twitter

Want to Twitter? Here’s how to screw it up…

Jeromey Balderrama

Note: This is part of a series of posts I’m starting of “Here’s how to screw it up.”  In the course of my daily life I see a lot of people trying different things, and do a lot of things to screw it up.  This isn’t meant as an attack on the people who do these things, but rather the actions themselves.  Please feel free to add or debate anything listed here, my hope is that by looking at the way things are done poorly, we can see how things can be done well.

If it has been apparent over the last few weeks, Twitter has become mainstream.  You hear it on the nightly newscasts, sporting events, awards shows and the list of celebrities on Twitter is just blowing up.  After using Twitter for over 2 years and over 3,300 Tweets later, I’ve seen a lot of people try to take up the Twitter ball and fumble miserably.

So if you’re looking to get started on Twitter, here are some things you could do to screw it up:

  • Following significantly (+20%) more people than the number that follows you: I understand when you’re starting out you obviously need to invest in following some people, but there’s nothing that screams “loser” quite like following 2x or 3x the followers you have.
  • Use Twitter solely as an outlet to pimp yourself. There’s something to be said about personal branding and Twitter being an opportunity to do so, but if the only thing you’re contributing to the Twitter is talking about what you’re doing, posting links to your blog, talking about your services, etc – then you’re missing the point.  Converse with other people, say clever things and offer insight. I don’t want to see a never-ending commercial about yourself.  It’s pretty easy to see right through it, and people will wise up and drop you.
  • Try to be an Expert at Twitter, and market that “skill”.  Let me save you the snake-oil money you’d spend on these “Experts” by offering you some free advice: Update consistently, be yourself, engage in conversations and try to add value.  Do you need an expert to teach you to use a cell phone?  Trust me, you’ll be fine on Twitter.  People will follow you if you’re interesting, not because you’re showing your LinkedIn URL in your Twitter background.
  • Use Terms like “Tweeple” or say “Tweet ya later” We get it, Twitter is a great new form of communication and way to get information, but it doesn’t constitute it’s own vocabulary.  “Tweet ya later” may be a bit subjective, but when did someone say “Cell ya later” on their phone?
  • Directly command or take advantage of your followers. The list of who can get away with this is very short: Shaq, Jason Calacanis.  Everyone else simply looks like a tool trying to wield an imaginary gauntlet.  It’s one thing to invite your followers to do something, or even ask a favor, but don’t order me around.
  • Constantly send @ replies to celebrity Twitterers.  I understand, we all want to get that magical response from a celebrity Twitterer that we can print out and frame, but you’re not going to do that by pretending to be every celebrity’s best friend and sending them 25 replies.
  • Misuse Twitter lingo. Not to contradict point #3, but there are a few terms that Twitter has coined: It’s called “TWEET-UP” not “TWITup”.
  • Repeat Tweet over the course of a few hours.  We heard it the first time, it just wasn’t that compelling.  It’s one thing to keep bringing up the same topic by adding something new – for example, when I talk about Greenfoot’s shows, I say that we’re sound-checking, watching the first band, etc.  I keep mentioning the show, but find ways to add value.
    I’m sure there’s plenty more, feel free to offer your “how to screw it up suggestions” in the comments.

Keeping customers in the loop

Jeromey Balderrama

Some thoughts to vent a frustrating day:

You’ll have to forgive me for this rant.  I’ve pretty much have been eating granola bars all day.  My blood sugar is low, because I never had a lunch, thanks in part to lousy customer service.

My car hit the 90,000 mark last week, and I wanted to get my transmission serviced at the standard 90,000k mark (I noticed gears haven’t been shifting as smooth as they were).  I made the routine appointment, set for 8:30.  After bringing my car in I was told I’d have an ETA of 3 hours or so, no later than 1pm.  I got a ride to work and figured I could take a late lunch when my car is finished and I get a ride back to the Stealership.

Noon rolls around and no call, the 1pm ETA time rolls around and still no call.  I’m swamped with work so I keep working, waiting for that call.  By now it’s well into the afternoon and I pick up the phone to call them.  They don’t have a status on my car and the guy who’s handling my work-order was on a call and would need to call me back.  Another hour & 1/2 passes and still no call. I finally call them back very irate and angry.  I get transferred to the guy handling my work and he unapologetically says that their machine wasn’t working properly and they now just got it to work this afternoon.  It should be done about 5pm!

So work that was supposed to take about 3 hours ends up taking all day – I’m fine with that. I understand things come up, machines break down and estimates change.  However, when you never call me about it, don’t return my calls and then inform me that circumstances delayed their estimated time after-the-fact – all of that is unacceptable.  Might I have been called closer to the estimated time of completion I could have figured something else out for lunch, but to just keep me strung along like I have nothing better to do – that’s classless. I think this is the last time I’m going to the Spradley Barr Stealership for service.

While this was going on I wanted to vent my frustrations to Twitter, only to find that Twitter was down too.  If you manage to load the page, you find the following message (ala Techcrunch) “Something is technically wrong. Thanks for noticing – we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon”.  A message like that is just insulting.  Many Twitter’ers, frustrated with all of the outages have talked about Boycotting Twitter – supposedly Wednesday is the day to not use Twitter. Many are skeptical for the notion of boycotting a free service – but I do understand where they’re coming from:

Regardless of whether the service is free, of if you’re charging parts & labor for your service – you have an obligation to inform your customers of your status and give them timely, relevant details to understand the issue and when you plan to have the service restored.  Many people might not care – they didn’t need the car until the end of the day anyway, or they may just reload Twitter sometime in the evening – but they shouldn’t have to go out of their way to understand when you’re going to deliver what you’ve promised.

Whether you’re Twitter or the Spradley Barr Service in Fort Collins: when things don’t go right be apologetic, and keep us updated. Is that too much to ask?