One of the things I look forward to the most every morning is getting up and checking out some of my favorite comedy/parody accounts on Twitter. Funny people such as @shitmydadsays, @jesus_m_christ, and @sexcigarsbooze are just a few of the great accounts to follow. These talented people have turned Twitter into something more. For some, it’s just another comedic outlet. For others, it sparks a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But when all is said and done, these people have sought out interaction with us over Twitter. In their case, that interaction creates a bright spot in our day.
I’ve drawn a parallel with these online characters with my interactions on Twitter. Instead of sitting behind my computer, I’ve decided to go out and “live my digital life”. For the past year or so, since ramping up the blog once again, I’ve been taking to the city of Birmingham, Atlanta, Chatanooga, Mobile, Nashville, etc and done my best to interact with those who’ve I’ve met online (NOTE: I took many precautions before meeting people in person. You should as well).
Interacting with people online and in person can be awkward and awesome, all at the same time. If you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you’ve experienced this. Recognizing people in public by their Twitter avatar is one of those things. You hear a random comment, glance at the person, and realize that you read that same thing that morning from the person’s account. You say their username, cautiously, then when they turn their head you introduce yourself by your username. That moment when it dawns on both of you, you let out a slight laugh and a big smile. Then you awkwardly end the conversation and go on with your life.
But for that moment, you realize just how powerful Twitter can be. You understand how tweeting from the dinner table at Buffalo Wild Wings, using a hashtag at a concert, or simply checking your feed during lunch to discover a tweetup that evening, though seemingly un-interactive, creates chance and planned encounters with virtual friends. By taking those virtual relationships and making them real, real things start happening.
For instance, @tammyhart got together with several of her friends to celebrate her birthday with dinner and a movie. Though not everyone could come to both, no one who came had, to my knowledge, had known Tammy for more than a year. And all of us had met in some form or fashion thru Twitter. If you had walked up to the table, you wouldn’t have been able to tell, though. We talked, laughed, interacted as if we had all been friends for years. It was an incredible experience.
Something similar happened just a few months ago with the poker league to which I belong. In this case, the offer to participate in a points poker league came over Facebook and Twitter from @garrett98. Fellow Twitter personalities like @ikepigott, @rebecca_morrow, @spencerwyatt and others played poker for hours, like old friends who had been laughing together for decades.
My point is this: Laughter should remind us of the community that we’re building. While we’re all building our communities for different reasons, we should make sure we take the time to remember that sometimes there’s more to this than we expect. In my case, the more is establishing relationships that have provided me with awesome opportunities.
What’s your more?

I just wanted to take a minute to thank friends, family, associates, and cohorts. This past month or so has been a very challenging experience. It’s forced me to disconnect and take a step back and re-evaluate the what and why of life, both personally and professionally. While I want to assure everyone that everything is fine, I will be scaling back my online interactions for no other reason than to insure my continued sanity.

Many people have reached out to me online as well as in person. And I cannot thank those people enough for their continued friendship. I’m honored to live a digital lifestyle in which I get to interact with so many brilliant people. As it will be illustrated in my next post, online interactions are more meaningful if you have people with which to share them.

Thanks –DW

Knowledge is a valuable commodity. Don’t believe me? Take a look at some late night TV sometime. The latest fad diet craze, that new exercise phenomenon, or music that makes you smarter, You’ll find tons of people pedaling their ideas, thoughts, and opinions for $29.95 (shipping and handling extra). Willing to go even further? Head over to your local college or university. People pay thousands of dollars a year for very knowledgeable people to share their knowledge. That knowledge is bottle up and binged upon by college students at about a rate congruent to PBR at the neighborhood watering hole. It’s then regurgitated back to the professor and forgotten at about the same rate as… well, you get the idea.

I remember in college that I really didn’t learn all that much in class. Now, I’m not going to license anyone not to go to college, or attend class for that matter. That’s your decision entirely. But, more than anything, I remember the late night gab sessions in dorm rooms, apartments, late night cafes, and the occasional Wal-Mart. Those are the places where my ideas were questioned and challenged. It opened my eyes to the thoughts and ideas that others had and gave me the chance to see the other side of an argument. From then on, I made the decision that I wanted to know the what, how, and why behind just about everything. I wanted to know everything about everything. I wanted to open myself up to learning.

