On two particular blog posts in recent weeks, I shared my thoughts about using Twitter.
I started with a perspective on why I wasn’t following your stream. I later probed you to help me determine if reciprocal following was best. In the comments after each post, you shared your thoughts; and the consensus is everyone makes their own rules and determines their own strategies in using Twitter.
That said, I want to narrow in on a specific cacophony of voices on the noise vs signal ratio which I highlight below.
Patty summarized, “I would vote for quality over quantity. But I’m an old-fashioned kinda gal.”
David elaborated, “It makes no sense to follow everyone who follows you. I have noticed dozens of tweeps who follow me who very rarely update their own feed, have only a handful of followers and I am one of only a clutch of news type outlets they are following, so they’re in it for the buzz not the chat I’d say.”
Monika wrote, “I don’t want/need more followers. I just want to interact with those that I feel a connection with.”
Damian waxed, “[F]ollow anyone and everyone that has the right mix for you. When they stop having that mix stop following them. Relationships can be for a moment, a season or a lifetime. Just go with the flow.”
Heidi suggested, “[I]t’s more important to follow the people who may have something that interests me and not worry about how many are following me in return.”
John offered, “My approach with following could be called the benefit of the doubt method. I auto-follow everyone – even spammers, I suppose. This is for two reasons: 1) It’s my hope that I can learn from everyone who follows me. 2) I don’t have the bandwidth to go through and hand-pick followers to follow back.”
Scanning everyone’s thoughts, I return to Ryan who clinched it for me:
“Your attention is valuable. Just like caller ID lets you make decisions about who you answer calls from and your inbox tells you who is emailing, you have the right to reserve your attention for people who add value. When you follow everyone who follows you, you have no way of telling if they add value or not. The end result is that those who don’t decrease the overall value of the experience. If you eliminate them, your net experiential value goes up.”
It all comes down to value. I wrote about the connection between you and Twitter value three months ago, summarizing the results of an academic study of some 310,000 Twitter users that resulted in the following graphic:
When I changed my Twitter strategy 10 days ago, I shifted from following 10% of my followers to 100%. The Twitter stream of my “friends” shifted from the right to the left. Like John, I can read more of what people are saying and am more likely to reply to someone; but by the same token, I have a hard time keeping up with those fewer people I used to see all the time.
The consensus in those blog comments indicates you want me to revert to following less than more; if for no other reason, than because of the experiential value-add alluded to by Ryan and enhanced by the above image.
For my own posterity: If I am following you right now and if you have applications and bots running like Qwitter, you will shortly see a message that I will unfollow you, for I’m about to pay $25 to SocialToo for the service of unfollowing all my friends. It’s your prerogative, of course, to reciprocally unfollow me. In fact, you may have services set up to unfollow your unfollowers.
Once my Twitter friend level is down to zero, I can focus on following those who provide value to me–and so I can share that value to you. Ultimately, while I remain collecting unemployment and am only part-time employed, my first priority is to use Twitter as a professional networking and collaborating tool, and second as a social chit-chat tool. On that note, here I am on Facebook.
Thank you for telling me to stop following on Twitter. I don’t view this as goodbye–but hello.
Photo credit: d_oracle
{ 61 comments }
I say what you consider valuable can change from day to day. Some days I’m looking for specific information and other days I need to read garbage that will make me laugh. Variety IS the spice of life. Do whatever feels right to you, as for me, I want to know geeks, partiers, moms, experimenters, sailors, comedians, professionals, CEOs, and any other mix you can throw in there.
Rachel Ferrucci´s last blog post..Send Me A CHEF- giveaway
I like the idea of what you are doing!
I’ve recently been thinking about my Twitter experience and I’m trying to figure out how to use it best for myself.
I think I’m going to try utilizing groups in Tweetdeck more and see if that helps.
Otherwise I may follow your lead and follow select few who I really enjoy interacting with.
Rebecca Jones´s last blog post..My husband’s too old for a good ol’ stare down
Interesting experiment. With my main account, I have three rules – I only follow people who follow me, because for me it’s a conversation (and anything I miss that’s important usually finds its way into my stream very quickly). I don’t follow people who don’t tweet, and I don’t follow spammers.
Adriel Hampton´s last blog post..Air Force Public Affairs on Gov 2.0 Radio
Twitter brings me something that no other network does – it tells me what people that I have at least some vague alignment with are talking about, en masse. Not my friends, I can see that in the gated community of Facebook. Not search, it’s too easy gamed. I scan and decide where I want to spend my attention currency – a bit like having many channels on your TV.
Only on Twitter can I see a stream of thousands of people, and notice that hundreds of them are talking about the Mumbai bombing, or Oprah on Twitter. Only on Twitter is the answer to “too much information” more information.
Because Twitter is a synchronous communication stream (not delayed) I stand on a river and pick conversations as they float past. I leave control behind – if I miss a something, no point in going back in a month it will have flowed on.
