It’s a great fortune to learn the art of genuinely connecting with people. Sometimes people remark that meeting me provides real connectivity; that they feel listened to, and a genuine sense of comradery. I think about this brick and mortar connectivity as it applies to online communities and see many implications, including a possible Twitter Bubble that may burst later this year.
First let’s discuss connecting (image: Talking by pedrosimoes7). There is a big difference between having a conversation — communicating, if you would — and connecting with people. It requires looking someone right in their eyes, and actively listening to them. We consciously do things to let people know we are listening, such as follow-up with questions, repeat back something they’ve said and not necessarily verbatim, nod, if it’s a lighter conversation smile, and try to present open body language (avoiding crossing arms, etc.).
Why is this so important? Everyone wants to feel important, and when they communicate with you, they are trying to achieve more than just say something or deliver a message. They want be heard, they want to know that you genuinely care.
Spiritually speaking, I enjoy doing this. As Thich Nan Hanh said in his book, “True Love,” demonstrating full presence for someone else in any relationship is the greatest gift you can offer.
Make no doubt about it, this kind of presence is hard. I fail many times. When I have bad ADD or I am tired, I can easily get distracted. Of course, like everyone else, my own self think can become a barrier to being an active person to connect with… And then there are gadgets. Increasingly, I turn off my cell phone or close my laptop to commit my attention to somebody. And quite frankly, I am only capable of a few conversations like this during any given day.
Yet the reward of build strong interpersonal relationships and giving someone the presence we all crave makes this worthwhile. So it’s important to focus on these everyday.
Applied to Online and Twitter
Online conversations can only take you so far. Frank Gruber once said to Toby Bloomberg and I that the best forms of social media involve some brick and mortar component. He believes that people need the physical connectivity. I totally agree, and think the best social media often involves some sort of a meet-up, gathering or physical object associated with the effort as a call to action.
This kind of connectivity is a derivative of the above, putting people together face-to-face or holding something. They see responses, can shake your hand, or touch that product.
In fact, this is one of the reasons why I’m a bit disappointed to miss Thursday’s Twestival event in DC (I will be on a plane). The event combines two of my favorite things; green social cause (benefiting water) and my primary social network, Twitter. The opportunity to do a combined brick and mortar event seemed ideal for connectivity to me.
Twitter appeals to me because the conversation — in the form of @s, DMs and sometimes hashtags — can provide incredible connectivity. But Twitter isn’t what it used to be. As Ike Pigott, noted last week on Media Bullseye, Twitter has turned into a trophy prize hunt for the most followers.
This strategy – whether it’s to become a successful “social media expert” or simply for personal influence – often involves following tons of people, and getting them to follow you back. Simply drop those who do not comply. Or if you are genuinely followed by many for whatever reason, the mistaken belief that you need to return follow everyone who follows you. Tools like search.Twitter.com and Tweetdeck make it easy to see conversations initiated by unfollowed readers and respond.
As a result we are seeing mega personalities evolve who carefully cultivate their personal brand or marketing image on Twitter. The ensuing lack of authenticity and canned BS that emit from such Twitter streams kills connectivity. And that makes me think there’s a bubble of false Twitter fame occurring. Eventually, all bubbles burst.
I’ve seen this mega-personality syndrome happen to friends. Quite frankly, I’ve stopped following them because I feel no connection with them on Twitter. Shaquille O’Neal is a novelty and as a true fan, I enjoy the bizarre tweets that emerge. Rare is the internet famous or marketing guru who is such a compelling public figure. I am sure others feel the same way. It screams bubble to me.
Geoff, you know I like your writing a lot, but some of this might be like writing a blog post about pistol triggers when the topic is the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – case in point:
“As a result we are seeing mega personalities evolve who carefully cultivate their personal brand or marketing image on Twitter. The ensuing lack of authenticity and canned BS that emit from such Twitter streams kills connectivity. And that makes me think there’s a bubble of false Twitter fame occurring. Eventually, all bubbles burst.”
