In our scientific study of hundreds of thousands of Twitter interactions (well, ok, maybe it was an unscientific study and only included a bunch of our tweets, but….), we are sad to report some disturbing trends:

• Responses to @Messages have gone down a shocking 55% over the last year.
• Even worse, responses to DM Messages have dropped 73.3% in that year.
• Most troubling of all, though, Thank You Responses have plunged a shocking 193% in just 12 months.

These figures had better make you stop in your tracks and rush right over to the @Message and DM Message Links on your Twitter account.

No Excuses, Please

Oh, sure, we can hear you saying:

• “I don’t have time to write back to people.”
• “I’m too important to interact with the doofusses on Twitter.”
• “Lots of my DM messages are spam.”

You know what? If you don’t have time to respond – you’re just another “Bombastic Blatherer,” the fastest growing and largest single group on Twitter (don’t ask us for the statistics).

If Chris Can Do It

Over the past week, we’ve been ignored by the mighty and the meek. We’ve had DM messages sit like lonely hitchhikers on the Bridge to Nowhere. We’ve had @Messages die certain, agonizing deaths. And, while some folks say thank-you, most of you don’t (and you know who you are!)

But, you know what? Real social networking takes time. Time to interact and time to respond and even time to thank people.

Chris Brogan has well over 136,000 followers on Twitter. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me, but I’ve @messaged Chris exactly twice this past year. Both times he acknowledge my tweet by responding.

So, Back to Janet

We opened this article with a screen shot of Janet Betschart thanking the folks who answered her question about Outlook. My German isn’t very good, but it’s good enough to know she was thanking those folks. Or, you could use Google Translate:

In fact, if you want to know whether a particular person is getting feedback on their Tweets – just go to Search.Twitter.com and put in that person’s handle with the @ symbol in front of it. You’ll find out who has real followers who is simply whistling Twixie.

When we did this for Janet, even though she doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of followers, five or six folks answered her question right away:

And then Janet took the time to thank them, right in front of Twitter and everyone.

What can I tell you? Thanking people and responding to them are now as endangered as the waterfowl in the Gulf of Mexico. The current out-pouring of icky, black, Bombastic Blather is turning the Gulf of Twitter into a giant self-serving swamp.

You can help clean it up. Just write back.

When you get done with it, you’ll just want to start over again – to catch up on the 90% that escaped you on the first read.

I’m not going to summarize it or write much about it, because Joshua Cooper Ramo does it better:

This book is the story of a new way of thinking. It is one that takes complexity and unpredictability as its first consideration and produces, as a result, a different and useful way of seeing our world. It explains why unthinkable disasters are blossoming all around us and — as important — what we can do about them. The main argument of the book is not particularly complicated: it is that in a revolutionary era of surprise and innovation, you need to learn to think and act like a revolutionary.

Reading this book will not only make you tremble, it will also make you think more deeply about the forces at work in your own world. What “unthinkable” events might you be heading toward in the next few years?

Out on a Limb

Of course, that got us thinking. From the viewpoint of our speaking and training world, here are four concrete, “unspeakable” predictions about how that world will change.

As you read our predictions, you may think, “I get your point, but it won’t happen that fast.” Think again, along with Mr. Cooper Ramo:

All of these trends follow what Internet watchers like to call a “hockey stick” curve: they start slowly and then rapidly accelerate.

So here are four capsule summaries – with links to other resources and some of our longer articles on each topic:

Bye-Bye Email

We subscribe to lots of email newsletters. We’ve given out our email address trusting it will be used appropriately. However, here’s the kind of thing that’s been happening lately:

*One sender decided we’d like his newsletter every single day of the week.
*One pleaded that we vote for her social web page contest.
*One asked us to join his Mafia Wars cabal.

None of them asked our permission for these changes. They figured we’d be tickled pink. We weren’t. And, those are just a few of the email infractions that are family friendly enough for us to write about.

When email spam now constitutes 94% of your inbox – and the other 6% of senders are making decisions like those mentioned above – email itself will surely “hockey stick” its way to its final coffin by the year 2012.

