Choking on Twitter

What does a night plowing through a neglected Twitter feed say about the online world? That’s it’s a dark, dank cacophony of nonsense. It is really nauseating, to be completely honest.

You’ll find the @MaxKohler feed from a male model who says his MO is “Poker, Modeling, Friends, Nightlife, Sports, Music.” The guy has more than 23,000 followers. Yesterday he tweeted: “Got my new car today.”

And then there is @Tracy_White_, who is some sort of motivational guru. Her descriptor for her feed is “Everyone has the capability to live their dream life. We are all in charge of our own destiny. Conceive, believe, achieve. It’s your life, go for it!” Her feed is a hodgepodge of motivational quotes. She has more than 14,000 followers. 

There are also the social media experts, the scores and scores of social media experts. They shouldn’t call it “Twitter”; they should call it “The Repository of Social Media ‘Experts,'” because it seems like every other Twitter feed is by a social media “pro.” @nathankievman is one. He has more than 22,000 followers, and claims to be a “Corporate Social Media Strategist.” He offers LinkedIn webinars, and tweets about, well, the webinars he produces.

These are feeds about nothing, and they have tens of thousands of followers. Now, I understand how to automate the accumulation of Twitter followers, but there are feeds with relatively massive audiences that are about as deep as a hair follicle. 

The whole thing is disheartening, and if I were a community banker, I would be completely daunted. How on earth can a normative, good-natured, traditional bank’s marketing message compete with “Got my new car today”? Heck, how can Bank Innovation?

I am sorry to say that I have no answer to this. I — and I think we — have to rely on what my mentor once told me a long, long time ago: just do the best you can and everything will work itself out. I know, it’s not much in the way of advice, but what can we do but have faith that our smarts will succeed?

In case you’re wondering, Bank Innovation has around 2,600 followers — and @MaxKohler is not one of them.