A Lesson in How NOT to Use Twitter
Recently we’ve seen a lot of discussion online on how users can improve their networking skills to use social media optimally. There was my post over at Marketing Pilgrim, Why Social Media May Not be Right For You, and some specific tips on how to use Twitter for online succes and this great post about Social Media Community over at Search Engine Watch.
Yesterday all hell broke loose because one fairly new Twitter user decided to apply traditional offline marketing tactics to his Twitter account. Not a wise move as we shall see.
In retrospect I feel for Matt Bacak. In a matter of weeks he got around 2,000 people to follow him (including me), and only followed 32 back. That is really bad form for Twitter. Then, as if this insult to his followers wasn’t enough, he decided to publish a press release about how well he was doing on Twitter. I didn’t even notice it, but a few of my Twitter friends notified me.
Word travels fast on Twitter. We all unfollowed him, and I imagine over the next few days he will see his Twitter balloon rapidly deflate. In fact, word has spread like wildfire throughout the social media communities, proving that these outdated methods don’t work on social media period.
Made me laugh when I saw Matt’s video post on ‘Social Marketing Secrets.’ Obviously he needs to learn a few secrets yet.
Why will his Twitter balloon deflate?
For the following reasons:
- Twitter is not about traditional marketing
- there is no room for arrogance in social media
- when you want something from someone (or a whole bunch of people) you need to at least think about providing some benefit in return–even if it’s just to follow someone back.
- To brag about how fast you’ve promoted yourself on a medium like Twitter is simply to broadcast the fact that you don’t ‘get’ Twitter at all.
Some, perhaps Matt included, would say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity and this thing has certainly generated a lot of buzz. But social media is all about establishing trust for your brand, and I don’t think you achieve that when you come over as an arrogant self-promoter who doesn’t care about those who you market with.
Matt, I invite you to come and defend yourself here. I’m prepared to give you space for a post if you’d like. 
