Twitter Witter
I've had a few people write to me over the last 6 months or so asking me what I spend my time on, and where I focus my energies.
It's difficult to look back and say exactly what and where I spent my time, and then someone asked me if I had a Twitter account. Well, I've been playing a bit with Twitter the last few weeks using a test account (learning the ropes), and I finally decided to create a real live account in my own name.
The way Twitter works is, you get 140 characters to enter in just what you're doing at that moment in time. So it's not a lot of information, but it's just enough to give people a taster of what you're doing. It's a nice idea.
I have to admit, I really didn't like the concept of FaceBook when I heard about it, especially their actions with people's private data, and their initial refusal to delete any of it (European Law changed that). I'm very glad I didn't go any further than a test account to find out how much I really didn't like it.
But as I said Twitter is a nice little idea, and it's dead easy to use.
So now, if you want to see how I spend my time, you can just check my Twitter to see what I'm doing at that particular point in time. Hint – it's not all work…
If you'd find peeking over my shoulder at all interesting, then please just go to my new account at http://twitter.com/FrankHaywood to see what I get up to. It would be good if you signed up to Twitter yourself and "followed" me to keep up to date with what I'm doing.
I do have to say I won't keep it religiously up to date (I'm human and I forget stuff), but if there's enough interest, then maybe I'll post a little more detail and a little more often.
And maybe if it does become popular, you could tell me what kind of thing would interest you about what I do day to day in my internet business.
-Frank Haywood
Filed under internet business by on May 3rd, 2008. Comment. 
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Comments on Twitter Witter
Happy to Follow you on Twitter Franks as well as with your excellent blog. And thanks for the KeywordLuv and DoFollow plugins, most generous. I invite you and your readers to follow me as I develop my new business thru http://twitter.com/John_Cussons
Cheers
John
Hi Frank, nice to see you on Twitter…just sent you a tweat.
I think you'll find this to be addictive. I haven't been on Twitter for a long period of time but I seem to get a couple people following me every day….this adds up over time.
Why would anyone be interested in what anyone else was doing?
Seems like a total waste time, like all "social sites".
Clive:
I'm glad you asked that. Watch this space…
-Frank
I will, Frank, I will.
And John, I think you are very brave to invite people to watch you develop your new business.
I couldn't do that. There's a 99.999% chance of any new online business failing and an audience to my failure is the last thing I need. LOL
I half agree with Clive in that I can't really see the use of Twitter. I am on Ed Dale's and John Reese's email lists and they both asked me to "follow" them on Twitter – so I did. Now I have 27 followers and I don't know why. I'm only following 11 people. Now if I post a "tweet" (?) in half an hour the post is buried three pages deep because of all the other posts. Does anyone actually read all these posts? Ed Dale is the worst (most prolific). I tried asking a serious question in a Twitter post a couple of days ago. Then, an hour later I went through all my incoming posts and there wasn't a hint that anyone had read my posted question. So right now I don't "get" Twitter – to me, it's worse than spam in my email inbox.
Greg:
The trick is to follow the ones you're really interested in to see just what it is they're up to.
Look, it's like this. I've learned about 50% of what I know about marketing, running an internet business and making money online by reading or listening to what others are doing.
I've learned the other 50% by watching them very closely…
Many marketers will only tell you part of the story. I don't believe this is done on purpose, and I call it the "curse of knowledge".
It's so obvious to them what needs to be done, that they just miss telling you. But sometimes they miss the most crucial parts. My guess is I've done it too without realising.
It's the watching part that to me is most important.
Ah, I've just thought of an example. John Thornhill has just done an excellent video which you can find on his blog. I'm going to have to watch it again, because I think he's missed something, or not emphasised how important it is.
If I'm right when I watch it again, I'll do a blog post about it.
Now if you could peek over the shoulder of someone like John to see what he's doing, don't you think that would be useful?
Or over my shoulder…
Ed Dale suffers badly from the curse of knowledge. Personally I stopped watching what he was doing months ago because I couldn't see any further useful info coming from him. Other people will feel differently.
It depends where your knowledge is.
(And hey, I LIKE Ed. I want to make that clear.)
