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For a while last year I really got into Twitter. It offered someone like me a chance to communicate with people from around the world without having to e-mail them, facebook them, comment on blogs or anything else. I could find them on Twitter and have periodic conversations with them about great blogs we had seen or a great website and anything in-between.
It was great. I slowly built up people who I was following and who followed me around 100, then 200, then 300, then 400! I was getting some great feedback on certain questions I had. Then it got to be overload. Some people started using Twitter as a way to spam you with their 500 random thoughts that day or the 700 links they found that day. Basically, three or four people started filling up my feed that I would miss great content from people because it was being drowned out constantly by those few individuals who were posting constantly.
To fix this problem, I did two things - first I started a #purgethursday - I deleted anyone who decided they needed to fill up my tweetdeck with 10 posts all within a minute or two or those who I followed at one point, but had not been communicating with them in a while, and I didn't find anything useful on their posts. After a couple of weeks of this, it was great! My feeds were slowing down. I didn't miss great posts by people and I seemed to be able to communicate with people again.
The second step was creating lists. While I don't use the website a lot (mostly I use Tweetdeck) I do use it if I want to check on my lists. Twitter did a great job getting me to come back to their website because now I can click on one of my lists and I don't have to worry about certain people clogging up my feed because I have separated people to fit the areas I know them from.
These two steps have been great. I've gotten back onto Twitter, I no longer have people clogging up my feed and I am communicating on twitter again.
Communication is a tricky thing. Anyone can get onto Twitter and attempt to "communicate" with other people. Sadly, people waste this great opportunity. They use it to their own means and treat it as another form of advertising - i.e. interrupting our lives. Don't waste the opportunity that twitter can give you. Engage in the discussion. Be a part of the community. Don't be an obstacle that has to be purged.
Over the past two weeks I have witnessed quite possibly the fastest destruction of one of the best brands in all of history - the fall of the Tiger. As Bill Simmons at ESPN put it:
it transformed our collective perception of a famous person and made us re-evaluate every opinion we had about him
Your brand is everything. People buy into you and your product, service or company based on the brand. Having a strong and definitive brand is one of the things that sets apart a thriving business from a struggling one - Seth Godin has a great definition of what a brand is here. And Tiger Woods had one of the best brands around - until now.
The only brand destruction that I can even remotely think of coming close to Tiger is the fall of Enron.
Enron was considered one of the best energy companies around - people had their life savings in Enron stock and were going to retire on and then the collapse happened. However, the difference between them and Tiger is that unless you were either employed by Enron or were heavily invested in them, you didn't really care that much. With Tiger, he changed the way Golf was watched, played and covered.
Tiger has his own Gatorade named after him, he makes millions upon millions in sponsorships and he skyrockets the ratings of golf when he is in the hunt to win a tournament. Tiger had crafted his brand to be that way - we loved him and wanted to be like him because he was so dominate.
Unfortunately, his actions are causing his brand to fall - and the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
In today's world of instant news, gossip dominates coverage (which I despise) and videos go "viral" - events can change the way we look at something in an instant. Communication has changed so much with Twitter, Facebook, e-mails, blogs, etc. that you cannot control the message. It is impossible to control the message - you can have some influence as to the direction of the message, but you cannot control it. Tiger didn't understand that and he still doesn't. He has only given a couple of statements on his website, no interviews, no communication at all.
Because of his lack of communication and attempt to direct the message, he is letting others control that message. Maybe he doesn't have PR people that understand the new world of communication - which means he needs to fire them and find new ones! The world has changed - and Tiger and all celebrities need to understand this. Maybe Tiger needs to take a lesson from Ashton Kutcher. If you would have read that line 5 years ago you would have laughed - but in todays world, Ashton gets it when it comes to the new world of communication and Tiger doesn't.
What we can all learn from this (besides NOT screwing around on your wife) is simple: learn how to communicate in todays world of social media. If you are not sure what you would do if your brand took some kind of a "hit", start working on that plan now. You won't be able to control the message - but hopefully you'll be able to help direct it towards something manageable. Which can mean the difference between survival and destruction of your business.
One of the toughest parts about communication is knowing what you do right and what you do wrong. Working with a speech coach is important and can help you improve - but if you really want to see what you are doing there is a simple step -- use a video camera.
Using a video camera can tell you much more about what you are doing than just listening to a speech coach. However, you want to make sure to know what you are looking for, so here are some tips.
1. Have someone run the video camera instead of having it in a stationary spot. The reason for this is that if you have it in a stationary spot, you need to make sure to have it panned away far enough to catch all of your movements. If you are moving during your speech (which you should) and the video is too close, you might move off of the screen. The problems that might happen include: being off of the screen; the video is so far away that you don't catch everything; the video camera might stop recording or run out of space and you won't know it - and those are just a couple of the problems that might happen if there is no one there to man the camera.
2. Use a "live" performance. While practicing your speeches is very important and video tapping those can be beneficial, using a live performance will provide much better feedback. A practice is exactly that, a practice. When you are performing in front of an audience, your adrenaline is running higher - there is an energy in the room that isn't there during practices - there might be interruptions or distractions that you will have to deal with - and the list can go on and on. Getting that live performance will capture all of it and allow you to see how you handled the situation and how to fix it.
3. Review the video with your speech coach. This is the most painful part - watching yourself on tape. I say painful because you truly see what you need to improve upon. While you will catch some things, if you want to become a great speaker, you should review it with a speech coach. They will be able to not only catch some things you might have missed, they will also be able to tell you HOW to fix those problems, which is the goal of this activity.
4. Repeat. Once you fix those problems - or at least attempt to fix them - record the next speech and review that. Then keep fixing what needs to be fixed - just keep repeating the process. Soon, you will become a great public speaker.
If you can do those four things - you will see a dramatic improvement in your speaking skills and you will see the responses in your audience as well.
Sometimes the most painful experiences can be the most beneficial. While watching yourself on tape might not be what you want to do - it is necessary if you want to become a better speaker.
Picture from Chris Schuepp at Flickr.com