I use tools such as tweetdeck to group conversations and people but I never know when an outer data point (FOAF or someone I don’t know well) will bring me a nugger, synchronicity abounds.
If I limit my following to only a hundred or 2, I lose that rush and bustle of activity. I am at a big party but stuck in one room with one group. If I follow more, (not all, I manually check for spammers and SEO pushers) I can move into the main discussion area, a warehouse, any time I want.
That’s why I will always follow people who share at least one or two things in common with me.
But I accept others use Twitter in other ways. It’s just unfortunate that you didn’t delete your account. It will be hard to justify a following of 6000 on a mutual social contract when you break the contract by deleting all 6000 connections. After all, we are talking SOCIAL here – hurt feelings and all
Laurel Papworth´s last blog post..Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines
I can fully agree with this approach — by “trimming the garden,” you can find an affinity group of people who may well be different that “friends” you would have ever engaged in life or on Facebook.
I do follow a handful of people who’s ideas I find of interest..but, some of my better FB pals didn’t follow me on Twitter when I followed them. Dropping them was instructive.
I came to the twitter stream a bit late and cautiously, and so far the careful approach has been ok. I work in media and am pretty public, but I’m finding Twitter an interesting way to be more personal…and I rarely crosspost to FB anymore.
Good luck in your starting over!
Scott Hanley´s last blog post..From the 2009 CES
Twitter: wadlington
April 26, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Fred Wilson (www.avc.com) went through a similar thing w/ FB (there is a blog post there w/lots of comments), as did Jim Connolly on Twitter. With so many social networks, they aren’t all used the same way by all people. For me, Facebook is a “place,” full mostly of folks that I actually know, with a few others who slipped in. Some of the folks I know will never be on twitter or other networks, and it has been a great way to reconnect with the past. I also now am much more connected to my youngest brother’s life (he posts all the time) than I ever was before. Many of these folks wouldn’t understand being “dropped,” so I leave that one alone. Twitter is a bit like an airline terminal with folks streaming by. However, I have met folks on twitter that I wouldn’t have met other ways (or at a minimum the timing of that connection was accelerated). I have discovered blogs, including this one. I generally don’t follow the experts (SEO, make-a-lot-of-money, get more followers) on Twitter, but there are a broad variety of other folks that I do follow. Sometimes the torrent is too much – to actually have a connection, I mostly go to the few folks that I have had regular exchanges with, but to discover new stuff (or to Laurel’s point, what people are talking about) the Twitter stream works fine. I also use the search function (where follower/ following is largely irrelevant) to find out important stuff (like why the ALCS (baseball) wasn’t being broadcast – lots of folks were asking and answering the same question – on twitter I got the score and immediate word when TBS routers were back up and the broadcast was on). Similarly I watched the Motrin Moms saga from that early morning moment when a few moms gathered forces and put a call out for bloggers to protest the achey baby wearing ad. My google reader is crammed full of blogs that I don’t have time to read, and I am likely to keep prancing from spot to spot, including overstuffed twitter, serendipitously taking in what catches my eye.
I actually had the same experience as you did in terms of finding that I did not have enough time to meaningfully tweet with my original fellow-tweeters.
However, I have a somewhat different view about the numbers, although there clearly was more “intimacy” and ‘comaraderie” with the smaller numbers:
There are arguably three groups of fellow-tweeters to be taken into consideration. (1) Those with whom you interact one on one, in a reciprocal manner; (2) Those who see some value in following you and absorbing what you have to say; and (3) Those whose expressions you are interested in absorbing.
Twitter: jeffcutler
April 26, 2009 at 4:24 PM
I’m going to unabashedly steal your strategy. Brilliant.
How anyone can follow and communicate with 1000′s is beyond me. You approach is more on track with the value I want to get from Twitter and social media as a whole.
*love the bear on the tracks photo too.
Jeff Cutler´s last blog post..Twitter for Smarties or What Would/Should Oprah Do?
Steal away. Attribution is optional.
Good post and well explained concept. Stop following those that don’t fit the mix makes as much sense as any strategy. Really that’s too general. In your case, you’ve defined, even if internally only, a certain mix or feel to what you want out of your stream and who and what contributes best to that. You should be proud of that. I’ve not gotten to that point.
I honestly feel attached to too many of the folks I follow.
What is working for me is that the best stuff tends to show up repeatedly in my stream. I rarely have to dig to find more than enough stuff to consume and enjoy.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Twitter Popularity Followers and more – Tweepular
It’s interesting to see how many ways there are to use Twitter. Ari, I can see how you’d find it difficult to follow everyone who follows you. At the same time, I can see the benefit of following more people to get a variety of perspectives, learn about different things, etc. Each person just has to find the way that works best for them.
