How much is too much? I draw the line at Twitter

There's a lot of people round here getting very excited about Twitter. I'm not one of them, not yet anyway. For starters I'm too busy, this might sound silly given that posting to Twitter probably takes less than 30 seconds each time, but for me it's a channel too far. I write this blog, contribute to the Enhance Media blog as often as possible, use LinkedIn and occasionally Facebook and I struggle to keep up with all this already. I once foolishly agreed to write for a third blog, but gave up because I just didn't have the time. There are 100's of things I'd like to do on LinkedIn, but again don't have the time.

How many social networking / user generated content sites can any one person handle before updating them / writing becomes an obligation that takes over? There's a danger that all of a sudden it's the web driving the person and not the other way round. I keep getting loads of emails about Naymz and the other day an invitation from someone to link to them on Dopplr - a social networking tool for the frequent business traveler. I've signed up to Peter Gold's Talent Management network, but again, haven't found the time to do anything meaningful there. I can handle blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook, but draw the line at Twitter, Naymz, Dopplr etc.

I'm also not sure that Twitter is that exciting, I like and respect my fellow recruitment bloggers and enjoy reading their stuff about recruitment, but I've got no interest in which film they watch before they go to bed, what they think of their new trainers or whether it's raining or not when they go to the gym, it's just too much information. I read a couple of tweets the other day that said 'I'm getting on the plane' and then a couple of hours later 'I'm getting off the plane' - great! I also realise that this is slightly hypocritical as I often blog on here about Fulham, the weather etc, but for some reason I guess I think that is okay, whereas a constant update on what people are doing is too much.

I agree that following someone on Twitter can be compelling and addictive, but is this really interesting or is it just voyeuristic? I don't understand the compulsion to share everything you do with anyone who'll listen.

I also have no interest in who's writing the 10 Downing Street Twitter. I didn't care who wrote their press releases etc, I just assumed it was some bloke in PR and now they've moved to a more modern channel I still don't care.

I'm happy to be proved wrong on this, maybe no one's explained it properly to me yet or outlined the recruitment / business benefits. Maybe when they do I'll have that light bulb / eureka moment, but for now I'm still in the dark! Does that make me a twit?

Comments

[Alastair Cartwright]

OK, since we work together this isn't come as any great shock, but I agree with you entirely!

The key for me is the point you make is:

"There's a danger that all of a sudden it's the web driving the person and not the other way round"

I constantly have to remind myself that the most important business tool I own is the telephone. Yes! You can't beat actually talking to people.

Everything else falls into a number of different categories:

1. Useful business tool
2. Useful information / research portal
3. Interesting site with potential long term benefit
4. Fun and interesting, but ultimately irrelevant
5. What am I doing on here? Let's get back to work.

[dominic sumners]

Agree entirely, Twitter is a load of old toss isnt it???

thats my expert market analysis by the way

Cheers
Dom

[Matt]

Tim, Alastair and Dom = Grumpy Old Men

Maybe you should join Alex Hens back on Ceefax ;-)

Matt

[Julian Stopps]

Tim,

I have to disagree with you on this one. I’ve been using Twitter for about two weeks now and although the jury is still out, in my opinion it can provide real gems of information.

True it can be a complete waste of time, but only if you don’t pick the correct people to follow carefully. In the same way you pick which blogs to read based on quality, pick who you wish to follow based quality. If someone’s ratio of ‘informative tweets’ to ‘personal tweets’ doesn’t work for you, just stop following them. (Or if you want to get techy push your Twitter feed through something like Yahoo pipes and exclude anything with a specific term like ‘gym’ in it).

With a structured approach (which in my opinion is to visit Twitter at a couple of predefined times in the day and no more) it can be more like the first and second items on Alastair’s list and less like the forth and fifth.

As I said it’s still early days for Twitter and I, but don’t write it off yet. Go back, reselect who your following and restrict your visits to twice a day. It might make all of the difference.

[dominic sumners]

yes - i am increasingly aware of my personal bias - occasionally clouding my judgment about new products. Soon i will be talking about the youth of today not knowing they were born and that we need to re-introduce national service and the birch

[Alex Hens]

Wait for long enough and someone will explain with absolute clarity what your struggling with - and if you're lucky then it's someone as noted and eloquent as Seth Godin.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/04/signal-to-noise.html

For me this is all getting a little too testosterone fuelled in regards to the pursuit of naming the next great recruitment shaping arrival – almost playground-esque “who wants to be in the emerging channels gang?” and if you don’t “you smell”. I’d even go so far as to wonder out loud if it’s an agenda being driven by people with distinct signs of paranoia who feel that if they're not connected 80%-90% of the time then they're missing out on something, or else in some way inadequate if they’re not wowing people by name dropping the new and obscure from the web.

