Breaking The Rules – What Twitter Taught Me About Community

Oh great…another Twitter post?

For those of you that weren’t on Twitter last week or don’t follow me at all, I won second place in Blogworld Expo/Alltop Contest*. The idea of the contest was to get people to go to my Alltop page and click the “retweet” button at the bottom of the screen. Pretty simple.

During the course of giving it a shot, I realized I was actually getting close to the lead and decided to make a push for it. In doing so, I broke one of my own Twitter rules (and a rule most of you swear by as well). I became a broadcast-spam-machine. Of course I wasn’t selling typical spam garbage, but I was constantly repeating myself and just shouting out through the Twitterverse, looking for anyone that would be willing to click a tiny green button. As I thought about it, I was a bit disappointed in myself for breaking that rule, but I did learn a few things.

Twitter Life Lessons From RErockstar.

Broadcasting, not conversing. – Ok, I’m guilty. I broke this rule. I became a shouting machine; asking, begging, screaming for anyone to help. But it worked. Why did it work – we all hate those people don’t we? I think a couple of you voted for me just to shut me up. I don’t blame you. I attribute my success in doing it to a three things: relationships, localization, and a definitive reason.

• Realtionships are the big winner here. Having a relationship with people made it easy for them to help me. Most people like to see their “friends” succeed (even online friends). Even some people I have only spoke to here or there were confident I wasn’t sending to some sort of spam site. Relationships become trust with time.
• Localization got me help from people who didn’t care or know what REBlogworld was. I’ve made a point to get to know some of my local Twitter friends and they came out in droves to support me. Best of all, they introduced me to other locals I didn’t know and know I have some new locals to chat with.
• Having a definitive reason behind what I was doing made it easier for people to swallow. I wasn’t trying to just sell a house, I was trying to learn and promised to bring back what I learned. I gave them a reason to want me to go. Vague “click this” tweets will receive a lot less attention than something that defines who, what, why, when, and how.

Specific targeting works better than casting a wide net. I did a lot of generic tweets. I did a bunch of @replies as well. By targeting specific people, I was able to get their attention. Not everyone reads every tweet in every stream. I saw close personal friends on Twitter for extended periods of time – they weren’t retweeting it. Seconds after sending them an @reply, I saw the retweet. And then they started asking people to help. The more specific the target, the better the response.

It’s hard to describe what to do in 140 characters. Because the word “retweet” was involved, it was very difficult to get people to do what I needed them to do (you had to go to my page and click on the green retweet button). Instead, many people would add the RT to my tweet (or other’s tweets) and send it out on Twitter. Those weren’t counted. I wrote specific instructions of two blog posts and even tweeted them with specific “how to” language. People scan – even on Twitter. Because of this, many saw “retweet” and did what they knew how to do, not what was needed to be done.

When in doubt, offer something in return. I actually started with this theory. Since I needed people to react and perform a specific series of actions, I thought it wise to add some value to the work. I originally offered 10 cents for qualifying retweet to be donated to Mothers Fighting For Others, at around 118 retweets, I began offering 50 cents and by the end I offered up $1 for the last run up to the win. I finished at 139 qualifying retweets. (As a side note – don’t tell @headmutha, but I’ve decided to pay it all as $1/each. Since I’ll be meeting her at Blogworld, I decided to give her a check when I do.)

Last but not least, be thankful. I really appreciated everyone’s help during my quest. I tried to thank everyone personally and I think I got most of them (I’m sure I missed a few). A little appreciation goes a long way. I’ve spoken to a lot of people since then – wishing me the best, chatting about things, asking me questions. We’ve created connections. And connections lead to community.

* Although the point of me referencing Blogworld and Alltop were not for anything more than to explain the backstory, in light of the recent rules regarding blogging and freebies, I don’t want any big old fines to come crashing down on me. I did receive free passes to Blogworld for the contest.