Having a blue check never came with benefits, but at least it gave me a good story and I’ll be sad to see it go
I got my Twitter blue check because I asked for it, but I wouldn’t pay for it. It’s been a fun, silly quirk that I relish, but nobody else cares about, like having a diamond stud in a pierced nipple. I’ve used it to talk with people who would otherwise ignore me. One time, it really impressed folks, but being impressive did me no good. I’ll be sad if it goes, and a little worse off, but it was like many golden opportunities in life. Fleeting, memorable, and worth the good story.
Twitter has always been a professional space for me, even if I treated it unprofessionally. I was skeptical at first, fourteen years ago when I joined. I was a brand new father, active on Facebook with family and old friends, but keeping my professional life separate.
I joined Twitter because I saw that there was an industry event, a party with free food and booze, to which I hadn’t been invited. I joined Twitter and followed my regular crowd of industry friends who get invited to parties. I asked Sascha Segan, formerly the mobile reviewer at PC Magazine, where the party at? He told me. Twitter paid off on day one.
It was easy to get Twitter’s appeal as the virtual water cooler, because my work friends were dispersed across the Internet and the globe. We had no water cooler, except at tech industry events, under the watchful eye of corporate PR and managing editors.
It was great to have a place to share ideas and opinions about phones and technology. It wasn’t much more than that. It was photos of great sandwiches and customer service gripes and occasionally you’d watch two people flirt and get together. It was fun.
I joined the Samsung Marketing department in 2011, moved to Public Relations where I managed phone reviews, then left in 2017. I was one of the few folks in the US authorized to speak on Samsung’s behalf and give my actual name. Most PR flacks will ask journalists to write “said a Samsung spokesperson” when they are quoted.
Not me, I could get my name in the paper without getting fired. Getting your name in the paper, like the New York Times, is a funny thing. I think most people think it would be cool to be mentioned in the New York Times. For me, and especially folks in PR, it’s not usually cool. It’s frightening. It means something bad may be going down. It means I stuck my head out too far, and I might get hit.
I’ve never had enough Twitter followers to get verified without asking. I’ve never been famous, or infamous, thankfully. Shortly after the blue check mark appeared and became a coveted tag on Twitter, the company offered a way to apply for a blue check. I applied and got accepted.
To apply, I sent a couple of articles from The New York Times that quoted me by name. I also sent some byline articles from old web sites, but being a named Samsung spokesperson quoted in the Times was enough, I’m sure.
