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Ask HN: Effective arguments to convince someone to get on Twitter?

10 points by swombat ↗ HN
I use Twitter every day (I'm "swombat" on there too, btw). I even know some people in real life who are also on Twitter. One of them, I even convinced to get on Twitter directly (i.e. I talked him into it, and he's still using it now).

Twitter is really hard to explain, because the reasons I use it are not the reasons that you use it. Perhaps because of this, there's also a whole variety of possible arguments for why someone should get on Twitter, and so far I haven't figured out any clear, universal argument.<p>My question is, what are the best arguments that you've used and which worked and successfully convinced a Twitter-free friend who didn't "get it" to join the tweeting ranks (for more than a handful of tweets)?

The only argument I've managed to make work, so far, was "Try it honestly for 2 weeks, making an effort to follow some people and post some tweets once or twice a day, and then decide". But it's pretty hard to convince people of that, so so far, I've only convinced one person to do it.

Thanks. Looking forwards to reading other people's arguments...

55 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 55.2 ms ] thread
davidw
> I haven't figured out any clear, universal argument.

Because 99% of humanity really doesn't need to be on twitter?

The only reasons I can see are to follow 'trends' and spam people interested in your product(s), or follow celebrities.

swombat
As a pretty direct example of usefulness of Twitter, I posted a tweet this morning about what sort of luggage people might recommend if I was looking at doing a fair bit of travelling in the next few years. I got some great answers/links that provided some useful starting points to continue researching the topic.

To me, that had direct value. It saved me a lot of time, and pointed me to useful, relevant information that I was looking for.

ErrantX
I can post questions like that and out of 10 such tweets I will get maybe 2 or 3 replies (total!) from my 78 followers.

Twitter has no huge value for me any more and I use it less and less. I plan to remove 90% of the people i follow becuase they add nothing useful & clutter up the stream.

I imagine most of your friends will experience the same problem (and can see it from the outset).

Maybe I am just using it wrong but I have failed ot have any meaningful conversations on Twitter. For questions/ideas like you mention I find Facebook much more responsive (as I have personal connection to everyone there).

davidw
> I imagine most of your friends will experience the same problem (and can see it from the outset).

Very definitely they will - I followed swombat on twitter for a bit and had to let him go because he makes up for the 140 character limit by churning out messages at the rate of a zillion a day:-)

swombat
Hardly... :-) You just need to follow more noisy people :-)
ErrantX
whilst I dont want to join in the swombat bashing ;) I do also tend to unfollow over the top tweeters. I stopped following Kawasaki and plan to stop following R. Scoble. Whilst thye do tweet useful stuff it is lost in a mountain of rubbish.

The real value of twitter is in the 10 - 30 posts a day tweeters who only post valuable content (or rants or w/e).

swombat
Totally agree. Guy Kawasaki's Twitter account is basically a pile of spam. I never understood why people were interesting in Scoble in the first place.

I do tend to stick within the 10-30 limit.

ryanv
And Twitter gives you better results than asking The Google? I don't see how unless you have 2 million followers.
teej
> And Twitter gives you better results than asking The Google?

Possibly. He got several direct, trusted answers from people risking social capital to help him out. There are lots of cases where personal recommendations are more valuable than indirect, impersonal discussions or reviews.

biohacker42
Yes but that's one example. I suppose the opposite could easily be true for other examples. My question is how is twitter better then google in the general case?
swombat
It's not. I never suggested that it is, either. Google is great for some kinds of searches. Twitter is great for some other kinds of searches.
biohacker42
I am one of those people who just don't get twitter. I have some friends on it, it seems to me all they use it for is pointless chit-chat. I am slightly intrigued by the potential for real-time search. Like the picture of the plane in the Hudson which appeared on twitter. But how do you rank search results? What about people like me, whose work requires deep focus, how would I with minimal twittering ever generate enough followers to get something out of a twitter search?
swombat
Yes, absolutely. Googling for "luggage reviews" or "which luggage is best" yields only trash (try it, you'll see).

