A Startup Guy

There’s this image out in the world of the lone entrepreneur anonymously toiling by himself, carving the next great company out of the wilderness with his bare hands. I admit I’ve held that image myself. I think it comes from the stories we hear as kids of Americans being rugged individualists.

But the image isn’t really true. People who accomplish great things, including business startups, do it with help. Lewis had Clark. Hewlett had Packard. Robert E Lee had Stonewall Jackson. Larry Page has Sergey Brin (and Eric Schmidt).

You don’t have to have partners, but you need someone to talk with. Someone you can bounce ideas off of. Someone to brainstorm with. Someone to be an advisor. Someone to call you out when you do dumb stuff. I think author Keith Ferrazi has a new book out about this, Whose Got Your Back.

I spent years trying to go it alone, without much help, advice, support or feedback. It sucks. Don’t do it that way. As I’ve considered this situation I’ve come to realize that I’ve got to get out in the startup world. Mix it up with the upstarts out there. (I really want to name a startup “The Upstarts”!) Find people I can collaborate with, exchange advice with and, sometimes, just shoot the bull with. So I’ve created and scheduled an event named Startups Over Coffee. it’s similar to groups like Geek Breakfast and Startup Drinks, and we’re going to meet at 9am on Saturday, July 11 at Fido coffee shop on 21st Avenue in Nashville. If you’re into startups and in the area, come on by. We’ll be meeting and mixing with other startup enthusiasts. Come share some ideas and grab a great cuppa joe. Who knows what might come out of it.

We’ve already got some smart people signed up for the event and I”m excited to see what happens.

About 3 months ago, my buddy Dave Delaney ran a poll asking if people found Twitter auto-direct messages (DMs) annoying. (Auto-DMs are automatic direct messages sent to someone who follows you – usually through a service like SocialToo.) At the time of the poll, I didn’t get too many of these and answered no. I’m the kind of guy who gives people the benefit of the doubt, if I can. I assumed most of the auto-DMs were from well-meaning folks and tried to take them in the spirit I imagined they were given. What a difference 3 months can make.

Today, I get at least a dozen auto-DMs a day. Many days, I get way more than that. The problem is that more than half aren’t much better than spam. “Thanks for the follow. Check out my website to find great deals on SEO!” Here’s the thing about Twitter, it’s all about relationships. Even when you don’t know the people you’re following, or who follow you, very well, it’s still about developing relationships. Auto-DM spam is no better than e-mail spam or cold call sales pitches you get in the middle of dinner. It’s people trying to make you check out their products that you probably don’t want, weren’t looking for and didn’t ask about.

In moderation, a direct message thanking me for following you could be nice. However, there are just too many now for them to make an impact now anyway.  If you want to get my attention, find something more creative and original. Better yet, engage me on Twitter. Build a relationship. Find out if I even care about your “Make Cash in 2 Minutes a Day” package before shoving it in my face.

And to Dave Delaney, change my vote there to a No please, will ya, bro? Thanks, man!

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"I love Twitter" photo from Lost Art of Blogging blog

OK. In my last post I noted what Twitter has done for me. But how do others use it to effect? One of the fun things to watch as Twitter has grown is how it’s gone from being a platform for marketers and techno-geeks to becoming a real communication tool for people from many walks of life. Early on (a year ago), we had lots of discussions about if people like CEOs would ever adopt Twitter. I had my doubts as there is (at least at this time) no measurable return on investment for using Twitter. Interactions online don’t generally directly yield sales. And CEOs are usually too busy to bother tweeting on a regular basis. Despite that, they’re coming online. And its fascinating to see how they’re adapting Twitter to work for them. Many people still don’t get it. There are a lot of marketers rushing to open Twitter accounts for their clients because they’ve heard that’s where they need to be. “You’ve got to be on Twitter. It’s the new frontier.” But many more ARE getting it. They understand that Twitter is for talking AT people, but for talking to them. And if you’re lucky, starting a conversation with them. Here are some examples:

Politics
Twitter was a breakout this political cycle. We saw congressmen and senators adopt the service. We saw a John McCain campaign staffer get in trouble for using the service to point people to questionable videos. But we also saw Barack Obama use the service as an outreach program. It was a big part of his grassroots organizing system. Obama became so successful at it that his was the first user account to garner more than 100,000 followers.

John McCain, on the other hand, never really got Twitter. His campaign had an account (opened by default by the Twitter folks simply to enforce a fairness policy), but only made 25 tweets and only picked up fewer than 5,000 followers.

