:: the rule of 1 : 2 : 2 ::

Tons of good things going on over on this end of the interweb, I love it when a plan comes together…

Currently working with design legend and all around bad ass Austin Howe on getting the word out about his new book Designer’s Don’t Read, preaching and practicing some interactive and social media strategy with Matt @ Factory 25, helping out Pascal @ booquet, cranking out ridiculous iPhone apps with Kyle from Big Sprocket and just accepted a post as an associate editor (as well as photographer and writer) with melophobe.com ( @melophobe ). Honestly, I think I did that more to remind me what to do tomorrow than to tell you all whats going on.

OK, back to the point of this post. I was discussing a social media strategy with Matt from Factory 25 today and he asked if there was a good rule he should be following on twitter for the ratio of personal content to content relating information about his products. There are a ton of posts about twitter’s golden ratio being friends to followers, but isn’t the real golden ratio to be found in the ratio of the kind of content you’re putting out?

My first reaction to Matt’s question was to recoil in horror. OK not horror, but I’ll admit it hurt a little. I hated to think that something that I feel is so organic and based on relationships could have a “golden rule.” I mean it’s all about conversations and not campaigns right (thanks for that @mzkagan)? Be genuine and passionate about what you’re talking about and good things will happen. Surely this is more art than science right?

I’m sure there will be both scientific and go-on-your-gut approaches to this question, but before we go that far we really need to define the kinds of content a little further. Matt originally thought that there were two kinds of content, marketing his goods and relaying information. I know some reports have broken twitter content down into 20 or so themes, but really that would make for one messy ratio. To make it easier, lets say there are three kinds of tweets, ones that are:

1. marketing something (even if it’s yourself)
2. relaying relevant & interesting information
3. expressing personal feelings or things unrelated to what you’re marketing and having conversations

Even writing that I realize that if what you’re marketing is yourself then 1 & 3 are pretty much the same thing, but for the rest of this post, let’s assume that what’s being marketed is goods and not personal services or a personality.

While I haven’t done any solid research on the subject, my initial response was to try out a ratio of 1 (marketing someting) : 2 (relaying information) : 2 (personal & conversational). Going on the idea that even on a heavy day Matt would probably be posting 10 tweets, that would mean two of them were product related, four were industry/entertainment related and four were personal & conversational.

Would love to hear other kinds of crazy math pertaining to this subject…