IRL Twitter: Nature Meets Social Media

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My Twitter follower word cloud

Word cloud created with TwitterSheep.

I'm a big believer in seeking inspiration outside of the realm I work in, and creating things that don't appeal specifically to that crowd.  It leads to richer, more interesting ideas.  So my goal for this word cloud is to make the big words smaller, the small words bigger and to constantly be adding new words to it.

TwttrPoop and what you should already know about social media

I made a vow that I would avoid writing about twitter on this blog until there is actually something new to say.  Well, with the release of TwttrPoop, that day has arrived.

The creation of Josh Shabtai, TwttrPoop is pretty much what is sounds like -- it aggregates all tweets about going #2 and allows you to graph them in comparison to any other terms widely discussed on twitter.  It shouldn't come as a surprise that variations of "going #2" far outweigh most other terms.  Sure -- major topics like Michael Jackson, Iran and, of course, beer receive more tweets than bowel movements do, but most other brands don't fare so well.

Google, Facebook and Apple all receive more tweets than "people talking about pooping", which based on other comparisons, is pretty impressive.  These are three of the top brands in the online/technology space, and it's likely the people tweeting about them are using them at the same time they are on twitter.

When you take this comparison to a few offline brands, the results are very different.

Coke, IBM and Toyota are all included in BusinessWeek's Top Brands of 2008.  And they are all dwarfed on twitter by people taking a poop.  The latest buzz in "social media marketing" -- same deal.  Pooping dominates.

If you do a few of these graphs, it solidifies what you should already know -- twitter is more like texts from last night than a tool about conversing with customers and building brands.  Social media mimics real-life conversations.  And, like real life conversations, there are many topics more interesting to people than your new label or the contest you are running for people who become fans of your Facebook page.

Something often forgotten in marketing with social media: Just because you're interested in talking to your customers, doesn't mean they're interested in hearing from and talking about you.  And when there's nothing you can do about it, step away from tactics and build a reason for people to care about your brand.

"You've changed, man" (on twitter)

Of all the social networks that I participate in, I actually KNOW the fewest on twitter.  And I'm guessing if you follow/are followed by more than a few hundred people, you are in the same situation. twitter is one of the few social networks where it is completely acceptable to follow people you don't know, and want them to follow you back.  It is one of the things that makes twitter unique.

I am following marketers, technologists, designers, news services and a slew of early adopters, and I am followed by many of the same.  As twitter has grown over the last few months, the one group I have now added is friends.  As in, people I know personally -- relationships were constructed offline and are now seeping onto twitter.

I joined twitter as a digital marketer wanting to learn more about a tool that has now become essential to maintaining a social media presence, and ended up talking to people doing the same.  My real friends weren't there, so the people I talked to the most we like me: early adopters, marketers, people interested in new media.  Now that my friends have rolled into twittertown, my twitter personality is changing.  The people listening and talking back to me on twitter are no longer early adopters and marketers -- they are people I grew up with and had beers with long before twitter existed.

It is unusual for a social media service to become more social, but that's what twitter has become for me.  I'd rather tweet to and for friends I know than hope for a retweet from early adopters.  That doesn't mean it's one or the other, but the presence of my friends has changed the way I converse on twitter.

If I really want to maintain a certain personality on twitter, the obvious answer is to have a couple different twitter handles, but that defeats the purpose of social media.  Social media is about relationships - the new ones and the old - and one of the things that makes social media interesting to me is the fusing of the those relationships and the information/interactions that result.  As more of my friends join twitter, it becomes better (and more social) for me.  And to be honest, I think it makes the conversation on twitter better as well.  So I'll be sticking with my current twitter handle and look forward to more friends rolling into town.

Facebook: One Social Network to Rule Them All

The social media community is constantly talking about what's next. Brian Solis wrote earlier this week about FriendFeed becoming the next great conversation platform. There are countless conversations about twitter as a must-have for marketers and businesses, and as Mashable points out, it has seen massive growth in the past year.

You know who else has seen massive growth? Facebook, which now has two times as many unique visitors as MySpace. At this point, I barely know anyone under the age of 35 not on Facebook, and I am regularly being added by friends' parents and relatives I haven't heard from in years.

Facebook still rules as the top conversation platform, and here's why.

People value their friends on Facebook more than on any other social network. And the reason is because it is more personal. Most Facebook users know every single one of the people they are friends with -- from high school, from college, from working together. And in that time they interacted, they shared enough personal interaction that they trust those friends to be in their network.

Facebook, not twitter, is the biggest microblogging platform in the world. It may not be the most active, but the Facebook news feed, then the brilliant addition of comments on that feed, makes every user a microblogger.

Facebook is more interesting. Most people would rather read and watch what their friends are posting on Facebook than digest a heavier conversation happening elsewhere. It's the same reason I read the Google Shared items from my friends before I read any other feeds. I want to know what my friends are up to before delving into the rest of the noise out there.

Almost everyone you know is on Facebook, and only a few of them are on twitter or FriendFeed. Try posting your twitter name in your Facebook status and invite people to follow you. Your friends that are on twitter are already following you, and the rest haven't figured out the point of twitter.

Conversations on Facebook are real and genuine. And it is because the real people-to-marketer ratio is still appropriately intact. The walls that Facebook has put up to protect their users, although often lamented by advocates for an open web, have gone a long way to protect users from the "look at me" marketers on twitter.

So what does this mean? Facebook may not be as sexy as it used to be and it may not be where the early adopters are playing. But it is where the most active and genuine conversations are occurring with people that the users trust most -- their friends. Marketing with social media is about trust and conversation, and Facebook still has the most of both.