I have a hundred thousand followers on Twitter. I follow back about 93,000. I don’t see most of what you tweet about. I use search and lists to keep up with what I can, but the software API can’t even serve all your tweets to me.

But there’s value in that number. I get value in the following ways:

• You find the good stuff for me, so I can learn more.
• You promote social causes that I support if they resonate with you.
• You visit the great voices I share with you, growing their audience and potential for relationship.
• You help spread important news like Amber alerts fast.
• You support the better of my posts. (Heck, sometimes you support my posts that I don’t even like.)
• You keep me in the loop and talk with me when we both have a moment.

I get tons of value from Twitter every day. Heck, just today, I mentioned on Twitter that I’ve made the Roger Smith Hotel my exclusive hotel in NYC, and that spurred a new conversation with a hotel in Boston. I spoke to the folks at Legal Seafoods, after they noticed I recommended them to a friend visiting Boston. Now, they’re going out to buy my book, and so I offered to swing by and sign it and talk.

I get value every day from Twitter. It’s my serendipity engine. It’s my liner notes.

Where Seth is right, however, is that bullhorns are stupid and useless.

But no value in Twitter? Not on my watch.

I forgot to explain HOW I started expressing my own voice:

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. I give you snackable content like this. That’s at the base of blogging as a writing style (versus blogging, the software).

But if I never give you depth, I can’t give you free ebooks like these, if I just blog whatever comes to mind.

As media makers, as marketers, as consumers of content, this has to be considered. What’s suited for velocity? What matters for depth? When do you shift resources into one than the other.

In my own work, this is tricky. Remember that I’m writing for lots of different reasons. I’m writing to equip you. I’m writing for business lead generation. I’m writing to give people seeking speakers a view of the inside of my mind. I’m writing to get things out of my head. I’m writing to build community and extend relationships. (I can keep going, but I won’t.)

How are you choosing? Which one are you spending more time on, and what does that mean for how you use media as a bridging mechanism?

Photo credit thesullys

Marketers: please, please, please think really hard about the recipient of your message. It seems SO easy, but I find that people talk about how amazing they (their company/product/etc) are. I’m glad you’re proud, but is that what you want to tell me? Because if I’m the customer/consumer/user/partner, you know how I’m thinking, right?

• What’s in it for me?
• How does this impact me?
• Do I have to do something?
• What’s this going to cost me?

The other thing is this: please re-think which details you think I might care about. I passed an ice cream truck the other day on the road. The side of it read: Serving fresh ice cream since 1934. First, your ice cream better be fresh. Second, I don’t care when you started. I want ice cream. Finally, ice cream is fun. People LOVE ice cream. Why not talk about the fun?

Please. Ask yourself after every little scrap of copy you write, “Who cares?”

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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

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Photo credit, striatic

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What were your first steps into social media?

Who were your early people you admired and followed?

How did you get started?

If you were going to give advice to someone starting out, what would you tell them?

What will you do in the next few months with social media?

(Let’s see where this goes).

Advertising. Ah, yes.

I felt deaf, too, because the conversation that I’m used to hosting here at [chrisbrogan.com] was somewhere else. It was on other blogs, all over the place, and sometimes, I’d participate, but other times, I felt like I missed everyone else’s opinions and feedback. I felt like I couldn’t hear you as well, because you weren’t able to simply connect through here.

I felt blind, because I use my website as a way to know whether or not what I’m saying matters. I watch for the impact, and try to improve my message when it feels like I’m faltering. With eight days fewer subscriptions to my site, I felt like all my momentum was gone, or at least, I couldn’t see it.

Blogs Aren’t Everything, But They Make a Good Home Base

Several people were looking for more information about me over the last week, and they found very little when swinging by my crippled site. If you click through and look at the website itself, there’s a picture of me, contact info, and all kinds of information on what matters to me. Without my website, you had to guess based on the other places where I make media.

This all made me wonder about companies who don’t use blogs. Maybe you don’t know because you haven’t felt it, but there’s a huge (HUGE!) difference between a static website where you try to collect leads, inform people, and take orders versus a site that builds into a conversation, a voice, a listening post, and a way to see your impact on the marketplace you care about. If you work for a company that doesn’t have a blog, can you share with us why your organization doesn’t blog?

Should all companies blog? Not sure. But boy, I sure felt wrapped in gauze by NOT having some kind of sounding board back and forth.

What’s your take? What do you think?

Oh, and if you’re not a subscriber to this site, please consider subscribing for free or getting a copy sent to your email inbox:

Photo credit, JMurawski

Five Levels of Social Conversation

I believe there are roughly five levels at which we communicate on tools like Seesmic or Utterz or Twitter (to a lesser extent):

1. My Dog Has Fleas – baseline social conversation. No different than what would be said in line at a grocery store, and not usually that interesting.
2. Let’s Talk About X – conversation, but hit or miss on real insight.
3. Hacks and Energy – lots of good stuff, still a little hit or miss, but with more engaged/engaging types. (Not sure why I call it hacks, but I mean when you suddenly get into a bit of fast energy flow).
4. Production – people who understand the medium and are “making” something, but who aren’t into conversation, per se. (like Internet TV shows.)
5. Serious and Deep – rarest of the rare.

Most of my conversations probably fall into 2 and 3. Sometimes I produce something, too, but not so often. Am I serious and deep on the web? Not usually in video.

What do you think? Am I missing anything? Is this silly?

Thanks for the email, Bill. I’ll reply on that a little later.

Photo credit, Bill Cammack.