Twitter, Causes and You

Fans, celebrities and average people all have causes near and dear to their heart. A grandma passes away from a bout with cancer, so that form of cancer becomes their favorite cause. My dad died due to a stroke in the stem of his brain. There is alcoholism in my family, I could adopt that cause.

Most people follow celebrities to get closer to them, to get a tweet back and such, to be recognized. It is the internet s age of being seen by them on the red carpet. That golden retweet from your favorite celebrity makes you feel like a million dollars or so it seems. Well, it doesn’t for me. I just send out the good karma to the celebrities and don’t expect anything back. I know I am putting out good vibes regardless of the response. People should realize that.

However, it seems to be a catch-22 for the tweeters with causes. They seem to tweet and retweet about their favorite causes, yet most never respond to a normal tweet to them, even a normal ‘how is your day going’. I do not think they can have it both ways, i.e. expect the average citizen with a twitter account to want to help their cause yet largely ignore them otherwise. I know there are celebrities that have nearly a million followers. You cannot connect with every one of them nor tweet back to all of them. However, in the same breathe, average joe cannot be expected to connect to the celebrity’s beloved cause just because they tweet it. It just doesn’t work that way. You get what you give. If they want the average joe to give to their cause they need to reach out more in some way shape or form. I wish I had this answer to how to make this work better. I am not throwing anyone under the proverbial bus here. I think that if you have a cause that you believe in, you best make that effort to connect to your followers. Engage them, make them feel a part of your cause. Otherwise, you are just using 140 characters and hoping for a decent return.

However, to credit some of the celebrity tweeters that I follow, it is really them sending the tweets, not their manager or publicist or agent. There are the good ones that are making the effort.

Furthermore, I have seen celebrities tweet that “they will follow you” if you do X. That is not right. To explain, it’s just like an employee/manager relationship. The best manager levels with his or her employee. In other words talks to them on their level. This same principle should apply to tweeters from all backgrounds. Talk to people on their level not yours. Regardless of your profession or notoriety, you should level with your followers. Your followers are people just like you regardless of what they do for a living.

Twitter it appears is largely talking at people not to people. It is not conversational, merely one sided at a 140 character pace. To bridge this gap, I do not have this answer. Yeah I know. Lots of questions, but no answers.

Personally, I follow people that talk with me, engage me, even with 140 characters. Some of my friends tweet back and forth with me. These are people that I know here and some people I follow I’ve never met including the celebrities. They tweet back and forth, they put forth the effort to converse. Twitter is a valuable medium, much like Facebook. It can be a powerful way to influence your cause or just to connect with people from all over the world.

I think what we will see in the future is a weeding out those tweeters that connect with their followers and those that do not.

Figure out your best way to connect and go for it. There is no right or wrong way to go about it, just keep in mind your twitter audience and bring about the results you are looking for.