If you search F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic, “The Great Gatsby,” you won’t find a single instance of the word “Twitter.” Which makes it kind of a refuge from the endless puffery and promotion that you find on Twitter.
Fitzgerald’s shocking oversight almost defies explanation. Of course, he wrote the book in 1925, but still, he should have known how crucial Twitter would become to modern online man.
Who are These Guys?
1. A “best selling” Twitterer recently blogged about how he always thanks the folks who “got me where I am today.” The word “I” appeared 19 times in a 394 word post. In his “Thank You” he didn’t link to a single person or group, but he did mention himself 5% of the time. Might be some kind of a record – even for a blog.
Tell him “Thanks, not reading any more.”
2. Another Twitter Puff Daddy offered bloggers a copy of his new book, but had no time to respond to questions. He did, however, take plenty of time to pitch and tweet every single blog review of his book. His expertise, you ask? Building relationships.
Tell him “Thanks, but no review, sir.”
3. And, then there are the tens of thousands of the followers of these yokels – Tweeting their own greatness, Facebooking their own products and LinkedIn “Discussing” their own services.
Tell them all “Thanks, but no comments for you!”
Mortal Threat to Twitter
Whatever else you can say about Twitter and the rest of social networking, the constant selling and PR is drowning out good insight, information and inventiveness – not to mention the social connections it was meant to promote in the first place.
Tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook might have great promise and could serve to educate, enlighten and inform. But, is the 955th re-tweet of “10 More Ways to Twitter Yourself to Success” one of those great purposes?
Don’t think so. So we’re heading back to the library to find a good book written before the Internet exploded self promotion to a constant art.
Seems to us that these PR Twittering souls have re-written the last line of Gatsby to read:
“So we promote ourselves on, boats with the current, borne ahead ceaselessly flogging the future.”
36 comments ↓
Amen and agreed! Why do people insist on boastful, blatant bragging about themselves, regardless of the medium and with only 140 characters to boot!? I thought it was an anesthesiologist’s job to put people to sleep.
Thanks Terri,
As you always say, “No one cares about your blah, blah, blah.” Looks like you will have work forever, because there are sure a lot of people on social networking that need your message!
Michael – Powerful insight and profound observations…
I’m starting to feel Twitter is akin to what Jim Rohn said about “money”…it makes you MORE.
In other words, if you are an insufferable jerk, Twitter gives you the chance to display more of those terrible characteristics to the world.
If you have kind soul committed to sharing, Twitter presents the opportunity to spread your awareness throughout the world.
Yesterday, a speaker on Twitter said: “Zig has had his run. I’m ready to take over…” Thusly proving why he isn’t good enough to carry Zig’s briefcase. (Can you EVER imagine Zig saying, “Cavett has had his time…get outta my way!”) Twitter gave this guy the chance to spread his arrogance to the planet.
Twitter is like a garden…it needs to be tended. When we see those “ceaselessly flogging” we need to think “WEEDS!” We need to prune our garden — click “unfollow” — and get rid of the weeds.
Hi Scott,
Read Scott McKain’s blog if you want to learn new things and be challenged and entertained.
Your story, Scott, about the Twitter speaker’s comment challenging Zig Ziglar proves that all he knows about Mr. Zigler is his name. When did social networking change from being about relationships to being only about sales?
Someday, we’ll have to get a drink and reveal the names of these yahoos.
It’s just like SPAM. People think that bragging will convince people to buy. I just don’t get it.
Help people. Provide value. You will benefit as a result.
But, if you insist on just pounding your tweeting chest, you’ll find yourself sidelined and blocked. Just like the porn spammers who have now found Twitter.
Thanks Stephen,
You’re right on about what to provide. “Help people” seems to be missing – unless, of course, you define “help people” as “boy, they’ll sure benefit when they buy my product!”
As for Spam, this stuff is just as insidious – just maybe not as easy to spot all the time.
Touche, Michael! People keep forgetting that social media (and all brand marketing) is about forming relationships with their audience.
Audiences act on logic, but they buy on emotion. Drawing emotional relationships with your audience — which is not done by forceful sales messaging — creates attachment and the potential for brand loyalty.
Thanks for bringing such a great topic to light!
Hi Lida,
Great points about logic and emotion.
We’re all selling in an information age and there is nothing wrong with selling. There is something wrong with “pitching” without building first. In our email we call it spam.
HI Michael, let me tell you what I think and why I’m so great and my book.
Okay, sorry, kidding. My hope and manner of Twitter use is evolving to having a few accounts, with a niche/theme to each, and I have dropped the people who send spam/offers/self promotion only within each category. Those offering fun, unseful or otherwise pertinent info get to stay – I don’t expect to have more than a couple dozen feeds per account, as it just becomes unmanageable.
