If you follow me on Twitter, you have probably come across my daily routine of addressing His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet about his breakfast habits.
I am a huge fan of the Dalai Lama and have a great fondness for the Buddhist teachings, but when it comes to his Twitter skills I think there is a lot for His Holiness to learn.
A quick glance over the Lama’s profile will see an extremely impressive 1,015,730 followers and a slightly less impressive 698 tweets, but what is this? Following 0? Nobody? Can the DL really have no interest at all in what the rest of the world has to say? Surely even His Holiness must have somebody who’s daily ramblings provide challenging thoughts, inspiration or even a little chuckle?
My biggest issue though, and why all this breakfast shenanigans began in the first place, was with His Holiness’ lack of engagement. Looking back through his Twitter stream will show that he has not once @ replied to a single soul, and I’m sure that there has been plenty of opportunity considering his vast fan base. It was because of this void of conversation that I decided to begin my campaign, some have said harassment, of the Dalai Lama.
I chose that thing that has become the running gag on Twitter, tweets about what you had for breakfast, to be the core of what I would build my crusade upon. I felt that this most simple of all questions would highlight the flaw that was at the centre of His Holiness’ content strategy.
Will I ever receive an answer to my question? Will the @DalaiLama break his social silence and grant me an audience? There will be those of you who will have no doubt that my chances are incredibly slim indeed, zero even. But from what I have experienced during my time on Twitter I genuinely don’t know and remain forever optimistic 😉