Now, I’ve always had a fascination with technology. Computers, mobile devices, social/digital media, and pretty much all shiny new Apple Products have been my kryptonite for some time now. It’s something that I’m very passionate about. And because I’m passionate about technology, it’s nothing for me to read about and retain tons of information very quickly.

The same can hold true about your Twitter experience. People love to share their information using Twitter. Great tidbits of information that you may have missed throughout your day. Businesses and Brands are likely to share information about their products using Twitter and other social mediums. By following the people and subjects you’re interested in, you’ll have no trouble finding great information and learning from that information.

So, for myself, this translates following people who share information about technology and social/digital media. Co-workers (like @dosjon), friends (like @dartdog), colleagues (like @acnatta and @wadeontweets) and industry leaders (like @chrisbrogan, @vaynermedia and @thisissethsblog) are just a few of the people who I read their tweets on a regular basis. I find value in their tweets and I’m constantly learning new things from them. I dare say that I’ve learned more about my favorite subjects because of them than I could have ever learned on my own.

Now, I’m sure by now you’ve hear the phrase, “It takes all kinds”. And in this world of nearly 6.7 billion, it does. Not everyone can be a CEO. Not everyone wants to be CEO. Not everyone is that ambitious. Heck, I even recognize that I’m a Woz and not a Jobs. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. You just have to measure your success differently. One of the ways I measure my success is being a resource of knowledge for my co-workers. I enjoy the fact that they come to me because they know that I’ll give them a quick and definite answer that they are confident to present to clients. They know that I’ve taken the time to research and commit the answer to most of their questions to memory. They trust the knowledge that I’ve taken the time to learn and shared with them. If knowledge is power, then learning is the vehicle that gets you there.

My point is this: Commit to being a life-long learner in your area of passion and you’ll always be successful. You don’t have to use traditional methods as long as you’re willing to work for your goal. Success shouldn’t be a measure of money, but of how trusted you are in your community. Trust that can be built on being knowledgeable. So, I ask you, How do you measure your success?

Most people in this world judge a person by the number of fans and followers they have. It’s a sad fact in life. I even find myself, more often than not, evaluating a person of Twitter’s worth not by the number of followers, but my the ratio of followers to followings a person has.

Why all the evaluation? It’s because most people are trying to find value in who they follow. No matter if you are a causal Twitterer following @DrDrew because you enjoyed his work on Loveline, a business Twitterer following the competition stay informed, or a professional Twitterer who’s looking to keep up with the latest trends in your industry, you’re searching for the value others have to offer.

What does the ratio mean? Well, that’s a matter of trust and a whole other blogpost, but to summarize: You’re more important to the “Common Joe” if there are more people who want to listen to you than the amount of people to whom you choose to listen. Did you get that? From here on out, let’s call it the follower/following ratio.

I’ve been on Twitter for quite a while now. And during that time, I’ve built up quite a following. Now, I’m generally not one to brag about the number of follower I have. But now, after much deliberation and a lot of soul searching, I’m going to share with you my most valued Twitter secret. It’s how I’ve been able to build such an engaging following over the course of my time on Twitter. It’s one of those, “Slap yourself on the head” sorta things, to. Ready?

Add value by sharing.

That’s it. End of post. You can leave now.

Just kidding.

People using Twitter are really looking for information. They may be answering the question, “What are you doing?” when they actually tweet, but, when they check their feed they may be answering a different question like, “What’s going on?”. When they do a search, the question is more specific, like, “What’s is _______?” or “What’s going on with _______?”.

Now, there’s a lot of information on the internet. One person could never make it through all that information. But everyone tries in their own way. Everyone finds great information in the places that they know to look. People choose everyday what is important and matters to them, giving their information a certain perspective. By choosing to share that information, you’re adding value to your followers by generating highly filtered and incredibly valuable information.

So, by saying “Add value by sharing”, I’m really just saying that I ReTweet a LOT. As a matter of fact, I’d say more that half of all of my tweets are ReTweets. I make sure I follow people whom I value their information and perspective, so that I can pass on their information that I find important. And people who follow me like the information that I filter and share it on to their network. This cycle can go on and on and on.

