Twitter wars – Mr Peter Andre v’s Ms Katie Price and a lesson to be learned.
So a war has broken out.
Well it was inevitable, at least on Katie Price’s side anyway.
In case you were not aware, Peter Andre and Katie Price are getting divorced (shock!!). However, although I’m not a divorce expert, I would suggest that the main problem was the nature in which they interacted – she was ‘me, me, me’ and the centre of attention, and he wanted to help and share, this is also obvious from their twitter accounts.
You can see the conversations Peter is having on his (with fans) verses the "one way" diatribe on hers (note tweet 3, and obvious dig at Peter). This is a clear cut case of how to (and not) use social media. It is interesting to note how their Twitter accounts are a reflection of their personalities, and Pete definitely comes out the winner. He uses it to answer fans questions, let them know where he is making public appearances, and thanks them for supporting him. Not mention of Katie. He acts with dignity and integrity, unlike his soon to be ex-wife!
Social media is not there to be used as another avenue to spill out a monologue, it’s there to create a dialogue – and dialogues lead to business/deeper relationships, whether on the phone or twitter (in this instance).
Twitter is not and never has been THE platform it’s just one of them, no different than a phone. Can you imagine picking up the phone and saying "heard pete doing shoot with the kids in sardina dontknow why he is doing a shoot he has set up every other one in papers sad" (her spelling) and then putting the phone down!?!? It’s not going to get you far.
Using social media to "bitch" about someone or send a one way diatribe of marketing will not work – using it to "nurture" people with conversations will.
The outcome of their divorce and the reasons behind it are irrelevant to us and this conversation, however, the interesting bit is the nature of the way they are as people and that can be seen in the manner of the way they use (in this instance) twitter.
Pete’s got it right Katie has not.
… and that’s another thing the best thing about twitter is not twitter, it’s the fact that twitter is coaching us all about "real time" on the web. Friendfeed is way better than twitter, but the interface is "pants".
Real time is important, not only from the point of view that we can have "real time" conversations but from the point of view that there is now a large "bank" of information that we can search on – and this is the real importance of "real time".
At the moment if you have a web site (traditionally) it does not change much. If you have a blog it changes every now and again, and these are what Google’s 31 billion searches per month pick up on.
However, we "tweet" and post on facebook etc many time a day/hour/minute, therefore, the volume of "stuff" to search on via these platforms is (or is going to be) vast in comparison to a traditional Google search. Moreover, the information you get will be more "up to date", and, I would argue, more reliable. My reason for this is that (in the main) to get up high on a Google search you would have had to pay for it either by "pay per click" or paying an SEO expert to get you there – that does not neceserily make the site relevant.
The same can not be said about "real time" searches as you can’t pay to be there, you have to contribute to be there.
This is important, because of platforms such as twitter, we are becoming more aware of searching via real time, so as business people we need to be there and the only way to be there is to share and have conversations.
I wonder if you did a search on "bitching on twitter" would you find Jordan?
