Now for a bit of the downside of Twitter. When you put yourself out there to the world, guess what?  Some people don’t particularly like what you have to say.  Sometimes you forget that a lot of people may be listening (more likely watching) what you are tweeting about.  Here are my thoughts on having a thick skin when participating in social media.

In one instance last week I probably responded with a noticeable lack of tact to a friend from the UK.  Call it summer madness or just plain stupid, but there clearly were several meanings to what I casually sent off; one of which was enough to make her blush (literally as she said in her response).  Unfortunately, my wife, @BnBblogger, also caught my little faux pas, and there you go!  Got my knuckles soundly rapped for that one.  This was all in good fun, but the lessons are there.  Since this is both a marketing tool and a social media, sometimes it is necessary to think twice before blasting off that tweet.

My second story is even stranger.  The other day I received a DM from an Innkeeper couple who stated that they were blocking me with an auto-response stating: “Reason: on account of a useless post on Twitter.”  This really sort of upset me.  Since they were no longer following me, I couldn’t DM them back to inquire what I had possibly said to offend them.  So, I emailed them directly.  Today, I learned that they, in fact, had been away from their Inn, and had several emails from other tweople that had been similarly blocked and DM’d.  Very strange, but with the proliferation of spam and auto-responders, is it no wonder that we are now seeing auto-blocking?

The third example is also a bit perplexing.  I got myself in the middle of a real back and forth between two people who really are knowledgeable in their own fields.  One was a friend who is a business consultant with impeccable credentials, and the other, a so-called savvy internet businessman who runs a media service.  My friend was upset that our savvy internet person had shut off her access to his daily email postings.  She blasted off a sort of rant, after which came some really hard-edged responses from our fellow.  I sort of rose to the occasion and jumped into the conversation, only to get slapped down myself by him, both by open responses, DM’s and then by email.  My defense of a friend was very quickly interpreted as an offense by our savvy internet fellow, and it started to get really personal.  My long-standing rule is to never to get in p*ssing contest with a skunk, so I just let it go.  The whole thing left me with a really bad taste.

I guess that this is the other side of social media, so be prepared to perhaps get your pride wounded here and there.  The fact is that not everyone will like what you say, and some will even un-follow you or use the “block” to make you feel even worse.  The answer is to keep it all honest, and remember that your voice may not always resonate.  Some may not agree and others may really disagree.  Twitter is both a great marketing tool and a social media, so you need to be subtle about the pitch.  Too much direct selling and you are just going to turn off your audience.  Keep it simple and have fun. FTW!

Tweet This Post  Delicious This Post  Digg This Post  Ping This Post  Reddit This Post  Stumble This Post