So Long, Frank Lloyd Long-Page

We’ve called him “Long Page Larry” in a recent blog post and renamed him here to “Frank Lloyd Long-Page.” He’s the man with the “Squeeze Page” (which are Internet come-on pages designed to gather email addresses), and he’s heading into oblivion.

With so much free information available on the Internet, your customers will quickly learn to insist on good free content that proves your expertise before they will ever plunk down their precious email address, or open up their wallet.

In fact, the message above will soon have to change to:
“If you’re not providing your customers with inventive, valuable and free content on your web site… Then there’s no doubt you’ll be watching your customers leave your egregious little
come-on’s with a quick, resounding click.”

The squeeze page mavens and super-slick online sales types say, “Trust Me,” or “Buy My System.” Within the next couple of years, we’ll all stop donating our email addresses, and we’ll all stop buying their bunk.

What a Pain You Are, Mr. Salesman

One of the bedrock approaches of the sales world is that you get further by making your customer feel pain, than you do by helping them understand their gain.

In other words, they know you buy things because you feel inadequate. When it comes to technology they’re masters at exploiting your insecurity about things like “Can I really become #1 on Google?”

As Carolyn Myss has said, “Americans have managed to make lack of self-esteem a national malady.” But, better access to information will help all of us build our confidence. And more confidence will keep us from succumbing to the pain messages those salesmen are pitching.

Some companies, like Dove soap, are already catching on. We wrote about their Campaign for Real Beauty in “It’s Time to Build the Customer’s Self-Esteem.”

Your New Best Friend – The Competition

Here’s what’s about to happen. Your increasing access to information (and your customer’s access to that same information) will revolutionize your relationships with your competitors. We’ve written more about this in “You Can Kiss Your Competitors Goodbye,”

If you’ve seen the television ads for “Injury Lawyers who Ride” you’ve already gotten a taste for how business competition is changing. Instead of competing with each other, “Donor-cycle” lawyers across the country have banded together to create this national network.

Take a good look at your competitors and ask them over for a cup of coffee, because “somethin’s happenin’ here” – and what it is will become very clear in just a few short years.

Your Own Predictions?

Agree, disagree, ticked off, beguiled? Don’t just sit there. Tell us what you think. And, send us links to the unthinkable, unspeakable predictions you’re making for your own industry or market niche.

We think that many current ideas and solutions (no matter what the discipline, market niche or public forum) are like those described in The Age of the Unthinkable:

“These ideas fail both tests of good science: they neither predict nor explain our world. But too many of our leaders are incapable of confronting this disconnect. They lack the language, creativity, and revolutionary spirit our moment demands. In many cases, they have been badly corrupted by power, position, and prestige. We’ve left our future, in other words, largely in the hands of people whose single greatest characteristic is that they are bewildered by the present.”

What do you think?

Chris has recently gotten himself embroiled in a rather embarrassing little plagiarism scandal (good grief Chris, copy something a little headier than Wikipedia, if you can’t resist the urge). Unfortunately, that scandal has obscured one of the prime benefits of his book.

Released officially today, Free will rocket to the top of the bestseller lists. Which means a lot more people will realize how much free stuff there really is on the Internet (you know, like, for free). And, walking his talk, he’s liberally spreading free versions across the globe. Here’s the one we like from the incredible Audible.com.

It’s Your Information, Stupid

Amidst all the free stuff that’s available on the Internet, and perhaps most importantly, is a huge treasure trove of good, solid, free information and ideas. All this free stuff will be the end of the yahoos who promise you "Internet Copyrighting Secrets," "Instant Road to Internet Millions" and scads of other hype-driven entrapment offers like them.

Take, for instance, the guy who’s been hawking his "Copywriting Secrets" every day for the past umpteen months on various LinkedIn Group "discussions." Every link returns the reader to his "long page pitch." He provides no free content, he’s simply puffing his own stuff.

You’ll find "Long Page Larry" and a zillion bozos like him all over the Internet – just do a few searches for phrases like "Internet Copyrighting Secrets" and "Online Millionaire." You’ll usually find them pictured in front of a luxury car that costs more than the gross national product of Finland. You know the type.

The problem with their strategies is that what they’re selling is already available for free. Which is why you have to read Chris Anderson’s new book.