For me, I’ve found the search and group functions of tweetdeck to be very helpful. I follow many of the people who follow me becauseI like having the opportunity to learn from them and to hear various points of view, items of interest and so on. But, I create groups to categorize people. That way I can make sure I’m not missing anything from the people who offer a lot value and the friends/family I know in “real life.” At the same time, I can dip in and dip out of the stream from the rest of the people I follow. A couple months ago, I also created a “This week” category which includes a small handful of people who I want to make a concerted effort to connect with in any given week. The folks in that group rotate every couple of weeks. I’ve found that to be an incredibly helpful way to develop much stronger relationships with people I barely knew.
Just as there are no rules about the best way to use Twitter, there aren’t rules about following/followers. To each their own …
Heather (@prtini)
Heather Whaling´s last blog post..Sheddling Light on Twitter
Intriguing concept. Do you share selected tweets from your weekly groups elsewhere? A weekly roundup?
Dang Ari, good idea. Here I’m being selfish with the wit and wisdom of the tweets in my Advisors/Peers group. Stuff I often just retweet if it’s good or blog about. I rarely do a simple round up of the links or such. Plenty I pass over.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Stop the Twitter train and let me off
@Heather – I’m finding groups equally helpful. Your idea of a “This Week” group is wonderful. I’ll give that a try. I have a similar group, my “Advisors, Peers” group where I follow folks who I don’t want to miss reading, even if we don’t connect all the time. Streamlined RSS sort of thing.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Internet Famous – Twitterlebrity
Ari – It’s great that you’re really taking the time to examine how Twitter can work best for you. I haven’t really had a strategy and thus as my follow count has grown, I’m finding it harder and harder to keep up or to really forge connections with the newer people that I follow. Most of my interaction on Twitter is still with a core group of people that I’ve connected with from almost the beginning.
I don’t autofollow, but I also don’t have time to sift through new followers and really examine their tweet streams to see if I find them valuable. I generally give the benefit of the doubt if it looks like they’re remotely interesting – from my area, in my line of work, etc.
I’ll be interested to hear how this new approach affects the way you use DMs on Twitter, since now there are only a very limited number of people who can send them to you.
amymengel´s last blog post..Do you have “shovel-ready” communications projects?
In recent months, I’ve disliked direct messages on Twitter more and more–for a singular reason: lack of search.
While public tweets can be searched in any number of ways, DMs cannot be searched; so earlier this year, I checked a box in my twitter.com settings and automatically forwarded DMs to email, simultaneously removing the DM column from TweetDeck. While I’ve (since last week) turned the DM column back on, I continue to send the messages to email, for that’s the only way I know of to search those messages.
Personally, I’d rather someone email me directly or googletalk me than DM me. And if someone can’t DM me, that’s all the more reason for the person to @ tweet me.
I like the idea of DMs going to email in order to be searchable. It had not occurred to me to do this. There is a service I discovered last week though, http://tweetake.com/, which allows you to download all of your tweets, or just your DMs for example.
Not being able to search DMs has been an issue for me. That’s where lots of folks end up sending their phone #, address, or email initially. No way to search is a pain. Heck, you can’t even sort by sender.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Twitter Blocked, Facebook Banned, LinkedIn Locked
Hi Ari. Everyone has their own way of generating value from Twitter. I commend you for being focused and having a strategy that works for you.
While I enjoy my stream and follow back most people that I have something in common with, I often become concerned about how in the world I’m going to be able to communicate with all of them. At the same time, I have made excellent connections here both business and personal, and it’s because I have been really open-minded about people who have decided to follow me and not limited myself.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you can provide us more insight on whether or not your strategy is bringing you more value.
Anna Barcelos´s last blog post..Shifting My Priorities
why not just shut down completely?
Ari, we go back a ways and as much as I can appreciate your new approach, I don’t agree with it. And as much as there is no clear cut “right” way to use Twitter, there are are certainly wrong ways to use it. In this case-maybe it will “work” for you. Good luck with it. But I will leave you with 2 pieces of advice that I tell some of the teams that I coach. 1) Act like you’ve been there before and 2) Never forget where you came from.
peace
Marc Meyer´s last blog post..Don’t Blame Social Media
I think you’re making the “right choice”, simply because it’s your choice. We all have different ways to use Twitter and engage with the peeps we follow or who follow us.
I think we get caught up with the idea that followers have to reciprocate: but it’s interaction that matters. If you’re not following me but I’m following you, I still can @ you with a tweet about something I think may be of interest to you. You still can reply back if you think it warrants and we can have a conversation.
Unilateral unfollow doesn’t necessarily mean dis-engagement.
All the best on your upcoming Twitter stream. If it works for you, then that’s all that matters.
Ciao!
This is a great task you have ahead of you. I’ve had many discussions/debates of the use of auto-follow and auto-DMs where new followers are concerned and I of the mindset that I don’t care for them – because I don’t want to follow everyone regardless of whether they follow me or not. I take time to review folks bios/tweets/profiles/websites before making a decision if we can learn from each other.
