#DearKen: @TheMirrorTest author @JeffreyHayzlett calls people who abuse Twitter “twankers”. How do I avoid being too self-promoting?
Thank you for your question. Twitter “rules”, “guidelines”, and “best practices” are great fun for us marketers (especially considering that the golden rule of marketing is that there are no rules). That doesn’t stop folks like Jeff and I, however, from regularly writing about Twitter do’s and don’ts.
My usual disclaimer before we start to keep my company’s compliance team happy: all opinions expressed here are my own, and come from my experience running social media efforts, managing social marketers, and advising social marketing clients. Your mileage will vary.
I challenge the assumption that being a twanker, a rampant, frothing-at-the-mouth, self-promoter on Twitter, is inherently a bad thing. In fact, it may be the single most effective – and brand-appropriate – engagement marketing strategy for your business to attract, convert, and retain your target audiences on Twitter.
That said, if you have determined, based on your audience and your brand that a self-promotional tone, voice, and content are NOT appropriate, then you will want to avoid being a twanker.
How do you know when you’ve crossed the line? The answer is actually baked into the medium itself. By definition, Twitter is a two-way conversation. Back in the Jurassic days of marketing, when all of us relied on “traditional” broadcast, print, and direct media to engage our target audiences, we found ourselves spending a lot of time and money after sending our messages out into the world waiting for feedback to find out whether our audiences loved it, hated it, and most importantly, whether it converted.
With social media, our audiences continually tell us, in real-time (and often in ALL CAPS for the world to see) *exactly* what they think of our marketing and communications. Never before have we had such breadth and depth of insight into what our target audiences think about what we’re saying to them and how we’re saying it. We simply need to listen.
For us marketers, this means investing at least as much time actively listening to our tweeps as we do creating and publishing content. This will allow you to continually improve your Twitter engagement skills, and find the “right” level of self-promotion for your audience and your brand. There are many different tools by the way to help you create your “social listening post”, Google Alerts are a great (and free!) way to start.
One of the best analogies used to describe Twitter is that of a cocktail party. This gets to the core of Jeff’s “don’t be a twanker” message. At a crowded cocktail party, who are you more interested in listening to, the colorful raconteur who freely shares the stories of her many adventures, or the loudmouth who is only interested in talking about himself?
What do YOU think? Do you follow the lead of the loudest and proudest twankers — artists, politicians, athletes, and celebrities on Twitter? How do you identify where to draw the helpful/hurtful self-promotion line for your audience and your brand on Twitter? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
Editor’s note: Do YOU have a question about social marketing technologies, tools, and best practices? Tweet it with the hashtag “#DearKen”. All tweets will be acknowledged, and considered as being submitted for publication.