Introducing The DeTweet

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A Serious Look at Paid Search Marketing Strategies, Tactics & Tools

By ClickEquations | February 20, 2009

Like many others, we’ve jumped into twitter-nation with both feet over the last few months. The simple efficiency and surprising range of benefits to both writing and reading have impressed us.

But there are limitations and problems too.

Some of these make me question the long term viability of the model – if I had to bet I’d say the system crashes under the weight of its own success (and the various forms of abuse by its users) in the not too distant future. But we’ll see.

One of the cool and useful twitterisms is the Re-Tweet. It’s a way to pass along something cool or interesting to your own circle of followers. Re-tweeting is an affirmation.

But what about tweets you disagree with? Not things you’re neutral about, but information that you think is actually lowering our collective knowledge or IQ.

Shouldn’t there be a way to tell the world ‘I don’t think think this is right.’?

Particularly in a somewhat technical discipline like paid search (#ppc) it pains me to see things flying by, spreading across the twitt-o-sphere and into the information starved eyes of young trusting paid search practitioners, that just ain’t true. Or aren’t exactly right. Or could be easily mis-understood. You get the idea.

detweet Reading one this morning gave me the idea for the De-Tweet.

With the 140 character limit there is no room to both reference the original tweet and make the counter-point.

So I’m going to just De-Tweet it in the same way people Re-Tweet stuff.

1st-detweet

I hope to start a trend.

The DeTweet Defined:

DeTweet (AKA: De-Tweet or DT) = Passing along the tweet of another with some degree of disapproval. It can range from strong (that’s a lie) to mild (there are exceptions or conditions). It shouldn’t be taken as impolite or unfriendly – it’s done in the spirit of twitterville – as a new way to participate in the conversation. Of course elaboration and counter arguments can be made in follow on tweets or blog posts.

But at least you don’t have to sit idly by and just wince anymore.

Or at least I don’t.

What do you think?

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(Looking for a paid search tweeter you can retweet and/or detweet? Follow us @clickequations.)

http://www.clixmarketing.com David Szetela

Oh, YES! Brilliant, CD.
http://nickracanelli.com Nick

I think this is a great idea. Although I still have a small Twitter profile (I have less than 170 followers) I do see some stuff that I:

1. Don't trust/believe
2. Don't think others should be reading as it may give a wrong impression.

Twitter is great for sharing information and ideas, there is no reason why we should continue to sit around and turn a blind eye to some of the “silly” things that get posted in the “twitt-o-sphere”. You should be seeing some DTs from me in the future!
http://cbcg.net Toby DiPasquale

Lets see how well this takes off… given the old saw “no press is bad press”, I'd think you'd not want to retweet links/tweets you disagree with.
Chad

Interesting concept, am honored to be your first detweet .. “in the spirit of twitterville – as a new way to participate in the conversation” – I would love to hear why you disagree with the tweet.

It's obviously a generalization (how much can you fit into 140 characters?) but from a high view is sound imho.

Adwords weights your account's QS, why would I dilute a high QS account by testing ads I'm not even sure will get decent CTR?

Reposting in the stream to spur conversation.
http://clickequations.com Craig Danuloff

Chad: Glad to see your comment. Tried to reply to your tweet but it wouldn't let me since you weren't a follower. Anyway, I don't believe that account level separation of high CTR or high QS keywords will have much effect on any individual keywords. This is based, somewhat, on a panel I participated on at SMX West with Google's Dir of Search Quality, who explained that basically if they have KW level CTR, most of the other factors don't matter much. If they don't (new keyword) they progress outword, to adgroup CTR/QS, then if adgroup is new, to Campaign CTR/QS, and finally if there are just no good clues available, to overall account CTR/QS.

So ultimately each KW gets the QS it deserves no matter where it is. Only case where segmented accounts would help would be if constantly adding new keywords of new contextual nature, and you always did well with them, in which case you'd get 'benefit of the doubt (account QS) initially before custom kw-based was earned.

So the idea that better performing kw in account full of them get better QS, is more self fulfilling than due to the account. Having said that, I agree (and suggest in the presentation I made which is now available on this blog) that poor performing KW's should be paused/deleted, and AdGroup or Campaign Segmentation by performance is a good idea – I just think Account level is a huge step (moving low performers in and out is pretty hard) that really isn't going to benefit anyone much.

BTW: Interesting thing I learned, relative to your way if you or someone wanted to do it, is that if you move a KW-Ad-LandingPage combo EXACTLY from one account to another, the historic QS moves with it – Google recognizes it and applies the history. Any change however and it starts over as new.

Great to have you reading, looking forward to your future tweets and information.
http://www.senser.net Gary Senser

Yes… Yes!!! Great idea to improve the Twitterhood!
http://www.marketingbyweb.co.uk Claire Jarrett

Interesting, what a good idea. Have you noticed much take up yet?
http://clickequations.com Craig Danuloff

Ironically, lots of RT's but nobody else has DT'd to my knowledge. Of course, it's a good sign if not much to disagree with is floating around…
http://zyxo.wordpress.com zyxo

Allways love to see some equilibrium in our world…
http://www.usereffect.com Dr. Pete

I like the concept, in the sense that we don't really have a way to comment on Tweets, but I tend to agree with Toby – The Detweet is essentially just drawing attention to the original point. It's a bit like the “don't think of an elephant” phenomenon.

Still, it's worth a shot. I've been wrong before (more than once, according to my wife). The nice thing about conventions like this is that they're easy to start and try out.
http://www.usereffect.com Dr. Pete

I like the concept, in the sense that we don't really have a way to comment on Tweets, but I tend to agree with Toby – The Detweet is essentially just drawing attention to the original point. It's a bit like the “don't think of an elephant” phenomenon.

Still, it's worth a shot. I've been wrong before (more than once, according to my wife). The nice thing about conventions like this is that they're easy to start and try out.
http://manamica.com Mana

It's a cool idea. I too have noticed there's a ton of “agreeing” in twitterverse but not much disagreeing. Probably because it's easier to say yes via an RT and leave it at that, than say no and explain why.

I would only use DT if the tweet was a cool concept, worth getting additional visibility, despite me disagreeing with it. If it's something idiotic I would not want to give it additional exposure.
http://manamica.com Mana

It's a cool idea. I too have noticed there's a ton of “agreeing” in twitterverse but not much disagreeing. Probably because it's easier to say yes via an RT and leave it at that, than say no and explain why.

I would only use DT if the tweet was a cool concept, worth getting additional visibility, despite me disagreeing with it. If it's something idiotic I would not want to give it additional exposure.
http://www.mediashman.com/ Mars Analytics

Was thinking of that two days ago.
Great idea !

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