On the other hand, tweeting gave me the following links:

http://onebag.com/ http://geekeasy.com/travel/articles/Luggage_2.shtml http://garry.posterous.com/muji-kicks-ass http://wherethehellismatt.com/faq.shtml

And a variety of other tidbits of info, including some tweets from someone who runs a blog dedicated to location-independent life ( http://locationindependent.com/blog/ ):

http://skitch.com/swombat/bm4y1/twitter-swombat

That represents immediate, obvious value to me.

davidw
That's not a bad point, but I wonder how stable the situation is? Will people start flooding twitter and trying to game it just like the Google results? Will they be able to?
coglethorpe
People can search based on keywords as well. I managed to get a couple of cool followers based on that. Helped one guy get his Wii WiFi hooked up. Just search on #lost this evening (4/15)

With search, your overall reach is far more than your direct followers, and it's "real time" as well.

Bots and shameless marketers (I'm looking at you, @guykawasaki) are easily blocked or avoided altogether. It's like a community spam filter.

TomOfTTB
That's what I'd suggest people do. Ask a question and then show the person you are trying to convince.

I'm not a fan of Twitter and have, under great pressure, resisted joining. The only thing that has really impressed me and made me want to sign up was seeing someone ask a question to their followers and get instant responses.

Luc
It gives you value, but to your followers it's just confusing. We see your question about what luggage to get, followed by a bunch of '@someone: Ah thanks, that's a great idea!'. It's often like that on Twitter - I miss the other half of the conversation.
webwright
To generalize, I'd say "lazyweb" questions are GREAT on Twitter.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lazyweb

Anything where a person is going to make a better judgment than an algorithm, from product recommendations (which are better from friends than strangers) to "which of these pictures is a better shot of me?" type of judgment calls.

mariorz
It's a new form of publishing that could not have existed before the internet. The constraint to 140 characters and the form it will be consumed effect very directly what and how you write. The medium is the message after all.

I agree that 99% of humanity does not need to be on twitter, just like 99% of humanity does not need to have a blog, but there is something more to it than consensual spamming or following celebs.

noodle
i use twitter primarily to universally sync up stuff, like my gmail status to my facebook status, and the like.

beyond that, i follow people who i have an interest in, and have successfully used twitter to interact with people who i'd probably not have been able to interact with otherwise.

its also nice for infomaniacs who love the real-time news and trends and details.

having said that, twitter is definitely overblown/overused/overcovered/whatever.

pavel_lishin
Well, it all depends on what you want them to use it for.

I have zero interest in knowing when my friends are eating a sandwich, and sadly, that's the only types of updates 90% of them make. I wish I could convince them to get off Twitter.

Other than that, the best way to show them the utility of Twitter, I would think, would be to show them people who use it well. Don't show them a stream of "eating sandwich", "that was a good sandwich", "going to the bathroom brb", "okay poop is coming out now" updates.

bockris
This is exactly why I resisted for so long.

Then when I was at PyCon last month, they put twitterfall with the #pycon keyword up on the projector before the morning sessions started and during lunch and I saw that it could be a lot more than 'eating a burrito' updates.

As far as your friends go, I say tough love. Just drop them and when questioned explain why. Either that or write a Greasemonkey script to drop them from your main stream.

mronge
I'll second that. Twitter at PyCon was also the aha moment for me. Since then I've used it every day.

In fact people at PyCon were asking me for me Twitter username to stay connected, very different from previous conferences I've been too.

oscardelben
I'd use this statement: "If you want to do micro-blogging, try twitter. If you don't know what micro-blogging is, check twitter"
brk
Just curious, why are you trying to evangelize Twitter?

I think your approach of "try it and see if you like it" is the best overall.

I've been on/using Twitter for a while now (year or 2, have lost track). It does have value, but I find myself using it less, not more. Part of the problem is that it seems the more people you follow the less valuable it becomes, due to basic S/N ratios.

swombat
Just curious, why are you trying to evangelize Twitter?