The possibilities of this kind of information sharing are endless, especially considering the immediacy that tools like Twitter provide for us. Let’s say I’m downtown and looking to head home when I go to my Twitter feed and find that two people are stuck in traffic on my normal route home. Minutes, if not hours saved. Maybe there’s a nasty storm that is making it’s way through your area. Local EMA and authorities can answer questions where many people can read and reread the answers or figure out where their services and help is needed. Now we’re talking about lives possibly being saved. Local venue sells out early but happens to open up more seats at the last minute. A single retweet could get you and your friends out of the house and into their seats.

That’s some powerful stuff.

[Writer’s Note: I’m changing the order of the last 5 rules. That’s how I roll.]

Let me start by saying that this is the subject I’m probably the least qualified to talk about. And I’ll probably end up telling the longest, seemingly off subject story for this one. But bear with me. After all, I tend to be that guy who walks into a room and demands to be in the middle of every conversation, all the time. That’s how I used to be. Or at least I hope I’m trending in that direction.

I had lunch with John Garrett a few months back and it really changed how I look at things. Well, not really look, how I listened. We sat at Sabor Latino (surprise, surprise) and I talked. And talked. And talked. Looking back, I talked out of my ass, talked about things I hardly knew anything about, and about how great I was. It must have taken John an hour to get a word in edgewise.

Then John asked one, simple question.
What do you know about me?

I must have looked like a complete and total idiot with the expression that came over my face. Because that’s when it hit me. After god-knows how long, I hadn’t asked given John a chance to say anything. I hadn’t even asked him if he has any kids. I showed little to no concern about someone I was quite frankly interested in learning much more about.

I left that lunch quite literally shellshocked and with a reading assignment. [Strange, I know. Just go with it.] John suggested that I read, “The Go-Giver” by Bob Burg and John David Mann. In the book, Pindar teaches a young go-getter, Joe, about The Five Laws of Stratospheric Success. If you haven’t read it, please take the time to give it a go. It’s an amazing book [or audio book, in my case] that I could go on and on about. But the message relevant to our story came in the final law. If you don’t like spoilers, stop reading here.

The final law is The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. In the book, this resolves the story and brings it full circle for Joe. However, for me, it’s really opened me up to a whole other playing field in the world of interaction. I am learning to be open to receiving people’s information, stories, criticisms, and conversation. As hard for me as it’s been to adjust, I’m tending to listen to what others have to say. It’s not my nature, nor is it what I’m used to, but making the effort and it’s starting to pay off.

I’ve noticed during my time using Twitter that many who have trouble understanding what Twitter is becoming tend to do the same thing. They talk and talk and talk. They don’t tend to listen to what their followers have to say. Politicians are horrible about this. Brands are bad about it too. Businesses, like my wife’s salon, is the same way. They just step up to the keyboard and start doing what they know, talking. Which is perfectly normal and natural, until people decide that they don’t want to listen to you sell them hair gel or get a free laptop. That’s when people and businesses cry “Snake Oil!” or “All people talk about is walking their dog!”. They aren’t giving Twitter an honest effort. They aren’t choosing to listen.

And who knows just why they choose not to listen. Some don’t know any better. They’ve been doing the talking the same way for years. So what if the world is changing around them. I believe these people are afraid that if they chose to listen, they might have to ask themselves the question: Why is listening important in this medium?

Which is good and valid question. Why is listening important in this medium? What power do the cool kids have with their fancy internet-enabled phones and their 50 wpm typing speed? It’s because these technologies are bringing people together. And when people coming together, something important always happens. Look at most historic events. Most center around when people came together for a cause.

Woodstock.

Tiananmen Square.

The 2008 US Presidential Election.

What better reason to come together than to live together online? What’s better than being in a supermarket and asking Twitter what’s for dinner and getting a dozen ideas? What makes you feel better after being sick than a half dozen tweets asking if you’re doing better? How can you not love calling a dinner tweetup and having a dozen friends show up?

Important stuff is happening on Twitter and online. I know it’s hard to see. But trust me, it’s there. It’s happening. And all you have to do is listen.

Are you listening?

