Buffer ruined my Twitter account

I've been hard at work this past quarter putting my nose to the grind stone, cranking out new content, and learning a completely new framework and methodology for discovering commercial insights.

For those who haven't read the Challenge Customer (it really is a must read) commercial insights are basically the way you've determined (through tons of research and validated learning) to message your products or services. This post is not about commercial insights - so click the link above if you're looking to dive deeper. Everyone else, continue on with me to hear about how Buffer ruined Twitter for me. 

So how did Buffer ruin Twitter for Daniel Taibleson? 

Let me take you back...

It was October 6th, 2016 when I published my most popular post on this blog titled High level Content Strategy. This was before I started working at Vertafore and I figured I better start proving to the world that I'm capable of teaching others about content marketing and content strategy. So, like any good writer, I decided to start writing about what I know and sharing it with the world.

No more than a week later while on Vacation in San Diego with some good friends I got the call from Vertafore and accepted a position with them as their new Content Marketing Manager. 

All was well in the world, I was in sunny San Diego while it was raining in Seattle, I had a new job to look forward to, and 2 weeks off to wrap up loose ends before getting back into the rhythm and routine of work life. 

All of a sudden I started to get notification on Twitter that people were tweeting my article.

Holy crow! This is awesome! What I had to say with people was actually resonating! 

Some of you who are cool kids on Twitter might already know this but when you get over 20 notifications it just shows 20 on your mobile device. 

3 weeks later and I was still getting 20+ notifications a day about my article. 

Even weirder - all of the tweets said exactly the same thing:

Understanding Content Strategy via @dantaibleson http://buff.ly/29gFglF  #contentmarketing #Advertising #Perspective

It's July and I'm still getting the notifications.

All the same tweets. 

So what's happened? Basically, buffer picked up on my article and has started suggesting it to people to tweet out (They even suggested a new title LOL - thanks for the hint guys). Which is fine, I get the promo - but it's not necessarily ginune engagement because these people aren't finding it themselves and they're definitely not reading the content before they share it. 

How do I know? 

I use buffer. 

And although I don't mind it - they do seem to be translating into real page views - and sometimes real interaction between the followers of people who tweet this out. The honest reality is that I'm never excited to log into Twitter anymore. Instead of anticipating what cool new connections I've made or what interesting people are reaching out to me to talk about the things I'm passionate about - I know it's just another automated, scheduled tweet from someone who uses buffer to boost their social media presence. 

Sorry Twitter, but I'm not sure how you're going to survive. I like what you're doing with real-time events, but I'm not sure you can beat Facebook or YouTube at that game (YouTube already streaming my favorite live festivals with real time commenting capabilities). I think it will boost your stock price for the next year and a half before we see a dramatic decline or acquisition. I don't wish a decline on anyone - but I can't see how they will compete with snapchat when it comes to Gen Z and even later generations. If you have any thought's feel free to chime in :) 

Crowdfire

Whether we like to admit it or not, social media followings continue to hold a lot clout (in every industry) because they give us a common benchmark with which to compare ourselves to our competitors.

Who you should compare yourself to, and in what capacity, is a completely different post all together...But if you're looking for some great personal development articles about how NOT to compare yourself to the wrong people, check out this recent post on The Art of Charm blog: Enjoying Success at Your Own Pace

Back to social.

There is something weird happening in the social media ecosystem. Generations are fractioning at ever-increasing rates and each new generation is differentiating and defining themselves by the social apps they're adopting and choosing to engage with. I've heard that Facebook is a 22-year-old and up platform, and from what I've experienced that seems to be a pretty legit generalization (caveat: I preach that we should never to make large sweeping generalizations). I was in High School when Facebook came out and was still exclusive to University students but because the school I went to gave us ".edu" email addresses we were able to create accounts and I'll be honest, that changed everything. I was pretty obsessed with Facebook all the way through college and it's been eye opening to meet younger kids that didn't even care about it.

The reason this is a big deal is because I've let my own passion for specific platforms affect my business decisions in the past.

I even let myself get talked OUT of using YouTube in exchange for Vimeo when I first started Only The Beat. Of course Vimeo had better video quality...but the discovery for your videos on the platform is zilch. Don't worry, not only have I learned from that mistake, I'm planning on making YouTube the center of our new strategy moving forward until we decide whether we're going to build out our own player or go for a turn key solution like Lessthan3.com is doing...but of course, the CEO of the video player they're using is also the CEO of Lessthan3...aka...he's just a really smart dude and realized that the video player he needed to create for his site could also be a turn-key product and completely separate viable business (since video is the future).

