Once or twice a day I step out of my life and enter the twitterverse. I could be standing in line, I could be waiting for the dentist or anywhere else I find myself with a few extra minutes.
Anyway, when I step outside of my life it is like I go into a bar with 9,000 of my closest friends and in the beginning I just sit, listen, and get caught up. During the conversation I will usually be introduced by some of the people I follow to others who might be interesting, and probably more who will not, and that is OK.. I also try to do my fare share of introductions, sometimes those pan out and sometimes they don’t, and that is OK to. During the cycle I will make some comments and move on, to another conversation. Several times during this moment in time I close my eyes and shake my head and reengage and do it again.
Not every time but another regularly occurring event also happens. someone who I am following will randomly do a shout out to somebody who is obviously listening and definitely not interested in returning the conversation. I find it to be somewhat rude to just randomly blurt something out.
As I am around this virtual twitter table, I also here complaints about all the DM’s people are getting from folks they unfortunately made the mistake to follow and now these folks think that acting like some 5 year old is acceptable and they can be rude and @reply and or DM somebody to death.
Here are my thoughts, and you may or may not agree and that is OK. Twitter is not the platform or the place to develop a meaningful relationship. It may be a place to get introduced to somebody, for a quick hello. but I doubt if any meaningful interaction will ever occur on twitter alone, it really is to me just a place to pass in the hall or the street, say hi, and whats going on and then move on.
The real engagement occurs after you meet on twitter and then self refer yourself to their real presence on the web and get to know them in a more proper environment.
Real engagements take work and the fruit of the engagement will not blossom in a day. but once you engage on their platform and you have gone through the steps of bringing value and are accepted then and only then will it be OK to do a shout out or @reply to somebody who will probably be listening.
good luck.
Chris Dunlevy is a partner in IT Service Station LLC, and an IT Consultant serving the Greater Oklahoma City area and beyond for the better part of 10 years. He believes in shooting straight with his clients, returning his calls, keeping his appointments, and generally being available to his clients. Chris realizes that if you treat your clients like gold they might share some of it with you and if you don’t they might blog about it. Chris can be reached at 405-843-8324 or you can drop him an email @ chrisd at itssok.com