Whilst I appreciate Guy’s reasons for doing it – he wants to cut through the clutter and ensure people in different time zones get to see his posts and he gets more followers. I get it, I really do. And it seems to work for him.
However, I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in it for a few reasons:
Social is about being ‘real’ – whilst I don’t doubt that his tweets are genuine, there is an assumption that if you tweet you are there and ready for a ‘conversation’ (isn’t that the point of social media?).
If your followers truly value your tweets, they will seek them. You don’t need to pester them.
You’re just adding to the clutter you are trying to avoid.
What’s your view? Do you use automated tweets? If you do, how and why do you use them?
In his post he discusses whether you should follow someone just because they follow you. This is something he has done on Twitter.
My personal view (and what I practice) is that you shouldn’t feel obliged to follow anyone. I understand Chris’ point about not wanting to appear ‘some kind of a jerk’ (his words not mine), but then how much worse is it not to follow someone and not pay attention. The people you follow think you might be out there listening to you, but you’re not. You’re giving them a false pretense of what your ‘relationship’ is.
Surely the point of Twitter is to follow people who say things that interest you and interact with them. If you follow them but don’t pay attention it a bit like the turning up at a party and ignoring everyone.
But that’s just me. What do you think? Are you going to follow me now?
Unless you’ve been stuck in a cave over the last 48-72hrs you’ll know that Google has launched itsGoogle+ project. This is widely being seen as the real Facebook killer with its Circles and Huddles functionality. If you’ve not seen or heard much about it, here is a short video explaining the project.
In ‘response’, Facebook has, only a few short hours ago, announced their joint partnership with Skype which has added video capabilities to its service. Click here to see a video of it.
I’ve not actually tried either service but my first impressions are that Circles is a HUGE plus to the whole social interactions. It is how people compartmentalise their friends and connections and now Google is offering that ability online. I also think the Huddles functionality seems a lot better than Facebook’s.
Saying that though, I’m not actually sure that this will be the thing that sees the demise of Facebook. With c. 600m there is bound to be some attrition but I think Facebook has more fundamental issues to take care of, namely:
Privacy – how secure is your data? Why can’t you delete your account rather than de-activate it?
Boredom – people have been living with it for 4-5 yrs and the world has moved on, much like it did for MySpace
Displeasure - Facebook has done things slightly underhand, they’ve changed layouts, added new functionality which has changed the site from its original inception (selling rather than interacting)
The one thing it has going for it is that people are used to that ‘space’ for communicating, more so than they are for Google. Also, more people have FB accounts than Gmail accounts, so they will need to create new profiles, learn new interfaces and ways of communicating.
I will be joining G+. I would love to relinquish Facebook (with or without the advent of G+) but unfortunately the rest of my friends are Facebookers and use it to organise get togethers so, for my sins, I am still there. But my activity is virtually zero.
I don’t think it will be the death of Facebook. They will be impacted quite badly, but they will be around (and making lots of money) for years to come. However, they need to truly understand how people want to interact with others and their part in that process.
There are many things I like about Social media, but this is not one of them
The top two discussion from one of my LinkedIn groups are all about ‘Let’s all swap Twitter accounts and FB company pages etc, etc’.
Maybe it’s just me but that’s just a scattergun approach. You may get lucky with one but you’ll get a whole load of crap. It is trying to create followers and contacts for the sake of it. It is purposeless.
Social media works because it connects people with common interests and who will mutually benefit from that connection. It should be personal but this type of things makes it impersonal and spam.
The other issue I have is that it clogs up the discussion boards on LinkedIn which has driven me away from groups. I want to take part in discussions but not if it take me having to trawl through 15 of these ‘discussions’ and people who merely share links without offering their perspective – again, it is spamming the discussion board.
If you want to create meaningful relationships online then put some effort in – explain why people should want to connect to you or take part in your discussion.
Otherwise you’re not part of the solution, you’re creating a problem.