Here’s a post I wrote on my follow philosophy: Whats that you tweet?
I will be interested to see a follow-up post from you on this.
Aw crap Ari. Just ping me on Twitter when you unfollow me because I use an autounfollow program. I’ll add you back right away.
The problem lies here: Twitter isn’t made for the types of conversations we’re having. It displays information in a linear aspect when conversations are not linear there.
Twitter changes as you do. Right now I prefer to connect with as many people as possible. The more information the more access to relevancy. And remember: even if you connect with all top notch quality people they won’t always be relevant or serious. You connect with who you connect with. If you value a relationship YOU MAKE A CONCIOUS CHOICE TO KEEP UP WITH THEM. That’s it. No easier or harder because of signal vs. noise ratio.
I have a handful of people that I ACTIVELY SEEK OUT by checking if they’re on then @ing, DMing, IMing, Facebooking, Phonecalling etc. If you value a relationship enough you make sure you maintain and build it.
It’s the flow. It’s just like I said before above. Just make sure that you are keeping in touch with those that matter to you at the time.
-Damien
http://thecauseisthehabit.com
I think it’s interesting that you’re putting so much time and energy into this. Do what you want, but you oughta know you’re one of my favorite twitterers (tweeters?).
I follow almost as many that follow me, not as a courtesy thing but you never know who you might meet and what kind of connections will be made. Usually when somebody follows me I go to their profile and within 15 seconds decide whether or not I’ll follow them back, often because I say, “Well this person looks interesting,” or ask myself, “What can I learn from this person?” I’ve made some very unlikely friends/connections that way, and I couldn’t be happier.
Stacy Lukas´s last blog post..Happy Birthday, South Africa & WildEarth.tv!
I have one hard and steady rule: If you don’t want to listen to me then why should I want to listen to you? There are too many people out there that are brilliant that want an open multi-faceted relationship. There’s a reason I don’t pay attention to celebrities.
Twitter may not be the best way to converse and keep up with a ton of people but here’s the rub: If you cut off someone you tell them that you don’t care about what’s going on with them.
If you’re so concerned with missing out on valuable conversations with those you hold dear there’s no reason to. You make sure you keep up with those that matter to you. I make sure to check in with @StaciJShelton @LisaHickey & others on a frequent basis. I have even taken our relationship to other channels.
Twitter can be many things to many people. Following a small group of people yet having a large group of people follow you can seem elitist and off putting to many. It’s your call what you do. It’s your network.
I choose to edit MYSELF as opposed to my NETWORK. It’s not the network or the tool that’s the problem, it’s how we are using it. I won’t always be on Twitter and when I am I may not be monitoring my stream. I may be monitoring keywords for interesting information. So essentially none of it matters. Like I said, it’s your network, figure it out and make it work. Just realize that all actions have consequences.
By the way, my name is spelt “Damien”.
Damien Basile´s last blog post..Look What They’ve Done To My Brand, Mama
While some will agree with you and some will disagree, I think the one thing we all know, is that we’re all still just figuring this out. And one of the important things you’ve done here is to share your process in public and admit that you are still figuring it out. I think it is very important, particularly for people like you who are quite well-versed in social media, to assert that there isn’t one “best practice” that serves everyone equally well.
I accidentally offended a follower recently when I posted a link to a post someone had written called “Why people aren’t following you on Twitter.” My friend was upset because she didn’t think everyone needed to gather a large following. She uses Twitter to communicate within a small group of people she knows. After I looked at her numbers it became clear. She’s mutually Tweeting in a group of less than 100 and it serves her well.
I think she read my Tweet as being degrading to people with smaller numbers. This wasn’t my intent at all. I posted it, because I get a lot of follower requests from people pushing their product, not engaging in conversation, not filling out their profiles etc. I don’t follow back people who don’t share sufficient info (as I can’t tell their value) so this article seemed to offer good advice to those folks. If they cared to join the community it would help them in that endeavor.
The link I shared was geared to the people who follow me and others and are hoping to be followed back. It wasn’t at all geared to someone like my friend who isn’t looking for followers.
But how was she to know that if she wasn’t in the same situation? She wasn’t. Instead she quite logically interpreted it based on her own experience on Twitter, one in which she’s not being bombarded by mktg/socialmedia expert/spammers on a daily basis.
I mention it because I think it clearly shows how and why we can have so many different perspectives on the Twitter experience. I follow plenty of people who don’t follow me back. Others won’t follow such people because they think them “Twitter Snobs.” But the value I get is from the information they provide, not in whether or not they follow me back.
If I want to talk to them I still can. A simple reply to one of their messages can start the ball rolling. If my Tweet is worth a response, they can still respond without having to follow me. Whether or not they follow me back isn’t something I need to take personally. It’s not a value statement on my personality, it’s merely a measure of the info I provide in relation to their personal needs. It would take far more hubris than I could muster to assume I’d be relevant to everyone.
