You tweeted what?!?

– Robert Kruger 11 May 2011

I can’t count the number of times I have seen a creative firm tweet something like, “ Help! We desperately need a drupal guru to pull us out of a fire!”

Let’s break it down.

“Help!” - The firm is using shareware to build a professional product, and they have learned (too late!) the biggest reason why shareware is a bad solution to build an interactive business: there is no technical support from the software publisher.

“We desperately …” - This implies that they have exhausted all of their in-house options. Countless, unbillable hours have already been spent trying to solve the problem.

“…need a drupal guru …” - The problem is bad enough that they don’t simply need production assistance, they need an expert. If this tweet actually finds a viable candidate, they will be expensive, and they may not be available in time to actually prevent the impending disaster. Experts are expensive and busy.

“… to pull us out of a fire!” - They recognize that they are already in trouble with their customer. Fixing the problem is the responsible thing to do, but relying in Twitter for a solution is crazy-bad recruiting and may not save the customer relationship.

So here’s why using shareware and social networking don’t mix. People who use shareware rely (heavily!) on their network of friends and associates to resolve problems. That’s what Facebook and Twitter are for, right? Well … not if you also rely on social networks to keep in touch with customers. If you have allowed your customers access to your social networks, the example above is the kiss of death. If your customer sees that tweet, they interpret it as, “Help! We don’t know what we’re doing, and we over-promised our capabilities to our customer.”

Dialogs is commercially published, open-source software which means you will always get professional (and private) technical support. We understand how to feed your business.