The Real Free Copywriting Secrets

Here’s an example. Why pay for copywriting secrets when there are sites like Brian Clark’s amazing blog, CopyBlogger? Clark gives away more solid and useful information about Internet copyrighting than you’ll ever have time to read.

Which is one of Mr. Anderson’s points – and one we’ll all be adopting in the coming years. Brian Clark gives away tons of free tips and strategies because it establishes his authority in his field. He can then sell his highest level of expertise at a very decent price, thank you very much (we all have to eat).

The Lady and the Outlaws

Alison Lunde (also known as @snipeyhead on Twitter) has "Long Page Larry" (and the free strategy) figured out in her hilarious "The Complete Social Media Guru." (Note: Allison did allow us to slightly alter the screen-shot and title to keep this a family friendly-friendly site – so be forewarned if you click the link).

It’s true. These guy’s days are numbered. Alison has them nailed and Brian has them covered. So, here’s the lesson for the day – and an oversimplified explanation of Chris’ book:

Read folks like Brian Clark, Chris Anderson and Alison Lunde. They get it. They establish their credibility by giving away free ideas. They are the people we all want to hire because, when we do, we know what we’ll get.

Here’s what happened, and it’s happening all over Twitter, all the time.

If you viewed just one of the Tweets touting this article, you wouldn’t think twice. It would certainly look to you like someone appreciated something and wanted to Tweet about it. Nothing too remarkable there.

The article itself was also unremarkable enough. It told how Twitter can build your business. Half of it was stuff you’ve read before and the other half was the typical bad advice you’ve also read before.

Warning Signs

However, in this case, scores of different people tweeted the exact same message, with the exact same wording. They did so almost all at the same time, all on the same day – and then stopped for good.

What you’ll notice in the screen shot above is that none of these folks “re-tweeted” someone else’s message. “Re-tweeting,” by the way, is a way of saying, “I agree with this person” or “I, too, liked the article that she mentioned.” Re-tweeting is a way of showing respect, admiration, agreement or thanks to someone who actually wrote a tweet that you found worthwhile. It’s a very cool thing when used honestly.

But please notice, these folks have “independently” created their own message. And, they are all using the EXACT same language. How could that be? Hmm… if that doesn’t make your “hogwash siren” go off, I don’t know what will.

(Please Note: the screen-shot above has been altered to protect the innocent – if there are any innocents, which I seriously doubt. Read on, but remember, don’t waste your time punching in the phrases, links, or Twitter names, because we made them up to protect, well, us. If you want to know the real names and links, just give us a call).

The Author’s Not Even @ Home

What you’ll also notice in the screen shot is that no one refers to the author of the linked article by her Twitter handle. They all refer only to her real name. On Twitter, that is really, really odd.

That’s probably because the Twitter handle for the author (@JRMishmash, for instance) has not been used for several months. Now, that might not make you suspicious right away, but remember, the article is about the power of using Twitter.

Yes, fans and fannies, it’s the old “fake expert trick“:

I’m an SEO expert whose own web site has no traffic.

I’m a relationship expert who only pumps my own stuff.

Or, in this case:

I’m a Twitter expert who never Tweets.

In an almost direct quote from her company web site at Mishmash PR, we find that she guarantees “measurable results” because:

Mishmash PR develops campaigns that will harness public relation strategies, social media, Web 2.0, and SEO-powered campaigns to deliver your customer message.

But, it’s all blather. The amazing thing is that she and her company are selling you their social media expertise and they don’t have any. They don’t Twitter and don’t participate in the ongoing, online discussion at all. All they do is sell their stuff.

Automation and Semi-relevance: the Name of the Spammer’s Game!

We were pretty sure general sliminess was involved here since those “hogwash sirens” had gone off more often than a Kansas tornado alert.

So, we asked Mike Keliher, one of our “Board of Learning Directors“, to help us explain what was going on here. He pointed out:

Well, you’ll notice that none of these people write messages at/@ other Twitter users. At the very least, that’s lame. It’s often a solid indicator of spamminess or other general bullshittery.

