The @Bogusky challenge

Steven | marketing, advertising & campaigns,twitter | Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Alex Bogusky was on twitter. It just wasn’t something for him, so he quit

prematurely. Read my previous post for some background information.

Since he left his mail address, in his last post, I decided to mail him (he agreed on posting this BTW).

Hi Alex,

I was very pleased to see you on twitter. Too bad it didn’t work out :(

I would love to see you reconsider. It might be something that isn’t in your routine yet, or even something you yourself get little value out. But just know you reach a global audience pretty instant. You can talk to them, listen to them or even just let them know where your working on or what your thoughts are on specific topics.

Apart from that it’s a great way to do PR for CP+B .. I know you probably don’t need it, but isn’t it cool if you can inspire lots of people and engage with them?

Anyway, I wrote a blogpost about it, you can find it here: http://www.minorissues.be/2009/03/05/alex-bogusky-was-on-twitter/

So hope to see you back online, and if not: keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Steven
http://twitter.com/minorissues


Steven Verbruggen
Interactive Strategy Maven
Nascom (Belgium) – http://www.nascom.be
+32 478 88 10 64

And yes, I got a response from the man himself!

image Steven,

Great post.

You’re right on all fronts. For me it’s more about pure time.

Don’t have what it deserves. But who knows. I might be back. I don’t mind reversing my own decisions.

Wishy washy is how I roll. I want people to feel they have access. That was important to me. And that is why in the end I dropped my e-mail. If I had a following of 3000 or something I would figure out a way to manage some sort of version where I don’t feel so compelled to interact. That’s the hardest thing for me. I’m a communicator and if somebody tries to communicate it’s nearly impossible for me to resist.

A
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This message was created with six fingers.

First of all: I like his style. He’s responsive, and the way he’s formulating is just poetry to me!

But second, and most important, he’s giving us a challenge! "If I had a following of 3000 or something I would figure out a way to manage some sort of version where I don’t feel so compelled to interact"

So all, head over to his twitter page, and start following him right away! I’m curious to see what he’ll come up with, aren’t you? 1700+ followers ATM, that’s +200 since last week.

Why I think it’s important to have guys as Alex on twitter (or something else) and not just on email? 1/ it’s a great way to see what they are up to, what work they’re working on, what people they interact with, and 2/ interaction! Sure, you can email them, but tools like twitter just have a far lower threshold! If you decided to mail someone you don’t know, an authority, .. you just think 10 times before you send. You make sure your email is perfect, and perhaps, along the way, you missed your moment or decided to not mail them after all. On twitter you just share your thoughts. If it isn’t picked up, no bad. But if it is picked up you know the guy is really interested and listening and the conversation just kicks in.

On the other hand, if somebody I might want to interact with publicizes his/her email address,  I’m always tempted to actually mail some stuff, and start the interaction that way. It’s harder, takes a lot more time, but if you indeed got a response you know it’s no bullshit guy/girl and you might learn something. Remember my mail to Steve Balmer? I always try to ask some valuable questions, not just kiss ass and tell them how great they are. They know :)

I try to live by the same principles myself. And sure I know I’m no authority (yes! lol) if you send me some questions or remarks, by email, or by twitter, I always take the time to answer and share my thought.

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