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5 Signs You Suck at Twitter

I’ve been playing around with Friend Or Follow over the last few days, and I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people suck at Twitter.

Friend Or Follow is a Twitter tool that shows people you’re following, but aren’t following you; people who follow you, but you’re not following; and people you have a mutual followship with.

I dumped over 500 people from my Twitter account this week with FOF. I checked out each account I unfollowed, and frankly, some of you people are just doing it wrong. That’s why I unfollowed you. Not sure if this includes you? Then check out the…

Five signs you suck at Twitter.

    • You claim to be a social media consultant/pro/expert/guru (CPEG), but your following to follower ratio is 10:1. That is, you’re followed by 5,000 or more people, but only following 500. Social media consultants looove to say “have conversations with people.” But shouldn’t people who truly value conversation be willing to, I don’t know, have them?. Or at least fake like you are? If you’re a CPEG, you should have a ratio fairly close to 1:1. This is not to say that everyone should have a 1:1 ratio. Just the CPEGs. (Pro tip: you’ll also have more than 200 followers. I’m just sayin’.)
    • Nearly every one of your tweets is some motivational or inspirational message. Why do I need to get ten motivational messages peppered throughout the day? If it didn’t help me at 8:30 — 29 minutes after your HootSuite-scheduled “Good morning, my tweeps! Make this an excellent day!” — then it’s not going to help me at 9:30, 10:30, and so on. Don’t regurgitate someone else’s cleverness, show me yours. If you really want to motivate me, tell me about the cool stuff you’re doing.
    • You’re trying to amass as many followers as you can. If you’re a celebrity, a public figure, or someone who’s really, really interesting, that’s great. If you grew your network through hard work and earned those followers, more power to you. But if you resort to computer scripts, trickery, and joining follower-building networks to boost your rankings, then stick with being a LinkedIn LION. Twitter is not a competitive sport. Despite what you’re already doing to LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter isn’t just one more race to the bottom of mediocrity and uselessness.
    • Your Twitter bio has the words “money,” “fast,” and “make” in it. I spam-block every single person whose bio says they have some money making system they want to share with me. Stick to peddling penis drugs and fake watches by email.
    • Your time between tweets can be measured with a calendar. You don’t have to tweet many times a day, but at least once a day wouldn’t kill you. Even every other day would be fine. But when you’re only tweeting every 3 – 4 weeks on a regular basis, then Twitter isn’t a communication tool, it’s an afterthought, like calling your mom the day after Mother’s Day.

What is your Twitter pet peeve? What sort of annoying behavior have you seen?

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Gmail is the New Black: Why You Should be Using Gmail Right Now

Do you use Gmail or some other web-based program, or are you still accessing email strictly on your computer, cursing Outlook, and praying for the sweet, sweet release that death a hard drive crash will bring? Do you have a backup of your address book and necessary emails, should that blessed day ever come?

When I give a social media talk, I tell everyone to use Gmail for basic contact management. It has saved my bacon more than once, and I’ve become such a raving fan that I use it as my only email interface. I even forward my work email and other addresses into Gmail, so I have one window, one set of contacts, and the cleanest, least buggy interface I’ve ever had the joys of using. I can send email from any of my addresses, but the interface is all Gmail.

The joys of Gmail

If you’re not using Gmail yet, here are a few reasons why you need to:

