Article written by Dutch problogger Ernst-Jan Pfauth
At The Next Web, Chris Sacca came up with a brilliant metaphor that you should keep in mind whenever you’re tweeting and blogging.
There are 700 people in this room. If you were standing on stage, you would be quite nervous: shaking a bit, maybe with a dry throat. When having such a large audience, you will sure try to entertain or inspire them. We tend to forget that we have a large audience on Twitter too. So before you tweet ask yourself: am I providing value? Will it put a smile on someones face? Am I expanding someones horizon? Otherwise, don’t write it.
There are lots of ‘how to twitter’ posts on the web but I guess this is the one everyone should read first…
Chris Sacca at The Next Web Conference. Photo Flickr / Anne Helmond
About the author: Ernst-Jan used to be the editor in chief of The Next Web. He’s currently blogging for Dutch quality newspaper nrc.next.
Value! – Yup!
How many of us think of this exchange virtue in whatever we do. We all look for the good things in life, without giving a lot of thought on providing value from our actions. Business or otherwise.
Both this article and Chris Sacca’s proposals on anyone’s tweeting habits are just plain stupid. Firstly: we are not talking about a metaphor, not even a metonym, which leaves this comparison more like an analogy, secondly: why restrict anyone out there to use Twitter the way it has been intended to be used? If not for all the business model guessing and the almost accidentally found news stream and live search capabilities, why would anyone have thought Twitter not to be a personal status update that lets other opt-in to see what you are doing? Pay attention to the opt-in: if you are not interested in a person’s thoughts, just do not follow! That’s totally different to me being part of an audience and having paid for a speaker to get across some meaning on a subject agreed upon ex ante.
Thomas has hit the nail on the head.
And what next – suggesting what we ought to email each other about? Sheesh.
I also agree with Thomas. The medium is set up so that you can shift your attention whenever you choose (following and un-following people). You do this in real life, too.
Second, a big part of Twitter’s success is it’s lack of features. In REFRAINING from imposing rules, guidelines, and meanings, Twitter becomes more flexible. It evolves in the shape of how people use it.