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If I Had My Way: Volume 2
Matthew Burr | February 24th, 2010
Disclaimer: This post is meant to be purely satirical. It is tongue-in-cheek, and we ask that readers keep that in mind. Please take no offense to anything contained herein. Wpromote and many of its employees are active users of Twitter and other similar services, and we encourage all to explore and utilize these social media tools. — The Management
If I had my way… there would be an end to inane tweets.
I mean, who gives a crap?
I don’t. That’s for certain.
I don’t care that you’re extra tired today because you stayed up late playing Farmville. I don’t care that some days, your shoes just won’t stay tied. I don’t care that your favorite song just came on the radio. I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.
Now, I understand the hypocrisy of writing a blog post criticizing microbloggers (I secretly hope no one reads this), and I understand how easy it is to avoid Twitter and the other sources of mindless drivel. However, this is one of those things, the mere existence and popularity of which just bother me.
To whom are these people speaking? Their friends? I can’t imagine they have many. Otherwise, they wouldn’t feel the need to tweet in the first place. Does tweeting make them feel important? Heard? Connected? They’re not. They’re merely putting noise into the desolate wasteland of cyberspace. It is a disturbing trend of self-importance being used to mask feelings of loneliness and low self-worth. I’m pretty sure that were Narcissus alive today, he would have died from Tweeting.
A study published by Pear Analytics last August found that over 40% of tweets can be classified as “Pointless Babble,” defined as “I am eating a sandwich now” tweets, the worst kind. That seems about right. The next most common classification was “Conversational,” which consists of back-and-forth communication between individuals. These tweets make up almost another 40% of the total. Why are these people having one-on-one conversations in a public forum? What’s wrong with phone, email, IM, text… ? They’re like the people who have conversations in crowded elevators. I hate them, too. To top it off, another 10% of tweets are made up of “Spam” and “Self promotion.” So, that brings us to almost 90% of all tweets being completely worthless and devoid of anything other than self-service and -import.
Now, this is not to discredit those who use Twitter responsibly, those who fall in that remaining 10%. Wpromote has dozens of clients who use the service effectively as a tool to communicate and interact with their potential clients and customers. Further, we have a number of employees who distribute insightful, thought-provoking or humorous stories and musings through their Twitter accounts. In fact, right here on this blog, our one-and-only Amanda Moshier published an informative piece on the opportunities and benefits presented by Twitter. There is simply no questioning the potential behind this platform.
However, this is meant to address those who abuse it, those who clog our existence with their desperate needs for attention. Next time you go to tweet, ask yourself a few questions first. Do people want to hear about my iced soy vanilla green tea chai latte? Do people want to know the color of my dog’s poo? Do people care how full I feel after eating In-N-Out? No, they do not. Ask yourself if people actually will give a crap or if you just really WANT them to give a crap… because there’s an enormous difference.
Oh, and make sure to retweet this! Loves!
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hearts & darts.
I think twitter is abused and will burn out quick among the babblers. I can say, it does give me minute by minute updates on the Kogi truck and that my friend makes me a happy tweety bird!
Twitter is what you want it to be. Since it’s inception Twitter has evolved dramatically, becoming a powerful marketing tool. What you consider pointless, I might consider to be valuable. Case in point, you don’t care if someone is full from their In-N-Out burger. However, In-N-Out might care. Was there something wrong with their food or is this Twitter-er just another satisfied customer? If they see this “pointless tweet” then they have the opportunity to respond and connect and create a long term relationship with a customer. Might not sound like a big deal because this person has already eaten at In-N-Out and you assume they’ll just come back. But if In-N-Out doesn’t respond, guess who might? Carl’s Jr. Carl’s Jr sees that this Twitter-er likes burgers and could possibly mention their new triple rodeo hash brown deluxe burger. Now instead of being a loyal In-N-Out burger patron, this Twitter-er is going to Carl’s Jr for his next burger…and he’ll tweet about it. Now Twitter-er X’s 2,239 followers know that he has changed his mind from In-N-Out to Carl’s Jr, which might be enough for 3 of his friends to go out and try this new triple rodeo hash brown deluxe burger. Do you see the potential of the “pointless babble”?
If I had it MY way, you would tweet your “pointless babble” into the Twittersphere where I would have the option reading or dismissing your tweet. Instead, I’m stuck sitting next to you and listening to you verbally “tweet” your pointless babble.
“Do you know what song I can’t get out of my head? Michelle Branch’s Everywhere”
“I am going to see Percy Jackson tonight.”
“It’s so noisy over here.”
I’m pretty sure if Narcissus shared our office space today he would have died. Fortunately for you, I am stronger than he.
Jesse – 1
Burr – 0
Agree…
Jesse – 2 … although Jesse… I think that last tweet was REALLY POINTLESS…
Burr – 0
Twitter, makes us all sound silly… “I’m going to TWEET this”… Tweet?! Really?
Jesse- What are the odds that the people at In-N-Out are paying any attention at all to your tweets about how full you got from their burgers? There are an estimated 28.3 million twitter users according to Quantcast (http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com).
I totally see how this situation could be an opportunity for the competition to take advantage, but how many times after you tweeted something negative about a restaurant or other establishment has that actual establishment (or their competitors for that matter) asked you why you were unhappy or tried to sooth your dissatisfaction? I think there might be a few too many people tweeting good and bad things for them to care either way or defuse situations like the above. While I do see potential, I also can see how people who use twitter could be annoyed by this “pointless babble”.
Oh, and I love that Michelle Branch song
Jesse-2
Bur-1
Hmmm. I think the counting here is flawed. Agreement does not equal a point. If it did, it would be tied at
Jesse – 2
Burr – 2
But since there has been only 3 valid arguments, one by Burr, one by Jesse, and one by Holly the real score should be:
Burr’s Argument -2
Jesse’s Retort – 1
Boom Swish.
Holly, do you Twitter? No? That’s what I thought. I do tweet and I have had companies contact me after I’ve tweeted about them. There are social media savvy companies are out there. If companies aren’t responding to people tweeting about them, they obviously haven’t hired me to run their social media because I would be ALL over that! Email me at jesse@wpromote.com or tweet me @JesseBouman and I will make sure your brand can capitalize on the Twitter conversation.
One thing to point out, although there are a gagillion fake twitter accounts and a LOT of people on Twitter using accounts for real, keep in mind that IN-N-OUT or whomever are only paying attention to messages that have their name in them, so its not like 20 million messages fly by and they happen to see Jesse’s. Any smart company is searching on their own brand (reviewing ‘@ replies’ and searching their name) in Twitter, and as Jesse pointed out smarter companies are using this advantage to try and take market share.
@KRONiS
Jesse’s argument = 3
Burr & Holly = 2
but… i think the real test is to actually tweet out that we will have In N Out at the office tomorrow and see if they respond. If they dont, Burr wins and Jesse has to drink a gallon of maple syrup what?
I don’t think the Bible allows Twitter anyway…
amanda = -1 that comment doesnt fit here.
Mike Honcho = -2 cultural literacy fail
Yikes! You guys throwing blows in that office yet?