There is a growing outcry against Guy Kawasaki’s, um, aggressive techniques on Twitter. In a number of recent keynote addresses, Kawasaki has described how he uses Twitter as an advertising channel for his ventures. There is also much concern over his use of ghost twitterers.
Here are some of the postings he has inspired in the last couple of weeks:
- Lisa Barone: Guy Kawasaki: Twitter As a Tool for Social Media, Best Line: “He thinks Twitter is a tool (I think Guy is a tool)”
- Andrew Goodman: Is Guy Kawasaki Singlehandedly Ruining Twitter? (Part I), Best Line: “I don’t know what office Kawasaki thinks he’s running for, but I hope it’s not much higher up than mayor of a small town. What does he take us for?”
- Lisa Barone: Do You Trust Your Brand to Ghosts?, Best Line: “Guy Kawasaki is like DunkinDonuts (only less personable).”
- Michelle Tripp: Ghost Tweeting is the Milli Vanilli of Web 3.0, Best Line: “This is what happens when you do bad. People walk away. They unfollow. They untrust. I am now unceremoniously referring to it as #guyfail.”
- Stowe Boyd: I Am Afraid Of Ghosts: Guy Kawasaki And The Dilution Of Social, Best Line: “From my perspective, his personal identity has been hollowed out into a brand, like Colonel Sanders or Aunt Jemima: there may not be a person there at all.”
- Duncan Riley: Twitter fail: the rise of the ghostwriters, Best Line: “The social is supposed to equate to real live human beings communicating with each other. Not ‘bots, and ghosts, and things that go bump in the night.””
I’ve been fortunate to see Guy Kawasaki speak on countless occasions, meet him a few times, and, if memory serves, even have dinner with him once (as part of a large group, thanks to an invite from Bob LeVitus). I’ve always found him a fascinating personality, and his advice on building amazing products and providing outstanding service is a lesson that the corporate world still needs to learn.
He’s also a shameless self-promoter. At least since he left Apple, the most important product to Guy Kawasaki has been Guy Kawasaki.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a shameless self-promoter. Heck, I wish I were better at that myself.
When I first joined Twitter (six months or so ago), I of course followed Guy Kawasaki. I love his books. I love his blog. I expected to see him tweeting about lots of interesting things.
Instead, what I received was an endless stream of unrelated, uninteresting crap. I quickly unfollowed him.
I’m also not a huge fan of the concept of ghost writing. It doesn’t seem genuine to me (although in certain cases, such as Cowboys tight end Martellus Bennett’s blog, an exception is probably warranted).
And, where it’s undisclosed (such as was the case initially with Kawasaki), it’s disingenuous.
I’m reminded of Cory Doctorow’s concept of wuffie. Essentially, it represents the trust, influence and karma that comes from the quality and quantity of your social connections. In Doctorow’s world, wuffie is an actually measured score, but as a concept it exists today.
Kawasaki is spending his wuffie rather quickly in the way he’s using Twitter. Fortunately for him, he has quite a bit to spend.
At some point, however, the credibility well may run dry.
I saw this posted on Sphinn, and I felt I had to respond, given that one of the things we do is run a ghost writer agency.
There’s nothing wrong with hiring a ghost writer; it happens all the time with big, fancy folks like celebrities and ex-presidents. And even on Twitter, it’s not the head of CNN that posts and it’s not the head of Maclean’s that posts; those are ghost tweeters. It’s most likely a series of people, in fact.
The tricky part here is that expectations are different on Twitter. First, Guy is unquestionably presented as a person, not as a corporation. Second, people like to feel like they are speaking to a real person, not to a brand.
That being said, the other side of Guy is that he is an Internet celebrity and it should seem obvious that anybody following as many people as he does and tweeting as much as he does is not doing it all by himself (C’mon, everybody raise your hands if you think Guy Kawasaki’s watch has 56 hours on in!).
I’m not here to defend Guy; if you think he sends out drivel, don’t follow him. If you like his stuff, follow him. But don’t get angry because he uses a ghost writer to deliver so much material. Who cares how much of it he writes himself?
David, I think Brian meant that if Guy keeps doing it, many more will be asking “Who cares how much of it he writes himself?”
Not exactly. There are two issues that are of greatest concern to me on this.
1. Disclosure – I know that many don’t find it a big deal, but I’m bothered by someone claiming that words were theirs when they weren’t. He’s cleared that up, but the way he handled it initially was troubling, IMHO.
2. Spamming – I think that way he’s using Twitter is at least very close to the line of spamming, if not over it completely. The way to handle that is to unfollow, if you don’t like it. This is what I did.
On both of these issues, reasonable people can certainly disagree.
Turns out Guy was a tool before twitter. All he’s ever said post-Apple has been ‘Git-R-Done!’ basically. If everyone is real enthused then good things will happen.
Not necessarily.
Great Post Brian.
“UFM,” says Guy Kawasaki in his mock self-interview. “UnFollow Me.” Ya know, I think I will do just that.
http://bit.ly/just-say-NO (my direct response to Guy’s stupidity.
http://twitterghost.com/ (the TwitterGhost makes Guy Kawasaki GHOST Number ONE!
@jmacofearth