How to Pull a @JamesFranco and Fail at TwitterOh James Franco. Twitter’s own “one hit wonder.” Did you go check out his Twitter profile? Yeah, there isn’t one anymore. Let’s take it back to the basics, shall we?
For anyone who was following James Franco when he started a twitter account (guilty!) you probably noticed, VERY QUICKLY, how terrible he was at it. I mean, REALLY terrible. I think we can all learn a few lessons from him, and other celebrities. A lot of the following isn’t attributed to James Franco because, simply put, he didn’t last very long and wasn’t engaging enough to make the majority of these mistakes; Twitter is all about engaging, sharing and listening.
If you’re interested in failing at Twitter, take the advice below.
If not, check all these behaviors at the door.
How to #FAIL at Twitter:
1. Never share anything worthwhile
James shared links… alot. You probably were accustomed to seeing these before he quit Twitter:
The reason I stopped following him is because he never said anything of value. Sure, he shared stuff about himself, but people aren’t following you to only hear about your life. They’re most likely interested in you because you share a common interest or fulfill something they’re missing in their day. The tweet above was actually a “decent” one because it had a description. Lots of times he simply had a link, and that was it. Granted, people following celebs are usually trying to get their stalker on, but as a brand and individual, this simply won’t fly.
Typical Franco? No description, no hashtag, just a sad little tweet that could only dream of reaching 140 characters.
If you’re really trying to fail at Twitter, this is a great place to start.
2. Never monitor your mentions
If you’re a brand, a definite way to completely fall on your face with Twitter is to not monitor your mentions. According to http://www.edisonresearch.com/,
- 49% of monthly Twitter users, use Twitter to follow and engage with brands.
- 42% learn about products and services via Twitter.
- 41% provide opinions about products/services.
- 19% seek customer support
If you’re not tracking your mentions, you’re missing out on a whole slew of users that you could be educating about your product, providing customer service to, or learning about your own products through customer usage and sharing.
So what exactly are you doing on Twitter (as a brand) if you’re not even going to setup mention tracking?
There are a number of ways to do it:
- Desktop/Web apps like Seesmic, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to save searches. You should be tracking any hash-tags that are of importance to your brand (or your competitor) as well as branded keywords to see what’s being said about your brand through the noise
- Using external sites like socialmention.com or Trackur.
- If you’re on an iPad, Flipboard lets you set up a custom feed where you can track mentions to be displayed in regular Flipboard format. It’ll be aggregated as a magazine.
3. Be “ever-absent”
Okay, I’m not saying to flood your stream to make sure that your followers can know your every move (that’s actually another great way to annoy everyone who has decided to follow you) but as Mr. Marshall Mathers demonstrates above, checking in with your followers once a month isn’t a very good habit to get into. Side note: I love Eminem but he’s the only example I could find (that I was still following) who did this.
In 2009, 49.63% of Twitter users didn’t go more than 6 days without some kind of activity (tweeting) - (http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter).
You can expect that this number has grown since then.
You’re not risking being unfollowed, per-say, because they probably won’t even notice you’re missing since their streams are likely very busy. However, when it comes time to do spring/summer/winter cleaning, you’re going to be one of the first ones to go.
No one likes a #phantom. They’re not very interesting.
4. Have a Self Serving Profile
Twitter should be used to not only follow others that you find interesting, but to share that information with your followers as well. Sharing pictures of yourself is great but something like DailyBooth is more suited towards what shade of lipstick you’re wearing and what color your hair is, rather than Twitter.
If you insist on sharing pictures of yourself, understand what other platforms this works for like DailyBooth- you’ll not only have users on DailyBooth that are expecting this, but when users are sifting through your Twitter stream, they’ll see the DB tweet and understand that there’s already a separate community for this.
You have to understand that this platform isn’t focused around an individual user sharing their own personal news (although the majority of people use it like this). It’s about reaching out and positioning yourself somewhere useful.
A quick way to fail is to treat Twitter as a playground for narcissism.
There are plenty of celebs and individuals out there who use Twitter to share awesome information that others are interested in. Alyssa Milano actually does a great job of this- she keeps one account for sharing personal/media news and another for her to just run rampant on Twitter as a regular user.
With this said as well, you remember above that 42% of users use Twitter to learn about products or services, so don’t be afraid to be a LITTLE self-serving. Just self-serve in a way that benefits your followers.
5. Don’t create lists
Lists are the essence of Twitter. Lists allow you to do all of the following:
- Recognize other Twitter users or Blog owners on Twitter that you appreciate.
- Sift through those you’re following to hear exactly who you want to.
- Segregate your stream by different verticals that you’re interested in.
