I’ve heard it twice this week, from two different people — using Twitter as your primary means of disseminating messages is not enough.
Someone I really admire in the industry, Shannon Paul, told me this week (please forgive my southern belle restyling of their message) tweets are nothing more than “flatulence in the wind.” Now, I certainly agree that if you want to build out your brand (whether it’s you or a company that you represent) you will need to delve deeper and create more content than 140 characters can provide. That goes without saying.
What I don’t fully buy into is that tweets are nothing more than a waft of something. If a message is crafted concisely and effectively, which is core of the public relations industry, when disseminated to appropriate channels it can have a tremendous impact. Take Dell’s twitter stream for example — it boasts $3 million in revenue last year. That may be a drop in the bucket, but it certainly doesn’t stink.
So while I would never claim that Twitter is flautelence, something my friend Andrew tweeted today did strike a chord:
“maintaining your online identity thru social networking sites, without your own website, is like living entirely on other peoples couches.”
That to me makes sense. As cool as couch surfing is, you want to build a home (or web site) where your friends and colleagues can stay. Building out a larger online presence through facebook and a blog will offer you more structure. Because let’s face it, it’s cool to be the place everyone wants to hang out. That doesn’t stink one bit.
Hey there. I love interacting on Twitter as much as the next person and I think maintaining a presence is important, but there’s nothing like a blog to hone your voice, sharpen your skills and build relationships.
I even encourage a lot of the people within our company to use Twitter and our company has three different branded Twitter accounts. I think it’s extremely important, but what would our company be if it only existed on Twitter? Probably not much.
If Dell was trying to build a company using *only* Twitter, it probably wouldn’t be very successful. If they didn’t have a site with several blogs and other online presences where more meaningful interactions could occur, their Twitter activities would probably not create nearly so much meaning. It’s funny that people think they can do this for themselves.
In Chris Brogan’s and Julien Smith’s new book, Trust Agents, Chris gives an example of a person who tried telling a prospective client to go check out their tweets if they wanted access to their best thinking on social media. That blew his mind and it blows mine, too – to think people actually expect others to sift through that much stuff on a social network that could disappear tomorrow to get to their “best work”.
Your blog is your own – it’s your voice and if you do it right, it’s your community. The challenge isn’t posting content (anyone can do that these days). The challenge is in creating content that encourages engagement and community. Twitter is great for making introductions, but your blog is the place where people come to get to know you better and engage with you in a more meaningful way.
You’re right – Twitter doesn’t stink, but thinking it’s the key to building an online presence is to be mistaken.
I for one am glad you’re honing your own voice in your own space. I can’t wait to see what comes next.