The Dark Side Of Twitter

The Dark Side Of Twitter

Posted on 16. Mar, 2009 by Bob Duffy in Social Media Tools

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Ok I just have to realize my naivete, and that too often I have my head in the ground.   Great example was a discussion on my FaceBook wall regarding Twitter.  I made the observation that many the people who started to follow me were following thousands of users.  My immediate reaction…. how can somebody follow that level of the conversation.

I was quickly educated

 Bob Duffy at 5:42pm March 15
Just an interesting trend to me. You don’t need to follow people to mine Twitter so I find it curious. Perhaps its done to build a ranking. I can’t really follow more than 100
 Ed Borden at 5:55pm March 15
They follow thousands because its the easiest way to get your follower count up. 10% or 20% of the people will just auto-follow them back, so they immediately have a bunch of people following them.
 Shannon Grissom at 6:06pm March 15
The networks want to see numbers from me. Something they believe they can monetize. Tweetdeck helps with the content. Still I only keep up with my favorites.
 
 Bob Duffy at 6:08pm March 15
I guess that’s one way to increase you social equity online. Just seems less than authentic. If we all just follow everybody then the notion of those numbers becomes irrelevant.
 Bob Duffy at 6:11pm March 15
@ShannonGrissom. Ah that is an interesting perspective. Seems we can see more of this if those numbers are tied monetizing.
  Shannon Grissom at 6:11pm March 15
It is irrelevant and certainly inauthentic. Still, I’ve been working with sponsors and they equate mass followers with $. Somebody needs to help them do the REAL math.:)
  Ed Borden at 6:17pm March 15
Anyone can do it. Right now you can go get 10K followers. But what are you accomplishing? None of the followers actually care about who you are — they followed you automatically. So now you are just one of the thousands of other people they auto-followed. They’ll probably never read a single thing you ever write, and if they do, they won’t care because they don’t know who you are, and the chances of you randomly piquing their interest with a tweet that they randomly saw out of the chaos is zero.

Social media is a conversation, interaction

  Bob Duffy at 6:41pm March 15
Ed I totally agree. Twitter is about a conversation. Seems Retweets would be a better measurement if people want to know the reach and influence of tweets
 Ed Borden at 6:43pm March 15
There are tools that measure this stuff online. They take into account how many people @ you and RT and some other metrics.
So my take away.  There’s a dark side to Twitter I was ignoring.  A side that is; 
  • No longer an organically evolving conversation
  • Being manipulated as a marketing vehicle (I know ironic from a marketing guy from Intel)
  • Evolving from a social conversation to a channel of communication

Disturbing or an opportunity? So what can we do about it?  Two schools of thought; “Fight the Establishment” or “When in Rome”

What will you approach be? Will you play the game to build your followers and use Tweetlater, Mr Tweet, and WeFollow to autotweet and follow folks with high followers?  Or will you say no to these tools, keep it organic, and evangalize measurements like retweets over follower count.

The dark side is tempting.  And I totally get why people are doing this.  I just don’t think people have thought through the result.  In the end may Twitter will be less relevant if we are all following each other.   There’s a good post on this, Can Twitter Survive What’s About To Happen To It   from Nova Spivack.  Food for thought.

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9 Comments

Posted in Social Media Tools

9 Responses to “The Dark Side Of Twitter”

  1. Kelly Feller

    16. Mar, 2009

    Bob, you can count on me to be an outspoken respondent. I think I may take issue with your categorization as “the dark side.” I don’t find the use of Twitter as a communication channel a necessarily “dark,” seedy, or nefarious activity. It’s just another way people connect with folks or ways they prefer to receive information. Intel recently began using a general Twitter account as a way to post information people want to receive. We’re not forcing anyone to subscribe to this; people will vote with their feet. If people find it valuable, why is that “dark” or bad?

    Just because Twitter began as a tool for one method of bi-directional communication or conversation, doesn’t necessarily mean an evolution of the tool for other means is wrong. In fact, I think Twitter has the capacity to be the most disruptive business tool we’ve seen since the web itself. But I’m a fan, so perhaps I’m biased. :-)

  2. Ed Borden

    16. Mar, 2009

    Wow, this is fun - the conversation moves from Facebook to blogosphere intact.

    I am actually going to agree with Kelly that simply using twitter as a channel for communication is not a “bad” thing.  After all, it is “micro-blogging”, and there are no rules.

    However, what my point was, and maybe what we can take away from this, is just that the number of followers a person has is irrelevant.  If someone has 100K followers, but none of them actually care about anything that person tweets, their “audience” is worthless.

    This is the same game of people thinking “viral” marketing is something that can be manufactured.  It can’t.  You actually have to be interesting!

  3. Bob Duffy

    16. Mar, 2009

    Ed probaby the last time you write on my wall, right?

    For me its a matter of degree.  When advertisers and broadcasters monetize and incentavize folks to increase their followers as Shannon describes it gives me pause.

    So it is a darker side for me.  That does not mean it’s evil and wrong .  Some will play the game, some will be a purist or land somewhere inbetween.  It just edges it from a social tool to something that resembles commercial broadcast media.

    If we play it out I do have to wonder if Twitter will become more like the paid ads on the right side of Google search.

  4. John McElhenney

    16. Mar, 2009

    If you make the choice to give into the dark side of twitter as Mr. 50k has, then you shall go down in history as an AUTO-BOT. Twitter is about REAL PEOPLE in REALTIME. Or it’s something else.

    Getting Real w/ Twitter http://bit.ly/twitter-1-2-3
    Twitter Rules for Being Real http://bit.ly/twitter-rules

    And finally, please check out http://twitterjoker.com/ and get the 1 Trillion Followers by 2010 badge!

    @jmacofearth

  5. Bob Duffy

    17. Mar, 2009

    @jmacofearth I thinking your the kind of guy that would be fun to have a beer with.  Great links and on the money. Love the twitterjoker badge.

  6. John McElhenney

    17. Mar, 2009

    Thanks Bob. Are you still here at SXSW? I’m at the show all day tomorrow. See ya at the blogger’s lounge perhaps.  Cheers!

  7. Bob Duffy

    17. Mar, 2009

    @jmacofearth I didn’t make the trip this year.  But colleagues @bryanrhoads and @cvelis can be my proxy.  

  8. James Colgan

    18. Mar, 2009

    It all comes down to your objectives.  If you’re looking for closer engagement and opportunities to build loyalty through personal engagement, then Twitter is a powerful if ungainly tool.
    Quality over quantity could be the way here.

    There could be a darkside, but I’m not sure people aren’t smart enough to recognize it.  Especially those 35 years and younger.
    I’ve explored this a bit in a recent post:
    http://www.xuropa.com/blog/2009/03/03/what-is-twitter-and-why-should-i-care/

  9. Bob Duffy

    27. Mar, 2009

    James, good article on Twitter, thanks for the link

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