By Chris Johnson of Guerrilla.me – Follow him @genuinechris
Twitter is hot right now. It’s inevitable that it’s not going to last. It’s the Ecclesiastes rule of the Internet: everything will wash away.
Is it going to be 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I have no clue. It won’t be mothballed, just as myspace.com will have content of some sort in 10 years.
But, let’s think long term: I consider twitter an important way to connect. There hasn’t been a single social media service that has survived and stayed king. Each one has learned something from the mistakes that happened before, but we saw everything from Geocities to Yahoo Chat to LiveJounral to MySpace have their day in the sun… then begin the march towards irrelevance.
Twitter may last longer, but is it gonna be “it” in 10 years?
Probably not. But we’re making friends here. We’re connecting.
We’re building tribes. But, how do we ensure our value is OURS and not Twitters? How do we make sure that we’re not dependent on twitter?
Here’s how to make your tribe yours–and not just people you met on Twitter:
• Really engage, really connect. Take the relationship off of twitter, exchange emails, and enter everyone into a CRM/SYSTEM. (But see #3: The point is to help them, not just you).
• See people in person. If you’re getting local, seeing people off of Twitter is a big way to keep ‘em in your tribe.
• Connect people. Connect people that need widgets with people that have them. Make it a habit. Do it for free, don’t put your foot in the door (big mistake I made, always wanting a cut).
• Do favors. Unbidden. Don’t ask for anything in return, be the nice guy that people always remember. Help folks. Nobody wants to be ‘drip marketed’ to, but they do remember when someone helps them. Be that guy. Don’t even think that they owe you one. Kill your entitlementality.
• Be mentally ready. I’m guessing that there will be Twitter for 20 years. I’m also guessing that at some point it will become a nostalgia site. Be ready for that day. When twitter dies, you’ll be prepared because you’ve practiced the essentials of networking. When it erodes, we will have used it to gather a good tribe, and then our tribe will go off wherever we go when twitter meets with it’s inevitable doom.
@provirtual
This is great advice – and applies to any social media, not just Twitter. However, I think Twitter will fare much better long-term than Facebook. Unlike Facebook, Twitter is truly useful – even if you aren’t interested in social media to socialize or network, Twitter has real utility as a messaging system and a way to monitor events in real-time, provide quick customer service, etc..
@jeffreyftang
Very true. All the hype aside, Twitter isn’t the end-all-be-all of social networking. It’s just a great tool – but so were many other now-defunct (or declining) services.
I’d also suggest that people can leverage their Twitter network to build networks on other services – especially the ones that eventually rise up to “replace” Twitter. If you can really connect with your audience, you’ll keep that connection even if the medium changes.
@TomNocera
I am trying to visualize Twitter as a nostalgia site twenty years from now. Kind of a time capsule of what was at the time important enough to tweet about. In just a few years Twitter has established itself as “the common record” exactly as Vannevar Bush mentioned in his futuristic essay published in the Atlantic Magazine back in 1946.
@genuinechris
@provirtual yeah, my gut says twitter will be around in 6 years, but once it starts to give in to feature creep, it’s dead.
@jeffreytang exactly. put ‘em in a CRM, drop in, say hi, remember once a month.
@smartboydesigns
Great thoughts. What we need to take from this is that Twitter is the “middle-man” between building real, lasting connections between other people. Once you establish a friendship via Twitter – further friendship may ensue. Thanks!
@lastres0rt
I disagree that LiveJournal is as “irrelevant” as you claim.
I still use LiveJournal extensively, and while I no longer seem to care about individual users as much as I do LJ communities, it’s enough utility that I can still get decent responses and value from LiveJournal.
But yeah… People need to realize it’s the community, and not the system, that’s really important. Twitter’s brought me closer to my Dad and a lot of other folks, and I appreciate that.
@denise205
@provirtual Interesting that you say Twitter will fare better than Facebook. Perhaps that’s why teens aren’t on Twitter–too many adults have taken it in a business direction for networking–at least many of those tweeps worth following have.
Whatever the tool, I agree we need to nurture the relationships we have to be able to exist independent of the tools.
@geehall1
Good point. Although, it’s a good idea never to have all one’s eggs in the same basket. It’s equally important to have a presence on a number of platforms/services, not just Twitter. Facebook, Friendfeed, identica to name a few.
@ZebraFeathers
Earlier today in Twitter-ville there were a lot of lil birdies falling from their branches. Twitter peeps worked very hard to catch everyone and return them to their nest. Luckily for the lil blue birdies in Twitter-ville there were only a few bent beaks and bruised wings, no serious injuries. I for one am glad to see Twitter-ville is alive and well to continue being perched high in the tree top with all her lil blue birdies twittering away safely in their nest. See ya there…
@alexschleber
Good post. I’d add: Get on FriendFeed as a Twitter add-on/conversation deepening tool. You get the best of both worlds: Engage on Twitter and stay in the loop on everything else as well.
BTW, FriendFeed means you are instantly archiving your Tweets and making them long-term searchable (not just 7 days like on Twitter Search). If you import your Twitter friends, same goes for their tweets as well.
Check it out: http://FriendFeed.com/AlexSchleber
thanks great article, i agree. my opinion is: if we think long term , its important that we don’t plan to much. Everything is going faster in the future or something unexpected will happen, a new invention (after chrome os, after the next crisis, whatever) – so i think be prepared and educate your reaction.
@bobmutch
Great post Chris.
While Twitter is a great place to make new friends for some people it is about following experts and letting them feed you information in the fields of their expertize. Of course if you interact with these experts you can make friends.
Twitter is also a good place to move your friends to so you can better communicate with them.
@mytwitrva
Chris,
Glad to hear your thoughts on the future of twitter…I have some doubts, believe it or not that Twitter will survive; but my fear is that spammers and other ne’er do wells will cause too many issues that make it hard for others to use Twitter effectively. And I mean effectively whether you use twitter for personal or business or both.
Also, I would love to have some semblance of reliability that it will be here when I need it. As a free platform for users you always have a small worry it could just stop one day.