Could easily be tweaked and re-written as:
“As a result we are seeing mega personalities evolve who carefully cultivate their personal brand or marketing image. The ensuing lack of authenticity and canned BS that emit from such press conferences kills connectivity. And that makes me think there’s a bubble of false fame occurring. Eventually, all bubbles burst.”
Much of this is not unique to Twitter. Or social tools. It is about fame. Twitter is a trophy prize hunt for the most followers? No, fame is a trophy prize hunt for the most followers. Twitter is just another tool to get that fame.
Hi Geoff,
Thank you for so simply and eloquently expressing what I have been feeling for some time about genuinely connecting with people. The Thich Nan Hanh reference, one of my favorite authors, illustrated this issue beautifully. There is a marketing gold-rush atmosphere that is now pervading twitter that appeals to our lesser more self absorbed natures. The genuine connections I make in person from twitter, which exhibit some element of intellectual or kindred resonance are rare, but pleasant surprises. I humbly suggest people pause a moment to ponder the original purpose of twitter: ‘What are you doing?’
Regards,
@dmitrigunn
Sorry Mark, but I disagree. Twitter seems to be a place where this type of phenomena accelerates and is easily advanced. Yes, it is happening in other places, but Twitter is the heart of the bubble, IMO.
@dmitrigunn Thank you for your kind words.
Twitter is the heart of “the bubble” as you have defined the bubble, I don’t disagree. But this behavioral tendency – striving for fame – far predates modern technology. Twitter is a popular technology, and it is no surprise whatsoever to see a popularity contest happening. Fameballs tend to use whatever means of promotion are available and will work. No doubt ancient fanboys promoted fameballs via cartoons and gossip.
Saying that “Twitter isn’t what it used to be” is like saying that phones aren’t what they used to be. Everyone can still use Twitter however they please. If people want to connect and share information, the fact that a relatively tiny minority use it to self-promote, build false personal brands, and collect followers really shouldn’t influence the average user.
Geoff, great post. I think that you have expressed, quite eloquently, one of the true failures of social media, particularly Twitter. Often times, the social media space seems like popularity contest with many rushing to become the next king or queen. Thanks for releasing me from the guilt of not following everyone that follows me.
I guess something about this post and the responses is just irking me. This all may very well be true of new media like Twitter (no doubt), but I’m not sure it’s specific to it whatsoever.
Did people’s radio careers suffer because Howard Stern declared himself “King of All Media”? No, there’s now more radio stations and talk hosts than ever, on XM, etc. Did regular TV shows evaporate because Donald Trump was temporarily the biggest (“it’s huge”) reality TV star with The Apprencice? No, soap operas, Survivor, CSI and many others are still around.
There will always be fameballs and use of media in ways people don’t like. Judge them how you like. But I don’t think that the existence of the fame-hungry means the medium itself has changed necessarily – use it how you like.
Is the true bubble perhaps that we sometimes talk too much about new media (and even specific new media products) and not enough about … media?
I think the characterization of Twitter as a bubble may not be entirely accurate, since bubbles ultimately burst. The bigger question, as Mark astutely notes, has to do with the drivers of Twitter’s growth: true connection or personal fame? The former takes real work. The latter is addicting, yet in a most superficial way.
It’s no different when one boasts of having thousands of so-called friends on Facebook. Friends? I doubt it.
Having run hundreds of PR/media campaigns over the years, I have seen how fame as an end in itself may be good for one’s ego, but it’s fleeting compared to the satisfaction one derives from making a single true connection. It’s not the number of our Twitter followers, but the quality of the relationship we have with them that’s a work-in-progress.
@Mark @Peter We’ve seen two social networks already dissipate or wane in power because of such popularity — Friendster and MySpace. So while your points are true about popular media in the past, they are not entirely applicable. In fact, online these examples are less applicable. We’ve seen this with CompuServe and AOL before social media, too.
Great post as usual, Geoff. And @cheeky_geeky that whole pistol/trigger metaphor is perfect.
I would add that this bursted Twitter bubble will have one sound: the soft, dull shuffle of former social charlatans filling the ranks of jobs created by today’s pending stimulus package. They’re going to have to do some real work at some point right?
