My FriendFeed buddy Robert Scoble announced last night, that he was going to unfollow around 105,000 people on Twitter.  He has his reasons for doing this, most of which are valid in my opinion.

Robert also publicly said (very generously) that he now realises he was wrong, when he said that I should not have reset my Twitter account way back in January. That meant a lot to me, as Robert’s one of the brightest people I know, and I value his opinions a great deal.

Robert’s decision comes after other well-known Twitter users unfollowed their followers too, including; Loic Le Meur, Jason Calacanis and Natali Del Conte. By the way, all of these people simply unfollowed their followers. I completely reset my account – zero followers / zero following – and started again from scratch.

But Jim – Everyone’ says you should blindly follow on Twitter!

I reset my Twitter account because of the time it took me to deal with all the spam and ‘noise’, that came from following everyone back, when I was the 3rd most followed person in England.  Back then, almost everyone, including a man I really respect Guy Kawasaki, was telling people that the ‘right’ way to use Twitter, was to follow everyone who follows you. I disagreed with Guy and with ‘the crowd’ on this.

I believed then, as I do now, that different people should use their Twitter accounts in different ways, based on what they want to achieve.  In fact, if you have the same business model as Guy, following everyone who follows you might be the right thing to do.

But here’s the challenge

It might not be the right thing for you to do: Just because ‘the crowd’ are all taking one piece of advice, does not make it automatically the best advice for you or the right thing for you to do. I am not talking about Twitter here, I’m talking about the commercial importance of having faith in your own judgement.

Never be afraid to stand out from the crowd

If you know your subject, have done your research and you truly believe that you are right, do it!

No related posts.

In this post, I am going to share one of the success factors behind; Seth Godin, Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan with you.  It’s all about one word; contribution.

A few weeks ago, I had a problem with this blog.  So, I got in touch with two experts, who I knew would be able to help; Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan.  In no time, both were kind enough to get back to me with some excellent advice and the problem was solved.

For those of you who don’t already know; Robert is the former ‘technology evangelist’ for Microsoft and is now one of the best known figures in technology.  Chris is, in my opinion, one of the world’s leading authorities on ‘social media.’  Between them, they have a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of people.  These are two very busy people!

Of course, these guys gave their help without a second thought.  They also did so privately, OUT of the public gaze; so no one knew how helpful they had been to me, except me. That’s because they gave without expecting something in return. Neither of them know I have written this post or that it will be read by thousands of people today.

Seth Godin and contribution

As marketing expert and best selling author Seth Godin once told me;

“If you have an ulterior motive, your generosity is suspect.”

Wise words – especially as Seth shared them with me freely and in private! That’s right, these were not comments Seth made on a blog or in a Twitter message observed by thousands, to show how smart he is.  No, it was just Seth taking time-out from a very busy schedule, to share an idea with me. (Thanks Seth!!)

I genuinely believe that it is not a coincidence, that each of the three people I have mentioned in this post, are at the very top of their chosen professions.  For example, I was first made aware of Seth’s work, not by an advertisement or by his marketing blog – but after a good friend recommended him to me.  I was first made aware of Robert’s work, after Leo Laporte recommended him to me.  Again with Chris, he was recommended to me by a client of mine, who’s a fan of his work.

I would LOVE to think that after reading this post, some of you check out Seth Godin, Robert Scoble or Chris Brogan for the first time.

Seth, Robert, Chris – Thanks!

No related posts.

A number of people contacted me yesterday, with a link to this post on Seth Godin’s excellent blog. In his post, Seth warns people about using Twitter. His argument is that it’s easy to be misunderstood, so you should avoid it for anything important or controversial, unless you want people to “assume you are an ignorant jerk and move on.”

Twitter would look very different to Seth Godin

I believe we have to look at this through Seth Godin’s eyes, if we want to understand his point and see why he doesn’t use Twitter.  Of course, Twitter would look very different to Seth, than it looks to you or me.  He hasn’t got hundreds of ‘followers’ – he’s got millions of ‘fans’ who would love to chat with him.

As you might already know, Seth Godin has banned people from commenting on his blog.  He says the primary reason he has banned comments is because:

I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning.

If Seth is genuinely as obsessive about this as he suggests, with the huge following he has, he would find it impossible to use Twitter the way we do. People often disagree with what you say and it’s easy, as he points out, to be misunderstood.

Seth Godin is a very clever man and a superb writer too.  However, in my opinion, I think his reasons for not using Twitter and for warning people about it, are perhaps less relevant to the rest of us, than they are to him?

I believe Twitter is a great form of communication for 99.9% of us.  Believe me, lots of people get a great deal from Twitter; including me and most (if not all) the people I chat with there.

I also think that Seth’s good friend and business associate Robert Scoble @scobleizer, proves that you can be controversial on Twitter and people will not just ‘move on’ – As Seth stated.  Robert currently has over 40,000 followers and can be extremely controversial in what he says about business, politics and technology.

Over to you!

Have you found Twitter useful? If so, in what way has it helped you or your business?  Share your thoughts, and include your Twitter username, if you would like people to contact you!

No related posts.