I distinctly remember in my tenth grade grammar class our teacher talked about deadwood. Well, not actually the teacher talking about it, but the example that was given. Every morning, we would come into class and given a task to complete that related to the day’s lesson. That day’s lesson was Deadwood, which is simply eliminating needless things from your writing. Many of the smartest kids in class tried two and three times to rewrite one particular sentence, paring it down, word after word. However, there was only one person in the class who was successful at the task. It just happened to be the quiet one. The one who generally said the least in class. She pared the sentence down to a mere three words.
Now, anyone who’s ever met me knows I’m not a man of few words. And trust me, for someone who can talk for hours about anything, eliminating deadwood can be difficult. Twitter is a great platform for people like myself for cutting down the nonsense. After all, you only have 140 characters to make your point. I know that I’ve rewritten tweets three to four times just to pare it down to 140 characters.
Please don’t mistake being brief with using “leet speak” or texting language. I know plenty of people who are able to get their point across without requiring Urban Dictionary. In the long run, it will make you more respected and help you build a quality following on Twitter.
By learning how be brief, you also learn what is really important about what you’re trying to say. Sometimes it’s important to just include what happened and not the who/why/how. Leaving out some details is perfectly fine. People will still get the gist of what you’re trying to tell them. If people want to know the details, more likely than not, they will reply back to you and ask.
Being brief can also add value to you without you knowing it. While my classmate didn’t speak much, when she did speak, we listened to what she had to say. We valued her opinion more since she chose her words and comments very sparingly. The same can happen on Twitter and other social networks. I know that when I scan my Twitter feed, I’m always looking for those few people who rarely post. Those people generally tend to post very interesting comments or articles.
And I would be remised if I left out those who are brief, but post twenty and thirty tweets a day. Yes, there are those people who generally post a lot, but have great links, full of content, with a simple tagline. @TimMoore is a great example of this. Many retweets from @Mashable and other great news sources as well as great quotes, I swear he never uses more than 120 characters, but is a constant presence in my feed.
So I ask you this: Who in your feed right now is a great example of being brief? Who’s tweets convey their points clearly and concisely?

I promise there is someone out there in the Twitterverse who is actually interested in something you have to say.
I know it sounds crazy. After all, what kind of ego does one have to have to think that anyone out there sees any value in what they would have to say. But I find that the best part of this “Social Revolution” is that people are going back to their niches. And they are out there looking for someone who shares a common interest and adds value to the conversation. But don’t think that being interesting is all about having a better fish story than the last person. Remember, we’re not here to be anyone but ourselves.
So, it stands to reason that the first thing you should do is figure out what are your interests. As for myself, I tend to focus my tweeting on just a few subjects that I’m interested in. Marketing, PR, Social Media are all regular subject that you’ll find me tweeting about. However, WordPress and CSS do occasionally find their way into my Twitter feed.
Companies tend to have it easy in this respect because they can show interest in their particular field. For instance, a community manager for a BBQ joint might show interest in cooking, grilling, smoking, BBQ competitions, and sporting events. Notice they aren’t limiting themselves to one thing. All of these are somewhat related and would represent most of the BBQ restaurants I’ve event at, well ever.
Once you know what you’re interested in, I’m willing to bet you’re going to want to know more about it. And it’s surprisingly simple to learn more about in what you’re interested. Follow others who are interested in the same thing. Believe it or not, it’s how I’ve built my modest, but interactive Twitter following.
Now, it was actually something that @ChrisBrogan said back when I heard him speak @NMAtl really struck a cord and changed just exactly how I find interesting people using Twitter. Up until that point, I’d been following the people who I either had met in real life, or had found through ReTweets from those people. It worked to some extent since I was attending and networking at conferences related to my interests. But when @ChrisBrogan actually said that a lot of his use of Twitter was using search.twitter.com, it was kind of like an “duh” moment for me. Of course, I knew how to search Twitter. But, until that point, it hadn’t occurred to me to use Twitter as a way to actually find others around the world with my same interests.
You’d be surprised how much following others who are interested in the same things will inspire you. It’s kind of like working out of a co-working office. Having been an infrequent member of one for the the past year, I’ve always found valuable conversation and great insights on the days that I was there. Differing views on subjects were the norm and great conversation was the standard. The great thing about Twitter is that I can get the same thing, except on specific subjects that I’m interested in and at just about anytime of day I choose to do it.
But the most important about being interesting is that you feel that you’re adding value to the conversation. If you’re just spouting off at the mouth, selling your insurance, or not interacting with others, you’re not adding value to you’re community. And adding value to the current conversation has some great side effects. By adding to the conversation, you interact with interesting people, breed and become trusted to offer new ideas on a subject, and draw interest from the followers of those interesting people, spreading your influence and leveraging their networks. Pretty sweet, eh?
So, how are you adding value to your interactions on Twitter?

