I want to tell the story of how my six year old son, Simon, pwned Guy Kawasaki. In order to set the story correctly, I have to share a little bit about my take on social media and how I think Guy Kawasaki gets it wrong. Of course, Guy is invited to chime in here on the blog or ring me at my direct line, *REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*.
I Love Social Media
Most of my readers know that I love social media. I love being social, and the Internet is a great place to do that. If you have read any of my articles on social media, or have ever been to one of my interactive live Webcasts, you probably understand my thoughts on this topic. My feeling is that I would rather start with ten people saying something nice about me, because I was good to them, than to have 100,000 people to shout my message at. I do not mean to sound too much like “Stuart Smalley“, but people seem to like my message because they know I mean it. If those people tell a friend “hey, I know this marketing guy, Murnahan … I think he could help you”, I have received much more than I would by shouting at a deaf audience of 100,000. You can say that this does not apply to organizations seeking to reach millions of people, but it does, indeed. Let’s say for example that if those like Guy Kawasaki made a greater effort at communicating with me, he would suddenly have many thousands of additional people seeing his message, because I would pass it along, and my friends would pass it along … etcetera.
Is Social Media Just Social?
I am not trying to say that social media is just social. For examples of my thoughts on social media, I offer you my recent articles on “The Value of Social Media Marketing” and “The Social media Marketing Dilemma“. For those of us who really value social media and its importance to our lifestyles, you will likely appreciate that I met my wife through social media (@pegmu).
How Simon Won the People
So how did a little boy pwn Guy Kawasaki? A lot can be said about intent. I am not going to fact check and give source citations on this. It should be pretty easy to look it up for yourself. As I have been told, Guy Kawasaki employs three or more writers to do his tweeting on Twitter. I have also heard speak that Guy Kawasaki holds the value of a Twitter Retweet in very high regard.
A while back, on February 20th, I had this funny idea to create a Twitter-related video to show my personality and to make a few laughs. I even blogged about funny Twitter videos, because they are great fun to watch. It was all in fun, and we set out to make this video which went from concept to completion in well under an hour. The kids had a great time making it, and they still bring it up about how fun it was.
Here is Simon’s Video Pwn of Guy Kawasaki
The video is not actually how Simon “pwned” the social media master. For the real “pwn”, you will need to read the whole thing!
After making the video, I sent a message over to two guys who were mentioned in the video by Simon. These guys were Rob McNealey (@RobMcNealey) and Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki). I thought for sure that they would take it in good humor and have a fun laugh at the little six year old redhead from Kansas talking trash on them. Rob McNealey promptly responded with a good laugh and he Retweeted it to his friends on Twitter to see how he was “shamed” by this little boy. The response from Guy Kawasaki was not the same. In fact, Guy Kawasaki and his team of writers chose to completely ignore it.
Since the time we made that video, I have quite a few more friends on Twitter. I sometimes send the video out just so new friends can see it, have a laugh, and maybe get a better feel for who this @murnahan guy is. The video came up in conversation with one of these friends who wondered if Guy Kawasaki had seen it and, if so, what his take on it was. I explained that he, nor his writers, even gave it a nod. So, this is when “Simon Pwned Guy Kawasaki”. The tweet went out, and it was retweeted many times. The Tweet read like this:
Simon Pwned @guykawasaki http://is.gd/rykd [the #ghostwriters didn’t know!]
How Can This Be Called “Pwned”?
So how is that really being “pwned”? Well, it was really a joke when Simon said in the video that “we need to put him back in his spot”. Of course it was a just a joke! I was just a small guy who had very few followers, and certainly was not out to compete in any way with this social media giant.
When it actually came down to being pwned is when Simon and his daddy are very commonly more popular in all of the measures of Guy Kawasaki’s coveted Retweet than the man and his ghost writers who do not respond to their audience. Social media is about hearing and being heard. It seems that all his camp really cares about is being heard, which clearly indicates to me that they really don’t care about us “followers” any more than they do about their ability to sell us their words.
Regarding the real “Pwn”, just look at how many people follow each of us, respectively, and then see who is really being listened to. Here are some 3rd party references:
- RetweetRank.com Leaderboard
- RetweetRank.com @murnahan
- Twitalyzer: The 10 Most Influencial in Twitter
- Twitalyzer Analysis of @murnahan
- Retweetist Top 100
- Retweet Radar
Now you tell me what you think, because I really want to hear. Is social media for broadcast or is it also valuable to hear what others have to say? I think it can be used either way, and it is the users choice, but I wonder which you think makes more sense.