An Open Letter to Twitter
May 29, 2008 by Colleen Coplick
Filed under Social Media
There’s been a lot of fuss over Twitter lately. Lots. Everyone is up in arms about the service in general, and some are even threatening to leave it forever (because THAT will help the situation, clearly).
While there’s a lot of controversy over what Twitter is NOT doing, and a lot of cranky blog posts and bullshit about how they’re screwing up a good thing, there’s very little helpful or constructive comments out there.
Because of that, and because I think that people are just being cranky about the service, I now present you with:
An Open Letter to Ev, Jack and Biz.
Hi guys.
I’ve been an ardent Twitter user and advocate for you guys for what feels like a long time. I’ve only been a user since October, and didn’t start tweeting in earnest until January or so of this year. In that time, I’ve garnered almost 1,200 followers and tweeted a grand total of 8,555 times. As soon as I publish this, my tweets will go up, again.
Image Source: @colleencoplick’s Twitter Stats from TweetStats
I’ve spent a lot of time sticking up for you. I’ve defended you when the bullies on the playground are pushing you around, kicking you, and stealing your lunch money.
I know you’re going through that awkward phase all teenagers go through. You’re growing like a weed, not really fitting into your clothes properly anymore, and probably also being teased a lot. But you know what? It’s ok, because there’s lots of us out there that still love you.
But it’s come time to show you a little tough love. I know you have some organizing and cleaning up to do there in San Francisco, but here’s the thing. If you don’t start taking some immediate steps to start showing your users that you’re listening to their concerns, they’re going to start abandoning you in droves. And if that happens, then your product is pretty much a moot point because there won’t be anyone around to use it.
What I think you need to do – no, what I KNOW you need to do – is hire a Community Manager, and basically immediately. Whether you like it or not, whether you had intended it or not, Twitter is a community. Every person has a community of people they interact with on a daily basis, and each person’s community is made up of slightly different groupings. For a more detailed description of what I mean by this, take a look at Laura Fitton’s (@pistachio) post, Twitter is My Village.
You guys are stretched thin trying to get everything upgraded and running smoothly there. You’re forced to wear a lot of hats and trying to deal with the community crises when they arise, which has got to happen quite a lot given the number of users you’ve got, has got to be difficult, or maybe even damn near impossible. You guys need to focus on all of the other things you have to do, and leave the community management to someone else.
It’s time that you found someone to help you with this. And, I feel like I can be honest here with you because we’re friends, I really think that you need to find someone outside of the city of San Francisco. I think that if you hire someone in your immediate vicinity, the perception of the community is that your Community Manager is “in your pocket” and doesn’t have the best interest of the community at heart, but instead is a company lackey.
Your community manager needs to be the liaison between the company and the users. Jeremiah Oyang posted the following, on the four tenets of a community manager [post], and I think they’re worth referencing here.
Your community manager is:
1) A Community Advocate
As a community advocate, the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer. This includes listening, which results in monitoring, and being active in understanding what customers are saying in both the corporate community as well as external websites. Secondly, they engage customers by responding to their requests and needs or just conversations, both in private and in public.
2) Brand Evangelist
In this evangelistic role (it goes both ways) the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions. As proven as a trusted member of the community (tenet 1) the individual has a higher degree of trust and will offer good products.
3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
This tenet, which is both editorial planning and mediation serves the individual well. The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community. This individual is also responsible for mediating disputes within the community, and will lean on advocates, and embrace detractors –and sometimes removing them completely. Importantly, the role is responsible for the editorial strategy and planning within the community, and will work with many internal stakeholders to identify content, plan, publish, and follow up.
4) Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams. This may involve formal product requirements methods from surveys to focus groups, to facilitating the relationships between product teams and customers. The opportunity to build better products and services through this real-time live focus group are ripe, in many cases, customer communities have been waiting for a chance to give feedback.
Once you understand the tenets of a community manager, you need to understand what the role of a community manager entails. Jeremiah posted the following in March of last year. It’s still very valid now.
