DISQUS

Thanks for these solid WP tips. Bookmarked!

There's nothing to figure out... your true colors and motives have come through.

I've got to hand it to you as a marketer (don't read hostility here... I am in genuine awe of your PR prowess) ... you did an amazing job of using / spamming 40,000 people and then making it seem like a virtuous "self-discovery" step. Good job.

I don't need to waste my time play games with people. You're blocked and I will never be back.

I don't aggressively follow hundreds or even thousands of people a day, like you have been doing (you added over 25,000 friends in the past 9 weeks)... using them for a follow back and then using scripts to expediate dropping them like hotcakes.

I added you as a friend because I thought there was some kind of connection, and took some time to check you out and read your Tweets. You followed me back - leading me to think there was some kind of desire to connect on your part. Then I wake up see you dropped me... and I wonder "Hmm.. why? Did I do something wrong?" and I see you have a blog post bragging about how you spammed and used 45k people to build up a following and then ditched EVERYONE at your earliest convenience....

If this isn't the textbook definition of TWITTER SPAM... shady behavior that wastes peoples times and weakens the community... by increasing the noise signal, hogging system resources and lessening trust... I don't know what is.

You try and rationalize it and it works for some of your noob followers and close personal friends... but not for my crowd. We understand that there are people on the other end of the line - people with feelings. You can't drop 45,000 people and expect no one to notice or have any cheefeelings about it. Or for some people to question your motives and sincerity.

I'm not saying this will be the end of the world for you - i'm sure you'll carry on and most people won't notice - but your public bragging about it and your hostile response to my comments = the end of respect for 'Seth Simonds' in my world.

-Brett


p.s. As for your insult about my blog name, I have never claimed to be a "Social Media Rockstar" any more than you claim to be a "Primal Stride." It's not a personal blog. I own dozens of other domains that contain keywords I'm interested in.

Seth,

You did something bold, blogged about it, and publicly opened up a discussion.

I'm not insulting you or calling you names, and I didn't say "screw you" - that's not what I feel.... I sincerely said "best of luck" - so I find your reaction to be a bit extreme.

I still believe your behavior is "aggressive" because it appears as if you've spent a good portion of the past several months adding friends and pimping up your numbers on Twitter (unless you are some kind of offline entertainment or television celebrity I've never heard of). I think that by actively & "aggressively" befriending hundreds or thousands of people a day - establishing a mutual relationship and then suddenly unfriending 99.99% them...

Some might see it using people and then dropping them... actually a whole city full of people... or call it 'Twitter spamming.'

And it does leave a sour taste in some people's mouth.

Good luck! :)

My thoughts: lopping off all your followers in one sweep is one of the lamest trends in social media. The ultimate in passive-aggression twittering. It's your business... you can justify it however you want to... but the end result is a lot of people feel like you've suddenly changed your policy and kicked people to the curb for the benefit of your ego / convenience.

Best of luck!

This is a very accurate assessment of the phases many people go through. I've been using social media (started on BB' and prodigy in junior high school) and I guess I have long been in acceptance. I dropped out for a while when I first went to college and became a hippie... tired of being wrapped up in the computer rather than "life" - but I'm back in a big way!

I definitely enjoy the paradigm shift that new communications tools are causing in how products + services are created and offered. It's scary for some personality types.. but for my type, it's a lot less scary than watching the clock and filling out TPS reports. It's challenging but overall really fun to be in the midst of something new... collectively figuring it out and creating the new business culture.

p.s. Cluetrain is a great book. Over 10 years and it still sounds fresh and groundbreaking.

I think the demand for reputation building services are still in the infancy. As you experienced in dealing with the major cosmetics firm, some people have their head in the sand about social media and most people don't want to face it until it's too late and they have a bad reputation, etc.

I don't know if I should be saying this considering my line of business, but I think that social media is over-hyped. Yes, it's awesome for some people, some products, some organizations... but "old" media is significantly more influential in many places in the world and in many matters.

You totally had me there with the Russian tangent.

If you asked many PR / social media people to show you their front page coverage - many would come up dry.

Some don't have much to show, but even the very best consultants run into the problem where the "big" client won't implement what their advice and it doesn't work out right - and they can't turn it into a perfect case study. This happens very frequently.

But people with real experience will be able to show you proof (or at least lots of convincing evidence).

I saw "Fake Twitter" and thought it was a URL trademark infringement case waiting to happen. I wouldn't spread or retweet anything on there, either, personally. After getting several fake e-mails from "Facebook" and "Bank of America" wanting my password.. it just leaves a bad taste.

Social media has taught me a lot about how to do offline networking and vice versa. I learned a lot about how to network and build buzz from being a DJ and promoting underground electronic music parties - handing out flyers, branding, connecting with influencers, social proof, viral buzz, consistence, making promises and delivering on them, politics and more!

My sense of social media direction and dreams:

I currently spend too much time "in" my home office working "on" my computer and I would like to move "up" to the point where I can go "out" and travel more, go to conferences, meet clients in different locations... sheerly because I am a social being who loves to travel and meet people for real. So up, up and away for me!

Benjamin,

For sure! Filtering is one of the essential skills of living in the digital information age.

I thought it was fairly good, too.

Honestly, how long do you have to put in every day to keep your game on there, these days?

When I was more active, 38 - 45 diggs would get you to the home page and you could easily get FP stories if you spent an hour a day on it. I used to just Digg on my lunch break and do okay.

Reg is an awesome guy and he helped me get started in social media, too.

Awesome.. you definitely know your way around Digg and Twitter and I've subscribed and I very much look forward to catching what you have to say.

This is a really solid, well-written overview of how to improve your situation on Digg. It's a tough site to figure out at first and there's official guide, but this makes for a great unofficial one.

Sheamus,

I resonate with this article. I think a lot of celebs come across very unapproachable. They just don't know how to use the technology well.

Notlistening,

I'm guessing I hit on some kind of nerve or something.

Be yourself. Say what you want to. Let it out. But if people unfollow you, at least you'll understand why.

Lisa Logan,

I'm guilty of all these plus about a dozen that were too fringe and irritating to make the list. ;)

RitualJ,

Glad you enjoyed! Always helps to remember and ask ourself if we're crossing the line.

BeadinByTheSea,

No doubt, banality is one of the first objections people when adopting social media. You, rightfully, don't want to be exposed to unfiltered, user-generated content... any more than you'd want to watch hours of someone's un-edited home movie footage!

Gabriella,

All of these were real updates taken from my Tweetdeck. In some cases, the names or the avatars were changed to protect privacy but the updates were for realz.