It has obvious value to me, and the more people use it, the more that value increases. The increase is even greater when those new twitterers are people that I know, since they likely end up in my twitter network.

mikeyur
I get friends to use it by basically showing them my twitter and how you can update/chat with people. And then I show them Ping.fm so they can update their Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

I've only converted a few so far, but the ones that have moved over really like it and have gotten into it. The others don't really care so I'm not going to force it on them.

vaksel
Thats because twitter is useless for personal stuff. Its ok for businesses/internet celebrities, since its another way to push their crap, but regular people gain next to nothing from using it.
swombat
I disagree. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=563622 above.
vaksel
what stopped you from using something like http://answers.yahoo.com/ instead?
swombat
Nothing, but the point is, it is useful for personal stuff.
vaksel
the problem is that for it to be useful you need to have a large following. So basically you end up with a chicken and the egg problem as a user.

I mean take you for example...you have 365 followers, and chances are most of them is due to you being a visible internet entrepreneur. But put yourself into a regular user's shoes, how useful do you think twitter would be with 5-10 followers...if that? I mean for Twitter to work, you need to convince other people to use something that they see as being completely useless. And the loop gets reinforced, since you yourself aren't seeing the usefulness of Twitter yet.

swombat
That is certainly a good point, and Twitter's value to me has certainly increased over time.

I started with a handful of followers too, though, and I don't recall it being such a terrible chore to log on to Twitter every once in a while and follow a few people here and there. Soon enough, a handful turned into more, and more, etc..

I don't think you need to be a visible internet entrepreneur to have a few hundred followers...

vorador
Ask HN: Effective arguments to convince someone to leave twitter ?
Gibbon
From Kathy Sierra's website:

Twitter is a near perfect example of intermittent variable reward (the key addictive element of slot machines)

Twitter can trick the brain into thinking it's having meaningful social interactions by promoting "a strong feeling of connectedness" while another part of the brain is telling you something is missing.

Twitter is yet another dramatic contribution to the always on multi-tasking lifestyle.

I agree with her 100%. Twitter and technologies like it (telnet talkers and MUDs in the 90's, IRC and so on) are dangerously addictive and having one of them hit mainstream scares me.

vaksel
Simple...let them use it for a week
padmanabhan01
I thought people don't need mobile phones, before they started to be everywhere. I thought email was for top executives and business people when I first heard about it.

I now think twitter is useless and people just don't need it.

z3r0p4r4d0x
You: Use Twitter

Them: I don't want to, I hate it, it's bullshit just broadcasting stuff in 140 characters!

You: Do you use Facebook?

Them: Yes.

You: Do you use IM/IRC?

Them: Yeah.

You: Do you send out emails?

Them: Of course I do!

You: Use Twitter at least 10 updates+10 follows everyday for 30 days, tell me why it sucks after that.

(( after 30 days ))

crickets

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trezor
there's also a whole variety of possible arguments for why someone should get on Twitter, and so far I haven't figured out any clear, universal argument.

I think that's your answer. If you can't make a proper, solid argument for what they gain from being on twitter there is no gain, and whatever reasons are left are purely selfish on your part. Or you have just successfully been brainwashed that there is no real world outside twitter. I don't know.

Let's just say there is a reason I don't try to convert friends, family and colleagues into listening to Jpop. Not their thing.

Why on earth does everyone need to be on twitter? I don't expect everyone I know to be available on cell-phone, email, IRC, MSN and twitter 24/7. Having just one of those is sufficient to stay in touch and I see no reason to force people over to things they don't care about.

Anyway, this sounds like mindless, rabid fanboyism to me.

jemmons
I really hate that old tale about the man telling the doctor "It hurts when I do this!" and the doctor advising him "Don't do that." But here I go (with apologies):

Why are you trying to convince people to get on twitter? Twitter scratches an itch. An itch I have. An itch it would seem you have. But not an itch shared by everyone on the planet. If you had a friend who was complaining "Gosh, I wish I could loosen this bolt without making my fingers all bloody," it would be appropriate to introduce him to wrenches. That doesn't mean you should be hounding him to use it to eat his cereal in the morning or brush his teeth at night.

