Gaping Void Drops Twitter Account: Big Mistake
Published by Rodney Rumford April 10th, 2008 in Branding, twitter.Gaping Void Cartoonist Hugh Macleod has decided to delete his twitter account? Why? He said it was too much to keep up with.
He was one of the top 50 people followed on twitter. I guess he really does not give a shit about the 6000 plus people (fans of his clever cartoons) that were following him. Not a good message to send to your fans.
The bottom line here is he felt overwhelmed and his time was better spent writing books. I can see how that can happen if you feel compelled to answer people all the time. But he had an easy alternative; he simply could have chosen twitter as a way to distribute content. He could have been more selective about how he interacted with people.
Simply going black (deleting your account) and kicking all your fans/followers to the curb was not a smart move. These people chose to follow you because they care about your thoughts and wanted to feel closer to your personal brand of Gaping Void.
Twitter can be a communication, listening and distribution tool. He simply did not choose the right use case of twitter for his personal needs. If he has a book coming out he just threw away a huge opportunity: A quick way to share with people that his book is available or coming out soon.
Micro-blogging(Twitter) is a new way to connect with people. Throwing that communication asset of fans/followers away and bailing is a short sighted decision in my opinion.
I did a quick bit of research to see what people were saying about him leaving twitter. Quite a few people were sad to see him leave and said they would miss him. I guess he did not think about how people liked and enjoyed his tweets. 
He has missed a huge branding opportunity here.
What do you think?
UPDATE: Here is what people are saying currently on twitter about this
2nd Update: He came back to twitter after being gone only 5 days. Why? “There are just too many people i do business with that are on twitter”. Sounds like I was right.
Technorati Tags: gaping void, gapingvoid, twitter, brands
10 Responses to “Gaping Void Drops Twitter Account: Big Mistake”
- 1 Pingback on Apr 10th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
- 2 Pingback on Nov 17th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Rodney - I wholeheartedly disagree with you here.
Gaping Void leaving twitter is not him saying Fuck You to his 6000 fans. He had a genuine reason and need to leave, so he did. Yes, ofcourse people will miss him but it’s twitter - they will get over it. And it’s not like Gaping Void isn’t present elsewhere. Lets not forget the ephemeral and fickle nature of the people on the web. I bet he thought about this move and it’s implications more than anyone else. Also let’s not forget, there is a real person behind Gaping Void. The brand is as much Hugh as it is Gaping Void and Hugh deciding and acting upon his limitations should not qualify for such analysis
Personally, I’m surprised you even chose to analyze this on facereviews. How is it related to facebook? Covering and making non-events like these “news” is akin to gossip mags reporting on everything celebrities do - whether significant or not. In all honesty and with due respect, I think it is pieces like these that lessen the integrity of the tech community. Sometimes, the best analysis and advice is - get over it and move on.
Communication? Not so much when the communication model is one way — like it is on Twitter…
Jinal,
“Personally, I’m surprised you even chose to analyze this on facereviews. How is it related to facebook?”. It is not related to facebook. It is related to social networks and how people and brands choose to use social networks.
I thought that it was relevant due to the fact that a brand had 6000 people that cared enough about his product to follow it on twitter and he just left them.
I thought that it was a good example of how a brand just left their fans behind.
My other point is he just could have used twitter rarely and when he wanted to share information. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I agree Rodney. I like the communication and the research capabilities of Twitter (although I find FriendFeed even better for research).
I especially like the way you frame it as a use case issue. Twitter and other social apps can be used in different ways. He just got sucked into the heavy interaction part of it.
Rodney,
To question Huge’s reasoning/strategy here is to presume you know more about brand strategy than he does. If that is your claim - you’re way off.
The man is…”the man”…for lack of a better way of saying so, in terms of micro/personal branding.
To be the first major twitterati to quite the service will earn him more media impressions than twittering for a lifetime ever could.
Most compelling action i’ve seen in recent memory - but what do i know…I only make a living as a brand strategist.
http://www.twitter.com/corbett3000
uhm, i actually agree with Rodney here.
The beauty of twitter is that you dont have to update it yourself, so claiming he doesnt have time for it is total BS. There are plenty of tools out there that can post twitter for you without much effort.
ex: Hugh has a blog. Import that into twitter. Keep the blog update, no twits needed. Hugh doesnt want to miss out replies? tell us, we will understand, we dont bite.
I’m kinda upset since he was the reason why i joined twitter in the first place (don’t think i told him this before). He was, and still is a huge inspiration.
Somehow, i think his action was just for publicity stun for the upcoming book, but i know how much he dont like things like that, and give him benefit of the doubt for it.
I really hope he’ll reconsider and back in with us on twitter. Still reading his blog though.
I don’t feel like Hugh left us all high and dry, especially since he’ll keep his blog going and continue to draw cartoons.
What I’ll miss from his tweets are some of the “finds” he passed along either from other twitterers he followed or interesting articles he came across. We just won’t get that from his blog. He followed a LOT of people, much like Robert Scoble does. Used in this fashion, Twitter can quickly consume your day if you’re not prudent with your time.
I met Hugh at SXSW this year and he was both friendly and attentive and these traits could be what drove him away from Twitter. You just can’t have THAT many personal contacts without sacrificing something else. Maybe he will come back to Twitter and use it like you suggest: as a way to blast 1-way communications. That would be grand, but in the meantime, I know where to find the cat and I look forward to more ‘tooning.
“I guess he really does not give a shit about the 6000 plus people (fans of his clever cartoons) that were following him. Not a good message to send to your fans.”
You assume those 6,000 fans aren’t getting their hit of gapingvoid from some other source, like his blog, or his Facebook app, or sites hosting his widget, etc.
You further assume that he won’t be spending the time (and mental energies) saved from dealing with Twitter on other pursuits that might benefit those fans more. For example, his blog has tumbleweeds rolling through it, and he could very well have many more blog subscribers than he did Twitter-centric fans. Spending more time on the blog and less on Twitter might well represent a net improvement in the overall fan experience. Since you aren’t Hugh McLeod, I doubt you have sufficient information to know for certain one way or another.
“I can see how that can happen if you feel compelled to answer people all the time.”
I don’t use Twitter presently, but based on what I’ve seen and comments I’ve read from Twitter users, it appears that a fair number of people are attempting to turn Twitter into a distributed non-real-time IRC.
From a technical standpoint, there’s no particular harm there. From a social standpoint though, that’s a fairly significant change from a “micro-blogging” broadcast model. Micro-blogging is what you want Mr. McLeod to do. If, however, he feels that too many of the 6,000 fans are expecting him to respond to their tweets, IRC-style, that represents a significant social pressure and significant time.
I liken Mr. McLeod’s decision to be akin to those who dump their Facebook profiles because of the (perceived) social pressures of friend requests.