Have you ever had one of those friends who you take to the movie theatre with you for the first time, and they kind of interrupt the movie at the very beginning by talking? But you figure it’s an isolated incident so you answer them, laugh at their joke, and just shrug it off.
But then they do it again, and again, and again…
After a while, even though you love this person, you’re ready to strangle them? Well, that is kind of what Guy Kawasaki is becoming to me. Let me explain…
So, What’s The Problem?
Yesterday was my birthday, August 13th. It was also a Saturday. Every once in a while I like to check in on Google+ to see what is going on with the people in my Circles. Currently I’ve got about 200 people that I’m keeping an eye on and really want to see their updates.
Every time I log in to take a look, all I see is Guy Kawasaki and his Origami butterfly! Seriously, I mean virtually all day long he is right on the top of the screen.
Now, I don’t really “know” Guy. I think we’ve met once or twice at a convention or something. He probably doesn’t know my name, and he definitely doesn’t “know” me. So this post isn’t likely to matter to him one way or another (well, except it’s free publicity), but I do actually enjoy several of his posts.
Still, the volume of his sharing is… what is the right word? Large? Massive? Overwhelming? Overkill? Inconsiderate? Insulting? Infuriating? (Notice how the more I think about it, the worse the descriptor becomes? I wonder what the psychology of that is…)
Guy Kawasaki’s Post Frequency
Take a look at just Guy Kawasaki’s Google+ post distribution from yesterday:
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 10:18 AM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 10:19 AM – Public
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 10:23 AM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 1:18 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 10:36 AM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 10:45 AM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 1:17 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 11:06 AM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 11:19 AM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 1:17 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 12:20 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 12:41 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 4:46 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 4:59 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 5:32 PM (edited)
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 5:31 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:07 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:08 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:11 PM
- Guy Kawasaki+ – Yesterday 6:30 PM (edited)
(By the way, random question: why are 50% of the posts Edited?)
What Am I To Think?
I can’t understand the logic behind this sort of activity level on any social networking platform (a place where people interact), so I’ve got all these questions rolling through my brain:
Just a couple of hours ago Guy posted the following:
Every day a few people on Google+ proclaim that my posts contain random, stupid links to stuff they don’t care about. One might ask why they continue to keep me in a circle, but that’s too logical.
Just to show that I don’t give a shiitake if they don’t like my posts…Well, I don’t have a problem with the type of content contained in the posts. Personally, as my readers know, I like variety. But honestly, you’re telling me you really don’t give a shit if I – or anyone else – follows you?
- Has he not considered the annoyance factor of being that guy that just hogs all of the attention, all of the time? Or does he think that everything he has to share is just that valuable?
- Is it a situation where he wants to be the one and only source of news that people get?
- Does he just think of himself as a brand so there’s no real “Guy” to follow, but merely the concept of a social media machine, dressed in Guy clothing?
- Is it simply that this behavior works to get on lots of lists and build large numbers of followers, and he knows it so he’s just doing what works?
- Is it really Guy who is posting all of this, or does he have other people doing it on his behalf? I mean take a look. He was all over Google+ from 8am – 4:30pm Pacific time on a Saturday. And this is a married guy with several kids. Is he really sitting at home all day on a Saturday sending out these messages?
- Are new followers just so easy to come by that he doesn’t care about churn whatsoever because there is an endless stream of people to more than replace those who can’t take it and leave?
On the same day those 25 posts were made, there were about 50 more over on his Twitter feed – which I unfollowed long ago because it’s clearly no longer his voice and instead just an automated stream of tweets from an account that literally follows over 300,000 people.
By the way, Robert Scoble who has a reputation for high post frequency, is mild by comparison. Yesterday he only posted 3 times, and on normal days it’s maybe 10. And people continuously jump all over him, so why is Guy getting a free pass?
What’s The Solution
I know I’m picking on Guy a bit here, but I think he’s wise enough to appreciate that I’m trying to openly and honestly discuss a concern and find a solution. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really want anyone feeling frustrated or upset in any way when it comes to him personally. And although I’m calling Guy out as an example, there are several other people who do the same thing, and the number is only going to increase.
So, am I the only one here? I mean should I just unfollow as Guy himself suggests? Or should there actually be some social media etiquette with regards to filling up people’s streams? Is it up to the social networks themselves to give us tools to fix this problem? And, by the way, do you even care if the person who you are following is the one actually posting things, or if they have a proxy doing it for them?
I actually want to keep up with some of these folks, but their attitude seems to be take ALL of it, or take nothing. Why isn’t there a happy medium where I only see the most important things they have to personally share?
If he was on Facebook, I’d have no choice but to unfriend or block him. But he’s on G+, so, yeah, put him in a Circle and check it that when you want. I was so used to being inundated by the News Feed, that I would avoid Facebook entire, for days. Circles allow me, in effect, several parallel Feeds, each of which I can tend to as much or as little as I want.