  • Social network building Any social network you join is going to have a way to import your address book into the network so you can see if your friends are on there. Gmail is the easiest one to bring in. Some networks don’t even import web-mail programs like Hotmail. Others are a little more forgiving and will let you import Apple Mail, Outlook and Outlook Express, and comma-delimited CSV files.
  • Offsite storage of your contact list Let’s say that your work computer crashes, and you lose everything. Or you are, um, no longer allowed to. . . access your work computer due to a new arrangement you have with your now-former employer, and you need to let your friends and colleagues in other companies know about your new work situation. Having a copy of your address book in your control will make this a lot easier. You can even sync Gmail with Outlook, so any time you change or add a record, that is reflected in the other. Warning: some solutions will split up multi-email records, and then sync all those brand new records into Gmail. I had that happen twice, after I spent hours cleaning them up.
  • Emergency access If you ever need to reach people over the weekend or in the evening, but your computer is at work, you can still do so. This is especially important for people in crisis communication whose organizations are still planted firmly in 1997. If you’re counting on your email server and your email list to be available if you need to do a press release or media alert, you’re totally hosed if that thing ever crashes because of a large-scale disaster. When I was in crisis communication, we had to come up with some plan to work around just that contingency. And if you’re in the middle of an emergency, and you can’t get access to your email server, you need another solution. There are so many workarounds to getting online, as long as you can get there, you can communicate. But if you’re depending on one computer’s data, forget it.
  • Enterprise email You can even use Gmail for business. For $50 per user per year, you can get 25 MB of storage per user, plus it syncs with Outlook and Blackberry. (For the record, I can also sync my personal email with my HTC Droid.) You keep your corporate identity and addresses, but you have the security and ease of use of Google’s email, calendar, and Docs.

What about you? Why do you use Gmail (or your favorite web-mail application)? Why should people switch to web-mail from computer mail? Or, why shouldn’t they?

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Be an Entre-Commuter With Just a Latte and a Laptop

I’m the mayor of my office and my church.

At least that’s what Foursquare tells me. I’ve checked in enough times at both places that I’ve been declared the mayor.

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site that lets you tell people where you are via Twitter and Facebook.

Think: 50% friend-finder, 30% social city guide, 20% nightlife game. We wanted to build something that not only helps you keep up with your friends, but exposes you to new things in and challenges you to explore cities in different ways.

You check in at different places around a city, give tips and recommendations, and in general get to know your city better.

I’ve been using FourSquare a lot lately, especially after I got my new Droid phone a few weeks ago.

I’m starting to earn the reputation for being out and about all the time. I check in everywhere I go: the office, the coffee shop, the library, the grocery store. I’m not out any more than usual. I’m just telling people about it.

But it’s become a whole lot easier now for me to be out and about too, thanks to my laptop and the proliferation of free wifi around the city. I’ve become a real entre-commuter.

(Entre-commuter: entrepreneurial commuter who works out of a coffee shop, cafe, restaurant, library, or any other place with free wifi. Term coined by Erik Deckers and Paul Lorinczi to justify why they don’t sit in the office all day, every day.)

We came up with the term entre-commuter for those people who own their own business and have the ability to do it anywhere. They can do it from home, the local library, or their local coffee shop. We happen to favor Hubbard & Cravens in Broad Ripple, although I’ll travel just about anywhere around Central Indiana for good coffee.

The great thing about being an entre-commuter is that you get to network with other people, and collaborate with them on occasion. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve met with, helped, provided connections for, and done business with, just because we both happened to be out at the same time in the same place. And meeting some of the same people in the same place several times has blossomed my network beyond the typical Chamber and other networking events.

Where do entre-commuters gather?

I prefer to patronize local coffee shops and restaurants, although I’ll hit the occasional chain once in a while. We need to support our local establishments more than the chains — the chains don’t support our local economies. The locals do.

Is there entre-commuters etiquette?

There are a few rules for entre-commuters. They’re fairly common sense, but I still see people violate them from time to time.

  • Don’t camp out. They have to turn tables during peak times. If you’re sitting with a computer and a bottled water over lunch, they’re losing money on you.
  • Only occupy tables during low times. Don’t take up a 4-top all by yourself if you can help it, and don’t be afraid to share a table with a stranger either.
  • Buy something. Spend money, and more than just a little. Don’t buy a $2 coffee and then sit for 8 hours.
  • Be respectful. This is someone else’s business, not your office. Don’t treat it like it’s your place. You’re a guest.
  • Keep your voices down. Other people are there too, so don’t have loud conversations. You’re not at the club, you’re at a quiet little shop.

Entre-commuters just need to be somewhere we can find free wifi and good coffee. Somewhere we can connect online and offline. Find your local shops and spend some time there. See if you can create some business, as well as giving the local shops some business as well.

Photo: Nina Turns 40 blog