Like all things Web 2.0, offering value for free to show your credibility and talents is what this is about.
Well said. But it must work, right, otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it? Are we (those who take the bite and buy the stupid prodcuts) to blame?
When MLB teams first started selling ads on the wall behind home plate, I swore I would never buy from a company that advertised there. It was wrong! Then a Starbucks ad appeared during a game…Still complain about it, but I do drink Starbucks.
I’m should head to a Minnesota lake and leave the iPhone and laptop behind. But I’m afraid I’d miss something good!
Thanks Dan,
We wrote about Dan’s old blog some time back – http://goldencompass.com/blog/just-the-guy-we-need-for-government-20/
I listen closely to him – and am glad to know you’re writing again, Dan. We need a walk around the lake with the dogs now that it’s nice weather!
Hi Eileen,
Yes, of course, there are suckers born every minute. But, our concern is that the Internet for some reason is new ground for hucksters and scammers. For instance, the pitch “I’m a millionaire, so you can be one too, by doing X, Y or Z” is an age old approach of multi-level and other marketing schemes. So, lots of folks have become hip to it.
However, the same pitch on the Internet – “I made millions on Twitter” – seems somehow believable. Same old thing, though. The folks making money are the ones selling the picks and shovels (an appropriate term).
I’m going over to Starbucks now!
Michael,
I couldn’t agree more. When I started a year ago, it was a neat group, a variety pack of interests and backgrounds. In the last four months, I have been inundated with multilevel marketers, “life coaches”, “money-makers,” and more than any straight woman should see of “booty-shakers.”
What happened? I still talk to a lot of the same people who got me going with the tool. The Twitter tool is still incredibly productive for me to redistribute my blog content and entice folks who wouldn’t otherwise read about accounting to read the blog. They’ve gotten to know me from my evening and weekend Tweets. I don’t feel bad about that because I work hard to deliver content, opinion, and individual insight.
What can we do? A while back some early adopters remarked, “The inevitable evolution occurs when the mass market, spammers, and marketers, including marketers who hide under the PR or social media guru label, take over. Then it’s time to move on.” Or perhaps we need to encourage development of new tools for Twitter that allow us to separate the “frequent business flyers” from the tourists, the looky-loos and the celebrity hijackers.
What is wrong with you Francine?!!
You have reasoned thoughts and tremendous content on your web site and blog. Don’t you know you could be puffing and preening, instead? Just kidding, of course.
It isn’t always the spammy kinds of folks who stick out like a sore thumb. It’s also the pom-pom cheerleader-ish approach of the more “respected” authors and experts on the web. My concern is that they have no concern about the negative side of web issues. Privacy? Get over it, they say. Newspapers dying? Good riddance, they say. Scammers? Don’t follow them, they say.
On the web – everything is relative to the pom-pom cheerleader types. They just shrug and because it’s the web, it must be ok.
Pretty sure that there are both good and bad things about technology advances – and that we’re better off when we discuss them – and that we lose if we only lead the cheers, or only resist.
So bring on the tools that will mute the selling on social media. I’d like to use it to create and foster relationships – which is the real power behind sales, any day.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Let’s not forget about the responsibility of the Listener. Twitter is based on the premise of Following. If I Follow you, I’ve opened a trusted channel for your tweets to enter my personal timeline. If you violate that trust, I have the right (and probably the obligation) to UN-Follow you.
If I’m not tuned to your channel, I can’t hear your obsequious messaging.
There are millions of people using Twitter. In reality, there are probably a handful that actually provide content that meets your requirements. Follow those who you enjoy; UN-Follow those you don’t, and the experience might be “This Side of Paradise.”
Michael,
Great Job! What’s frustrating also are the huge number of tweets in a single day from an individual who informs you of every point a speaker makes or every action they are taking as if we can really feel the experience or really care to begin with.
One such tweeter was a Twitter mentor of mine. In the past two days, there were over 100 tweets. Since I thought very highly of this person (and still do), I elected to receive these tweets on my blackberry. The volume of tweets from this person the past two days crashed my blackberry. I also realized it cost me dearly the last two months in terms of text messaging overages.
The point is when people follow us, we must make sure we do not abuse that privilege. Remeber Naomi’s theme privilege of the platform? For my Twitter friend, going over the line forced me to terminate the notice of tweet arrivals. We should always keep the simple question in mind: What’s in it for the audience!
Have a great day!
The thing that I love about Twitter is that it is at its basic level just another way that society works. There are jerks in society and we learn to avoid them (and tell friends to avoid them). The same goes for Twitter – in fact, it’s even easier to sort out the good and bad people. And it’s easier to make friends and build karma through things like Re-Tweets and answering questions that people pose.