Heidi Cool´s last blog post..Marketing is matchmaking: making introductions through lead generation
I, like many it seems, have been thinking about the mass follows that have been happening more and more these days, and the best way to deal with it. I don’t have thousands of followers, and I don’t follow thousands of people. My numbers have crept up recently, but are still well under 300.
My theory on the follow (which I hope you can appreciate!):
1. Just because you follow me doesn’t mean I will follow you back.
Reasons I won’t follow you back can include:
– You have 6 updates, are following/being followed by thousands.
– Every single update in your stream includes a link to your website.
– Everything you say is nonsensical – there is no point to your post!
2. Just because I follow you doesn’t mean you have to follow me back. I could be interested in what you have to say, but my ramblings are of no interest to you. That’s ok. I don’t expect it. (but it makes me happy if you do!)
3. When and if I decide to follow you it is based on your description, website and comment stream. I could care less how many followers you have. If you don’t have a description and your stream includes any of the reasons listed above I will not follow you.
4. Just because I follow you doesn’t mean I want a(n auto) DM saying ‘Thank you for following! Click here for my latest super fabulous whitepaper on some topic you could care less about and will make you money on twitter’. Chances are that if I get such a DM I may just unfollow you. If you want to send a DM thanking me then personalize it already!
And finally…
5. Getting thousands of followers in one day, week or month is stupid. Sorry, had to be said. Some of us don’t have cool tools like tweet deck or twirl or whatever else is out there to help organize tweets and filter noise. I only have so much time to spend on twitter (ok – I spend more time than I should but that’s another story) – and I really don’t want to waste it reading another ad on how to grow my list of followers. Enough already!
Bravo to Ari for unfollowing all and starting from scratch. It makes a lot of sense to me as it should to a lot of others.
(oh and thank you – this became my latest blog post – fit so well into my latest stream of thought!)
I, like many it seems, have been thinking about the mass follows that have been happening more and more these days, and the best way to deal with it. I don’t have thousands of followers, and I don’t follow thousands of people. My numbers have crept up recently, but are still well under 300.
My theory on the follow (which I hope you can appreciate!):
1. Just because you follow me doesn’t mean I will follow you back. Reasons I won’t follow you back can include:
– You have 6 updates, are following/being followed by thousands.
– Every single update in your stream includes a link to your website.
– Everything you say is nonsensical – there is no point to your post!
2. Just because I follow you doesn’t mean you have to follow me back. I could be interested in what you have to say, but my ramblings are of no interest to you. That’s ok. I don’t expect it. (but it makes me happy if you do!)
3. When and if I decide to follow you it is based on your description, website and comment stream. I could care less how many followers you have. If you don’t have a description and your stream includes any of the reasons listed above I will not follow you.
4. Just because I follow you doesn’t mean I want a(n auto) DM saying ‘Thank you for following! Click here for my latest super fabulous whitepaper on some topic you could care less about and will make you money on twitter’. Chances are that if I get such a DM I may just unfollow you. If you want to send a DM thanking me then personalize it already!
And finally…
5. Getting thousands of followers in one day, week or month is stupid. Sorry, had to be said. Some of us don’t have cool tools like tweet deck or twirl or whatever else is out there to help organize tweets and filter noise. I only have so much time to spend on twitter (ok – I spend more time than I should but that’s another story) – and I really don’t want to waste it reading another ad on how to grow my list of followers. Enough already!
Bravo to Ari for unfollowing all and starting from scratch. It makes a lot of sense to me as it should to a lot of others.
Heather P´s last blog post..Small Biz and Twitter, Perfect together?
I stayed away from using Twitter for quite a long time (in web years) because it just seemed like voluntary chaos at first. It would be quite confusing and time consuming to read every tweet published by those I follow. Of course, culling down my list would be a good route to a nice, quiet twitter page and I think that may be best for some.
I like to add people just to sort of peripherally “stay tuned” to them when I find something they’ve written interesting or if they seem to be keen on a topic of interest to me. I only very rarely pay close attention to individual tweets or many of them at once, but when I’m running a twitter client, I do notice the popup windows and am occasionally distracted by them. If I really need to focus, I don’t run the client or visit the twitter.com and I have never allowed device updates – I’m just not that twitter savvy (and don’t want to be). I tend to become tech-obsessed, but prefer to find simple ways to actually use these tools instead of worshiping them.