If a person has a need for twitter, explain how twitter services that need. If he doesn't, well, he shouldn't be on twitter and no argument from you will change that.

paul7986
If your subject likes conversation they will love Twitter. If your subject likes text messaging they will love Twitter. If your subject leaves comments on blogs/Digg/etc they'll love Twitter. If your subject wants 2 hear the latest news (national to news within their inner circle) in real-time they'll love Twitter.

Well back to watching that lady singing which I found on Twitter an hour after it's broadcast in Britain. Im not into this music but this lady can sing like no other and more so her story is amazing movie stuff!

[dead] behe
Don't try and convince anyone to get on Twitter. Show them how useful it can be with real examples. If they don't want to use it then don't push it, because the one thing everybody hates is peer pressure to 'get on' something you don't particularly want to.

Take Facebook for example. I won't ever get an account. Why? Because it really is a land of inane garbage populated by idiots. The owners have nothing but contempt for the whole 'privacy' concept, as is shown when you read their Non-Privacy Statement. It has no conceivable use for me at all. Yet I get the blank stares when I say "I don't have a Facebook, and I don't bloody want one!"

joe_bleau
Yeah, convince me. I don't blog, twitter, facebook, myspace, IM, text, etc. My cell phone is a company phone and it doesn't have a web browser. Heck, I still read usenet, believe it or not. (I'm an information consumer more than a producer, so when I do work up something that might be interesting to others, it's not that much work to write it up and post it on a website.)
almost
You could start by trying to convince me. I have no interest in regular updates on what my friends are doing (I'm quite content with them telling me the interesting things when I actually see them). I also have no interest in giving anyone regular updates on what I'm doing (again, I'd rather just tell them if it's interesting enough).

I could use it for asking questions, but why would anyone see or answer them? Wouldn't I get a better response by actually directly emailing people or lists where someone might know (or even asking people face to face, as low tech as that may be).

So why would I want to Twitter?

swombat
I have no interest in regular updates on what my friends are doing (I'm quite content with them telling me the interesting things when I actually see them). I also have no interest in giving anyone regular updates on what I'm doing (again, I'd rather just tell them if it's interesting enough).

Some of the thoughts you have are worth communicating quickly and cheaply, but not really worth carrying in your head for days until you meet the right person to discuss them with. Twitter allows you to broadcast these thoughts quickly and effortlessly, and get some feedback on them.

I could use it for asking questions, but why would anyone see or answer them? Wouldn't I get a better response by actually directly emailing people or lists where someone might know (or even asking people face to face, as low tech as that may be).

It really depends on the question... in some cases, you'll get a much quicker, better answer via Twitter. In others, you won't.

almost
I think that's where we differ. I don't want to broadcast my thoughts like that, they'd be undeveloped and uninteresting. I'd far rather keep them in my head until they grow into something I think worth sharing. And when that happens twitter doesn't seem like the place I'd want to share them.

I'm still trying to keep an open mind here though, maybe there's something about twitter that I just don't get.

swombat
Well, as I suggested in my OP, give it a try for 2 weeks... follow at least 20-30 people that you find interesting (and who don't have billions of followers, so they'll follow you back), and try tweeting once or twice a day. Do that for a couple of weeks, then make up your mind about it.
almost
2 weeks seems like a lot of effort to waste on something without good reason. Maybe there is some sort of magical thing that you only get after using it but it doesn't seem likely to me. I'll try and keep an open mind though, maybe I'll see something that will convince me otherwise.
swombat
It's not 2 weeks of solid Twittering... :-) You're allowed to do other things for the 23 hours and 50 minutes each day when you're not on Twitter :-)
almost
haha, you have a point there ;)
onk
Shouldn't this be discussed on Twitter?
darwinw
I'm on twitter too, but I'm not using it for personal blabbing, i used it to promote my site tripntale. I only have 1 friend that is using twitter religiously to broadcast what she's doing everyday, and she's a housewife, albeit a lonely one.