We like Mike not only because of his willingness to help us, but also because of his colorful language. He went on:

You’ll note, too, that @birdsofafether and @goshmoney, for example, have posted similar/identical messages and links several other times, too. More importantly, I’d bet a case of beer that these accounts are part of a network of accounts that claim to offer folks “100,000 impressions for only $12!” and things like that.”

The seediness of it almost makes you gasp. Well, not gasp, since there is a ton of such seediness on Twitter, but you get our point. Keliher finished up by telling us:

They set up a bunch of sort-of-real-looking-but-not-really Twitter accounts — and propose to help others spread word about their stuff for a few dollars. Or they link to pages in an effort to increase those pages’ Google juice. Or they are used in one way or another to game any system that’s unsophisticated enough to be based on sheer numbers.

We’re sure thankful for folks like Mike Keliher. I think it’s pretty fair to say that if we wanted to hire a PR firm, we’d pick his company (Fast Horse, Inc.) – instead of one that jiggers the links to their non-existent work on Twitter.

No More Cobbler’s Kids Excuses

Remember, it’s entirely within your hands to say “stop” to this kind of duplicity. Instead, if someone wants to optimize your web site and increase your web traffic, just ask them to show you how they do it for their own site.

When they say, “Oh, I get all my business from referrals and from my speaking engagements,” tell them to go jump.

If someone wants to sell you a seminar about the power of networking and building relationships, simply try to interact personally with them in some way.

When they say, “Oh, I’m much too busy for you,” tell them to go jump.

And, if someone wants to sell you a seminar about social media, just ask them to show you what they are doing with it.

When they say, “Oh, I don’t use Twitter, but you should,” tell them to go jump. And tell them to stay there!

Thank You: inuyaki.com’s Spam photo is used under Creative Commons license.

By guest writer, John Exley

At 19, John Exley is already networking the tough job market. He’s a sophomore Interdisciplinary Engineering & Management major at Clarkson University. He is also President of his school’s chapter of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO). We met him on Twitter – @JohnExley.

Attending conferences can greatly improve your personal and professional network. But, when should you start networking those conferences? I believe you start well before the conference.  

Success in life is a complicated recipe. One crucial ingredient is who you know. Networking can increase your contacts and enhance your ROI. “Pre-networking” can launch your career and change your life.

Tweeting, Linking and Zooming

I recently attended the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco and it changed my life – before I even attended the conference!

How? I did it by “pre-networking.” Using several social media tools, I was able to build relationships with successful entrepreneurs and business leaders in the web 2.0 technology space before the very first keynote even kicked off.

The process was simple: once I registered for the conference, I reached out to Twitter to meet other people planning to attend as well.

I utilized the search option on my Tweetdeck for “Web 2.0 conference” and used something called a “hashtag” (#w2e) to engage in conversation with other attendees.

Additionally, the Web 2.0 Expo event on LinkedIn represented a pre-networking goldmine. LinkedIn’s events component allow conference attendees to list themselves as speakers, exhibitors, or attendees.

This is an organized and efficient way to focus your pre-networking strategy. 

Identifying clear goals for the conference was essential for success from a networking standpoint. Instead of pre-networking with lots of people only once or twice, I communicated more often with a more manageable number of 10-15 of the most influential people that I wanted to meet in San Francisco.

I also utilized a service that provides a very comprehensive source of information on business leaders called ZoomInfo, whereby I was able to study the past business experiences of the people I was pre-networking with. This enabled me to begin developing relationships with business leaders and enhance the level of connection with each person prior to arriving at the conference.

Rubbing Elbows

While I was not successful in meeting everyone I pre-networked with, those I did meet were significantly more helpful and interested in my personal and professional aspirations. I was fortunate to be able to establish some key relationships with people carrying proven track records in the entrepreneurial circles.

I established a potential mentoring relationship with a veteran entrepreneur in the legendary Silicon Valley, Steve Ciesinski; currently the Vice President of Strategic Business Development and Marketing for SRI International.

Mr. Ciesinski has held executive management positions with many companies in industries such as semiconductor capital equipment, telecommunications, Web 2.0, open source, and medical devices. Having started his career at Procter & Gamble, working as a consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton and also serving as a venture partner with Earlybird Ventures, his advice regarding my future entrepreneurial journey was invaluable.

