitter when he basically claims that nobody cares what your business is doing at a certain point in time. That might be true, but maybe you should get out of the game if you don’t know how to play. The companies that are succeeding on Twitter understand that it is a tool to be used for much more than answering what you are doing. This expert needs to pay attention to the conversation a bit more.
Twitter takes time to learn? Agreed (it takes a couple minutes out of your horrendously busy schedule*), but any business that has this issue, call me. If you don’t believe I can handle it, I know some great agencies that would be happy to do it for you so you don’t have to spend all of that time to figure out how to use it. Remember, Shaq and Miley make it work.
What can you say in 140 characters? If you have something to say that takes more than 140 characters…your customers don’t want to hear it. The best part about Twitter is that people and companies are forced to get to the point fast. Messages must be stripped down to the core. Some tweets will be personal, others will be more professional, but that’s the goal. People buy from *people* they like and trust.
No rules dictate that your customers must be engaged…but good luck to those of you following the model that does not engage customers. Those companies will soon have plenty of time to learn how to use Twitter correctly.
* Disclaimer: It does take a bit of time to figure out how to use Twitter strategically. I think it is worth it. If you really don’t have time, there are a lot of people doing it pretty well that would be happy to help.
I agree 100%. I don’t understand these “experts” and their “I’ll knock it before I’ve tried it” attitude. That’s like going to war without a rocket launcher simply because you “don’t see how a rocket launcher could ever be useful in a war.”
I know the comparison of Twitter to a bazooka is a little extreme, but the point is that these people should not be assuming they know something’s value (or lack thereof) if they aren’t going to put any effort into seeing how it COULD be valuable.
What I love (and consequently am enraged by) in this article is this quote from the author: “Look, I came too late to the whole blogging thing, thinking it was a passing fad. OK, I missed that one.”
Ya think?!?
I know everyone is entitled to a second chance, but seriously? I’m supposed to trust and take advice from the guy whose disdain for a “passing fad” like blogging gives him the right to now tell me that Twitter is also an unnecessary component of a business’s online experience and brand building?
Now I’m angry. I’ll probably have to go tweet my anger to my followers and be “incredibly self-indulgent” (his words, not mine).
On the flipside, it’s nice knowing there will soon be a vacant spot in USA Today’s “Ask an Expert” section of small business and online strategy/communications.
Since you two have pretty much nailed it, I’ll say this: Most days I feel smarter, sometimes more equipped, because of the things I learn from those I follow on Twitter.
‘Nuff said.
This is a very interesting post and truly hits home with me personally. Almost daily I am able to show clients from real estate agents to fortune 100 companies the benefits of social media. (Twitter specifically right now.) Really, it comes down to the opportunity cost of not being. AKA – Is your competition there and what are you missing out by not being there. When I read posts like this, I think these assumptions are based on fear and not fact. Social media scares people who don’t understand how to use it or what it could do for their company. The majority of my firms time is spent educating about not only social media but online marketing in general.
Cool post.
Mike
Hi, interesting post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting. I will certainly be subscribing to your posts. Keep up the good posts
I agree with the author of this article. I’ve spent hours researching social media ILinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo, etc) and have yet to find ANYONE who can quantify results from using them. I did a research poll asking for specifics, i.e., length of time on medium, # of contacts, number of confirmed sales, profit from those sales, amount of time per week spent online marketing through these sites, etc.
I see a lot of people spending a lot of time on these sites, but I don’t see sales being converted from them. I see lots of cross selling, but no cross buying! I get this feedback from the heads of sales departments, not the salespeople on here trying to convince everyone these mediums work. 22 Directors of large firms (over 500 people employed) have responded that so little buying comes from these sites that many are scaling back the time their people spend working on them.
Twitter is going to be gone in another year or two. LinkedIn and Plaxo and others will still be around, but who cares about being linked to 15,000 people if nobody is buying anything from you???
Ron, you are correct, there are very few people publishing quantifiable results from social media. It is a young form of marketing and people are searching every day for ways to produce concrete ROI while using tools such as Twitter. Fortunately, companies like Dell have recently come out with reports of over $3 million in sales directly attributable to their Twitter account. Yes, the buyers needed to be directed elsewhere to make the purchase, but the relationship and the work was done on Twitter.
Twitter is a valuable tool for cultivating relationships and improving/maintaining relations. Does anybody question the value of strong customer service? Social media is an opportunity to reach people where they are. As Mike said above, social media scares people that misunderstand what it can do for their company. So much emphasis is put on selling, selling, selling. I do not disagree with selling, but a fantastic customer experience generates loyalty. If your product is not something highly desired but necessary (ie insurance, finance, etc.), customer experience is the piece that sets your brand apart – you don’t need to convince people to buy those products, you just need to be the name that comes to mind when people need the product. SM can do that.
The possibilities of SM are endless and many companies are getting great value when using the tools, strategies, and techniques creatively. There is no single magic way to use social media across every industry. Social media is a sociological phenomenon (not a sales phenomenon) and Twitter is already too integrated into society (look to Kevin McHale’s dismissal as Timberwolves head coach or current situation in Iran – mainstream media can’t keep up) to simply disappear within a year or two. If Twitter is surpassed by a similar product, the lessons learned at this point will carry forward.
As a friend on Twitter said, people are “confusing the tech with the technique. Replace Twitter with Phone and try again.
Thanks for your comment,
-Scott
Ron, Ron, Ron…
You did a poll. Grats.
But did you ask the right questions?
Did you include the telephone or email in your poll? The use pattern is very similar to Twitter or Facebook. And the “number of confirmed sales” from using the telephone or email is going to be very low for any company except a telemarketer.
I work with multiple companies who’ve had very clear ROI when reaching out to bloggers and actively engaging online communities.
I’ve personally used LinkedIn to find new hires and (straight to your point) vendors.
Maybe Steve and Ron still think in old media terms. Social media makes a conversation possible. No, that isn’t completely quantifiable…yet. Brand building takes time and engagement.
To put this in perspective, people predicted cars would never catch on. They’re always broken down, they’re bumpy, expensive…etc. Steve probably predicted no one would ever listen to rap either.
I also have a strong feeling Steve and Ron never looked into the customer service aspects of twitter. Ask comcast or zappos.
Thanks for the post Scott. I’m glad you put it on twitter, since that is the new RSS for a growing number of people. Oh yeah…forgot about the my twitter = RSS point too.