"The computer is a moron." - Peter Drucker
A few days ago I received an email from someone who was comparing Real Estate Shows to another company. They wanted to know if we automatically distributed our Shows to the 10 or more social networking sites that another tour company distributed them to.
My response was a simple. No.
And we have no plan to do so either. Why? Because doing so would simply encourage our clients to let the machine control their behavior instead of having their behavior control the machine. There are no technical barriers to making this happen. It's actually quite simple. But just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD.
What I explained to them was this; unless presented in the context of a conversation with potential clients and referral sources, links to social media sites have almost no value. In fact, they probably have negative value. Social networking sites are organized around conversation, not advertising. The more your page looks like an advertisement, the less successful you will be. Guaranteed.
What happens when you let the machine control your behavior?
We don't have to look much further than right here on ActiveRain to find out. No doubt you've seen the "Announce new blog posts on your Twitter feed!" section of your settings here on ActiveRain. It's a convenient little setting. Once you've set it, you don't have to think. That's the problem.
Sure, it takes a few minutes off of the process of posting your AR blog posts to Twitter, but it also encourages some really silly behavior. I can't tell you how many times I've encountered the following, but I saw two just like it today alone.
In all fairness to Bill, this image was captured four months ago. He has begun to do more than just post his ActiveRain posts, but at the time of this writing, Bill's twitter stream is still dominated by ActiveRain posts. I'm not sure what this use of the tool accomplishes, but I'm 100% certain what it will NOT accomplish. It will not accomplish engagement.
The machine wins way too often.
In the case above, what Bill and hundreds of other like him have become is a big billboard for ActiveRain. I like ActiveRain as much as the next guy, but I don't want my twitter page to be another cog in the ActiveRain promotion machine. And the crazy thing is the same exact result could be accomplished by simply posting an ActiveRain RSS Feed to Twitterfeed.com.
Instead of every tweet starting with "Just posted on ActiveRain:" he could have had each tweet begin with, "Just posted by Bill Arce" or "Real Estate Latino." Then his Twitter page would be a billboard for himself. I mean, if you're not going to use social media to be social, you should at least be promoting your own brand and your own keywords and not those of another social networking platform. The result will be exactly the same, of course, but you might get some Google love from it.
The Focus Should Be On You Engaging Others - YEO
The only thing that matters is you, your clients and your clients needs. The temptation to take short cuts will always be there. And some automation tools can be extremely helpful, if used with the right focus. The right focus is engagement not expedience. Is it expedient to be able to post to 10 different social networking sites without thinking? Sure. But being able to automatically post to 10 different social networking sites only has value if you are actively engaging people on 10 different social networking sites. I know very few people who are successfully doing that. Actually, I don't know any.
Don't let the tools dictate your behavior.
Don't let the machine control you.
Make the machine work to help you engage others.
_______________
BTW... This is an anniversary post. Two years ago today I wrote this, "It's Not About SEO. It's About YEO."
At the time, I was simply looking for a catchy headline to grab some attention in the Project Blogger competition. The competition has long since ended, but the concept of YEO continues to resonate. I'm glad it has.
(aside: It would be great if the gang here at ActiveRain allowed you to put in your own "Twitter lead-in," like Twitterfeed allows you to do.)
And one last thing. Bill, I hate pointing out a problem without offering a solution. So, if you'd like some suggestions on how to make Twitter work for you, please send me an email or send me a direct message on twitter (@respres). I'll be happy to help.
Jeff Turner aka respres
Jeff,
Actually it makes sense, wihc I did not expect. Automation is not always the blessing. We like it because it spoils us.
Jeff, I don't like that either....I forgot about it actually. If I want something on Twitter, I generally share the link....but I don't know how to do that RSS thing... "And the crazy thing is the same exact result could be accomplished by simply posting an ActiveRain RSS Feed to Twitterfeed.com." Guess I'll check that one out tomorrow. Good to see you!
Jeff- I do wish we could post RES on youtube though:) The last time I checked it was being worked on but I have not checked back to see if any more progress has been made in that regard.