I think I’ll put Ron and Ron’s comments together and thank them both.
Totally agree that there is a responsibility of choosing who you want to follow, and that is a great point, Ron Ploof.
However, I think Ron Karr hits my concerns best – and I think in a way it’s so new that Ron Ploof, you may not have noticed.
For the past couple of months – the piranhas have come out to feed. Most of them are spammers, straight out pitchmen and worse (see Francine’s comment above).
What seems to be happening (and it’s happening on Facebook and LinkedIn just as much – where “discussions” on LinkedIn are now 90% egregious pitches for products and services) is that the floodgates have opened and that may not serve anyone very well.
This is a big concern – and Ron Ploof, I hear you – but Ron Karr, I have to agree, some of the worst offenders are people I trust, like and respect. I think they were sold on the idea “Here’s a place you can make money.” Instead, if people were responsibly teaching social networking they would have been taught, “Here, over time, is a way you can make some more valuable relationships that may, or may not, mean sales – but might well pay you back in other ways.”
Thanks to you both – these issues are important. And, I think much more important than just dismissing them and saying “It’s just a tool, another tool will come along.” As much as we have tweaked Twitter, we think it has tremendous potential.
And Bob,
I sure hope you’re right. It’s just that I find a lot less now to re-tweet and a lot less questions being posed – in the onslaught of the the sales pitches.
Thank you all so much for your comments.
This is a great post and an accurate description of the state of Twitter. But I’m not as pessimistic as some of the commenters. Here’s why.
Twitter today seems very much like the web in about 1996. That was a time when the big players on the web were mostly porn shops and “let me help you make millions on the web” operations. User demographics were moving from young tech-heads to a broader range of people and the average age of web users was increasing.
I think what will happen on Twitter is what happened on the web. First, serious users will develop some discipline. I’m getting good at unfollowing people whose only goal seems to be to sell me something or who post the same quote over and over and over and over.
Technology will play a role, too. Savvy entrepreneurs and volunteer techies will come up with filters and other tools to make Twitter civil.
When CNN, E, and everyone else in the world mentions tweets in every episode or article, and when my dad starts following me, you know Twitter is all about the hype.
Hi Wally and Nicole,
Wally, what will happen to Twitter is that it won’t be around in another two years. Remember Friendster?
Nicole, no way to improve on what you said – brief, concise, hilarious and so true.
Thank you both.
In a different and yet not so different vein, Shakespeare wrote the line about “all sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
This blog post is part of a theme I’ve been experiencing this week. There is the on-going discussion about transparency. This past week , at the NAWBO Boston chapter event, we had a great discussion about humility and self-promotion.
The crux of the conversation was to eliminate hyperbole and be yourself. Integrity, particularly when one is not face to face, becomes important currency.
Oh my gosh, Elli,
Was there a recording or transcription for that NAWBO event discussing humility & self promotion?
I just did a phrase search for “humility and self promotion”
(put the exact phrase inside quotation marks) and, not surprisingly it has only 12 results on the web and none on Search.Twitter.com.
Would you be willing to write a longer summary on your blog? I’ll support the topic by starting a question on the LinkedIn Answers section.
Michael,
The ideas for my blog are percolating as I write. It’s a tough balance to restrain oneself when one feels such enthusiasm for one’s business. There’s the urge to tell everyone how one’s service or product is the 2nd coming! Then there are the P.T. Barnums and the Lydia Pinkhams who will swear up and down that they have your best interests at heart while devising ways to part you from your money.
There are also perfectly ordinary people who just are awkward with marketing and use questionable tactics because some “guru” told them them this is how to make money in social media.
Twitter can move so fast that it is hard to remember there are real live, breathing, sentient people on the other end so perhaps people do and say things that they would never do or say at a in-person networking event. (Although I did get to meet one person face to face who games Twitter and he is EXACTLY like his persona on Twitter. Ugh!)
Perhaps Nicole is right but I don’t think Twitter is so simplistic. Hype is definitely present! However, there are many of us who are making amazing connections that are mutually beneficial. (For example, I would not know Michael without Twitter.)
Bob Gilbreath has encapsulated it so nicely with his observation that the material on Twitter is much like the behavior you see anywhere. There are jerks. There are articulate people. And..there are people trying to figure out how to participate and advertise their expertise. Perhaps we can add patience, self-discipline, and compassion to integrity as important currencies.
Hi Elli,
Here’s to hoping you do write about this topic in your blog – and great comments here. We like it when there are folks like you who come in somewhere between the tech chearleaders and the tech haters. This stuff deserves the thoughtful approach you take to it. You got us going even more on this topic – so next post is for you!
[...] ← The Great Gatsby’s Last Tweet [...]