A quick way to fail at Twitter is to not take advantage of these lists. You’re going to lose tons of engagement with followers if you’re staring at a stream that is getting flooded with tweets. How are you supposed to follow who you think is interesting, or let others know who you find interesting?
Red Bull is an excellent example of a brand that uses lists to both follow, and allow others to follow, their brand.
6. Never respond to or retweet others
Nobody likes to follow a robot that only tweets and doesn’t respond.
Part of the reason people engage on Twitter is because they’re looking to reach out to others and engage in a social relationship. Some of the most successful celebrities on Twitter respond to, and retweet, their users. Not only are they monitoring their mentions, but they’re engaging and putting means to an end, with them.
Two users on Twitter that I’ve noticed that do this a lot are Puff Daddy (I refuse to call him by his other many names) and Rob Dyrdek.
They have a tendency to retweet and also thank anyone who is excited about coming out to a performance or show they’re putting on. As an individual, you can do the same. This will make your followers:
- Feel like you find some importance in what they’re saying.
- Feel like a real social relationship is being built.
- Appreciate what they’re reaching out to you about.
Success? With Twitter?!
Twitter is not about being a metaphorical megaphone. It’s not about reciprocity and following everyone that follows you, just because.
It’s about engaging, sharing, and listening.
Twitter is about having the ability to not only follow others that interest you, but share and position yourself as someone who can provide something to your followers as well. Whether that be product information, customer service, interesting reads, introductions to other Twitter users… it’s all about being active.
What are some of your favorite brands or individuals on Twitter? What do you like about their engagement style?
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“It’s about engaging, sharing, and listening.”
Isn’t that we all need to do in all our contacts?
You talk about quality :)
Great article
Thanks,
Jelena
Thanks! Glad you liked it :)
Good piece Selena. Not only did you provide the ever clear rules of social engagement but you added a bit more on why you should follow the rules. So often it’s like, DUH. But very rarely will someone stop to explain why you really want things like lists. Bravo.
Thanks! Sometimes taking the time to explain ‘simple’ things can really clarify and educate those who are interested in really taking advantage of social. Thanks for taking the time to comment :)
James Franco had THE BEST Tweets because they were so interesting and personal. Everyone else’s tweets are usually some form of advertising — boring!
I’ve come across some tweets that are really like pure advertisements. It’s a shame that lots of people use Twitter that way!
Thanks for checking out my article. I hope you liked it. :)
JAMES FRANCO FOR THE F WIN! HE WAS GREAT MAN HOW DARE YOU TO HATE ON HIM?!
But I looooooooooooove James Franco! I really do, as an actor. I’m not hating on him at all, he was just the best example that I had running through my Twitter stream before he deleted his account.
I hope you enjoyed the rest of the article.
“49% of monthly Twitter users, user Twitter to…”? #justsayin
Thanks Jon. Fixed ;)
I was the first person to comment on your article but because I SAID something you didn’t like you deleted my post mmmmmmm WHY and a COMPLETE TOTAL FAIL (guilty!) .
Considering you stated that “How to Pull a @JamesFranco and Fail at Twitter” again, DON’T YOU THINK IT’S A BIT RICH that you pulled my post??????????
As YOU stated “It’s about engaging, sharing, and listening.”, so why can’t you LISTEN to other people’s points of view that DOESN’T agree with your article, isn’t that the professional thing to do????????
All, I stated was how could you use James Franco as an example headline when there are other stars much much worse basically, tweeting crap for the sake of it.
At least JAMES FRANCO IS UNIQUE and was more engaging than majority of stars on twitter, who actually left an impression in a short amount of time (I generally hope he comes back). I liked the fact that his tweets were sometimes bizzare but at least, it made you think. I DON’T particularly want stars tweeting crap just for the sake of meaningless conversation, what’s the point of that and yes, their human but very BORING.
I would HAVE thought it’s the James Franco way, anything else would have made him AGAIN boring and not unique. Sometimes, you don’t have to say anything the pictures and videos speak for themselves etc.
As Jane also pointed out, it was extremely personal and we learnt more about his family background and likes or dislikes that made us appreciate his talents more (ALL FREAKING STARS ON TWITTER SHOULD BE MORE LESS SELF AWARE AND MUCH MORE OPEN not just promoting their latest projects even though their charity work is pretty awesome to hear about).
JAMES FRANCO came across as very honest and sincere (with nothing to hide) compared to most in a short amout of time, seriously what’s wrong with that??????? Maybe, just me but I always, felt I was learning something new that could help me focus on my goals more even the bizzare stuff (ensuring that he has pretty cool sense of humor).
Some of your article made perfect sense (very useful) but I just hated that you were using James Franco as an example whilst the list is so very long with other stars.