I’m going into fanboy mode. Why? Because you can’t talk about being yourself without talking about people who are doing just that, being themselves.

Take Gary V for instance. Gary is a guy who will give it to you like he sees it. I was driving up to Social Fresh Nashville back in January while I listened to his book “Crush It“. Even it’s you’ve read the book, you should go out and get the audio book. Gary goes off script a million times (That’s the drinking game for the audio book, btw) and passionately shares his insights that are harder to convey within just the printed text. I loved one of his stories about driving 6 hours in horrible weather to deliver wine to prove his point to his employees as well as it being the right thing to do for his customer. That’s the type of person he is. And through every encounter, he portrays just that. Why? Because he’s being himself.

I’ve actually had this discussion with a friend of mine who I’m a huge fan of how she is using Twitter. Her name is Melanie and she actually runs the Twitter account for Taziki’s in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite the fact that she is tweeting for a company, she has found great ways to be herself through her tweets from @Tazikis_Bham A great example of this was shortly after she started tweeting for @Tazikis_Bham. A few local Tweeps decided to get together for lunch @VTBirmingham. Melanie, thru the @Tazikis_Bham account, helped coordinate the tweetup. Instead of excluding herself, she decided to include herself since she was genuinely interested in meeting her audience. Now, most people would view this as a travesty, a betrayal of her brand. But it didn’t turn out that way at all. Melanie showed that genuine interest in her followers and has built the @Tazikis_Bham account into a very interactive experience for customers and followers.

On Twitter, you’re followers are generally smart enough to know if you’re really being yourself or if you’re talking out of your ass. Case in point, I began following someone on Twitter who billed themselves as a “Social Media Expert” only to be greeted by a message just minutes later asking about how to organize a Tweetup. Needless to say, I’m not following this person anymore. Neither are a lot of other people, from the last time that I checked.

I also have to shout out to a good friend of mine who came to me and asked me just how he should be using Twitter. @JAAndrews is a lawyer in the Birmingham (AL) area. After he decided that he would become more active on Twitter, he consulted me on how I thought he should approach using the platform on a more regular basis. Since he’s chosen not to tweet about matters of law (rightly so), I suggested that he tweet about the things that matter the most to him. Looking at his last 30ish tweets, I’d say that his family, connecting with friends and entrepreneurs, and selling his house are what’s important to him at the moment.

If you haven’t had the chance, watch this video of Gary V speaking at SXSWi this year (2010):

I know I’ve already referenced it once already but I’m going to quote him again:

“We have ridiculously awesome BS detectors.”

And truer words haven’t been spoken. As a human, you are the best at doing one thing and one thing only: Being Yourself. And we, as humans, can sniff you out a mile away if you’re trying to be something you aren’t. So, next time you tweet, don’t worry about what others might say. Say what you mean to say and don’t make apologies for it. Make sure that you are being yourself. I promise, there’s at least one person out there (besides your mom) who will think you’re interesting. But that part is another post…