1) Community First
Puts the community or the customers as a priority over the company. This person is an advocate for the customers, and will often go ‘join’ the community, rather than try to build it. (I learned this from Tara [Hunt])
2) An Educator, two-ways
Teaches the community about the company and it’s products, often in a non-invasive manner.
3) Uses the tools and communication style of the community
In 2007, this is primarily blogs, online pictures. I see this moving to Video, Twitter, and a vast array of emerging tools.
4) Puts a Human Face on the company
This person actually shows their real face, both online and at events. Forget stock images and use a real person, who can relate to the community.
5) Not just a Marketing Role
This is not just a PR or marketing role, this role actually extends to:
Customer Support
Product Marketing and Engineering
6) Knows when to get out of the way
Sometimes this role is to connect the right people in the company (who know more about the product details) with the right customers. Also this role will connect prospects with customers, in a new form of “customer references”.
7) Pushes the “Membrane”
Scoble told me about this in 2005, he pushed the corporate membrane at Microsoft, which is a pliable movable invisible wall. Once he felt he pushed it, and was just about to poke through, he would back off. If Corporate Communications and Management gets uncomfortable with the community manager, then you’re doing the job right.
What Twitter needs, among with all of the above, is someone who is familiar with your community, who understands your tools, and who is prepared to face a challenge. They need to be prepared to think on their feet, be energetic and really grok your past, present and future. Of course, as I’m advocating that they aren’t in San Francisco, they need to be willing to come to the Twitter offices on a regular basis. Not only that, but they need to already be a huge Twitter advocate. Someone for whom continuing this role would not be a stretch.
So guys, think on this. Take some time to consider it. I really do mean this with all the love in my heart – I adore Twitter, and I want to see it become all it can be. I want to see it succeed, but I honestly am not sure that it can without an immediate intervention.
Great letter! Awesome ideas. :-)
Hear! Hear!!
I’ve been advocating this everywhere with the notable exception of my blog.
But you said it so eloquently that there’s now absolutely no need for me to even try to blog it.
I hope they hear you – I really do. Because I’ve been saying this in threads on Getsatisfaction.com and on Twitter for quite awhile now. More stridently since the recent content/harassment/TOS/ariel issue – because it’s not just about downtimes and reliability – it’s also about public facing responses in crisis times.
@ev @jack & @biz and the rest of the twitter gang rock – but they really aren’t community managers, nor should they try to be.
Here’s hoping the first thing they do with some of the recent funding they garnered is remedy that!
Great post. I think you absolutely nailed it. I think we’d all be a bit less bitchy about their down time and hiccups if they told us what was going on and we thought that there was someone who was there to listen to us.
It is also a great follow up to your post on them being a community. With their current mindset that they are a communication tool and not a community, they are going to miss the mark completely with avid users. There are other platforms that we can use and if they continue to neglect their users, we will start to abandon ship enmass.
What a great letter. You’re right. Something needs to happen asap!
One word – OUTSTANDING.
Very well written blog post, Colleen. Twitter really is poised for great things, but they face a lot of challenges. I would pretty much say that the main one is infrastructure.
Toughlove, and well-said. I’m newer than Colleen but Twitter’s already been fun for me and it could be the backdrop for some real greatness in the coming quarters. I appreciate how humanizing it is to see tweets from people like @ev and @biz that show they’re just trying to stay calm and cook dinner in the eye of the hurricane, but it is only half of the equation needed to perpetuate that user goodwill. Being good guys is a great thing, but it isn’t enough when you’re frazzled and trying to manage some major growing pains. Listen to Colleen – and follow my tweets – you won’t regret it.
Some good ideas fro the Twitter folks. I think you’re right abut the overwork issue, and ignoring important relationships. Lot of work to be done, but not inusurmountable.
can i just say ditto
and hear an Amen?!
Well done, good wrting! Donna
Wow! This is great. The key to all company/individual relationships is about listening. We just want to feel heard, right? Well done – I hope they hear you.
Dude, you nailed it. Not much more I can say.
