How Twitter Lost Me At Follow

I’ll have to let you know what happens to the question I just posed on twitter (sorry I didn’t see this first :).

I want to keep my connections, but right now I feel it’s mostly just “noise” and I’m beginning to not enjoy Twitter like I used to.

If it’s all noise – you won’t be able to build relationships (and yes, I know tweetdeck can help, but it’s not the best answer, imho).

You bring up a very good point Mark. I check and respond to my @replies and direct messages all of the time, but only check the full stream a few times a day because otherwise there is just too much and the conversations are disjointed.

I joined http://www.Tweetworks.com as a way to try to follow the conversations I want. There’s a group called RealEstateTweeple there and it’s very easy to start a new group.

I follow folks whose tweets and profile I find interesting, engaging, and worthwhile, particuarly those with whom I have something in common. My follow list is a bit over 400, my followers, just under 500.

The value the few that do actually frequenly tweet is still worthwhile. Noise is relative, of course, and some of the banter between those I follow and their followers, I skim over. However there are often gems among the noise that make each visit to Twitter something worth doing.

1000 or more followers and those we follow? I would venture to guess not all 1000 tweet every day nor do they visit Twitter every day. Twitter, while a worthwhile venture, is often for social sorts. Those who joined up to appease another (i.e. in business, from someone saying it is a good thing) may not participate. Those who sought out Twitter or to whom Twitter was recommended as a social networking tool and a way to gain relationships and contacts and to(over time) gain actual business are more likely to participate.

Is it “all good?” I dunno. Ask those who have thousands following and who follow thousands. Can’t fathom it myself, but then again when I was at 180 follows I couldn’t fathom being over 400. That said, I am finding it’s good at 400+.

Should *you* follow more than 100 people? That’s a good question… One that YOU have to decide.
Should *I* follow more than 100 people? Well yes, frankly.

Here’s the thing – there’s no right or wrong on Twitter. There are, at best, some “best practices” if you are trying to achieve certain results from it. Even in those best practices, there will be variants.

The power of Twitter is in the fact that it doesn’t have “rules” or “shoulds” or “shouldn’ts” each and every individual user gets to craft his or her own environment.

Don’t like how someone else is using it? Don’t follow them.
They’re following you and trying to impose their presence by @ing you incessantly?
Block them.

At present, I interact with about 4,000 people on twitter according to the counters.
Now, let’s talk about what that means.
I post on average about 100-200 posts a day. Around 95% of those are @s – conversations with other users.
I post about 50 DMs a day. All of those are interaction with other users.
I have “close” relationships with a couple hundred people.
I have “twitter” relationships with a couple thousand. (by that I mean we interact solely on twitter, and when we have things to say to each other… either I @ them or they @ me and the other responds)
I have “symbolic” relationships with the rest – that would be because they don’t post often (or at all anymore) but mostly, we don’t interact – however, there are times when we do.

Do I “keep up” um, no. That’s a mindset that works great at under 100 followers.
But for me, twitter isn’t an email thread… it’s a cocktail party. I don’t walk into a cocktail party and say “okay, I just got here – quick! Tell me what everyone has said for the past 3 hours!”
I walk in and say “hello! What are we talking about?” and someone might say “oh, Jenny said to tell you that she thinks X” (read: posted an @ to you 3 hrs ago) – if Jenny’s in the room I walk over and say “Jenny, about X…” (@ her back)
Someone might say “You missed the conversation about Y – go talk to Tim & Joe to get caught up” (I saw an interesting twitter about it – I went to Tim & John’s timestreams to get caught up)
Someone might come over and talk to me right away (@ me and engage)

Twitter behavior is determined by what YOU want to get out of it. Not what other people *think* you should want to get out of it.

Do I have real relationships with the people I follow? Don’t just trust me when I say yes – ask them.

After all, I came here through @LaniAR’s tweet. You can ask her if you like. She’ll probably laugh, but you can ask her.