Let's face it - recruitment moves far slower than most of the loudest voices seem willing to accept - and those early adopters are by a long shot the exception rather than the rule. Great for making new business noise – fab for spinmeisters - absolutely something to watch - but a long way off being a worthwhile investment for most recruiting brands. And as I keep saying – so few actually have web1.0 right yet – perhaps as an industry a little while concentrating on improving the quality of delivery in that arena and upping the standard would be no bad thing in regards to truly leading candidate engagement.

A colleague of mine was recently talking to a senior contact from Yell who freely admitted what TMP seem unable / unwilling to – their award winning 2nd life presence http://www.yellgroup.com/english/media-pressreleases-2007-tmphelpsyelltakefirststepsinsecondlifeforrecruitmentdrive was an out and out PR stunt, and judged on that basis a great success. And in case you doubt my feelings on this - sincere congratulations go to both Yell & TMP for a brilliantly executed piece of work on that basis.

I don't doubt that twitter could prove of business worth for some, whether in recruitment or other spheres - but for many many people it is indeed additional "noise" that I and like minded people don't need in our already packed lives. And no - that doesn't make us ludites - it makes us experienced, pragmatic and busy recruitment people.

Maybe by the time Gen Y or whoever's next comes on stream as a major part of the workforce Twitter/LinkedIn will be part of the very fabric of society and indeed be an invaluable recruitment tool – but I have a hunch by then it will be something 3 or 4 times newer that is grabbing the headlines as THE social media phenomenon.

Or perhaps something far more controversial - employers could come to the conclusion that real world skills (for the majority of their recruitment requirements) are far more important than the ability to connect with 74 people you barely “really” know whilst microblogging about your bowel movements – thus steering clear of people who spend a disproportionate amount of their time on such pursuits – or simply not factoring it into their recruitment consideration at all. Maybe real world things like “going to gigs” and “meeting up with mates” on your CV (or LinkedIn profile) will go from being an nothing statement to being an active positive differentiator in evaluating a candidate for a position.

Maybe.

[Matt]

The irony of it all is that "Seth Godin" (obviously not him then) promoted that post on Twitter which is how I found it!

[Matt]

http://digitalrecruiting.typepad.co.uk/digital_recruiting/2008/04/social-media.html

Tim turn your Trackbacks on!

[Tim Elkington]

Trackbacks on!

[Tim Elkington]

Alex - have to say that I totally agree with you, your 'emerging channels gang' comment is very funny. I think a key factor in the useful application of any of this new stuff is mass adoption - Facebook has been mass adopted and therefore is possibly useful, but will the same happen to Twitter? I'm not sure, I think it might always be for the digitally uber literate.

[Matt]

But what if your client wants to attract the best IT geeks and digitally uber literate. Many many companies are struggling to recruit in these areas and are only using "traditional digital" methods. Mass market recruitment isn't ever the whole story

[Tim Elkington]

Matt - yes, you're right too (why am I suddenly agreeing with everyone?), if you want to target uber geeks etc then I can see that Twitter is right for that type of audience, I'd be interested to find out more about the mechanics of how recruiters could actually use it though?

[Peter Gold]

You do sound like a load of old twits! The best part of this is that Dom has shown his true colours and wants to see the return of forced military occupation and public floggings.

I did initially think Twitter was pointless and a lot of it is but, if you work out what you want to achieve from it, you can make some sense of it. Most of the people down the pub talk a load of crap, but you don't associate with them it matters not. Tim even talks about Fulham but we give him this one!

The world's moving on; this video may say something - if you can spare 6 mins!

http://tinyurl.com/4pxmr2

[Ravel]

Hi

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[Tim Elkington]

Thanks for the ad Ravel. Looks clever though.

[Stephen]

Hi Tim

I cannot believe it has taken me so long to comment on this post, maybe I should have been on Twitter!

I just wanted to say I agree with your thoughts completely, and in the past I have been an early adopter of web 2.0.

Like you I have reached a point where I am happy and the less distractions the better.

Linkedin for me is the perfect business tool, I hate all the other social sites and if a friend wants to get intouch email me or pick up the phone, surly it cannot be so difficult.

Facebook and the rest just seems an extension of "read this email and pass to 10 friends and you will have good luck all day."

Enough is enough facebook will be a fad.