Jason Douglas
Spyder Trap Online Marketing
I have been in the online marketing industry here in Minneapolis for over a year. Within that time, I have grown from a precocious and eager college graduate to a ever growing confident online marketer.
I recall in my first interview for an internship last April that twitter, then a “new social media network” was starting to gain some momentum. I was asked about my opinion on the usefulness of twitter. I calmly said “twitter is just the facebook status by itself. There is no way this will be useful, as it is lacking the rest of what facebook offers.” Thirteen months, 765 followers, over 1,600 direct and 2,800 @ messages later, I am sold on twitter and can laugh at my answer I gave. I must note: I did get the internship.
While reflecting, I thought about how I tweeted, what I tweeted about, how I used twitter. My first tweet, according to www.myfirsttweet.com, was ‘is listening to KFAN online, resting, searching, cleaning, and mentally preparing for BUCKS tonight @ Chammps Minnetonka.’ That status seems to have a facebook tone to it. I’m not asking a question, I’m not answering a relevant question, and I am not adding value to the twitterverse.
I went through a phase where all my tweets would have a professional tone. I was engaging people with questions, contributing to conversations, and tried to position myself as a thought leader. That’s how I was told to act from co-workers, blogs I read, etc. You did not want to be the person who seemed ‘facebookey’, as you were not adding value to the twitterverse. There were certain rules you followed if you wanted to be fully accepted into this community.
That was before Ashton Kutcher gained one million followers. Since the Ashton effect took place, twitter seems to have a more social and casual feel to it. It is more accepted to post updates such as my first one above. The main concern in the twitterverse is being spammy. As long as that is avoided, you will be easily accepted into the community. It is now acceptable to show more personality within your tweets, while maintaining a level of professionalism.
With anything in life, rules change over time, standards change. How have you evolved with social media since you began using facebook, twitter, myspace, or any other social media site?