Monday, March 5, 2012

‘Cause You’ve Got…Personality!


Lloyd Price once sang his desire to behave like a fool “O-o-over an’ over”, opening admitting to it. His message was heard by millions. Nowadays, we don’t have to have a hit record to be heard by the masses.

And we’ve all got something to talk about! Mind boggling, isn’t it? So what are you contributing to the mix?

Some time ago, a research study suggested that a large portion of the content on Twitter is “babble”; what IS that, anyway? Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary states: “wordy and generally unintelligible jargon”.  Hmmm. So I set out to find some prime examples (account names removed to protect the innocent):

Could you fill out my resume for me... while I hit it from the back?


People run past my window all day long. I watch them go by but I never get any thinner. I guess it doesn't work that way. Sigh......


2 females were sitting at a table & they didn't gossip the whole time...who got this joke?


what was will be..... what is will be nomore


You can loose everything but you can NEVER loose your character...BUILD IT !!

While not really making sense, they are however, part of those Tweep’s personalities. Now think of how you display your personality as a small business owner, blogger, or perhaps as someone who just enjoys being connected on Twitter:

If you’re a business, does your Twitter bio contain info on what your business is?

Does your Twitter bio contain info on what your passions are so that people gain insight as to what you’re usually tweeting about?

Do all of your tweets make sense to the casual observer?

Is everything spelled correctly? One of the examples used "loose" instead of “lose”, changing the tweet's meaning and making her appear less bright than she may be.

Is your grammar correct? Sure, you can take liberties with the limitation of characters, but it should always be an easy to comprehend tweet.

Do you converse with those who share your passions?

Can people see you smiling through your tweets? Positive energy will take you places!





And a few thoughts on what not to do when displaying your personality:

If you’re having a bad day, don’t tweet about it. (see example above regarding the gent who doesn’t get thinner; would you respond to his tweet?)

If you’re a big cursor when you’re alone, that’s one thing, but consider it a part of your personality that should remain private and keep those words off your tweets.

Having personality does not mean tweeting every move you make in every moment of the day. Keep it to a few highlights that would be interesting enough to open up a conversation.

Don’t selling your product or service by tweeting about it. No personality there! That’s spam. And besides, Twitter is not a sales tool.

Getting into an argument with someone on Twitter is not going to fare well on your personality overall. People do forget quickly and move on; but why open up that can of worms? Move to direct messaging and leave the public forum to settle it.

♫ 
So what have you got?
Walk (with personality)
Talk (with personality)
Smile (with personality)
Charm (with personality)
Love (with personality)
An' plus you got a great big heart…

By now you’ve probably got the idea. The challenge is to reflect who you are on Twitter while remaining confined to the limitations it has. Let your personality shine through via your tweets; your followers will pick up on your vibe and are more likely to respond and retweet you.
Speaking of vibe, click here for the song that inspired this post.






3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your suggestion to stay positive. It is important, unless you are a professional curmudgeon.

Unknown said...

The grammar thing bugs me, although when someone is rushing and all the gadgets with auto correct spelling may be the issue too. I was tweeting with someone from Triberr, was it with you Gerry and we were talking about inbreeding! I thought that was funny, to the casual observer it must have sounded pretty strange! Great points!

Gerry Wendel said...

Triberr speak! Ha ha! And yes, we all rush and make typos all the time! I reread everything I write, however, I posted on my other blog today and noticed 2 boo boos I had to fix (one was using "ing" instead of "ed" ...sigh.