Marco Menato is the founder of Myth of Me – telling your life story, one question at a time – he’s in Sydney working with the Pollenizer team. In this guest post, he muses on the reluctance and lessons of taking up Twitter:
First a frank admission … I have never understood Twitter. Sure I have read it takes credit for starting revolutions, sales strategies and single-handedly solving world hunger, but … how? How on earth does an online platform that allows the expression of 140 characters of text be anything more than banal? Thus it was that, as part of my budding career as an online entrepreneur, I was led through a workshop by @Bronwen, aimed at understanding how Twitter might help me with customer acquisition for MythofMe.
Second of all, another frank admission … I am a snob. I approached Twitter with the arrogance of the school jock looking down from his olympian popularity at the debating team’s geeky efforts at attracting a single mention in the school magazine. And indeed, lesson 1 appeared to solidify this perception: “The difference between Facebook and Twitter … ” intoned @Bronwen … “is the difference between closed and open systems. Whereas on FB you communicate with friends, on Twitter you build an audience of strangers”. “Twitter is a soap box!” piped in @Oliver the project manager, thus underscoring my impression of Twitter reflecting modern man’s Narcissian need to self-define by gazing into the mirror of peer approval.
Lesson 2: To lead you must follow. Whether genuinely interested or not, in order to build an audience, Twitter etiquette suggests you should yourself “follow” (or read tweets from) other tweeters. Ideally (but not compulsorily) this should be material of great interest to you, both because authored by interesting people and delving in absorbing topics. In fact, it is seldom so. I balked … reeled … and was thoroughly taken aback. So, basically it appeared that you ultimately “pay” for people to follow you by following them. I’ll boost your ego if you boost mine! The snob in me claimed this as irrefutable proof that the nouveau-riches would never accede to the august role of genuine journalist. “boy, I love lightly scrambled eggs” will never make compelling reading! Suddenly I understood that the hundreds following our enthusiastic breakfaster were likely doing so to gain a “return follower”, rather than because of their own unmitigated fascination with high protein snacks.
And yet there is no denying the power of these networks of communicators as they galvanize mass movements to topple repressive regimes. So … its not all self-absorbed haiku of dubious quality that is being tweeted! And therein lies lesson 3 – the power of the re-tweet! Those tweets which have greater meaning stand out, are spotted, and re-published by the reader, amplifying the message, spreading like a wave through the networks. So … in my role of entrepreneur seeking to publicize the MythofMe service, the objective must be to publish noteworthy information, so that my followers might learn to trust/expect quality material from this source – material they would want to re-tweet, spreading the wave.
But how does a mere mortal come up with a continuous stream of pearls of wisdom worthy of re-tweeting? Lesson 4. Man, express thyself, but be genuine! It would seem that what is most compelling is the most personal. It is the breakthroughs that one has on a daily basis that seem charged with the passion of authentic discovery. For some reason these are indeed pearls, less because of the wisdom they impart, but because of the electricity of fresh awareness imbuing them provides the sustenance of encouragement to the reader. It reminds me of a maxim I heard when practicing public speaking: “Who you are speaks so loud, I can’t hear what you are saying!”, suggesting that a genuine person revealing him/herself radiates the most compelling message, whether this reveal itself through a comment on the subject of oriental cuisine or motivating people to attend a rally. Passion, enthusiasm, vibrancy … remind us that we are alive, creating, learning … progressing.
So … as in Glee, so in life. The jock must admit that there is something other than a futile search for popularity to the phenomenon of Twitter. There is also the need to express newness, affirm that one’s life has meaning, accept oneself as author and ultimate judge, validate one’s everyday experience. Hopefully I’ll find a way to do this @mythofme ...