{"id":117,"date":"2018-03-13T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/?p=117"},"modified":"2018-03-09T19:18:49","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T19:18:49","slug":"rant-trying-really-hard-to-give-a-damn-about-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/?p=117","title":{"rendered":"RANT: Trying Really Hard To Give A Damn About Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Guillaume Flandre on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

When I finish this article, a WordPress plugin<\/a> will spin some well-oiled virtual gears, connect to satellites in high Earth orbit, and through a series of flashing lights, sparking contacts, and ringing bells, will announce the fact on social media. It’s a handy thing, saving me the time and energy for more important things, like pondering the point of it all.<\/p>\n

You see, every few months or so, I decide I need to reinvigorate my efforts to use social media for “brand building”, “community building”, and the ever popular “finding my tribe”. I have many friends, young and old, who are terribly successful at this, and seem to achieve it effortlessly. I’m essentially a very private<\/em> person, even face-to-face<\/em>, so the paradigm shift to living life online<\/em> has been difficult, and not entirely successful. I’m able to consort on Facebook with a number of friends and acquaintances (though the Public<\/em> post is still somewhat rare), and have made recent forays on other social media platforms to expand my personality<\/em> onto the Interwebs.<\/p>\n

But no, sorry, I still just don’t get<\/em> Twitter.<\/p>\n

I try. I have tried. I am trying. The faithful bot herald<\/em> that dutifully trots out and proclaims I’ve published another article here makes a stop<\/em> at that venue. But I just really can’t bring myself to give a damn<\/em> about it.<\/p>\n

Twitter is not the sole recipient of my disdain in social media. I am equally disinterested<\/em> in Snapchat, among others. I am mystified that so many third party companies focus themselves on Twitter as the be-all marketing tool. As someone whose been doing marketing and promotion for the better part of three decades, I can’t see where the numbers make any sense<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

First of all, the signal to noise ratio on that channel is just horrendously bad<\/em>. Everyone you’ve never<\/em> heard of is on Twitter. They’re all retweeting political divisiveness, celebrity snarkiness, or product promotions. None of these hold my interest, anymore than what Captain Kirk<\/a> had for lunch. It’s like going to a bad high school party with everyone talking loudly at once, but there are millions<\/em> of guests.<\/p>\n

I must admit I’m no expert at hashtaggery<\/em> (having called it a “number sign” for probably the first year<\/em> it was operational). I frequently forget to tag posts, and I sometimes suspect hashtags are a mixed blessing. Consider, if you pick something unique<\/em>, most users will never search it, and if you pick something popular<\/em>, you’re lost in the crowd. Meanwhile, numerous AI systems out there are culling through those hashtags looking for ways to sell you something<\/em>. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a good capitalist<\/em>, but if I pick a hashtag to promote my brand<\/em>, I’m not fond of the idea that an ad-bot is poised to use that tag to pitch my potential customers.<\/p>\n

While I don’t consider myself expert on Facebook either, at least I get what is going on. There’s a conversation<\/em> there. It’s defined, and organized, and even if the algorithm buries my content, I’m fairly certain that when it does<\/em>\u00a0get shared all the relevant commentary is going with it. On Twitter, I’ve yet to find a means of isolating a particular exchange and insuring I see all parts of it. It’s like standing in a room where someone is talking on the phone<\/em>. You get their half of the conversation, and may not clearly follow all of that. Actually, it’s like that person is talking on the phone, at that high school party.<\/em><\/p>\n

I grant you Twitter’s mass audience is, well, massive<\/em>. There’s a vast number of eyeballs on the thing. So it’s easy to argue that “you must be on Twitter because EVERYONE<\/em> is on Twitter”. And, yep, I’m on there for that reason alone<\/em>. But I can’t help that nagging voice in the back of my head repeating the old “if EVERYONE jumped off a cliff….<\/em>” refrain.<\/p>\n

I welcome someone to prove me wrong<\/em>. Rather, I am open to being educated<\/em> on how this thing actually works, and can be made to effectively build your brand<\/em>, organize your community<\/em>, and find your tribe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because I’m too old and crusty to believe it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I finish this article, a WordPress plugin will spin some well-oiled virtual gears, connect to satellites in high Earth orbit, and through a series of flashing lights, sparking contacts, and ringing bells, will announce the fact on social media. Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rant"],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":true,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaliproductions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}