Comments on: "Pray that I never become your competitor’s secret weapon"

By: Hazel

Hazel — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 11:57:54 +0000

The kick up the bum I needed – thank you!

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:43:56 +0000

In reply to Paul Gailey.

i use Gravity to tweet

The things we’re saying these days, eh? 🙂

Thanks Paul.

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:42:42 +0000

In reply to Kate Rose.

You bring up some very valid points, Kate.

If I do a quick “my own reality” check then if I check a Twitter bio it is indeed more to get an idea of what this person does, is into (high level), and if those things are touch points or points of interest to me. Olivier’s bio works for me because I already know of him — but someone else using the exact same thing could very easily leave me with a pompous impression…

There isn’t enough room to list the music styles you look but that you list music even when faced with a character limit shows it is important to you. I like food & cooking but not enough to display it as a special trait of me; it’s not on my Twitter bio either.

OK, how about we join forces and just ask Twitter for a bigger bio? 😀

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:37:22 +0000

In reply to Nick Faber.

Thanks for the comment, Nick. Checked out your Twitter bio cliches and had to smile. Nice touch to include the numbers 😉

By: Nick Faber

Nick Faber — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 13:48:39 +0000

Great post, Scott! I wrote something this week about twitter bio cliches, too

Yours has a far more positive spin, though! 🙂

By: Kate Rose

Kate Rose — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:08:57 +0000

Verrry thought provoking.
We’re still experimenting with our Twitter bios but the focus has mainly been on promoting our business capabilities (Marian Schembari’s “say what you do” approach)vs the more personal, engaging stuff.
So now here’s a third dimension – in a space which is becoming ever more crowded, does originality trump the value of either of those?!
I think it might – apart from anything, a bio like Olivier’s actually conveys more personality than generic interests at the level you can express within a bio. If someone says they like “music and food” – well surely, so do we all, to some extent. There’s just not enough room to say “I love X music genre, especially bands Y and Z, and italian cuisine”!

By: Paul Gailey

Paul Gailey — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:55:21 +0000

i use Gravity to tweet, an app made for symbian, Nokia phones, and for every profile you look up it shows joined date of twitter and tweets per day.

By: Ruud Hein

Ruud Hein — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:06:51 +0000

In reply to Paul Gailey.

What a cool tool, Paul. What is it? HootSuite?

ps. I do like the way this post randomizes the flattery above the comments with “x magnificent comments” each time. I might borrow that!

Thanks 🙂 We do feel the people commenting here are special so, yeah 🙂

By: Paul Gailey

Paul Gailey — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:16:33 +0000

Bio text is really important although its not a be and end all. An indicator I take careful note of thanks to the app i use is, the frequency tweets by day. If they are exceedingly high I question if the user really is a listener. I’m stupified to discover people who tweet upwards of 50 times a day on average.

i’ve also always wondered why Twitter don’t yet offer a true bio search along the lines of the since defunct Tweepsearch or http://followerwonk.com although you can use Google with some advanced operators to deep search.

ps. I do like the way this post randomizes the flattery above the comments with “x magnificent comments” each time. I might borrow that!

By: Scott Gould

Scott Gould — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:26:07 +0000

In reply to Kristof.

Hey Kristof – of course there is middle ground. I would say that one can communicate being a father without needing to just say “Father.”

Scott