Hi Michael,
Well, you approached me for a comment via Twitter!! So it must work for you to some extent . . .
Honestly my jury is out, and I am committing some serious time to investigating this for business use.
And I can see some definite potential for that – and I’m very intrigued by people like Guy Kawasaki telling me to throw all my preconceptions out of the window, and instead of going for the quality of my connections, to simply go for numbers.
At the same time, I have already met some people that I would never have met without Twitter and who I think could be good networking – and reconnected with a few that I’d lost touch with.
Also, I’ve set up Tweetdeck with columns of keywords searches in my areas of expertise, and it’s a great way to get resources, see who else is creating ideas, and who is asking questions / get to respond to those.
I agree with Wally Bock (who I haven’t talked with in the longest time!) – I don’t think it’s going away, and I think that its use will evolve as business people figure out how to make it most effective for them.
Take care,
Philippa
Hi Philippa,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Good points and glad that your experience is good.
We’re here to counteract the sales hawkers and the pom-pom wavers when it comes to tech things like Twitter.
For instance, NO ONE is talking about the fact that 9 of 10 Twitter followers now are spammers or straight out pitchmen. That’s going to kill it if nothing else does. But, who writes about it? No one that we have seen.
We’ve also had good experiences on Twitter and other social sites, as you have. But, the negatives right now are a huge concern.
Not my experience, Michael.
The folks I follow on Twitter either provide thought-provoking posts, or links to interesting content, or occasionally I learn something that they’re doing that is different and cool.
Why am I so lucky to follow only good Twitterers (is that a word now)? I’m not. It’s just that the beauty of Twitter is that you can “un-follow” those who think that their trip to the grocery store is of interest to others. And I have “un-followed” quite a few folks. Leaving just the gems. Like you two.
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the positive message. We also only follow those people we know, those we find fascinating and those we like. The thing is, many of these folks do fall prey to the same common misconception about all social media. They seem to have been told that this is a place to sell. If you wanted to make a comparison, it would be like attending a business event where a majority of the crowd just passes by and sticks a business card or flyer in your hand – and then moves on. That’s what we think is happening to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
We think online social media is no different from any other kind of networking – it’s about meeting new people, forging new friendships and learning new things.
Chris Anderson’s new book (out soon), Free, the Future of a Radical Price (http://tinyurl.com/andersonfree) should help move things along toward less selling – and might help people realize to cement relationships and provide more free content before they move on to anything else.
I don’t know, guys. I love Twitter, and am a huge advocate! Like any tool, it’s about learning how to use it in a way that serves your purposes. You can always unfollow the folks who blather on about their own promotions and add no value, or you can use a tool like Tweetdeck to sort and prioritize the tweets from folks who DO add value and contribute great insights.
There are a great number of real leaders and CEOs who use Twitter. You can find an example of one here:
http://www.suzipomerantz.com/leadershipinsights/a-ceo-twitterer-in-forbes/
Of course, I’m a great Gatsby fan as well.
See you in a few weeks in DC!
Suzi
Hi Suzi,
As usual, Suzi provides a great link, contributing to the serious side of this conversation. We agree, Suzi, we are advocates for Twitter, too – at least in some ways. However, we do fear for its mortal soul.
Is it really such a crime to advertise and promote products, concepts, ideas and experiences that you have enjoyed or find beneficial?
In your socialist world, people would just “happen” to come across the products or services that benefit them? This seems to me that it suddenly turns the world into a bunch of google querying vegetables, forced to seek out the answers to every question imaginable.
In many cases people use Twitter, Facebook or others as their advertising medium, because (like many of us) they don’t have billion dollar ad budgets.
So, is advertising really the worst thing in the world, whether via baseball stadium or Twitter?
When you need to fix a plumbing situation in your home, you’ll be thanking Roto-Rooter for advertising at that recent baseball game, because without thinking you’ll pick up the phone (another product which in some way was probably advertised to you before you bought it, right?), dial the number and have a technician on the way to fix your problem.
No need to search the phone book looking for the best deal, no reason to consult Yelp! reviews and you didn’t even need to whip out that fancy iPhone app of yours to help you determine which way is up while your house is flooding.
Meanwhile, I suppose we should also remove the phrase, “In case of emergency, dial 9-1-1” from the back of emergency vehicles as they are “shamelessly” promoting a service, right?
At least there isn’t a live Twitter feed on the back of every fire truck you see driving around.
[...] seemed to describe the tightrope between humility and self-promotion in a pretty funny way. In The Great Gatsby’s Last Tweet, Michael Benidt (@michaelbenidt) noted that there were many people who really ought to know better [...]
Hi Matthew,
Pretty good points – but aren’t you the guy who first pointed out those virtual advertisements behind home plate? I still don’t like them.
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