I post about this auto feed from AR to Twitter often. I keep telling agents not to use it all if they are not going to engage on Twitter. Twitter will bring biz to your door if you learn how to play the game. And that certainly is not announcing your AR posts and nothing else. Katerina
I absolutely love your posts on this issue. I have struggled with the auto feed to Twitter. Intuitively I understood what you are saying now I know to trust my intuition. I'll be taking my feed down tonight. Thanks.
Jeff,
You rolled out this post just in time. I haven't started blogging yet, but did sign up for 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge. But the urge to sign up everywhere is lurking in the background. What you've written makes good sense to me, so I'll curb the scatter-gun.
Thank, I am still trying to figure out Twitter. Great Advice.
Jeff,
Thank you for the recommendation about how to better add the posts to Twitter. I am still working on all of this.
Katerina, YouTube's API was just too flakey. The only way to consistently achieve a positive result is to export the video and upload directly to their site. I've experienced the same issues with programs like pixelpipe as well. Trust me, if we could make it work consistently, we would. That's automation that makes some sense. :)
I will post an instructional video about how to use Twitterfeed as a followup to this post. If there is already one here on AR, please let me know.
I have found the social networking sites useless for real estate leads. On the other hand, they have connected me to some friends that I haven't seen in decades.
Mike, I'd love to take a look at how you used social media to see why you were unable to generate the kind of relationships that might lead to business.
Jeff, you make a lot of sense. It's too easy to automate everything and lose the personal touch.
I LOVE THIS!
Let the machine do it??
GEEZ! The various "machines" doing it send about 500,000 pieces of spam to my server every day.
Every day I get a phone call or e-mail from one or another AR members asking me if this or that is violating their copyright.
First I have to tell them that I don't give legal advice and that I'm no expert. Then I have to explain that the site in question with some words from their blog post was the result of syndication or "feeds".
They didn't think about that when they clicked that little button YES to automatic feeds.
We're drowning in automatic this or that on the Interent.
NO! I do not want any machine doing any thinking for me.
Interesting article.
Great post and reinforces my plan of action. . a balance is what is all about.. . and I know what a "no-follow" tag means for my SEO
Jeff - I actually post what I want to go to Twitter manually. I did not want to send too much RE stuff there as it could be a turn off, and it gave me the opportunity to make the title more catchy. Great advice.
Jeff - I'm very easy going and don't get bothered by much. I do, however, hate to see people wasting their time by posting stuff and not getting folks engaged in 'the' conversation! Another example of 'NO-YEO' are the AR posts that are 51 words - over and over for points points points! Write one on 'NO-YEO' - Then you could have 'MO-YEO' and move on from there! I look forward to your posts! They say something! Thanks!
Mary
Jeff I look forward to your posts. It's like movies that you think about long after you left the silver screen. They make a lasting impression. Ones you can chew on and ponder.
Jeff thanks for the heads up on Twitterfeed. I did not realize you could have a feed sent to Twitter.
Did you see ActiveRain stutter the other day and send the same tweets through over and over and over? I don't have my AR blog set up to update automatically to Twitter. When I saw it I thought "neat" but changed my mind quick like a bunny when I saw the stream. I sometimes but not always share stuff I post to my real blog or my ActiveRain blog.
Hubba...
I'm going to turn off my button. I don't use Twitter all that much so my page probably looks a lot like his does. There's a lot of noise on Twitter nowadays. So much so that it's almost impossible to sign on most of the time. Their servers can't handle all that stupid automation :)
TLW...ROAR!
Well, as someone with a twitter account that never logs on I'm afraid my page looks a whole lot like Bill's. Excellent post, Jeff. I'm off to uncheck that little box.
Friends Feed? Friend Feed is another matter... I probably have all my posts from all my blogs feeding from there and probably look like a big ole spammy Realtor.... since I really never go there... I went and signed up and filled in all the blanks. One day I will look at Friend Feed to see how I look and readjust that... I had all of my tweets going to Facebook for the longest time until I disconnected that after looking at what a mess that looked like.
Jeff, I really don't have an opinion on Twitter, since it is still a mystery to me. I am glad you shared this with us!
Jeff, I had the twitter thing activated for a very short period of time then cut it off for the reasons you have mentioned. I don't use twitter and decidied my post announcements going over there was unfair to the tweets.
