The Twitter fallacy

Mark Lee has sparked off an interesting conversation around ‘dos and donts’ for Twitter usage over on AccountingWeb. It’s one of a small handful of posts at AW that have me smiling for one reason or another. In this case, commenters are arguing everything from ‘how about a Twitter strategy‘ to whether Twitter matters to professionals. Mark’s central thesis goes like this:

Accountants in practice have enough to do without devoting time to non-business activities. If there’s little interest in twitter as a business tool there’s even less in it as a non-business tool.

In my articles here I was asked to focus on how ‘accountants in practice’ can use twitter. To me this means thinking about twitter as an extension of their marketing strategy as that’s the only reason they are likely to want to devote any time to it – and if I were in practice I would be the same; ie: to use it with a business purpose in mind.

It informs the cookie cutter approach he’s taken to setting out do’s and dont’s and confirms why many see professionals as ‘born dull.’ It’s also a line that’s most likely thing to turn people off from reading whatever is being Tweeted. It’s also reflective of what I see practiced by many who incessantly go on about how gorgeous they are instead of providing anything either of value or insight. Mark acknowledges that in a later comment but then reinforces what he sees as the primary intent:

Interestingly I see a number of accountants on twitter who only post links to their own blog posts about tax savings.  In effect they are simply postiung adverts. They are not engaging with others on twitter and may even have automated the process. Some of them will have high numbes of followers as they are automatically following back all of the spammers who follow them. It looks good but ask them whether they are securing any work or developing relationships with people who may advocate them in the future or use their services and you get a different picture.

One of the early lessons I learned from writing a blog is that success (by however you choose to measure it) comes from providing something you can’t get elsewhere. Whether that’s a fresh angle on an old problem, an insight into something new, a contrarian approach or a personal experience it doesn’t matter as long as it stirs something within the reader such that they go ‘oh – that’s interesting.’  A little humour here and there helps. Like this fellow who Tweeted a humorous take on death and taxes. Twitter is an extension to that line of thinking.

But then I had another thought. Last week I said to a marketer that I detest marketing as currently practiced. BS mostly tied up in stuff that’s devoid of interest, often eviscerated by some legal eagle. Give me a customer story any day and I’ll buy into that. So I wonder – what would clients say about their professional advisors? He or she saved me a ton of tax? That goes with the turf. He/she helped me finance my new business? Same again. How about he/she brings me peace of mind, helped me provide for my children, showed me a great deal on a new phone provider or introduced me to someone who is experiencing the same issues? Isn’t that far more interesting?

My new found friend said: ‘You might not know it but you get marketing.’ I say this: use Twitter as you would a quality blog – dip in, dip out, click the links, send ‘em away to bring ‘em back in 140 characters or less. If all else fails then be you – a human being, not some freakin’ robot. Everything else is puff and fluff.

Tagged as: Marketing strategy, Social network, Twitter