We make jokes like ROI (RADIO ON INTERNET) on TV shows like Silicon Valley...but it IS interesting that it really took so long for us to come full circle and bring video to the internet and make it front and center. We're talking about video on Facebook like it's some new insane thing when the first TV was invented in 1927, but I guess that's a testament to the complexity of serving millions of hours of video a day to billions of people all over the world.

I'm determined not to let this happen again. Instagram is another platform that I've shied away from personally, I've never been big on posting pictures (leaving evidence!), but there's no denying the power it has over Millennial's.

I'm going to make Instagram a focus of my work over the next few weeks, learn the in's and out's, figure out how to generate successful creative, and really learn to harness it as a marketing tool. The first step? Crowdfire. My friend has used it to gain over 7k followers on his company's Instagram in a month. All real, engaged followers. That was enough to convince me to spend the $20 a month to have 2 team members and manage 5 accounts.

Sitting at 1,796 followers as of 9/11/2015

I thought I'd give it a go and let you guys know how it works out. After just a few days of dinking around we've added ~100 followers with minimal effort. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out. Don't drink the coolaid just yet, I'll keep you guys posted.

He's also advised me to use iconosquare.com for Instagram analytics and comment management, which I will also be doing and reporting back on. The yearly subscription only runs you $28.80. I'm excited to get started.

Facebook Cover Photo

For those of you who don't know, or haven't had time, this is a short list of things that your facebook cover photo (brand pages) cannot have. I have no idea if they even monitor personal pages for this kind of stuff...but I bet if you put something up on your personal cover photo to promote your company/brand facebook would step in. They are oddly omnipresent...

Oh and here is a mix from a group I am seeing tonight...

Gabriel & Dresden Trance Around The World 423 guest mix

Social Media Superiority

What makes one company's social media more successful than its competitors? Is it the strategy they've chosen? Do they have superior "proprietary tracking software"? (which is pretty much always BS when it comes to social media, please call me out if you can), or are the people in charge of Red Bull's social media really just that much cooler than the people in charge of Nestle...

I know it sounds insane, but I honestly believe that on the really tough social media conundrums (i.e. marketing for a undesirable product) it comes down to the latter of the three questions I've just proposed. My attempt here is to shed some light on a different, and probably controversial, perspective that I've notice on this crazy journey through life and advertising. Obviously it is important to have a social strategy (click to read best social media article ever), and it is possible for people to learn the ropes of social media marketing, but deep down inside of me, a little voice keeps speaking up and saying: "Maybe some people are just cooler..."

But then what is cool? How do we define it? Why are they cool? Things start to become quite convoluted and everyone has a different opinion, which is one thing that makes our world such a wonderfully interesting place :). I start thinking back to middle school and AIM, and why some kids had more buddies on their buddy list; were they cooler than me? And then came Myspace and eventually Facebook my Junior year of high school. Why were some kids so popular, so many more likes on their status, so many friends, and others, unfortunately, so uninteresting....Well we all know from playing videos games that the only person we can blame for our own failure, loosing at Fifa, Madden, etc. is the person holding the controller....and yes, that is ourselves. Which makes me wonder, at the end of the day, how much of social media failure/success can be attributed to a company's strategy and how much of the blame/accolade should go to the person physically sitting behind the keyboard managing hootsuite and delivering the tangible communication it takes to create a relationship.

So lets move away from the idea of the "coolness" of the person in control of social media account X and translate it into terms that we can agree on...I think it's safe to say here that the term for the trait we are looking to put a finger on is "relatable". Things that I think are AWESOME, are not so cool to 13 year olds today (who will one day be at the top of the pyramid when it comes to purchase power).

With harsh economic times for college graduates, it's been a rude awakening to see so many of my fellows grads in service jobs or signing up for the Army. Which is always what my dad told me I could do when I complained about school...The MAIN POINT I'm trying to make here is that managing social media is not hard. It does take a mature, responsible, and emotionally stable college graduate, but shouldn't social media jobs that are focused on marketing to 20 somethings be managed by 20 somethings? (Again, Social Media management takes time, and time = $$$) I don't know...you can be a pretty hip 34 year old...but you still won't have as solid of a connection with the primary target demographic as someone in the desired age range. Unless of course, that older person dedicated an insane amount of time  trying to get into the mind of their younger counterparts. But this isn't acting, and there are a ton of digital natives out there who are ready to take on this task. As social media continues to become more prevalent it will be interesting to see what the role of a social media manager morphs into...perhaps just a stop on the way to creative director? What do you think?