Shawn Honnick´s last blog post..this was my day (via shawnblog)
I value Twitter for the diversity of voices it brings. While I don’t follow everyone who follows me, I do tend to follow rather than not when someone tweets something of interest. There’s plenty of chance to unfollow later, if it turns out we have no common ground, but I’d rather have a bit of cheerful cacophany than the proverbial echo chamber. But that’s just me, and I totally respect the different choices that other users make. What a good thing that there are no “rules” for Twitter, and we are each free to choose the following/unfollowing style that works best for us!
rjleaman´s last blog post..PR Works Podcast: How Non-Profits Use Social Media
Twitter: DavidBennett
April 28, 2009 at 3:23 PM
Ari,
I see that as of this moment you have devoted 22,636 tweets to Twitter. I looked you up on tweetwasters.com which reports that “Ari Herzog has 11,958 total tweets and assuming they spent an average of 30 seconds per tweet they’ve spent 358,740 Seconds or 5,979 Minutes or 99.65 Hours or 4.15 Days using Twitter! 4.15 days? Really? Have you thought about getting a cat? Tweetwasters rank: #853″
Tweetwasters is a little out of date, (it was out of date for my tweets too) but assuming the 30 seconds rule is good, then that would be 22,636/11,958 x 4.15 days – which is a solid week and a bit of non-stop 24 hours a day, every second of it – tweeting. And you want to throw all you contacts away because they are not giving you value!! Boy, does it take you a long time to come to a decision.
David´s last blog post..What it Takes to Be Human
That’s harsh David. Honestly how many tweets you send isn’t a one to one correspondence with how many get sent by folks you follow.
I’d wager this decision was long coming.
For me, I tweet quite a bit, but in twitter terms, it’s more like a storm some days. Likewise, thousands of tweets pass by my screen in a day.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Twitter Blocked, Facebook Banned, LinkedIn Locked
Fair enough. Have you accounted for the fact that every Sunday night for the past 8-10 weeks I’ve put on my “DJ hat” and with blip.fm, blipped an average of 30-50 songs each night, with each blip echoed to Twitter and therefore a tweet? So, your math should remove about 500+ tweets from blip.fm. Your math should also remove the use of third-party tools like the Firefox addon, Shareaholic, where I can “tweet” web pages I’m reading that others may like, etc.
Every tweet is not a true update.
Twitter: DavidBennett
April 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM
Ah, that may account for the difference if Tweetwaster doesn’t count tweets that are passed on by blog posts etc.
I didn’t know you/I/we could blip to Twitter. I just activated the service.
David´s last blog post..The English Love Gardening
Twitter: DavidBennett
April 28, 2009 at 3:27 PM
I just noticed Heidi Cool’s comment on this.
I like Heidi – she’s cool.
David´s last blog post..What it Takes to Be Human
I’m torn on this topic but have broken it down to 1 simple fact. I am on Twitter to meet people. I started off small about two years back and everything was fine and dandy, but I realized I was using Twitter like Facebook, always communicating with the same people.
So basically Facebook is my friendly convo with people I talk to regularly and Twitter is my public profile where I want to connect with new people.
Now I use Twitter for two main reasons:
1) Connect with people on personal and business levels
2) Broadcast my thoughts
The more people that read my thoughts, the more insight I get as to their validity.
I’ve yet to justify a reason why I should follow a small amount of people. I’ll admit their IS that small group of Tweeps I like more than the rest but they have their on TweetGrid group, no need to unfollow my other 2900 followers.
Jon Bishop´s last blog post..April Fools Survival Guide for Twitter
Thanks for your thoughts, Jon, so here are two questions:
1. Why do you need to follow a person to have a conversation with him or her? You are following approximately 2900 usernames. Do you tweet or otherwise DM personally, 1-on-1, with all of them in a given month?
2. Why do you need to follow a person to broadcast your thoughts? That is related to your followers; not those you follow. No?
1) I don’t always wan’t to be initiating the conversation, so I need a list of conversations I can check regularly and pop in when I want. If I was only following a few people, there would be less conversation happening. I know I can talk to people without following them but it makes it easier to have that giant list of people where I can jump in at any time.
2) When it comes to broadcasting my thoughts I like to show other people the same courtesy they are showing me. It wouldn’t sit well in my head if I expected everyone to care about what I was saying and I didn’t care at all about what they were saying.
Ari
I am so glad to see you decided to follow me back. My own approach to this following/not following thing is that I follow anyone who follows me unless as Adriel said they are obviously spammers. I also unfollow anyone who unfollows me although I don’t think I have a good cut and dried reason for this.
Although many follow only those whose interests parallel their own, I prefer to follow others who might have different interests and ideas mainly because of my experiences in the off line world. I always have the most bizarre experiences where someone who has no apparent similar interests or life experiences offers me an incredibly important bit of knowledge or revelation.
Sometimes I get a clue or simple comment that takes me on a journey to learning new things I would have never even thought to look into. Anyway, all of that has taught me that everyone has value, and I need to be very careful about dismissing or judging people based on first impressions online or offline.
Pam Broviak´s last blog post..Plot Your Potholes Here!
First, Ari, I want to say – do what you feel you need to do – but – post again when/if your experience changes, would love to see what comes of this.
