27 December 2008 Tweeting To The Top

The boys over at Talking Digital raised a really good question in a comment on a recent post of mine.

Why does Twitter have such an elite feel to it? And further, why do people have a need to be ranked and judged on their social media platform depth and performance?

Yes Twitter full of innovators and early adopters but it very much seems an exclusive group. People talk as though being on Twitter makes them more social media friendly than those who aren’t.

Would it even be necessary for a social media consultant to be on Twitter? Would you trust someone giving advice if they didn’t blog? This blogger wouldn’t.

Surely you don’t need to be on Twitter? Same with Facebook. In fact, one of my favourite bloggers doesn’t even have a blog yet. It could help, but certainly not a necessity. Just like not every brand needs a social media presence, do they?

Gotta love those posts with more question marks than full stops.

Posted by Zac Martin
No Comments
  • Stan Lee
    Posted at December 28, 2008 11:33am, 28 December Reply

    As Bob Dylan once said – Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.

    This is doubly true on Twitter.

    Guy Kawasaki has 10 zillion followers. Sheep the lot of ’em. His tweets are mainly links to stuff.

    Chris Brogan loves being a weblebrity. Same goes for Scoble. More so in fact.

    Like all of the so called social media tools, Twitter has been taken up and, to a certain extent, tainted by people looking to ‘monetize’ it.

  • Granleese
    Posted at December 28, 2008 12:28pm, 28 December Reply

    Twitter doesn't have an elite feel to it. It definitely has a pre-2000 internet buzz to it, but this is not elitist.

    It is not exclusive. You do not need an invitation to join.

    Yes, a social media consultant should be on Twitter. Practice what you preach. No amount of SlideShare plagiarism is going to achieve this for you.

    Yes you will understand (the many types) of social media more than others if you have a wider-reaching understanding than others — think search marketing before Google took over the West. You can have an understanding of how PageRank and AdWords works and pass the search marketing exam these days, just because >90% of search is their product.

  • Simon T Small
    Posted at December 29, 2008 12:54am, 29 December Reply

    I can see how it feels elitist, but some bloggers are like that, and so is traditional media…

    Twitter can be a great tool if used well, I use it for two main purposes:
    1. To increase my personal network
    2. To research – its a great news recommendation engine

    Twitter is a new technology, just like the telephone was once. And the telephone is used for many different outcomes now, as will Twitter, once we’ve played around with it for long enough.

    Its already being used for numerous purposes:
    -Bigpond are using it for customer support
    -SocialMediaJobs are using it to promote jobs
    -Mashable are using it to promote their blog posts
    -Some use it to chat to friends
    -Some use it to coordinate events

    Twitter connects people in a new way, just like the telephone did, how we use it is up to us. Although this doesn’t mean everyone should be using it.

  • Nudge Marketing
    Posted at January 3, 2009 11:43am, 03 January Reply

    Eletist I’m not sure but as far as social media consultants not being on twitter I ask you this..

    A 10 year old has the ability to create a twitter account, a facebook account and a blog. Does this mean their advice is valuable? Meanwhile millions of people are still buying marketing/business books written in the 50’s and learning a lot from them. So should we stop listening to Dale Carnegie or Neapolitan Hill cause they don’t have a twitter account?

    – Jake.

  • talkingdigital
    Posted at January 5, 2009 11:30am, 05 January Reply

    I’m interested to see how twitter truly connects people in a ‘new’ way … how many people are actually practicing 2 way dialogue … and how many are just trying to spam and/or promote their own blog/product etc

  • Damian Damjanovski
    Posted at January 6, 2009 4:18pm, 06 January Reply

    You’re spot on, Twitter is horribly elitist. To those of us who use it regularly, sure, it might not seem like that, but to your ‘average joe’ who hears only geeks and marketing types talk about “Twitter” like it’s the second coming, and interrupting every major event with a “Hold on, I have to tweet about this”, yeah, it’s elitist.

    I still love it though. =P

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