What I've Learned About Twitter
2009
March
25
You might remember the day. After months of bashing Twitter I gave in and joined.
When I decided to jump in I knew I could only do it one way: all the way. It is why I blog everyday, and also try to update my Twitter at least 10 times a day. Trying to engage in the conversation with @replies usually makes than number an easy one to hit.
You can follow me HERE. Or sign up for your own account HERE.
Going into my dive into Twitter I knew almost nothing about Twitter other than I usually don’t care about what people are doing. As you can tell by that comment (and if you Twitter), it is pretty obvious I’ve learned a lot in the last 3 months. Here is some of what I’ve learned:
- Most Tweeps (Twitter people) are selfish. The majority of people never reply to my @replies or engage in any sort of meaningful conversation to any of my Tweets. Now I don’t engage with everyone, but I do make a conscience effort to engage with the people I follow.
- Engage in the conversation. For the people who use Twitter just to tell others what they are doing, I think Twitter has limited value or potential. Just like blogging, Twitter is most useful when you engage with the people around you. By all this I mean, reply to tweets, put links in your tweets, and ask questions in your tweets.
- If a person has more than 5,000 followers and you don’t know them…don’t follow them back. It probably means that they just add and drop people all day long to inflate their numbers and look important. I think it was Matt Singley who coined them “pump and dumpers.” I have no tolerance for them.
- Use some type of service that tells you when people unfollow you. It always amazes me that people that I think enjoy engaging in Twitter conversation with me and then unfollow me. But, I want to at least not be following them for no reason. I use SocialToo.
- Use Tweetdeck or something close to it. Don’t ask questions about this. Just do it. You can thank me later.
- Follow people back. This is subject to controversy and personal opinion, but I think if a perfectly normal person wants to follow you, it makes sense to be kind and follow them back.
- Twitter isn’t going to save the world. Despite what many people will say about Twitter, it isn’t the best thing since sliced bread. My big challenge of this was trying to help out my friend Jill to get more piano students. There are a lot of people in Portland who follow me, and only 2 or 3 tried to help me get the word out through Twitter (it was actually very disappointing for me). This isn’t to say the potential isn’t there, but Twitter isn’t going to perform any miracles.
What have you learned about Twitter?
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Tyler Braun.
Same with blogging…many people blog (unlike you of course), just to have one-directional conversation…(ok I guess not conversation since it’s one directional). Maybe some of those people just have extreme needs to be heard and nobody listens to them in real life…whereelse ya gonna turn then except to the Internet? Haha…
Yeah… #4.. what’s up with that? I thought it was just me, but I guess not.
I just stopped following them too
Good post. Everyone’s got their own Twitter philosophy (Twittosophy? Yeah… I just coined that) on how to update and who to follow. For the most part, I’m similar to you. I’d differ on these points:
Regarding #1 and #2: I have a hard time with people who use Twitter as a chat room. Their Twitter feed gets clogged with @ replies that mean little to the majority of their followers. My basic rule is that if it’s not entertaining or informative to most followers, it should probably be a direct message instead of an @ reply. (I agree with engaging… just don’t be annoying)
Regarding #6: Maybe it’s just personal preference, but I need a pretty good reason to follow someone. Being “normal” just doesn’t cut it! I usually try to follow people that I could see myself sitting down and having a cup of coffee with. If someone follows me and their first page of tweets is nothing of interest (or it’s all @ replies) it’s a good bet I’m not going to follow back.
Good points Luke.
Maybe I should add #8 to the list. “Do not follow everyone’s @replies”. They are a waste of time.
I used to not follow people that had a lot of @ replies on their Twitter page but then realize that most of those do not appear on my timeline. As I started following some of those people I have engaged in really good conversations with them.
Last week I unfollowed around 300 people, they were just in it to promote services and would not bring anything interesting to me. I will keep unfollowing these on a regular basis, since I have automatic follow set up for anyone who follows me since it’s hard to keep track.
On that note I also follow like 200 or more people that don’t follow me, like @rainnwilson just because his tweets are fun.
I agree with Luke on point 1.
Engaging conversation is fine, but as Luke said, clogging up my feed with your chat room is pretty annoying.
I try and give a mix, about half my tweets are informative, providing links, ideas, etc.
The other half I update with very real life things like “eating lunch at chipotle” or something.
This is probably because my facebook and twitter are linked, and WAY more people follow me on facebook than twitter. If I unlink them, I will probably give up on Twitter.
I’ve been signed up to Twitter for a while now, and like you was putting it off for ages just because I didn’t really get it. As I’ve got into it, I think it has its moments, but I really can’t decide how much I like it. Sometimes I think its really useful for keeping in touch with people but there also seems to be loads of Twitter Spam with random people and groups twittering lots of useless information.
I think what I like most about it is the tags/trends, which make it really easy to follow people who chat about the same stuff, but am surprised that a lot of people don’t engage in the debate. I guess I can be just as guilty as not replying though!
An interesting aside, the UK government are thinking of making lessons in blogging and Twitter etc compulsory for kids at school:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7962912.stm. I guess that’s a sign of the times!
Hey, according to my tweetstats, I @reply to you frequenly! (grin)
I use TweetLater – though it doesn’t fill me in on who quits following, and why. I have it set to auto-follow anyone who follows me, and then unfollow if they unfollow. I get the keyword report a couple of times a day and frequently follow people who are using words like “worship pastor”, “worship confessional”, “Worship leader”, etc …. but in tweetdeck my attention stays on the “Friends” Group … and I put people in that group that I know, or who engage with me directly.
TweetLater also sends me emails when I get @reply so I can try to stay in the loop on those.
Thanks for the mention, and I’m glad you decided to stick with Twitter! For all of the bad, there are certainly some good reasons to use it.
Here you go
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29894062/wid/11915829?GT1=40006
that’s pretty much the same stuff I learned in about the same time. Agreed 100%
Good post!
I love SocialToo as well. I use it to determine who is using the “Pump and Dump”. I believe Singley coined that term
And, as most people who follow or have followed me know, I don’t have an issue with @replies. Especially with no IM’ing feature in the Twitter world, I have found that a conversation between multiple people cannot take place via DM. Besides, I use Tweetdeck, so I have zero issues with noisy people. I can either place them in a column for “noisy” people, or I can place the “@” in a filter for each column and never see any @replies. Anyone that @replies to me shows up in my replies column and I can respond to them there. Works well.
I have similar tastes to who I follow as well. If someone follows me, I love to respond in kind. But, I draw the line at sales, marketing and self-help people.
Just realized as I’m reading this that you direct messaged me when I followed you, and I didn’t direct message back. I guess I’m part of the statistic. Sorry!
I used to think blogging and twittering was about getting ideas out there, but I’m finding it much more valuable to ask questions and invite dialogue. Hearing other people’s thoughts makes me smarter.
And I guess i’m way behind in my knowledge of the twitter universe. I didn’t know there were twitter stats and automatic response thingys. I better get on it! : )