Ok, I’m having a Seinfeld moment, or maybe it was the Taco Bell I had for lunch – but Twitter is bugging me today. Ok, not Twitter but I guess those great people that I follow and rely on for my daily dose of what’s happening in the world – more specifically within the HR world! Let’s be even more specific – it’s not all the people I follow, but a very small percentage, but today it seems like a very big percentage and now that I think about it – I’m part of the problem.
Have you ever wondered why people on Twitter seem to have this obsession with wanting to be quoted or send out famous quotes – it’s like there’s a race to see who can be the most prolific tweeter of all time, and if you win, Twitter will change the name of tweets to “Jenny” or “Mark” or whoever wins the prolific quoting game we seem to be playing each day. I have to say, but today, I’m all quoted out. I don’t think there is one thing that can be said that already hasn’t been said on twitter, at least twice.
Ok, again, that last statement was a bit exaggerated – there are some things that haven’t been said on Twitter yet – here they are:
- @PunkrockHR just decided she isn’t a cat person, hates working from home and won’t be attending a HR conference in the next 21 days.
- @GuyKawasaki I can’t find another link to send out
- @Wallybock isn’t recommending @KrisDunn for #FollowFriday
- @TheRedRecruiter Come to think about it, I really prefer black shoes, but I was young, and drunk, and well red sounded cooler – plus no one had red shoes, how big could it get?
- @JonKeel no Swine Flu deaths to report (ok, these just creep me out – I’m just sayin’ – love you Jon)
So, here it is – the unwritten Twitter Rules for HR Pros:
1. 1 to 1 tweets to follower rule – yep, that’s right, if you have 5000 followers, you can send 5000 tweets. No longer can you send out more tweets than you have followers, it’s just irresponsible.
2. You can only #FollowFriday someone once per quarter, anymore than that and it becomes stalkerish.
3. You can only send out a quote that you think you’ve made up on your own – if you’ve written a book (that’s been published).
4. It’s ok to talk about your pets…to people who give a shi between the hours of 9pm and 7am (that’s when I won’t be bugged by them)
5. Follow @TimSackett – all the cool kids are doing it
Not sure how we ended here, I started out really upset over people trying to act way too smart and all-knowing through their twitter accounts, and then some shining object caught my attention and we got to top 5 lists. Oh well – as Seinfeld says “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.”
Thank you for posting this!
I have been having similar thoughts over the past few days and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t care if someone has just bought a coffee from Starbucks…and I’m not sure who else does.
But that’s just me…
Thanks Tim, considering that you are fully vested in the monopoly money, rental property and hotels that Jessica Lee and I bestowed upon you today for two FOT posts in one week, I have one thing to say: you’re welcome.
Dear G-d, someone pass me my vomit bag and hold back my hair on #followfriday. I’ve adopted an HR employee recognition program strategy to address the puke-on-friday quandry. Here’s my answer: It is my coveted @HRMargo awards. I only give them to the people that deserve them.
Some are cynical, some tongue and cheek, some are downright sincere, and filled with gratitude and respect. If you notice, my @HRMargo awards have become, indeed, coveted because people actually send me replies and dms if they don’t get one. That cracks me up because, I’m not that important. But, somehow any award given on twitter is coveted, for instance, @Animal’s #Ammy. I won his Twitterbug award for enthusiasm.
Ok, admittedly I should write the book, “Women who Tweet Too Much.” However, I can honestly say I meet the criteria of your suggested 1:1 ratio. The best way to engage with people on twitter is not to stack rows, and rows of people’s names in one tweet. That’s meaningless and futile. What has meaning is selecting 1, 2, 3 people tops, and give them an award for something they do exceptionally well. For instance, I gave FOT and Recruitingblogs the coveted “Best Recruiting Communities” award. Both of you RTd the post and thanked me. BAM that has meaning. I also gave you, Jennifer McClure,Fran,and Dawn The Best FOT bloggers award. Sorry FOT panel the rest of you have to step up your game if you want to be one of my C-Suite bloggers.
By default, I gave Jeremy Piven aka @Kris_Dunn the FOT award for creating this space for the rest of you to trample, enjoy the fodder.
Who doesn’t love @PunkRockHR she inspired my blogpost yesterday on HR Metrics http://hrmargo.com
The bottom line is simply this: be authentic, and you can tweet as much as you like. Be an original not a cc: reply, interact, value others, post relevant, current and helpful articles-blogposts. I’m with you on the quote addicts: they need their own 12-Step program (I don’t have an original thought in my head anonymous).
I subscribe to your RSS feed, sometimes, but not always, I RT your stuff (and only the outstanding posts). I’d like to thank Kris Dunn for inviting me to guest post on FOT cc: Gen Y Jessica Lee.
Your Twitter Pal,
@HRMargo
Great post, Tim, except, of course for the part about not paying homage to Kris on Follow Friday. I’m not sure the universe would accept that.
Thanks for an afternoon smile.
I was going to tweet out a link to the Funnest, Fattest Animals but I’ll post it here.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/funnest-fattest-animals-p_n_438936.html
I’m self-aware enough to know that not everything I write is interesting or compelling. Some of my tweets are just for me, but when I tweet about a conference or something related to HR, it’s really a tweet and an effort for the benefit of others. In fact, I live in a crazy world where I spend most of my day trying to atone for my horrible career in HR where I laid off people and didn’t do my best to fix a broken profession. Most of my tweets serve a distinct purpose – to make someone else happy.
You’re right, though. Sometimes I’m selfish and narcissistic and I just want to tweet about sitting with my cats and drinking Starbucks.
Okay, I took a shower and realized that comment of mine sounded a little defensive. Truth is, I’m prolific and I can be as deep as a shallow pool. You got me.
i love this blog as an hr pro its fantastic! But as a social media junkie you guys need to put share codes on the posts! pleeeeeease! There are a lot of channels that are being left out, here is a great thml code to add a share button,
Share This Post