I’m a strong proponent for the brick & mortar aspect of connecting with people. I’ve seen the benefits of it first hand. Twitter and the like opens up a wide range of communications with people from across the globe and of all industries. But when you actually meet that person to solidify that relationship is when it comes full circle and you realize that as you’re able to call this person more of a friend than a ‘twitter buddy’.
As for the bubble – different ‘tactics’ have definitely emerged as of late and an increasing amount of people wanting to use Twitter specifically for their own benefit/game. I understand we are living in the bubble and that it spreads much faster than other sites/networks would, but I think for those of us who truly benefit from conversations and connecting with folks, then we’ll be able to keep our use as such.
I don’t know if it’s a bubble or not, but it does seem to me that technology is making a new kind of communication continuum possible. I recently took a trip to Mumbai with the express purpose of making face to face human connections after the terrorist attacks against the Taj and other targets ( http://jimstogdill.vox.com/library/post/run-to-the-noise-1.html ).
During the trip I was largely disconnected. Roaming telecom was simply too expensive to be in the digital skinner box all day – pushing the bar was more financial shock and a lot less snack. So, I met people, drank a vast quantities of tea, talked politics (ours and theirs) for hours on end, played with kids etc. It was great and I feel mentally refreshed like I haven’t in a long time.
I wasn’t completely disconnected though and I made judicious use of my bandwidth to post four or five tweets per day, post some pictures, and maybe a blog post every few days. The result was that quite a few people experienced at least a bit of the trip vicariously through me. I would wake up every morning to DM’s, emails, facebook comments, and SMS messages asking me about someone I had met, or to make some comment on an experience I had the day before. Twitter definitely made the biggest impact. I think people enjoyed following along and at the same time it really enriched my experience to remain connected to my friends in the states (both flesh and blood friends and twitter-only friends).
My problem with twitter is that its Skinner-box immediacy tends to draw me too much to that saccharine end of the communication continuum. My recent trip reminded me just how powerful and important deep, un-rushed, truly present human contact is.
Geoff, this is a little tangential to the topic of your post, but I think it also gets to the heart of the connectivity question:
How do you actually know that @the_real_shaq is actually Shaq?
You have to have the real world validation of someone calling him up and confirming his identity. So these online connections need some kind of offline validation.
For those of us who are less famous, people generally assume that a profile in our name is the genuine person. But ultimately I think we do get validation of someone’s online identity through conversations/interactions that are referenced offline.
@ateedub: Due to some work I am doing but cannot mention publicly yet, yes I can indeed confirm that The_Real_Shaq is indeed Shaquille O’Neal. No BS.
ah, like the proverbial blast of oxygen, another post to wake up the senses.
Communicating versus connecting. absolutely. Many are convinced they are connecting, of course they are not.
Psychologists would, I believe, have a field day with some some social networking spaces and the behaviours exhibited.
I cant see how twitter will survive as it is, imagine following and being followed by tens of thousands of people, how do you keep track of what ur “friends” are saying.
I asked a few ppl this and many said, “I filter out the ppl whose tweets i dont want to read”. i said “why follow them then”. silence….
I think you can create something there, amongst the noise, but it requires lots of time. trouble is their is an epidemic of attention deficit too. dont really go hand in hand do they.
One thing that has astonished me is when you do meet ppl in the real world. You’re trying to converse with them and they are on the phone, texting, twittering etc etc.
How can ppl connect like this either, and the answer is, you cant. I actually think if someone sold a product, that you could buy in your supermarket called “instant friends, no more need to try” they would probably go and buy it.
One thing though. One day, i hope to bump into you at an event, shake your hand and go grab a beer :-) and whilst we shoot the breeze I would like to think that neither of us will be inclined to check what’s happening elsewhere every 10 seconds or so.
take care
Geoff – our conversation with Frank reinforced for me that social media is only one piece of the tapestry we have to build and nurture relationships. As for the Twitter Bubble perhaps it will burst but smaller more meaningful bubbles will be formed.