For the brief, shining moment when twitting remains the newest, coolest, social media-est thing around, twitter remains on my radar. This morning, a couple of twits raised my consciousness to an issue. No doubt the twitcheerleaders will explain it away, but the rest of the world, disinclined to overlook all things twitterful, may not.
For those of you who, unlike me, are not twittering fools, there is something called “retweetting”. Retweeting is when you take someone else’s twit and twit it again to the universe of twitterers who follow your twits. (By the way Lammers, just because convention is to call twits “tweets” does not require me to follow the pack in lockstep. You tweet. I twit. I only call it “retweet” because I don’t want any lemmings to be confused.) It’s a way to pass a twit along to a broader group of twits.
But by doing so, one generally sends a message along with the retweet, that by retweeting is one endorses and thinks particularly well of its content. In other words, you liked it enough to want to spread it farther and wider.
While I don’t follow many people in order to avoid having to wade through a ton of personal information about people I don’t know in order to find out the few things I would actually like to know, I pay particular attention to retweets. If it’s being tweeted by someone I follow, then it ought to be worth my time to find out what they are talking about. This is where things become problematic.
I have been alerted to some great pieces of news, fabulous stories and brilliant blawg posts via retweeting. I have also learned that some people I thought were pretty darned smart have retweeted some stuff that was awfully darned silly. Worse still, I have learned about some blog posts that were just plain scary.
One additional piece of twitterific background before attacking the meat of my point. Serious twitterers are deeply concerned with the number of followers they have. I believe it be an anatomical substitute in the digital world. The more, the longer, if you get my drift. So there are a bunch of twittering lawyers who encourage others to sign up as followers by showering twit-love upon them. No doubt there is an etiquette to it all, but if so I don’t know it.
Hence, I found a retweet by a twit using the handle Rex7, who from what I can see is a bigtime twitterer. As of this very moment, he’s got 5613 followers. The only place I have that many followers is the Manhattan phone book, and few of them care much about what I have to say. So, I felt it appropriate to find out a bit more, given that so many others thought so highly of Rex7’s twits that they elected to get on that very, very long line.
Rex7, I learned, is not a lawyer, but a third year law student at Saint Louis University School of Law. and has a blog called Social Media Law Student, dedicated to “connecting lawyers to new technologies in hopes of making the practice of law easier – both inside and outside of the courtroom.” What he may not know about lawyers he likely makes up for in knowledge of Web 2.0.
But this morning, I stumbled upon a retweet by Rex7 of a marketers blog post that made me realize the dangers involved. This retweet sent me along to Bentley Tolk’s “Marketing for Attorneys, Marketing for Law Firms, and Marketing for Lawyers” blog (do you get the sense that he wants to make sure his SEO is covered?), and a post entitled Lawyer Marketing Should Involve “Critical Thinking Time.
As part of your lawyer and law firm marketing, do you make room for “critical thinking time?” One of my mentors, Alex Mandossian, highly recommends that all marketers engage in “critical thinking time” on a weekly basis. Critical thinking time involves taking an hour or half hour to be alone and simply think and strategize about a certain aspect or aspects of one’s business.
For example, if you would like to increase your business development for lawyers through social or new media, you could devote 30 minutes or an hour to strategizing about how you will do so. Alternatively, if you would like to join the burgeoning number of lawyers on Twitter who are successfully leveraging that microblogging service in their client development efforts, you could devote a “critical thinking time” session to that topic.
You’re probably doing exactly what I did when I read this, trying to find the hidden link to the Onion. Nope, there is none. This is for real.
Now I have no gripe about Bentley Tolk giving this advice. It’s his blog and he can post anything he chooses. My issue, however is with Rex7, who thought that this was such a worthy post that it deserved to be retweeted to his almost 6000 followers. What was he thinking? Is this was law students now consider deep, important thought? Did Rex7 consider that I would now judge his discretion based upon his retweeting this post?
I retweet things when I think they are either really good or really important to know. I am circumspect about what I retweet, as I consider them to reflect my judgment. If I disagree strongly with a post, I may retweet with a comment to that effect, but I never retweet anything for the hell of it, or thoughtlessly, or to suck up to someone.
If you retweet, you may be judged by it. Think before retweeting.
Update: Received via twitter (of course):
Reading @ ScottGreenfield ‘s But Is It Worth Re-Tweeting? http://tinyurl.com/8bm7ae – perhaps the meanest blog post of ’09 (so far)
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Is it a credibility killer to say that I don’t fully read at least 50% of the stuff that I re-tweet.
In fact, I don’t even fully read anything approaching 50% of the links I come across on twitter.
Then why do it?
Must’ve been a slow news day. Was hoping to read something far more egregious than this. I’d give a 3rd year law student a pass on this link however lame the language. A client once told me – please bill me for your thinking time (admittedly a client with money to burn). If he’d said “critical thinking time” it would have been laughable.
Rex7 probably has an MBA or Business Degree. Many attorneys lack basic business marketing skills and look down on business people. In the past, I’ve worked for several years with attorneys as an IT Consultant. Naturally, the blogger, an attorney, sees no benefit in taking time to stategically plan for growing your business. Based on the hundreds of attorneys I’ve dealt with over the years, I am not surprised.
