Have it your way. Talk all you want. Converse on Twitter. I do it too.
But at the end of the day, results speak for themselves. Networking by conversing on Twitter is plain and simple, a terrible way to network. Look at the top people on Twitter based on followers. The majority of them have created real-life tangible results that are changing the world. Are they using Twitter the same way you are?
Information overload
Everywhere I turn these days, I am inundated with advertising. Everybody wants my attention. Brands try to reach me on television, online, when I’m on the bus, listening to the radio, and even when I’m working out in the gym.
Lately, I’ve been swarmed by personal branding. When I’m on Twitter, I feel like a I’ve walked in to a storm of terrible personal branding. Everybody has a platform, wants to be heard, and yells in my ear. It’s like coming to a party where there’s no host, everybody’s screaming, and the only thing that matters is what kind of car you drive, or in Twitter’s case, how many followers you’ve amassed.
I could talk for hours about my wrestle with Twitter. Is it worth my time if I’m trying to have an information-light diet? Is there a real ROI? What is the value if almost everyone on there is selfish and I don’t have any real experiences with 99% of my followers?
As Alana Taylor puts it, Twitter satisfies “the selfishness of being famous, the greed of wanting instant results, the need to speak and be heard, the freedom and equality in being able to take part in a conversation no matter your economic or social status”.
So, if everyone is on Twitter for their own benefit, then is there an extremely attractive ROI from it? I think there are other ways to build your brand in a more tangible and meaningful way. It’s one that may not garner you Twitter followers, but it’s one that will expand your network of people who have had more memorable experiences that cut through the clutter of noise on the web.
Network by doing
What a concept! It speaks for itself, but it’s simplicity is the core of it’s power. By getting involved and taking action, you will create incredible relationships that have amazing value. The relationships you can create by taking action will far exceed any Twitter relationship you can make. What are some ways to make this happen?
- Get involved politically
- Create cross-company initiatives
- Go to lunch with people across your organization
- Do philanthropy work
- Join a professional organization in your area
- Find a hobby
By all means, if you can think of other ways you can network by doing, then please voice up. We need a generation of doers not a generation of big talk. This is the real networking. It’s the kind that will build lifelong relationships, and allow you to connect with people who will help you out at the drop of a dime.
Author:
Adam Salamon is Partnerships Director at Bazaarvoice, Inc., blogs about social media, entrepreneurship, and pop culture. Follow him on Twitter for daily updates.
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Dan – Interesting take on Twitter, what’s really happening on it, and where the value is.
I set up a group on TweetDeck of only the followers that I’ve actually met. Granted, I’m just getting into Twitter and don’t have that many followers, but it’s interesting to look at the “Know Them” group and see almost no one I know personally tweets that much.
Twitter is a great add on to broaden the range of meaningful ideas coming my way, but suspect it may be narrowing attention spans to less than 1 second, which doesn’t bode well for successful relationship building.
Look forward to see what others have to say on this topic.
Adam,
Thanks for the great post. I agree with you on in-person networking and glad to see you added philanthropy to the list. Volunteering around a social issue with other passionate people is not only a great feeling but a good way to expand your connections and “do well while doing good”.
I do also agree with you that it is a misnomer to think that because your chatting away on Twitter you are therefore “connected”. However, I’ve found that in a relatively short period of time my network has extended and been enhanced because of Twitter. An example is the upcoming event I am co-hosting at the UCLA Faculty Center with Rodney Rumford. Our speaker base and industry partner base was greatly expanded by the presence of @gravitysummit on Twitter. It’s been fascinating to see the virtual translate into the real world. We’ll keep you posted on how it all turns out!
Glad to hear that you’re getting tangible benefits from Twitter.
To your point on in-person networking: In all honesty, I hate the term networking. First, it doesn’t really work. It’s a lot of time spent with very little honest return. The reason I added Philanthropy and “getting things done” to the list, is that those activities actually create real lasting relationships. They take a relationship on a journey so at the end, you’ve had experiences together.
I’m glad to hear you are using Twitter the way you are. I’m interested to hear about how that progresses.
Thanks for the comments, Beverly!
Mike- nice idea for Tweetdeck. I imagine that most of the people you know are ones that you knew before you were on Twitter, so it’s not their reflex to nudge you there. What do you think?
Adam- what I take away from this thought-provoker is that, easy as it is, people shouldn’t ignore networking offline. Too true.
Hey Dan, I actually FOUND you via twitter. Other than that, I’ve so far find little measurable use for twitter other than for those that either are: already a famous name or brand., already part of an established community, or, already have a real life social network of friends that actually DO USE twitter.
I personally resisted participating on it – because none of my friends have time to “tweet” all day – or a big name brand. So the whole notion of twitter seemed to me a huge time waste. But because so many advocated using it- I figured I couldn’t shrug it off without some first hand knowledge.
Well, granted there are many VERY smart and talented folks on twitter -but having now some first hand experience on twitter – it really does feel like OVER communication; information overload.
And the idea of finding “followers” frankly sounds annoying. Who really wants to unless they are pushing an agenda? So while I see the benefit of twitter, I don’t see it as the course of action that will yield the biggest ROI (time wise) in the immediate for anyone starting up anything.
But I am glad I found your twitter page (by accident actually!) – I did leave you a “tweet”
and wanted to let you know I’ll be keeping an eye on your blog here.
you mean actually DO something? What a concept! Re Twitter well as broadening the range of meaningful ideas coming your way, it’s also broadening the range of meaningless ideas coming your way–and pretty soon the huge barrage of unwanted marketing messages coming your way.
[...] @danschawbel. Dan is an expert on personal branding and social media with many accolades to his credit. His site The Personal Branding Blog has many useful insights on how to go about getting where you want to be. We all have great ideas right? Dan shares tips on how to get aligned with your goals. BTW: One of my favorite articles is his discussion about Twitter. [...]
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I often go back and forth on the value of social media versus real life. In so many ways, to get engaged through social media is easier, but doing so in real life is more meaningful. Thanks for the reminder!
[...] Read the original post on Personal Branding Blog [...]
[...] However, Twitter is not for everyone and I would seriously caution marketers who think that it’s a great way to blast out 140-character promos. Adam Salamon has a bit of a rant about it here. [...]