Fantastic post, Colleen. I heart Twitter, but I also hate them sometimes because they are capable of so much more! It’s like you love your teenager but also want to smack him. ;) I really hope they can overcome these growing pains! Maybe YOU should be their community manager.
kk
Great post
@kk you know, I would love to take on the challenge of being Twitter’s Community Manager. They just have to read this and reach out. Maybe i should write to Ev. hrm. OR, we should start a social media campaign to get the community to nominate me. ;)
@everyone else… thank you for all your thoughts. I’m gratified to hear that not only did I hit the nail on the head with this one, but that so many of you agree so wholeheartedly. I really do love Twitter, and have argued it’s merits with naysayers, those who don’t “get” it and tried to educate as many as I can.
I’m crious to see how this unfolds.
Brilliant post, sweetheart!
Written from the heart on behalf of ALL of us.
Thanks and well done
Great piece – I think it’s easy to focus on the “something is technically wrong” angle of their problems, and forget the in many ways more serious issue that something is technically wrong for the people using it. And, as noted, when someone’s taking care of the people, then the tech folks have more breathing room to do a better job of taking care of the tech.
Plus, the post is especially timely and relevant for me having just started a Community Manager position. :)
I have distributed this far and wide as a fabulous explanation of what I do now (and need to do in the future). Thanks!
Spot on, Colleen. I have a business concept that I want to build on top of Twitter, but frankly, at this point, I don’t even want to spend the time or money developing it with Twitter as inconsistent as it is.
There’s the potential for a whole ecosystem of support applications to build up around Twitter, but not unless they get these issues under control. And if they don’t, somebody else will. It’s not a complicated application.
Colleen, great post. You inspired me to go to tweetscan.com myself for the first time. Cool service. I love Twitter too and I certainly want to see them get through this rough patch successfully.
Your TwitterBud @lindasherman
I think you nailed it. Twitter has been having a lot of “technical difficulties” the last few weeks and an advocate from within the community would be much better at spreading the message that “the company is listening”, allaying fears, and possibly preventing a mass exodus of users.
@chrisjohnston
I know a lot of us have found new places to spend our time during the “down time.” What I’m afraid of, is that many of us will find that going straight to those new places will be far easier and ore interesting than having to see error messages on Twitter.
I <3 Twitter, and I’m doing my best to be patient and old out for the good times to roll back in … but I find that I get easily distracted by all these new hangouts I’ve been introduced to in the last month or so!
*sad*
Amen – there are so many good things about Twitter but the day I wake up and choose not to turn it on because of almost certain heartbreak is the day I stop using it altogether. It’s not JUST a twitter thing, though – it’s a reflection on the whole concept or “social networking” that twitter exemplifies. How many add-ons has twitter bred? Brightkite goes down. Plurk goes down. Why bother to develop for the concept of social media when the products can’t keep up with use? You can’t push boundaries if the technology doesn’t work.
First of all to @coachdeb – Amen! Cause, yeah… home run :)
Short version of a story I’m posting in a blog… about this one. I had a startup company, it provided daily reporting to corporate clients. We were down for 6 weeks, and did not lose a single customer. The reason… constant and detailed communication, pure and simple.
It works and Twitter should do it.
Great post Colleen!!
(this space reserved for response from Twitter Community Manager??)
Shame on you Twitter. Here’s a terrific post telling you everything you need to hear, with loads of comments from other fans of your product, and you don’t have the decency to reply to it.
FAIL.
awsome letter – i hope they take action.
Love the tone of this post.
Very common to see a company in Twitter’s position experience problems like we’ve seen. And silly what people post about it sometimes. (conspiracy theories, busienss advice to Twitter, boycotts, and predictions of mass exodus)
It would be easy to ignore these.. but Twitter and social media in general have changed what business.
Of course they should be transparent about their problems. Of course they need an evangelist. Even with their spectacular growth and wacky business model, they, like all of us, are in a new era where we have to listen to our customers and engage them in conversation.
Very well stated. With the constant technical issues it is time to take action Twitter! Nice article!