Why Ice Cube had the right idea about promotion…

Ice Cube once said “you better check yourself, before you wreck yourself”, which is entirely relevant to present circumstances. Wise words Ice, there are a few people who could use your sage advice when it comes to the usage of social media and its many superb tools. Although brands are starting to come to terms with transparency of social media, it seems some consumers still haven’t understood this and continue to use tools for dialogue as tools for just general chatter….

Twitter seems to have become the problem child of this. Some users know that it is a town square of interesting self-promotion, GuyKawazaki delivers musings on media and leadership, Stephen Fry talks interestingly about his global experiences, Will Self delivers rich prosaic about things that disappoint/annoy him. John from round the corner talks about his dull life and the fishnchips he had on Friday night. Its this area which really starts to grate after a while and although my friends timeline is fast enough that I can avoid this boring chatter, unfortunately it still seems to get to me. I know I could unfollow him, but why should I bother.

However wise Ice was I am sure he couldn’t have predicted the meteoric rise of Twitter and its daily almost shameless self-promotion usage by one and all. (As I am sure Ice would have said.) Here are a couple of things I have learnt from Twitter…

1) Twitter is a great promotional tool when you have something to say. I use it as an extension to my blog and to drive traffic here. Unfortunately, my blog is not updated as much as it should be so my traffic dwindles. I do know some people that blog too much and update their Twitter too much, so my recommendation is to create 3 business worthy updates a day. By business worthy I mean relevant to the industry you work in but…

2) Decide what your personal objectives is for your Twittering. My personal objective is to connect with friends and make new acquaintences within the industry. However, I am careful not to share too much personal information, I have a mobile phone to do this. My priority is really to give myself access to a really interesting professional network that I couldn’t have otherwise reached. LinkedIn just doesn’t seem to have been able to do this for me yet.

Perhaps I am being a bit too cut-throat about it, but I believe we all have a role to play in making conversations on Twitter and other social areas more interesting. Some users could do with checking themselves before they wreck themselves and the very technology they are using.