jmacofearth’s posterous

Twitter is a wonderful beast. All changing, scamming, Oprahing millions of us trying to figure out how to use it to... What? What are YOU using Twitter for?

• To Learn.
• To Sell.
• To Discover Something New.
• To Connect with New People.
• As a Broadcast IM.
• As a Sales Channel.
• As a Business Opportunity.
• To Have Fun and Joke Around.
• Just Because It's New.

Does "microblogging" mean anything to you? In the year (s) of tweeting behind me, I have developed some strategies for engaging my tweetstream that I hope might be helpful to you. The illumination/discovery path for today is going to be the dreaded and most valuable tweet technique the RT, or ReTweet. So here's how it works.

Part 1: Discovery - Someone tweets something you find helpful, amuzing or dumb.

Part 2: Use the RT feature in your Twitter app du jour. (if your not using a Twitter app to manage Twitter, well... That's another post: Putting a Dashboard Around Twitter.)

Part 3: Be Additive and Subtractive.

Part 4: ReTweet.

So let's look at Part 3 more closely. Additive: Adding your comment or twist on someones tweet to add value/humor/meaning/dialogue to the twittersphere. I'll pull one off the stream right now and give an example:

So I will hit the RT button in Tweetdeck (my Twitter app of choice, you can see that Alex is using Tweetie -- probably on a trendy iPhone!) and being my additive process.

[Here's the RT without any work from me] RT @BaldMan RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I wait as I need my caffeine.

But I am interested in adding to Alex's tweet in some way, usually to join or josh with Alex himself. And also, by ReTweeting Alex at all, to introduce my followers to BaldMan as a cool person to follow. Since I am following him and clearly ReTweeting with some joy his somewhat mundaine "gettin coffee" tweet. (no offense Alex) Some folks are happy to RT without modification, and I will do this occasionally if I am in a hurry and I REALLY DON'T WANT YOU TO MISS SOMETHING. But if I am connecting with BaldMan/Alex in any significant way, then I am will do my part to Twist or Comment on his Tweet via my ReTweet. (Have I lost you yet?)

[Here's my Additive RT of Alex's "gettin coffee" Tweet] RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I wait as I need my caffeine. >> Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring a warm up and pastry for me? Dang, I'm at 151 characters. (Tweetdeck shows -11 in RED, so I know what I have to cut] So I have several choices. I can shorten my response.

Since Alex and I no longer work together, my plea for a warm up is ficticious. And inside joke for us and a "connector."

Or... I can get subtractive of Alex's part, and fit my ADD by shortening his original Tweet.

So now for the Subtractive:

[Here's my Additive and Subtractive RT of Alex's "gettin coffee" Tweet] RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I wait as I need my caffeine. >> Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring a warm up and pastry for me? (Okay -1 still to go.)

RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I wait as I need my caffeine. >> Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring a warm up and pastry for me? (Okay +1 let's do it.)

Now I will often use different "offsets" to separate my comment from the original Tweet. Here are a couple examples.

Double Carat: >> RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I need my caffeine. >> Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring warm up and pastry for me?

Brackets: [ ] RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I need my caffeine. [Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring warm up and pastry for me?]

Slash: / RT @BaldMan: Long line at Genuine Joe, but I need my caffeine. / Oh, boy Alex, mine's gone cold. Could'ya bring warm up and pastry for me?

I'd love to hear your retweeting strategies and "offsets."

It's a bit like English grammar and poetry. It's part of the ART of Twitter. And by being creative we can make people smile. It's not about business, it's about spirit!

@jmacofearth
permalink on uber.la: http://bit.ly/ReTweeting

Related Links:

• Fire Everything! - Twitter Facebook LinkedIN Convergence - What’s Okay What’s Not
  
• The 1-2-3 Guide to Getting Real with Twitter
  
• Visualizing Twitter (Twitter Venn) Venn Diagrams from Twitter Data
  
• Twitter’s Global Influence Grows: Innovate, Communicate or Be Left Behind
  

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Do you leave an out-of-office reply on your email account when you are gone for more than a few days? And what about when you are in the office? Do you leave your auto-reply emails turned on?

