Valley PR Blog

Twitter: Seinfeld-ization of America vs. Solid PR Tactic

By Dan Wool on December 20th, 2007 In Social Media

Naked PR’s Jenn Mattern had a great post yesterday that pretty much sums up my attitude about Twitter.

I’ve struggled with Twitter. I want to like it. Some of my best friends (and “friends”) are Twitter-ers. So, a couple weeks ago I tried it again and … well … you know that scene in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” where Cameron’s in the car debating himself?  That’s me…about Twitter. (”Okay, I’ll go. I’ll go. I’ll go….”) And, like Cameron, the experience simply confirmed everything I already knew to be true.

Specifically, that noone gives a sh– about random sh–. On the one hand, Twitter is a great outlet to capture all the random thoughts I once tried unsuccessfully to blog. Trouble is, noone (still) cares about my clairvoyant iPod or that I ate too many tortilla chips at lunch. And it’s too much work for me to share that stuff anyway. I can hardly do it on Facebook. 

Do I have low self-esteem? Is my life that boring? No.  It’s just that normal people wouldn’t even share this sort of crap with a friend sitting next to them. Maybe I’m having a hard time — as Shel Holtz put it the other day — of “breaking the broadcast habit,” at least personally.

But, I’m sorry, I just can’t be part of the Seinfeld-ization of America that shares so much about nothing as to aspire to cultural relevancy. Does our collective Jan Brady really need to read Marcia’s diary?

Says Mattern:

If people were only posting useful updates, that would be one thing. But nobody gives a damn (or at least no one important if they don’t have something better to do) what you’re doing every minute of every f*ing day. If anything, I’ve been seeing some top dogs in the tech industry looking like complete and utter morons talking about stupid sh*t like what they’re having for lunch. It’s hard to respect someone who doesn’t have something intelligent to say, or who acts far too much (far too publicly) like any average Joe off the street. You don’t build authority in your field by acting like everyone else. There’s just far too much noise.

Here here.  The solution is to be useful. Populate useful.

So, to that end, there are certainly couple reasons why Twitter should be in your tactical PR quiver:

1) Twitter as a micro RSS feed. Think of it as a sub feed to your feed. Twittering my ValleyPR Blog posts makes sense to try to capture someone who is (1) not subscribed to our RSS and/or (2) hasn’t yet visited the site — a quick Twitter headline just might attract them. It’s a way to capture someone who has their cell phone with them all the time but not necessarily a computer. And, it’s information people want and opt-in to receive. That’s textbook marketing.

For businesses, the LA Times’ use during So Cal fires was a great example of pushing out relevant, useful information to people who desperately needed it. Pushing out a note (in addition to RSS) when press releases and other important info hits your site is another solid use.

2) Twitter as a microblog reader (with aforementioned push function). For me, Twitter is Bloglines for text messaging.  I select who I want to follow (read) then get the feed. I can learn something interesting from the people I follow, comment, etc.  Generally on Twitter, this is backstage stuff. This is useful for competitive intel or simply to keep current with influentials. But it requires Twitter-ers to be responsible as opposed to Twittering for Twitter’s sake. 

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