Twitter’s not that old but I’ve been doing it for a while. If you’ve been using Twitter since before it exploded at SXSW in 2007, you to are in the elite group that knew it was cool before it was cool.
Does that make me an expert? Hell no. It does give me a bit of perspective. I won’t even say it gives me a unique perspective, but I think it gives me enough seniority to prance around thinking I can talk about a few things that work and a few things that don’t. And so I’m going to take the examples of two people I follow on Twitter and show you how one way works, and another way doesn’t work as much (although there has been some improvement).
A little over a year ago, I bought the Heroes - Season One
DVDs at Costco and finally found out what everyone had been raving about. It rocks. Anyone who knows me, knows I hate TV. I keep it on in the background while I do other things, but I do not schedule my life around when certain shows are on…or at least I didn’t. I make a special exception for Heroes. And that’s it.
So imagine my excitement when I heard that one of the actors who plays one of the new characters form the third season is on Twitter. Yatta!!
Brea Grant, who plays Daphne "The Speedster" Millbrook on the show, but in the real world, she Twitters, she blogs, she UStreams and makes pickles. What’s more, she get’s it. She’s really on Twitter, really tweeting the answer to "what are you doing?" She works the Twitter. She follows a bunch of people; maybe they are her personal friends, maybe a few cool fans, who knows. And she interacts; frequently @replying to people both on and off her follow list. She is definitely following Gary Vaynerchuk beyond the scope of subscribing to his tweets—she’s building her brand on the interwebs.
(Click that link. Click it!!)
Not long after I found out that Brea was Twittering, I heard that Greg Grunberg was on as well. Greg "Grunny" Grunberg plays the part of Matt "The Mind Reader" Parkman on Heroes and was no doubt hipped to Twitter by Ms. Grant who plays his foe/friend/wife on the show (depending on what version of the present or future you happen to reside in).
I’m not trying to be mean here, but Grunny doesn’t grok Twitter. He’s getting better, but he has a way to go. I had originally written the meat of this post as a private page especially for him to read, but he misread my @reply or didn’t know what I meant when I asked him to "follow me" so that I could direct message him the link to the page and the username and password to access it. (You can only privately message people who follow you on Twitter) I was just trying to help a guy out. I like Grunny. He seems like good people to me, and he has a lot to gain from Twitter and social media.
Greg Grunberg is a founding member of a musical group called Band from TV. It’s aptly named since the members of the band consist of actors from popular TV shows. They currently have a DVD available on Amazon.com and the proceeds of the sale of the disc go towards many worthy charities; Grunny’s being The Epilepsy Foundation in honor of his boy. The opportunity is ripe for Grunny to work social media and sell DVDs for this great cause in November: Epilepsy Awareness Month.
I want Grunberg to succeed at this. So, screw it, all the advice I was going to give to him privately, I’m posting here. I’m sure it applies to a lot of people, so maybe this will be useful information to others as well.
Here are the "Secrets of Twitter Success"…as I see them.
- Don’t talk about wanting to boost your Twitter numbers or hold informal competitions with friends to see how many followers who can get in what amount of time. No one wants to be a number. Here’s the reason (at least publicly) that you want to get the numbers up: Band From TV (for everyone else, ask yourself what you have to offer the community).
- Follow people. This might be one of the few times where it’s almost more important to receive than to give. It has been said that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. Care about some people—follow them. Don’t follow everybody and don’t follow just anybody. Your "follow" is seen as a gift by your fans—it’s an honor. Any Heroes fan you follow is going to be very, very proud of that. There are a lot of influential people in the geek community you might want to follow too.
- Twitter isn’t chat, but it is a conversation. Proper and judicious "@replying" is key. You don’t have to @reply to everyone who @replies you, but it will be a very big thing to the fan you do @reply to. If you are speaking to a specific person, preface the tweet with an @reply. @reply to people you follow also—start the conversation. Don’t go crazy with it though—you want each @reply to be worth something and @replying to everything devalues it.
Ask us questions? Again, it’s flattering to a fan to have their “hero” care about their opinion.
- Twitter about behind the scenes stuff. No spoilers obviously, but if you can convey the kind of feeling Adrian got with his YouTube stuff that will give fans a sense that they’re getting let behind the curtain a bit. Post pictures via TwitPic if you can. (He’s already started doing that. Yay!!)
- Mundane isn’t always mundane. Let your followers know what you’re doing today…even if it’s boring. (Note: I have pretty much proven through my own Twittering that this rule only applies to people with a decent amount of fame. My mundane stuff really is boring to people.)
- Work away from work. Tell us about your side projects. Let your followers know how the Band from TV album is doing.
I think if Greg Grunberg, or anyone else who has the "I’m a famous guy on TV" edge applies this kind of strategy to Twitter, big things can happen. Being famous is going to get you followers regardless, but being famous and working Twitter, can be huge. Fans will be able to see that it’s really you, they will know that there is a chance that you might follow them and even reply to them. That’s magic.