I also spoke with Jeffrey Kalmikoff, the Chief Creative Officer and a Partner at Threadless and SkinnyCorp. Mr. Kalmikoff has had noteworthy success in launching high-growth companies while young and in that regard his advice was of particular interest to me.

Because of his inspiring story and specific experience starting a business at a young age, I offered to connect him via email to the directors of the National Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO) in Chicago in order to speak at the National CEO conference this fall.

Additionally, I met Greg DeVore, the CEO of Blue Mango Learning Systems. By pre-networking with him extensively through Twitter I had learned a lot about his intriguing background and his start-up company.

Before launching Blue Mango with his brother Trevor (whom he introduced me to via Twitter), Mr. DeVore earned a Music Composition and Film Scoring degree from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and worked in the film music industry in Los Angeles. His start-up company creates e-learning solutions for medical device manufacturers such as GE, the company that I am interning for this summer.

I was excited to speak with him in person and gain his insight into going into business with a sibling. I attended the conference with my younger brother and was very interested in learning about his and Trevor’s experience concerning building a business with your brother.

You Can Too

Your success in life, whether viewed from a business or a personal perspective, often results from the people that you know. By pre-networking at conferences, you gain the opportunity to enhance those relationships and come away with connections that can assist you in your journey towards achieving your dreams.

Pre-networking changed my life recently and helped me to get the most out of the Web 2.0 Expo. I encourage you to utilize a pre-networking strategy the next time you are preparing to attend a conference.

You are very likely familiar with these four truly pivotal events in human history - the development of the written word, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, the industrial revolution and the discovery of the Sony Playstation 2.

However, you might have missed something about the Internet – it’s size. “How big is the Internet?” you might say. I’m glad you asked.

If you put that question to the most popular search engines like Google, Yahoo or Ask your answer will come back to you in unique visitor statistics, jillo-bytes of data or the number of Uzbekistans with wireless connections.

Go ahead, try it if you don’t believe me.

For instance most Internet statistical experts now agree that we have passed the 1 billionth Internet user, over 3 billion residents of Hong Kong go online every year and something like 500 million people per day check the Internet simply to see if their flight has been delayed.

Honestly, they are likely doing a few other things after they check their flight, but if you do a “How Big is the Internet” search, you will almost never find information about the amount of information that has flooded onto the Web.

“Information about the amount of information.” That’s the great event that is going unnoticed. The amount of stuff that is now available at the touch of your fingertips dwarfs the amount of information that even the very best research librarian had just 10 or 15 years ago.

That’s because of hundreds of factors, but to simplify it is mainly because of old information now being digitized and completely new information now being produced every day.

In the category of old information, whole libraries of books are being digitized, decades of newspaper content are being archived and vast genealogical records are being entered, to name just a few.

In the category of new information, everyone from major corporations to best-selling authors to would-be journalists (politely called bloggers) are writing new stuff, as well as making tons of their old stuff available, much of it for free.

Expressions like “a tsunami of information” or “an explosion of material” cannot even come close to conveying the true magnitude of this gargantuan transfer of wealth. Let’s just say that to get a really good picture of how big Internet content is think of Brad Pitt’s ego – and then multiply that again by half.

There is so much information you might even feel overwhelmed. But, much of it can help you save time, some of it can help your company make more money and some of it can make a difference to your friends and family.

It comes down to this. The largest transfer of wealth in human history has been happening over the last few years of our lives. Yet, the story has been rarely documented and almost never featured on the covers of popular magazines.

Further, schools are not teaching how to mine it, entrepreneurial programs are not featuring how to harness its power and businesses are almost completely ignoring how it can empower and motivate their employees.

How is it possible for such a staggering event to go unnoticed, untaught and unappreciated? The honest answer is that we don’t know.

But, we do have some ideas – and we also have some examples that you’ll be able to put to use right away for your business and your personal life.

Come see us at the Wyospace.com Idea Expo in Casper, Wyoming September 26-28. Yes, you’ll see us, but you’ll also see a ton of other presenters and workshop leaders in this three day extravaganza of new ideas and creative thinking that is decidedly “not your ordinary business conference.”