Anyway, I hope you DON’T delete this post as I’m just sharing my thoughts.
Hey Jfcf,
I actually didn’t delete your comment, we were having a server problem that we got resolved, and in that, some comments (and posts as well) were lost. It took a while to restore so I apologize if your comment got erased. There were a few others that didn’t come back, also.
I would never intentionally delete a comment as I find them all valuable.
I do see your point of view and I thank you for taking the time to respond. I love James Franco (as an actor) so I’m not picking on him in particular because I dislike him in any way. It’s only been a little over a month since he deleted his Twitter account and it was fresh in my mind while writing this article.
The great thing about Twitter is we can all follow who we find interesting and engaging and we all like different celebrities (individuals and brands) on Twitter for different reasons. This article was meant to be a resourceful and fun guide for those new to social media and I didn’t mean to offend anybody who likes James Franco (again- I’m a fan myself).
I wanted to use him as an example, because from my point of view, he was one of the celebrities who wasn’t using Twitter to their full ability. There are plenty of other celebrities (individuals and brands) that fall into this category and plenty that don’t. It’s all subjective :)
I do appreciate you taking the time to read this and comment (twice)! I hope you come back and check out more articles.
Thanks!
Thank you very much for responding and YES, I will continue to check out other articles.
Yay. :)
Yeah the Rest was great!
Thanks Erika!
Hi Selena… Good post. Something else I’d like to add however is some people’s tendency – more specifically some celebrities’ tendency – to take the time to reply to negative comments on Twitter, but then they seem to ignore all the engaging ones.
Otherwise, the one night… the ONE NIGHT I actually post pics of myself on Twitter, I read you article and now I actually feel somewhat guilty and narcissistic for doing it. :) (I mean come on, I straightened my always-curly hair. I know. Crazy.)
And I will get around to making public lists. (Though I do have private ones.)
Gee, how did this comment turn into a confessional?
Cheers.
Yeah I’ve noticed that too. They’re doing great reputation management with the negative comments but they could make their fans so happy, and up the engagement level (if it’s even possible since celebrity engagement on Twitter is off the hook) if they responded to fans reaching out to them in a positive way.
Haha, you’re excused for sharing a photo of your hair. Actually, mines normally a really weird wavy curly so I get why you were excited about sharing it straight. :) There’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s done with moderation.
Comments make the best confessional. I always keep a metaphorical couch/booth here just for that reason. :)
lists? do i really need to use them if i’m still in the “i don’t get this, but i still like it” phase of things? or if i only have 47 followers (which amazes me at this point in time)?
If you’re still getting used to Twitter and your following is that small, it’s actually a great chance to build out your lists and really put a lot of care and attention into them. Once you start following more users, you’re going to have a harder time sifting through and really remembering why you want to put someone on a list in the first place.
If you build it, they will come. If your social profile starts slowly getting organized from the get go (making public lists, even for a small amount of followers for example) you’ll be surprised at how far it will go. It’ll definitely set you apart from the other “I don’t get this, but still like it” Twitter users out there. :)
Yes a very good and interesting read. Well written. very informative. thank you.
Annelize
(a newbee at twitter)
Thanks!! :)
Thanks for the post Selena.
As I’ve used Twitter more and more over the last six months, I definitely know who are my favorite people/celebs and who aren’t.
The ones that really get on my nerves are the Eminem example. Ones that only post something once a month or every couple months and it’s just a random plug for something. Don’t get me wrong, I like finding out about new shows, special promos, etc. But when that’s all they come on to say, it’s a bit boring. The best are ones that you can really converse with. I just recently started following Norm MacDonald and he is hilarious, plus he actually engages with his followers, answers questions, gets really personal.
I didn’t even follow James Franco, just heard he was crap. Do you think he will come back and do it right at some point?
I think it would be a shame if he didn’t hop back on Twitter and try it out. He’s an actor that has a lot of fans, and he’s smart and educated too. But all these things don’t make him good at Twitter. I would love to see him come back and take some tips on using it; I would certainly follow him :)
Another “celeb” that I like following is @JimmyFallon. He doesn’t get as personal as Norm but he’s very funny and he retweets/@’s a lot too.
Thanks for reading :)
Awesome breakdown!
Although I don’t want to have any Twitter fails, I was happy to see that I only had one – I still haven’t utilized lists – which I know is bad, especially since I know others have added me to various lists.
I already @’ed at you but hopefully you’ll find lists useful to put together in the future. It’s one of those things where it’s important but not something that everybody finds benefit in until they’re made and you use it for a while.
I’m really glad you enjoyed the breakdown. Thanks for reading!