Product or person?
July 16, 2008 //
We setup an account for Wubud on Twitter a few months ago to raise some awareness for the company and promised to give away a Mac Air in a prize draw as soon as the account reached 5,000 followers. Numbers increased each time we talked about Wubud but they stagnated as soon as we stopped. So, in light of this and to ensure we give away the lovely kit on this side of the next millennium, we’ve decided to solicit your opinion.
Should we change the rules so that the Air is given away when my personal Twitter account reaches 5,000 followers, or, don’t change anything and continue the competition on the basis of Wubud followers?
By changing to my personal account you no longer subscribe to a product, which I personally don’t particularly like anyway. It will also mean the Air is likely to be given away more quickly as I have just over 1,300 followers. On the down side to changing, it might annoy those who signed up to Wubud and who couldn’t care less about my personal ramblings outside of that particular product.
[Update: if the majority go with the 'change', we'll add everyone who's following Wubud into the prize draw to guarantee that their name is in at least once for their effort]
What do you think? We promise to go with the majority and the final outcome will be announced on the 21st of July 2008.
Feel free to leave your general opinion about product vs person twitter accounts.
lwarren17 says 
Chris says 
Robin Blandford says 
I think that it’s better for Wubud and for you to tie it to your personal twitter account. Twitter is a people-oriented environment, and the wubud account itself doesn’t generate the volume of stuff to merit continious partial attention.
July 16th, 2008
I vote ‘no’ purely because it seems a bit unfair to change the rules of a competition after you have started one. Though I can see why it makes sense, seeing as your ‘ramblings’/persona are very much tied into the product.
July 16th, 2008
I think for products to have a great twitter account there needs to be something very specific that they’re going to tweet - I know a lot of people don’t like the Tower Bridge tweets but personally I find them awesome, they’re super regular and essentially the same ‘opening’ ‘closing’ - but for a service the potential for tweets to be random or uninteresting is much higher which I think people are happy to accept from an actual person but less likely to accept from a service / product.
July 16th, 2008
@Stewart - I take your point about changing the rules. Regarding my ramblings; out more than 9,000 tweets, fewer than 20 mention Wubud where my tweet isn’t in response to a question. I rarely talk about the companies and have been told by many, that I should do so more often.
July 16th, 2008
@Stewart - If the majority went with the change, we could put everyone who’s following Wubud into the hat so they’re guaranteed to have their name in at least once.
July 16th, 2008
Obviously it would seem more attractive to bring it over to your account where there are more followers and you have the potential to generate more interest but I think it is best to stick to the way you have it now because people interested in Wubud as you said may not want to hear from you personally. I’d continue plugging Wudbud from your own personal Twitter account, as well as giving people regular updates and engaging from Wubud too. That should do it hopefully!
July 16th, 2008
What I meant was you discuss social networking and mobile technology a lot, which is what wubud seems to be about.
July 16th, 2008
Stick with the product. Otherwise you confuse the heck out of people
July 16th, 2008
My motivation to sign up to wubud twitter is to keep informed about the product as it is interesting to me. 1/5000 chance of winning a mac book air doesn’t really come into it.
July 16th, 2008
Keep the twitter feed with the product. People are after hearing about the product on the product feed, they don’t want to lose the product message amongst your personal tweets… You’re lovely and all that but you may just scare off some of your wubud followers by adding them to your personal feed. (they are two distinctly different interest groups)
Keep up the good work!
July 16th, 2008
i vote to go for following wubud. in behalf of everyone, we don’t want to miss out the product updates and messages against your personal tweets. big difference even if you still own the wubud.
anyways, keep it coming paul. goodluck and congrats!
July 16th, 2008
Count both. Otherwise, it’ll take so long to get to the 5k mark that the air will be obselete, and therefore a bit of a waste of time.
If you’re only going to pick one, I would stick with Wubud, but give it a bit of a publicity boost, create a bit of a buzz - 1 in 5k isn’t that bad odds, considering things like the lottery that people enter.
July 17th, 2008
It will take several years to get to 5000..
July 17th, 2008
Keep as is I say!
Follow the product, if interest is waning , talk about it more!
July 19th, 2008