Twitter Does Not Work

At a networking event yesterday, one of the attendees told me

“Twitter does not work.”

It was an emphatic statement and he appeared frustrated by this scenario. Curious about his experience, I asked him to tell me more. He explained he had set up a Twitter account about 6 months ago and had not used the account since then. In his situation, he tweeted a couple of times then completely stopped using the account.

I do not have all the details but assumed the results he saw did not match his expectations.

In your experience, how long does it take, assuming active use of a networking tool, to see results? What would you advise someone you met who told you social networking tools do not work?

6 thoughts on “Twitter Does Not Work”

  1. I think it’s important to have a specific interest in mind and find people who tweet about that topic. Set up searches for keywords that would be mentioned by these folks and follow anyone who appears to be a legitamite tweep discussing your subject. Chat these people up and help the however you can. Your have to become a part of the network or build your own.

    Once you do that it’s amazingly powerful. If he only tweeted a few times my bet is he does not know what the @replies link is for. Took me a while to learn that. Sometimes I’ll @ someone who is new and tweeting occasionaly only to get a response a few weeks later when they realized what replies were. 😀

    1. Hi John,

      Thanks for your suggestions. When I work with new clients, I encourage them to tweet and send a Facebook message once a day to get their feet wet. Once they see others responding to their comments, they quickly begin to see the power of these tools.

      I often forget to check the new Twitter retweet page. I prefer the old retweet where the message appears in the @ mentions page.

      Glad to hear your success stories.
      April

  2. The first thing I would say is, if you only filled out one application every 6 months you will have the same results as using social media every 6 months,but if your going to use soical media. Pick a topic you are strong in and give helpful tips, it shows your and expert in a field and that you are a team player.
    I am as guilty as anywone, and since launching my own business recently I am working on my own social media plan. You can have a social media plan for job hunting…why not

  3. While you can say that his results did not meet his expectations, you can also say that his results did reflect his efforts. This guy is right, Twitter does not work… you do the work!

    In fact, at a networking event I attended, a couple of the speakers proudly pronounced that they problem with doing such a thing as “tweeting,” have less than 10 followers (wonder why?), followed with the justification type statement: “We’re looking at using social media going forward.” When is that? When the paradigm has changed again and Twitter has been supplanted by an even stronger medium? It’s a mindset, or should I say “set mind,” that doesn’t embrace or at least seriously investigate the possibilities.

    I did not see results until about 4 months or so after I actively, emphasize actively, started using Twitter. Time + effort = results.

    1. Hello Heidi,

      Thanks for your sharing your insight and experiences with social networking. You are right on. The tools do not do the work for us, they enable us to work more effectively. A four month interval between implementing a new tool and seeing results is not uncommon. Tools evolve, not the basic concepts.

      In my experience, clients have hired me because they found me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. I also found ramp up time and effort is required to get started. On the other side, I reap the rewards of my efforts for an extended time. In some cases, my work builds on itself, as in my YouTube Channel where viewers start with one video then continue to watch other videos in the playlist.
      April

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