A conversation with a co-worker today exposed a great analogy. A single tweet may have little inertia, but a stream of them can build a lot of momentum.
Twitter limits users to messages of 140 characters or less. Short messages. So short, in fact, that it would seem to preclude robust discussions, complicated thoughts, or mature business models. Yet if you read through most twitter streams, you will see signs of all of these and more.
A tweet has little inertia. You can’t build a brand, personal or corporate, with a single tweet. However, a stream of tweets can do anything. Investigate concepts, grow relationships, develop a brand, (ruin a brand), and build momentum.
Some of the most influential twitter users have built a strong following this way. My own employer, Dell, has hundreds of individuals on twitter in both official and unofficial capacity, all tweeting away and building momentum. @Zappos links 58,000 followers with Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh. @Marc_Meyer has built momentum by engaging in conversations with 1200+ users to the tune of close to 5000 140 character tweets.
There is a lot of fear towards entering the social media world on the wrong foot. Afraid of making a mis-step, many individuals and companies are avoiding it altogether instead of engaging without a “plan”. A lot of this fear is misguided, however. The low inertia of a single tweet means that mistakes can’t push you too far off course. Immediate feedback in the form of retweets, replies, follows, and unfollows make it easy to refine a message over time instead of making sure it’s perfect to start with. Marc Meyer highlighted this point in a recent blog post by outlining the mistakes he has made in social media over the years. (Read it here)
Afraid of twitter? Don’t be. Get the ball rolling. It will start small and may move slowly at first. Keeping it on course will be easier than you think. Growth will happen organically. Momentum will come from hundreds (thousands) of tiny pushes in the right direction.
I leave you with this Travelers Insurance ad from a few years back, which illustrates the point in true Katamari Damacy style.