Rex only came on the radar as an example because of his big numbers, and his focus on Marketing rather than lawyering. But you’re right, as a lawyer student, he’s got plenty of time to learn.
Wow, did you miss the boat completely.
Convention developed because Twitter is close to the same as a pre-existing pod webcast by techlegend Leo Laporte “TWIT” (This Week In Tech) and the twit baseword was already in use (ie, listeners are the TWIT-Army). I suspect Twitter may have also encouraged this because they were pretty clearly in a danger zone for trademark infringement. It probably won’t affect your readers much though since I’m probably the only one who listens to TWIT and you won’t confuse me (I hope).
I am seriously impressed that you know this. I never realized that TWIT actually stood for something. But has anybody else come up with twiterific or is that mine?
This post is “the meanest?” Did he not read the previous post wherein you and Mark were about to draw knives and have at it? BTW: Be careful, I hear rumors that Texans bring guns to knife fights.
First time I saw it. Go for it. I’ll back your right to use it – right up to the moment it costs me money. 😉
It satisfies the need to forward stuff to people!
Seriously, I agree with you that people RT all sorts of stuff and much of it is just white noise (or whatever the expression is).
Rex7 has a lot of followers he should charge lawyers to send out marketing/referral messages 🙂 (kidding)
As a prosecutor, I doubt the marketers know what to do about guys like you, and the lawprofs, and the judges, who blog without any seeming purpose based upon their view of the world. It disturbs me greatly that I, as a private lawyer, get swept into the realm of being nice, or mean, or anything else, as if I’m supposed to make others look wonderful to further their agendas.
And Bennett would never bring a gun to a knife fight. Would you, Mark? Mark? Maaarrrrkkkkk? Boom.
Finally, something I can completely agree with you on – absent adding a comment, a RT is an endorsement of the content of the re-tweeted link. I can’t imagine re-tweeting something I hadn’t read and didn’t think was important to share more widely.
I understood the point to be that the RT by REX7 was a waste of time because it is useless information based on the blogger’s comment, “My issue, however is with Rex7, who thought that this was such a worthy post that it deserved to be retweeted to his almost 6000 followers. What was he thinking? Is this was law students now consider deep, important thought? Did Rex7 consider that I would now judge his discretion based upon his retweeting this post?”
What boat are you on? Speaking of nautical vessels, I just got off Monarch of the Seas.
I just found it to be “mean” in the fact that Rex (regardless of the fact that he has a bazillion followers) was thoughtless in ReTweeting the blog post. It just seemed to be a little over the top on calling out a 3L about his lack of knowledge on what is and isn’t credible blog entries. In the same respect, I think that Scott has a valid point that people do “own” their RT and if they are not endorsing the article, then they really shouldn’t ReTweet it without some comment to that fact.
I’m just glad that:
1. Scott put my baby picture up on his blog (thx Scott!)
2. That there is a resource out there like blogs and Twitter that allow us to have this conversation.
3. I got to see Scott’s post “Fight over a Fight”, and have since found this post to NOT be the meanest. 😉
-Greg
I loved the baby picture. They didn’t have photographs when I was a baby, so all I have is a line drawing (my father wasn’t very artistic). As for Rex, even a 3L has to take ownership, especially one who clearly wants to be twitplayer.
I agree with your comment on ownership. I’ve even told Rex that a RT w/o comment tells me that you are endorsing the original message. I do like more of a value-added ReTweet when someone either doesn’t agree w/the original message, or if they think this is a “must read” message. Otherwise, you might as well be a bot.
I see that Rex has taken the position that “it is a joke” to suggest that retweeting suggests endorsement. I’ve asked Rex to come on over and make his argument in the comments, rather than twit to himself. While I realize that he’s only a 3L, and I don’t necessarily blame him for his “marketing” himself on twitter, one of the points of going to law school is to be able to cogently present your position, and this is Rex’s opportunity to show that he has been paying attention in class. But complaining that “it’s a joke” without defending or explaining his position is a bit too lame, even for a 3L, and he’s going to have to do a lot better than that.
Don’t you get it? REX7 doesn’t care and is laughing at all of you atty’s making a big deal about this. The successful atty’s that I know would never have time for this kind of silliness. I don’t blog, and I rarely reply to blogs. I don’t have the time because I have to many clients to take care of. If I did blog, I would not waste time disparaging students who plan to enter the same industry in which I work. I would use a blog to attract more clients. I wouldn’t have replied to this one, but it is just fun to make fun of people who are arrogant and don’t get that the joke is on them.
Methinks thou dost protest too much.
Haha, I was looking for The Onion link in your comment. Alas, you were serious http://is.gd/fxZz Keep it up though, The Onion is getting a little long in the tooth, and I am always on the lookout for fresh entertainment. Kudos
I am so clueless. I thought I came up with something new and now I realize that I am so pathetically out of touch. Twout of Twouch? Oh, forget it.
Anything But Boring
Seth Godin has the most remarkable way of making a critical point without being either pompous or pedantic, and I’ve become a huge fan of his blog.
Anything But Boring
Seth Godin has the most remarkable way of making a critical point without being either pompous or pedantic, and I’ve become a huge fan of his blog.