13th
How NOT to manage a community - Twitter Style.
I’m going to keep this brief, because I have more important things to do. But as a huge proponent of community management being an integral part of growing a brand online, Twitter’s recent action of removing a feature allowing us to see replies to people we don’t follow was bullshit. And I’m going to call it out as such.
As one of many community managers on the net, I know firsthand that communication with the people who use and love your product is not only key, but paramount. Twitter recently took away a discovery feature that allowed me to see who you reply to, even if I don’t follow them. It was a fun way to find new people…because if I follow you, then I most likely would be interested in someone you’re talking to on Twitter.
Twitter’s reasoning was: ….”receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.”
Who said? When was this poll taken? I missed something obviously. Ev said he wrote about it a year ago…like I follow the Twitter blog. Not only that, but he replied to me on Twitter…in a way that nobody else would see unless they followed me on Twitter.
Wow.
Bottom line is Twitter is no longer the little engine that could. It’s a well funded, well trusted, and well respected company. With 15+ million users. CNN uses it, Dude Where’s My Car? dude uses it, Oprah uses it. Yet, Twitter still can’t find a proper way to communicate….anything. Downtime, feature changes….anything important. Sure they can move a press release or story like no other. NASA uses us! We’re going to Iraq!!! That’s communicated…but not fundamental things like why stuff is going to change, or why things suck.
That is a problem with the core of Twitter management. They have not chosen to make community management a priority. Instead, we must wait for the CEO to “tweet”. Or some guy who goes on the Colbert Report to blog. Wrong.
Comcast uses Twitter better than Twitter does.
Poor. Fail. Whatever you want to call it.
Wake up Ev, Biz, and whomever else is at the helm. You want to stay independent, you’re not for sale? Then we’re stuck with you, and you’re stuck with us (you’re welcome, by the way!).
Communicate.
Do right by people.
Talk to Tony from Zappos or Mike from Blip.tv about it.
Or don’t…it’s your company, what do I know?
UPDATE: Twitter says “We learned a lot”
“…we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account.”
Huh? What the hell does that mean?
You learned nothing, Twitter. You lied. Then re-lied. Then backed down half-way, with the same condescending tone as your previous 2 posts.