Jeff, I have a question on Friend Feed?
I set it up to auto do it and my Google Analytics show it is my number one site driving traffic to my blog(s).
The problem is it is triple sending it and I hate that.
So if you look at my FaceBook page the post is coming in 3-4 times. I don't know how to change that. Yea it is spammy.
YEO someday wil be in the Dictionary. Brilliant!
Ditto on AR letting us customize our heading to say what we want.
I set up Nambu this week and love it BUT, I immediately stopped using Auto DM to my followers, Yikes I had no idea it came up on the Twitter thread. How embarrasing....
Jeff - I've been guilty in the past of the auto feed, but turned it off to write my own "teasers"... As always, great advice and guidance.
Missy, I love FriendFeed.com and it's a whole other topic. My bet is you have auto-update to Twitter turned on there. Go back in and reduce the settings to it's not sending everything to twitter automatically. Do you have both Twitter and FriendFeed set up to update to Facebook. If so, that is the culprit. Just have FF set up to update to FB and at least one of those will go away.
Jeff, great post and you know .....I have to see what I have set.
Bettina
Jeff - Good to see you back again bringing some worthwhile tips for us all. Now I have to go to friend feed and tweak the settings as Maureen has said. I don't want to become a spammy agent either but I do see some multiplicity happening on those feeds now. Thanks for the tip. Now I need to get back to work.l
Jeff - this is excellent, and it certainly makes a lot of sense. YOu raised the awareness of many regarding automating their on-line activity, an not just with Twitter. You statement just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should is right on target.
Jeff
Jeff - I'm amazed that you wrote your YEO post two years ago. Wasn't more than last week I heard mention of it again. Its been talked about a lot in the circles I travel in, which speaks a lot for the post. Your push to get people to engage in social media rather than feed social media has always been on of my favorites. I have several local who I have never met personally, but we have engaged. I took tips from you and have built them into a conversation. Today, one of them sent me a tweet just to see how I was doing. That's impressive to me and I owe a lot of my use of social media tools to our phone conversation. Keep 'em coming Jeff.
I have been feeding my Twitter page from Active Rain. I also talk alot on twitter. So my twitter page doesn't look like the one you show. However, I can see why I shouldn't feed right from Rain. Thanks
oops - guilty as stated. But I have to agree with TLW - that and I'm still learning about its usage. Great post and great information as usual.
I have de-followed many agents on twitter and other sites because of this. I learned to look at their profile pretty quickly and if all it is is posts, then I don't follow. I'm on AR and will read posts when I have time.
Having said that I do post my non-AR blogs on twitter but I follow several local folks and my subscribers have increased since doing that. You have to mix it up.
I think "Syndication" is becoming a bad word in my book. "Social Syndication" defeats the purpose entirely:)
This makes complete sense to me. I too have seen folks when i go to see their "tweets" that alook like Bill above. If that's all you talk about, what's the point?
Jeff, thought you were going to say that YEO stands for yeow! He he.... Great topic to think about, I agree with your organic approach, I've been working hard to do that on Twitter, but VERY time consuming.
Jeff, thanks, I am guilty, too, and my page looks just like Bill's. Not much of an impression. Looking forward to your post about twitterfeed.
Excellent article! My Twitter page looks uglier since I turned on that convenient little button on AR. My excuse is that I'm a Twitter newbie and I keep learning. BTW I feel o.k. of being a little billboard for AR:)
Automated syndication may end by stupid overexposure. However when you think about new listings, it's better to overexpose than forget to expose because it's just 24 hours and too many things to do. Sad, but machines are very good in controlling our actions and even thoughts.
Whenever I see something featured by you I read! It's great to have your knowledge as a resource! I have to bookmark this one to re-read! Thanks!
Wonderful post. Technology should not be a barrier to engagement, and when you are self-employed you need to ask, who are you in business for? Active Rain is a great tool, but they are not paying me.
A few days ago I received an email from someone who was comparing Real Estate Shows to another company. They wanted to know if we automatically distributed our Shows to the 10 or more social networking sites that another tour company distributed them to.
My response was a simple. No.