Okay so how do you feel when you call the bank on the phone and they say, "Your call is important to us." Do you believe them? Do you believe them AFTER you've had to call back to the voice-navigation system three times because you keep getting routed down the rabbit hole?

How about direct mail? Do those credit card apps offering you some "guilt free" money make you feel any more confident in the economy? Do they make you feel like the banks are finally ready to start bringing the economy back on line? Do you feel like they are trying to make contact with you, or sell you? Or even worse, scam you?

So here's the connection: On twitter when you decide for whatever reason (cool picture, cool name, random click, recommended by a friend) to follow someone, it is a pretty simple and trivial event. "Click." Okay, so far so good. In some people's Twitter etiquette the next thing you get is a DM from the new "friend" with some happy words of greeting. Or worse, a sales pitch for how you can increase your twitter audience by a 1,000 followers a day. WTH?

Is there any good case for Auto-DMing followers? Is there any good reason to leave your auto-responder ON when you are in the offie. Well, perhaps if you are trying to fake a friendly "Howdy, friend, let's have lots of great chats now that we're friend." I find it more likely that you are faking that intimate connection that comes from an actual response and re-follow.

Imagine these two responses I got after following someone who looked interesting.

Response 1: "@jmacofearth if you like that, you might enjoy also in absentia (blackest eyes) and fear of a black planet (way out of herefear of...)" fr: Tapatia

Response 2: "Thanks for the follow. I hope we get to tweet a lot and rule the world." fr: name redacted.

So I asked Mr. 50k what the heck he was doing training businesses to do this Auto-Bot responder. I guess to him it was like an answering machine. But I think he missed the point and of course now he's blocked me from harassing him any more. When confronted, Mr. 50k responded that he auto-followed and auto-DM'd so he could invite the new "friends" to connect with him on Facebook or his website. Oh boy!

But wait a minute. What are you doing when you ping me back with a sales pitch? A sales pitch of any kind? Like, "Hey, John McElhenney, thanks for the follow. Be sure and check out my Facebook page HERE and get a copy of my free ebook "Winning Twitter and Influencing Tweeps," HERE." So Mr. 50k says it's only because he wants to be able to DM you and for you to be able to DM him. And I asked him, "So what if you took the 30 seconds to look at the persons page and made a determination if you were interested in having a conversation with them?" "When you get 1,000 followers a day come talk to me about that 30 seconds." So Mr. 50k was at about 32k followers when we had this exchange. Let's check in on him and see how he's doing in his mega-twitt quest.

Yep, he's gained 16,000+ new followers so far in the 21 days of March, so he's well on track for becoming a regular Guy Kawasaki or perhaps even an Obama. But wait, let's see what Mr. 50k has to say in those, perhaps he has an important message. Uh, nope.

There is this awesome blurb in his bio, "He believes that education is important, but not essential to becoming a successful entrepreneur." Okay, but don't quit your dayjob. The good news is that Mr. 50k is using his new found popularity and has launched "a social media marketing company, which specializes in training large companies how to engage their customers by using social media." I'm not sure he knows what the meaning of the word "contrived" is, but so be it. (adjective, obviously planned or forced; artificial; strained: a contrived story)

So maybe he can help you. Maybe I'm getting all riled up about nothing. But if I left my out-of-office email reply on (also called an auto-responder) with a pithy welcome statement, my guess is you would feel less welcome and more like a customer.

Main advice. Don't join the Borg, don't be an Auto-Bot. Be REAL and in REAL TIME.

@jmacofearth permalink: http://bit.ly/mr-50k

Related Post
Getting Real with Twitter: http://bit.ly/twitter-1-2-3

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