@GeekMommy

You can follow back via courtesy as much as you want but the Real Value comes into play when you focus on your priority listeners. The best way to do this is create a Priority Group in Tweetdeck and that way you can only focus on the ones you put in your priority group, otherwise if you are only on the Web/Mobile Etc then I agree there can be room for improvement in focusing on the priorities.

I don’t have more than 100 following or followers. I like it that way. I don’t follow everyone who follows me, I read through their tweets before I friend them and sometimes, what they tweet doesn’t appeal to me or isn’t something that I want people who know me/work with me to see over my shoulder.

I like what Lucretia said about it being like a cocktail party-so true. I very rarely flip back through pages of tweets to “see what I missed”-unless I had to leave in the middle of a good thread.

I have about 1000 followers/following. Could easily handle ten times as much. Why? Because I’m not reading every tweet from every person, every minute. I miss 99% of what gets said. I don’t care if 99% of my followers miss what I said.

When I feel like it, I go post something. I usually stick around to see what folks online at that moment might be saying, and then I’m off.

There are people I follow for real. Everything they post. @respres, @tboard, @mizzle, @gingerw, @beerealty… but I use search.twitter.com to follow them. So for instance, do a search for housechick (my favorite twitterer of all time BTW) then click on the RSS icon, then dump it into an RSS feed reader.

Now, every time housechick tweets, or is mentioned by someone else, it goes to my feed reader. When I want to see everyone, I go to my twitter client. When I want to see what my most important connections (maybe the ones for you Mark, that you want to build stranger relationships with) on twitter are saying, I go to my feed reader.

Once you don’t feel obligated to make sense of the Twitter Stream, all those tools you lament like BrightKite and Blip become positives because they add to conversation. You want to really connect with someone? Share your taste in music on blip. You want to take online conversations offline? It happened to me yesterday when I used BrightKite to tweet and a follower found me in the same restaurant.

I use Twitter to meat people. I use all those other tools to develop relationships with them.

Mark, I think it gets back to why we are on twitter. Am I going to unfollow someone simply because I don’t like their conversation or their tweets? That depends on who they are. If I could care less about another agents conversation on something they are passionate about, yet they are just as passionate about their clients…I don’t unfollow them because I would still love to send them a referral given the opportunity.

If it is someone who has followed me for what ever reason I don’t know and we have nothing in common, then yes.

I think maybe web 3.0 will be a lot less social for this reason. It’s about finding people you have something in common with right? Whether is be real estate, someone local who checks in on brightkite and you want to meet up with them or simply someone that you share the same music taste and enjoy blipping music with. I don’t think any of it is wrong, it’s just that you can’t please everyone. It would be a waste of time trying to do so.

Anyhow, I don’t think it is noise. I think it is just people being people.

I love Twitter. Ok, my bias is showing.
Cocktail party, yes. Sitting in the back of the classroom passing notes, yes. Emergency alert broadcast system, absolutely. It’s all that, and more.

I’ve been told I have eclectic friends, and Twitter has opened doors to conversations and ideas that I might have missed. I search periodically on my current passion or fascination, and see who’s discussing. I use Tweetscan and other tools to keep up on business related conversations, which do happen also.

It’s a tool. It’s toy. It’s whatever you want it to be. And whatever that is to you, enjoy it.

I have around 1000 followers but am following maybe 600. You can’t keep up with them all and I don’t read every tweet. I share your view on the blip and the mugshots but that is what people like to do on twitter. Some of the relationships I have via twitter have value, others do not. Kind of like my life outside of twitter.

Lots of tak about Twitter lately. I admit I just didn’t get it at first. I was looking to make some new friends, learn more about people I alreday knew in the industry and make the most of the marketing potential it provides.

I have since broadened my view, looked at local Twits and found some great new friends and businesses.

I don’t always get a response, but that’s okay – often I do. I’m still learning about the potential, but enjoy the bits of wisdom and insight I gain each time I visit.