No, we’re not talking about saving puppies (Sorry, @DOGingham). Today we talk about being kind to others. Not just on Twitter but online, in general. People go online to find things. Whether, they are doing a casual search, playing flash games, or looking to connect with others. They just want a new experience. For our sake today, I’m going to assume that they want that experience to be “positive”. No searches for bomb making materials today. Sorry.
Now, I don’t know of anybody these days who likes being picked on. Maybe I’m crazy. But I’m sure we all remember feeling picked upon at some point in our life. And when you’re online, taking your time to give your perspective on a situation or participate in some activity, it feels really crappy to have someone come out of seemingly nowhere and go seemingly go out of their way to tell you that you are the biggest idiot on the internet and should be serilized. Yes, I’m quoting here.
It seems like a simple enough idea, but it is ingrained into some of the internet’s culture to be asshole-ish. If you read about the history of the internet, you’ll find that in the late 80’s and early 90’s, there were great flame wars the went on for weeks and months. In those days, you were measured by your last coding job and quickest smartass comment.
However, as many things do, the internet has changed. More and more, people from the “mainstream” are find their way inside the inter-tubes for the first time. For those of us who choose be inhabit these digital environments, I feel it’s up to us to welcome and (somewhat) protect those who are willing to take a chance and interact with us.
Just the other day, one of the people I follow on Twitter thought it would be a good idea to multi-tweet something he deemed important, in all caps. I’d met this guy in real life and was pretty sure he wasn’t trying to be annoying. It just so happened, one of the other people I follow called him out for it. I aligned with her and gently told him it might not be the best idea. Turns out, he was just trying to make sure people saw it. He thought since it was important to him, surely it was going to be important to all of his followers. People who are just now dipping their toes into the digital waters are going to do things like this. It’s up to us to let them know what’s accepted and what’s not without running them off.
And maybe that’s just how I feel. Probably because I’ve been using and moderating message boards for about 6 years now. And I’ve seen my fair share of flaming and trolls. I can generally tellthe difference of someone making an etiquette faux pas or someone being a troll. As a matter of fact, @JasonFalls has some great commentary on understanding trolls.

Troll: Anonymous mean commentor. Turd: A troll brave (or dumb) enough to reveal their identity.

My point is that part of my digital experience day-to-day is like being a moderator for whatever social media platform I happen to be on at that particular moment. It’s my job as a “digital native” is to bring in others from outside the bubble and evangelize just how great Twitter is for connecting for those attending the same sporting event or how Facebook can bring all of your fans together to share how cool your concert really was. I would hope that you and others like us would choose to act the same towards those beginning to join us. So, ask yourself, when’s the last time you made someone feel welcome on Twitter?

Ever wonder why reality TV is so popular? Shows like Jersey Shore, The Real World, and Survivor are popular because people are curious as to what other people are doing, saying, thinking, feeling, and tasting. It’s human nature to be curious. The idea that you may be doing something that I’m not doing is enticing and I want to learn how to do it. So I’m willing to spend my time observing you to learn what you’re doing differently.
Gary V had a great quote from SXSWi this year (2010):

“We have ridiculously awesome BS detectors.”

And he’s right. Why? It’s because humans relate to other humans very easily. It’s like walking by someone and giving a courtesy nod (ok, that’s a southern thing, but work with me). If I walk past 10 people, I’m sure I’ll get at least 7-8 nods, in which I’ll nod back.
Using things like your logo on Twitter and other Social Media platforms take away from “human” aspect of the medium. It would be like me wearing a sandwich board. I’ll still get 4-5 nods, and I’ll get 2-3 people who actually go out of their way to avoid me. What? You’ve never gone out of your way to avoid someone trying to sell you something? I know I have. I’m pretty sure you have as well, even if you don’t realize it.
I remember the other day that I was at a local Starbucks and there was a new barista who didn’t know me. She kept trying to push me to buy something else at every turn. Up-sell with a shot of expresso, we have red velvet cupcakes, take a coffee cake for the road, etc, etc. I was not impressed and politely turned her down every time. However, one of the other baristas, Ian, was working at the same Starbucks one evening when I had to work late. He and I began chatting about a new style of coffee that they had received and somehow we ended up on the subject of particular drink names. The drink that peeked my interest the most happened to be the “Black Eye” (two shots of expresso in a standard cup of coffee). I’ve been drinking them ever since.
Now, initially businesses make the mistake of the first lady and use Twitter as just another avenue for a hard sell. But this violates our rule of being human. Ian, on the other hand, was himself and added value through his coffee trivia and has caused me to, over time, spend more money with Starbucks. By being human, we as humans allow a certain amount of trust, since we generally know what to expect from other humans. For brands that choose not to be human, we don’t know what to expect and thus expect the worst. Look at your last 5 tweets. Did you answer someone’s question? Did you express an interest in something someone said? How were you human? Let me know in the comments.

Photo Credit: khaledak