Following: I will follow anyone who has a photo, a tweet history (that isn’t all ads for them), posts in English and have follow/followers numbers that are fairly close (I wouldn’t follow someone with 6000 followers that only follows 150 – I don’t like feeling like I am being lectured too). I have found lots of fun folks this way – learned how maple syrup is harvested.
UnFollowing: having just finally moved over the 2000 plateau, I don’t auto unfollow. There are folks that believe they can unfollow a group they currently follow to generate new followers – I chose to assume that this is why you are no longer following me – OR – my info isn’t interesting to you. Because I know I haven’t offended you…well maybe I have some – but the elections are over and I try not make too many political tweets!
Reading the responses to this post have been as enlightening as the post itself – thanks for starting this dialogue.
Robyn
Robyn Hawk´s last blog post..May 2009 – Club Shows
i think it’s hilarious that we all care so much. i’m as guilty as anyone, but i really think twitter would be a better place if they didn’t display the follower/following numbers.
no disrespect to the earlier commenter, but really? you feel like you’re being lectured to when someone’s ratio is not 1:1? i have never understood this, and definitely fall into the “Twitter Snob” category. if you like what someone has to say, what does it matter if their ratio is 1:100 or 1:1000?? it’s probably just a case of them using twitter different than you do.
i use twitter to #1 to keep up with my friends and family, #2 to keep up with my industry & passions. my not-so-hard-and-fast rule is that i’ll follow you if we’ve met face-to-face and if you’re not a “nuclear” tweeter (according to followcost.com). i can do #2 via search, hashtags, following @replies — there’s absolutely no need to follow everyone. just because i’m not following you does not mean i don’t see your tweets.
i honestly can’t imagine following more than about 500 people. in my opinion (meaning according to my twitter usage), what’s the point?
Twitter: DavidBennett
May 1, 2009 at 5:05 AM
“but i really think twitter would be a better place if they didn’t display the follower/following numbers.”
That’s an interesting thought – the voice of sanity.
I would what Twitter is thinking now about the ‘numbers race’ they have spawned? Probably hating the extra load on the servers.
Twitter Comment
@ariherzog Flattery, sire, will get you everywhere. re: [link to post] intersting post, with time I may comment on why I’m not doing same
– Posted using Chat Catcher
I view Twitter as more of an information source than a social scene.It replaces the sense of serendipity that the print newspaper used to provide, but only if you follow a wide range of people that may or may not share common attitudes and opinions with you.
I have to say that I find your approach mildly offensive, because it assumes an unequal relationship between you and the people who read you. Your followers apparently need to audition for your attention. But if you aren’t following them, exactly how are they supposed to do that? Should they be courting you by sending you personalized @ariherzog messages that mean nothing to anyone except you and them? Or are you reading the live Twitter stream and perusing Tweets from everyone, all the time, and seeing who best fits your criteria for selection? That certainly doesn’t sound very efficient.
Sorry, but I just don’t get it.
Tim Allik´s last blog post..timallik: @whatsnext – was that a PR pitch? Way to personalize that message! How about "To all humans on earth" LOL…
What precisely don’t you get, Tim?
Let me paint two scenarios:
1. Joe follows you inconspicuously. Whatever the reason, it’s his. You may or may not notice Joe follows you and you may or may not tweet him, to which he may or may not respond.
Either the next day, the next week, or the next month–or even six months later, Joe unfollows you as quietly as he followed you.
2. Joe unfollows everyone, including you, like I did, announcing his reasons, like I did.
If your offense is about a skewed differential between those I follow and those who follow me, then you would not be offended by the first scenario, correct?
But if you’re not offended by the first, then why the second?
It’s not that I’m personally offended, I just don’t get your approach. It seems like you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me.
But look, it’s all a big experiment where tolerence is the supreme virtue. There are no rules. If it works for you, do it.
Tim Allik´s last blog post..When recovery comes, will you be ready?
Hi Ari,
In retrospect you were exactly correct in your approach to following followers on Twitter last May – while I was apparently suffering from a temporary mood disorder due to the shitty weather.
These days I’m being much more discriminating about who I follow, especially after I got followed by more than 600 fake followers a few weeks ago due to a rogue affiliate hacker (this knucklehead ending up costing the business virtually all of its Twitter accounts). I’d say 9 out of every 10 people who follower me these days are spambots.
Along with spammers, I’m also trying to weed out the tweeters that file too much useless information.
Starting from scratch was an innovative approach.
I am disappointed by both. If I don’t notice then they didn’t mean that much to me. I noticed you unfollowed me. So I unfollowed you. Then I went and checked WHY you unfollowed me – it wasn’t clear at first. But you were on my ‘uncaring, unsocial’ list for an hour or so
When did “social” become “no fuzzy emotions like disappointment, anger, rejection”? The definition of community that I like best is the one that says if you stop showing up one day, people notice that you have gone missing. How is following masses of people then unfollowing them healthy community behaviour in ANY community? Or is Twitter not a community, just a broadcast, uncaring one?