But many of my customers are also John's customers, so it's more useful for me to watch what he's doing as it keeps me in touch with what's going on with eBay.
At the end of the day, it's up to you.
Personally, I think Twitter is very useful to see what other people are doing.
But by all means stop following people that don't interest you. That's what it's all about!
-Frank
Frank,
You obviously have access to information denied to the rest of us 'other ranks'.
Where can you read or listen to what other people are doing? Actually, just read will do. In three years I've never listened to anything – too sleep inducing.
As for the other 50% – how do you "watch them closely".
My best friend is a marker and she will never even give me the slightest hint of what she is doing online until it's finished and on sale.
You don't seriously think that ANY marketer is going to let anyone else know what they are doing, do you?
That's entrepreneurial suicide.
just an observation of life.
Clive:
What I mean is, I listen carefully to what they say, but I watch how they say it and what they do more closely. I attribute 50% of my learning to that.
Take a read of this as just one example to see what I mean:-
http://www.frankhaywood.com/attention-age-doctrine-i-dont-agree/
-Frank
Frank:
You have started a terrific thread here. Why would the likes of Internet notables like Ed Dale, John Reese, Gina Gaudio-Graves and YOU start Twittering? Could it be that it is the next wave of Social Marketing and the positive results of its use are becoming abundantly clear?
I have enough proof that this is an avenue to 'Follow' and commend you for your insight.
Cheers
John
John:
Twitter is just at the "turning point". Up to now, the people who have mainly been using it are the early adopters.
On the quiet I've been "having a play" with it to see what could and couldn't be done with it, and I think I have a pretty good idea now, so I've gone public and taken out a "real" account in my own name.
Nothing is worse than publicly making a fool of yourself I always think. People don't let you forget that, so I'm a little cautious in what I publicly adopt and say is a good thing.
Not all will agree that Twitter is a good thing, but I think it's a good bet that most will eventually.
Blogging regularly is a good bet. So is making comments on other people's blogs as it generates lots of interested traffic from people who would never otherwise have found you.
Twitter is just blogging made smaller and easier. It has a lot of the "clutter" (if that's the right word) removed from it and it's stripped to its bare bones.
I personally have found it interesting to be able to watch what certain other people have been doing day to day via Twitter. Some post a lot, others sporadically, and I realised while watching that it's a good way to communicate and therefore market who you are and what you do.
Just like blogging is very important to your business, I now feel that Twitter has reached the same level of importance, more so than any of the other social sites I've seen.
And certainly for now, the spammers are largely (not completely) missing from it. The learning from other social sites will likely be used to combat the inevitable spam. There's already a blacklist up and I'm sure there will be some automated way of avoiding it much like Akismet for Wordpress.
If anyone reading this is umming and ahhing, I'd go give it a whirl just like I did with an anonymous account and see what you learn from it.
-Frank
Great response Frank, I am with you on this.
I have posted about this thread of yours on a forum of the 30-Day IM Challenge being offered at http://theimuniversity.com/30-day-challenge/,
You can see what I said here http://theimuniversity.com/30-day-challenge/
John Cussons
Hi Frank;
Yeah, Twitter's peculiar… I signed up for an account last month (@timgross) and clicked "Follow" on a whoooole bunch of people who were Following a couple of fellow online marketers… About 1/3 of them "Followed" me back, and I got over 200 clickthroughs to my blog last month directly from Twitter (surprised me!)
Tim:
I agree. For some reason (and I don't know how long it will last) when I was playing with a test account, I had a good proportion of people follow me right back.
I guess in time people will wise up, but for now if you're careful about who you follow, it should work out quite well.
And I've already had someone follow me on my real account using an automated spam tool. I found them on the blacklist and then blocked them…
-Frank
Frank, welcome to Twitter.
The great thing about Twitter that will keep it from becoming too spammy, is if someone is Twittering too much, or Twittering junk, you can just quit following them.
Mike,
Considering that the name of the website is "Twitter", it is actually advertising the fact that the site content is all inane junk.
The name wouldn't inspire an adult to visit, would it.
So far I've found it extremely easy to resist the temptation to go there. LOL