Warning: This post contains food and other frivolous content, which may incite readers to respond.
This morning when my weekly organic veg box arrived, I opened it with my usual curiosity. Although it comes with a list of the week’s contents, the list doesn’t take into account any substitutions that are a result of one or more of that week’s items being on my don’t-include list. And since I had excluded radishes (because I have a backlog of radishes), there was a substitution which would require identification. Not always easy. A couple of weeks back I finally gave up and called the provider, describing my mystery veg as looking “kind of like a brain.” After much laughter and several tries, we figured out it was celeriac (which was delicious in the end).
But today, when I was completely stumped by something that looked like a cross between a carrot and a potato, I really didn’t want to have to call them again. So I decided to see if I could tap the “wisdom of the crowd” that social media experts are always talking about. I scrubbed off all the dirt (this is how you can tell the veg is organic, by the way), used my iPhone to take a picture, and attached the photo to a Twitter message asking if anyone could help me identify my mystery veg.
Immediately the suggestions started pouring in, and within minutes I knew my Twitter crowd had solved my mystery, identifying my nobbly little friends as Jerusalem Artichokes. And the tweets kept coming, some from people who clearly hadn’t seen that we’d solved the mystery (the most popular guess, by the way, has been yams), some from people offering recipes for preparing them. I’ve gotten more response from this than anything else I’ve ever tweeted. And the photo has been viewed more than 80 times!
I also happened to see a separate Twitter discussion between social media guru Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan ) and @jjprojects about how food-related posts seem to get the most response. And I’d already noticed over the past few weeks that my own tweets about what I’m making for dinner get more response than anything else I write, and that those exchanges have resulted in ongoing Twitter relationships.
So it all got me thinking that there’s a communication lesson in all this. Here’s what I think it is: It’s the silly things that bring people together, allow us to connect and develop relationships. Frivolous things, like what’s for dinner, what we did last weekend or what music we’re listening to. It’s why social media is such a rapidly growing phenomenon, because along with all the knowledge-sharing and thought leadership, there’s a human-level connection that is mostly missing in a lot of business communication.
Food for thought.
Hi Barb,
I absolutely agree about the human aspect of shooting the breeze. True communication starts with rapport. Without that, every message is lost. Plus food is a great unifier. From my experience, one of the fastest ways to a client’s heart is his/her stomache.
I agree Barbara! I Tweeted the other day about wishing more of my offline friends were on Twitter and mostly it’s because I want to be able to talk to more people who really know me. All of the social media discussions are interesting, but I’m still missing that human connection in many ways. I think that’s why I enjoy Facebook so much. I have so many friends from high school, college, and elsewhere on there that I can share the fun and absurd things in life with–and who know me well enough to start a conversation over them. It’s also why I so thoroughly enjoy your Tweets and blog posts. They are so utterly full of humanity and I love it! Keep it up!
Makes a lot of sense. Who doesn’t love food? It’s a much better topic than spreadsheets, budgeting, and meetings.
I agree that food is a great way to create Twitter conversation. My best click thru results of photos are of food and landscapes. Other great topics/photos - puppies, kittens, other pets, and, of course, kids.
@scottyhendo
I agree with Lindsay. I feel “funny” tweeting the mundane when there are so few who really know me tweeting. As a newbie, I fear some of the “pros” will roll their eyes, not take me seriously, and unfollow.
I really appreciate your posts and tweets - a big help in figuring out the rules and the grey areas
Great post, Barb. As a food junkie myself, I enjoy reading your food-related tweets just as much as the communications tweets. It’s a great way to find common ground with people you have never met. We started some social media initiatives at work recently, and I advocated that people not be afraid of mixing their personal and professional identifies on twitter. That human connection really can make a difference, as you have clearly seen.
great post. I think it must be the shared experience — all of us have to eat. It’s also the type of thing that we would share in real life. If we were friends in the truest sense we’d hang out, go to dinner, invite each other over, learn what one another likes/dislikes, share recipes, etc. So…how did you cook them?
So true - most communication is about day to day stuff, and we all like to talk about food
I guess most marketing people on Twitter are connected to lots of other marketing people, so we want to make any business-related tweets as impressive as possible. When we talk about non-work things, that says more about who we are. If we were all connected to chefs and food writers, we’d probably be less open when talking about food
Barbara,
Last year Wired magazine did a cover on how our culture is losing community and even meaning as we dissipate family and spirituality across the landscape of society.
The result: we have a growing need for finding human-level connection in everything, including our business communications.
Twitter is one way of finding our way back. And it’s no surprise that the younger generations are not responding to didactic truth-telling, but want narrative, personal story, and meaningful connection. And they want it in simple and easy to grasp means.
It’s easy to see who’s in touch with this and who isn’t. Winning buzz-word bingo and using multi-syllable bizwords isn’t effective any more.
The keys going forward - Being real, speaking simply, and telling a story - in short, not selling, but serving.
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That’s the first time I’ve heard about food being a popular topic on Twitter. Just this evening I was joking with a few Twitter friends about blueberry pancakes. We were serving them up hot and everybody was having lots of fun.
I also find that it’s the silly interchanges that bring me closer to my twitter friends. Once we’ve shared a laugh like that, we can’t wait to see each other on Twitter again.