Entertainment
Twitter may prove to be marketing gold for some people in the entertainment industry. Not as a push/sell tool so much as a community-building tool. Some accounts are actually set up and used by the entertainment personality. Many are set up by PR, marketing or agency people. In both cases, again, some people get the power of Twitter, many don’t. One case for the “don’t” category is county music star Aaron Tippin. He’s got great music, but his Twitter account proves a bit tone deaf. I’m sure it was set up by a label or PR flunkie, but it’s Grade A fail. Aaron’s account was set up in June 2008, follows no one and has only 28 followers. It also has a paltry 2 entries. One notes that they’re setting up a Twitter account. The other encourages people to go buy Aaron Tippin’s newest CD. No wonder there are only 28 followers.

On the other hand, there are plenty of celebrities using Twitter to build community and communicate with fans. Some follow back, like rapper MC Hammer, others don’t but are still very conversational, such as Heroes stars Greg Grunberg (there’s something fun about Greg posting photos of his chair on the set) and Brea Grant and Christian music artist Jeremy Camp. They don’t follow many people, but they do keep up with conversations about them and often respond to people who address them.

Business
Another fun trend to watch has been businesses getting on Twitter. They were slow to adopt at first, but they’re beginning to carve out strategies on how to effectively use Twitter. You can now contact Comcast (Comcast Cares), Zappos (a phenomenal online shoe seller, this Twitter account is actually manned by their CEO), Virgin America and The Home Depot (manned by one of their corporate communications people, but well run). Dell has become legendary in their use of social media to connect with customers, including their use of Twitter. They have some 23 Twitter accounts, including one that links to Dell employees who are Twitter users, some for work, some not. As always, some of these accounts are used well, some are just more places for PR people to push information.

In my opinion, Twitter works best when used as a communications tool. That means to put out meaningful information and respond to others as well. It also works best when it’s personal. You don’t have to be the CEO of a corporation or an entertainment star to use the “official” Twitter account (though it helps), but the communication needs to be personal. People need to feel a connection with whoever is talking for the Twitter account. Otherwise, it’s just a one-way conversation.

One final word of warning, be careful about fake users. There are plenty of people who have Twitter accounts claiming to be someone they’re not. It’s mostly done for fun, but that doesn’t make it any less painful to be tricked.

Additional info:
Jeremy Peppers’ rules for using Twitter
A list of companies, celebrities, governments and others of note using Twitter
6 Unual Entities That Tweet

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Image via CrunchBase

Do you Twitter? Twitter has blown past the three million users mark. People worldwide are checking out the benefits (and drawbacks) of microblogging 140 characters at a time. Yet, even as we begin to find new uses for the service, many people still have little clue what Twitter is and even less about how it can be useful. To help out, I thought I would write a little bit about what I’ve learn in my year on Twitter.

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a service that lets you communicate with other users online 140 characters at a time. The character limitations are a throwback to the old days of SMS when messaging (such as texting by cell phone) had the same restrictions. The hard part is it’s not always easy to say what you want in 140 characters. The good part is that it forces you to be concise in your communications. It also forces you to post comments that take more than 140 characters in more appropriate places, such as blogs. Or even to say nothing at all.

Twitter is social in that you may choose people to “follow” and people choose to follow you. Sort of like “friending” on Facebook. Then, you can choose to read the “tweets” (posted comments) of you and the people you follow. Originaly based on the simple question, “What are you doing right now?”, Twitter has evolved and now fosters not only comments on what users are doing, but conversations, obervations and helpful information.

What is Twitter Good For?
I have to admit that my first thoughts after joining Twitter were, “This is going to be a huge time sink.” and “Does this really have a productive benefit?” After a year online, I can confirm that the answer to the first item is “Yes, if you let it.” The answer to the second question is an overwhelming “Yes!” In the last year, I’ve used Twitter to help me find new acquaintances, meet the people on the cutting edge of the social media movement and get answers to questions. On several occassions, I’ve found my followers have been able to help me with mySQL and ASP.NET code challenges. When I went to Podcamp Nashville in the fall of 2007, I knew about 2 people there from past jobs and about 3 I had met through Twitter in the month or so I’d been on it. When I attended Barcamp Nashville this summer, I knew about 5 people from school and past jobs. I knew more than two dozen through Twitter or other social networks (or events I had learned about through social networks). Through Twitter, I’ve even made new “real life” (sometimes called IRLs or “in real life”) friends and possible future business partners.

Another cool use of Twitter is to observe “back channel” chatter during major technology events, such as Barcamps, Podcamps, Startup Weekends, and even SXSW. Attendees carry on conversation on Twitter to discuss presentations as they’re occuring. They also disseminate information to people who can’t attend, spreading the knowledge and fostering new discussion.

Oh, and the time sink thing? If you’ll push through the learning curve of how to use Twitter, you’ll develop a use pattern that you can use to keep Twitter from being a time sink.

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