We've enjoyed using your service Jeff and would never have someone broadcast the same show over several venues without personalization. For instance, we'll use the same show, but adjust the title and content slightly to attract more search queries. :)
You are absolutely right...I have seen the Twitter "just posted AR" and it is a turn-off. It's like posting listing flyers on Linkedin. We all know where to look for listings and Active Rain posts. Use social media what it is for.
Thanks for a good article.
Sandra
Thank you for the recommendation about how to better add the posts to Twitter. I am going to hit that button now...
Hi Jeff, The problem with some of us that don't think is... we don't think this stuff through. Your point here is very valid and my first duty is go in and turn off the twitter feed. Then I will also try and remember that if something I wrote could engage others, then offer it. otherwise.....
Thank you and you also owe me a comment on my two year anniversary post as I fault credit you with the e-mail to me that actually caused me to engage with ActiveRain.
Jeff... I enjoyed your presentation at RETech South, and just enjoyed haveing it presented again with even more depth! You are so right.
Jeff,
Way to keep us thinking. It's a good thing to keep our online conversations conversational and not commercial. Thanks for the post my friend.
Handy little tool that is, eh? I unchecked mine right after I watched your video. That really brought it home to me. :)
This post took me straight back to your presentation at REtechSouth. And it is a great post/subject/presentation. I need to spend more time on Twitter... FaceBook I havebeen spending time interacting on more.
Thanks again for your advice Jeff. I have seen it a few times on Twitter and was wondering how I could do it too. Now I will think twice since I don't get to twitter as often as I like.
You used one of my favorite phrases. "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should!" LOL That one phrase can apply to so many people things. Doh! =P
Okay Jeff, I found that I already had signed up for Twitterfeed. Thanks to this post, I have now put it to use and gotten rid of the automatic twitter feed from AR. I then share on twitter a link to my post...thanks, as always. ;-)
Love the YEO and thanks for the heads up about the automatic posting Jeff. Got to fix that asap!
Awesome. Thanks for educating the masses. ;-)
I took off my automatic feed from Activerain to Twitter because it drove people to activerain and not my outside blog - plus the "just posted on". I do want to control how they read and where the link goes - since I pay for the outside blog and want to own my own traffic. Thanks for the post! I do let Twitter feed it to Facebook since I don't spend as much time there. And I have Realestate shows post to YouTube & Zipvo. But I take a lot of my own video and take care of posting that myself.
YEO - I like that acronym.
I use Twitter feed but for some reason never thought of setting up my AR blog there. All the other feeds I set up were done strategically as you suggest to Bill. I guess the AR team made it too easy...
And I have a request for a cage match.
Care to offer your take?
How did I end up here at 3:09 am? P.S. Great seeing you at RETech South.
Lane, no cage match necessary. I agree with him for the most part. The post focuses mainly on his blog. Your blog is your territory. You get to set the rules. The same is not true on Social Networks and even Benjamin says he does "a bit of socializing" with his Facebook account. But "socializing" is not the point. Engagement is. It's possible to be engaging and focus on business. :)
Susie, the same way you wind up at Twitter at the same time. :)
Jeff-
I get it!
Less is more if it is focused!
Great post Jeff. I love the YEO concept, it is key. Glad to find you here, have subscribed to your blog, this is my next jump into the world of social networking, getting the guts to start blogging, I prefer reading and commenting myself, but it's soon time to take the next jump. I'm comfortable with the microblogging, this is out of my comfort zone.
Cheers,
Kim aka FresnoRealty :)
Jeff, great post. When I first started with Twitter, all I had was Active Rain posts. Now I mix it up and I'm actually interacting with people in my local area.
Thanks for this information. I am finally getting onto twitter, after opening an account 4 months ago. Now I know not to follow all those tutorials about racking up followers just for the sake of thenumbers.
Jeff, going to turn off the automatic twitter right now. My Plaxo account also definitely looks like an AR billboard and I'll bet it's coming from twitter and feeding to Plaxo. Thanks!
Jeff- I am slowly embracing twitter and slowly getting back to ActiveRain. Having a 1 year old keeps me really, really busy. You always have the most informative posts. Thank you. I'm off to research twitterfeed.