Regardless of whether its G+, FB, Google Groups or anywhere else, there is always one or two Guy Kawasakis and a whole ton of people who never, or seldom, say anything.
I’ll take Guy any day of the week. He’s MUCH more interesting than the phantom lurkers. If you don’t see it that way, go ahead and uncircle those who post “too much”, whatever that means, and enjoy your stagnant feed.
John,
Awesome doesn’t even begin to describe this post. Ironically enough, I answered a question today posted by someone I follow about the good and the bad of G+. I put that the bad was Guy posting every 30 seconds. I am going to “unfollow” him right now. I have actually never even read his stuff and only heard mediocre reviews but he was I name I hear a lot so I followed him. But that’s the beauty of all this. You can follow or unfollow whoever the hell you want to at any time. Thanks for having the balls to say something you feel.
I have a circle called “People I want to follow but post too much” – let’s me check in occasionally on them without it overtaking the whole stream.
in d beginning I was thinking he act clown or something. ..but he really is like a teenager in his attitude. way to much I think too. and the problem is not just to put him in some invisible circle, d moment I think is important is that he is one of d ‘leaders’ in d social media and he gives a bad example for all of d beginners. it’s not d content that make u cool but d speed that u use to share ur content (from his perspective of using d platforms)
in d beginning I was thinking that g+ will be a kind of quite place and d articles will not go out of d stream so fast.. but it turns into twitter style where u can’t follow anything.. (just my opinion)
i unfollowed. period.
Guy is a chatter box. Most of his posts are so lame and calls himself a marketing expert??
Since I wrote this post a few hours ago, Guy shared it on Google+ along with a few responses. In fairness to him, you can find his clarifications here in a post that starts with:
While this blog post wasn’t about “why I didn’t want to follow” him, that’s not an entirely unfair way to begin a response and it’s all in good fun as long as no one gets hurt.
Unfortunately, he also subsequently shared another post that began with:
I can only assume he’s referring to myself, and the rest of you who also shared concerns about his posting frequency.
I always find it unfortunate when people, especially business people, are so willing to cast others aside. I’m not an advocate of trying to turn around haters, but when you resort to insulting people who want to follow you, or buy your product, or whatever you’re “marketing”, that is a very, very bad sign. This can only exist in markets where demand is outstripping supply – such as the current social media sphere. But I’m hopeful that nastiness won’t always be tolerated.
So, now I will actually un-follow him on G+, and while I wouldn’t have minded a good healthy debate, I certainly won’t forget that he personally insulted me.
And of all things… he called me a wimp? ;-) As I said in the post, he doesn’t “know” me.
John P.
The person that creates the filter for the Robert Scobles, Guy Kawasakis, Chris Brogans of the world could probably make a goodly amount of cash. I find tremendous value in some of the posts from all three gentleman. I also enjoy reading Tom Anderson, Seth Godin, Bill Gross, Calvin Lee, Michael Q. Todd, Chris Voss, Adriel Hampton and more. Let’s face it – anybody posting more than 10 times within twenty four hours is taking attention away from the rest of a stream. I follow some of these folks on more than one social media platform but am planning on doing some weeding so that I follow each person on only one site.
Like you…I wonder – are these folks outsourcing?? Not all of them (pretty danged sure Chris Brogan and Adriel Hampton only post their own content plus they barely qualify to be on this list since they are only slightly more active than the average bear). We only have so much time and so much energy to take in all of this information. I would prefer if people post content maybe 3-10 times a day and certainly not do a mass update to all of their platforms (won’t matter anymore when I filter them out) but still… Since I’m already being candid, I’m going to admit that I wonder about people that post from 3 am or 4 am then stop until 7 am then do a steady stream all day. Is that addiction? Sleep disorder? Old fashioned outsourcing? The only issue with the outsourcing theory is that some of the people doing this aren’t hugely popular. I think we will see specialists in Social Media addiction in the near future.
Great post. I’m glad Guy Kawasaki shared it on Google+ – I think he rocks for taking the good with the constructive.
@John I encountered an issue like this not too long ago involving FourSquare. I’m slightly obsessed with checking into locations, and at one time I always shared these check-ins with people on Twitter & Facebook. I had enough people complain that I was spamming them, and I was subsequently unfollowed. I threw out the question to my remaining followers, “Well, am I a spammer?” And overwhelmingly, they supported me continuing to blast them with my check-ins.
Since then, I’ve cut down on the amount I cross-post, and I’ve recovered some of those followers. But I suspect with Guy that the response would be the same: a vast majority (includng me) want him to continue. It’s different on Twitter, where I have a large and varied enough following count that his stuff is diluted in my stream; it’s different on Google+, where the population is largely male and leans towards early-tech-adopters. Follow him on Twitter and skip him on Google+ is my advice.