I prefer to create a community I would like to see created – I follow with care (manually check each one for bots, and similar values) then enjoy the passing conversations. I wouldn’t want to help create a community that had people following and unfollowing with disregard for the humans behind the Twitter handles nor would I want to put a lot of attention into one that had no human emotions connected to the human engagement and the human interaction.
I respect that you see it differently
Before I knew you as @SilkCharm, Laurel, I knew you from your blog. I knew your blog from your frequent posts and comments on the online community called SocialMediaToday.
I remain subscribed to your blog’s RSS feed, aka following your blog. I don’t add a comment to every post, but I do when I feel inspired, such as your recent post where you attributed me for your Courseware e-book.
Suppose I stopped following your blog. I never told you I began following it, and you were never notified other than another incremental blip on your RSS analytics. So, if I stopped following your blog, would you know?
Conceptually, Twitter is a microblog. You’re limited in the number of characters you can write; but the construct is the same. My reply to you on Twitter is not unlike my comment on your blog, no? My retweet of something you wrote on Twitter is not unlike my digging, sphinning, or stumbling your post.
What does Twitter offer to YOU that your blog does not, considering you continue to do both? Is it the DM alone? Or is it something more? What do you get out of following Twitterers that you don’t get out of following RSS feeds?
I have never believed Twitter to be a microblogging service. If anything it’s an anti-blog not microblog.
A blog for me is one-to-many Deep Content channel, content created in isolation and presented as a finished product, usually to an empty room. The topic and tone is set by the blogger and all control is on that one person. Does this represent Twitter in ANY shape or form?
Twitter is a many-to-many Conversation channel content created on the fly, to a room of people. Spontaneous, ‘other person’ rather than ‘deep content’ focussed.
Turning your back on someone in a Twitter room comes with a bunch of rituals/rites for that community that a one-to-many blog does not come encumbered with.
Unless you believe that all communities have the same rites and behaviours as each other? That behaviour on a blog should be the same on IMs should be the same on email should be the same on a forum? Synchronous vs Asynchronous chat? deep content vs distribution vs conversation? My work in communities leads me to believe that each one has it’s own value systems. You can get away with a lot in a blog, that doesn’t work in Twitter and vice versa.
I think you misjudge the inherently discussion/social nature of Twitter vs the mainly deep content/control nature of blogs…
Goes to show, as I’ve said many times, everyone has their own definition of Twitter and their own practice of using it.
Over the past seven days, I’ve reinvented my definition and practice every day; and have become much more productive on and off Twitter as a result.
But that’s me.
Absolutely but perhaps consider this next time. When you quietly drop followers one by one, it’s a bit like leaving friendships quietly. Everyone saves face, it’s part of community life. You just stop returning calls. When you drop thousands, then blog about it, it’s like seeing a bunch of old friends – and deliberately crossing to the other side of the road.
We can pretend relationships are different online but inherently they are not.
Ari, you are a good guy, but not everyone will see your actions as practical, pragmatic severing of connections. Some of ‘em will be hurt…
Ari – glad you’ve decided to go with your gut on this topic. There’s no reason you have to follow anyone who’s following you, much less everyone.
And, I wouldn’t reciprocally unfollow you. I continue to follow people who I believe add value to my twitter stream and you meet that criteria. Besides, one of these days I’m going to make it up to the Mullen office in Boston and I will bug the hell out of you to meet me for a cup of coffee or something. Consider yourself warned…
David Mullen´s last blog post..3 Keys to Communications Planning
Nice round up! Interesting to see so many views!
FWIW, I started using Twitter just to figure out what it is & how it could fit in Social CRM a bit more than a year back. I joined to connect with friends & chit chat.
But then I found that most of CRM gurus are also present on Twitter & started conversing with them.
I picked up a huge followers & following list in the mean time.
By Feb 09 I had ingrained myself into the Social CRM conversations (#scrm) on twitter & was getting prominent in professional circles.
S2N ratio was pretty bad. My moniker sounded very unprofessional though interesting.
I took a decision last month & created another account. This one had only my professional network & people who added value to my conversations & knowledge.
Using seesmic desktop, now I lead a dual life on Twitter. And am quite happy with missing out on most of the conversations that wizz around in my old account.
scorpfromhell´s last blog post..Why Social Media folks misunderstand CRM?
You’re Twitter Train stopped and I got off it completely.
I read this some time ago and didn’t respond. I totally agree that there is not a right or wrong way to use social media or marketing. And that you need to do what works for you. I wanted to wait to see what happened.
I see it differently than you. I can use tweetdeck to set up a group of 100 or so people that I want to filter and see their tweets all the time. I only follow people who follow me, because for me it’s a conversation. I don’t follow people who don’t tweet and I don’t follow spammers. I also choose not to follow everyone who follows me. I intentionally follow people not in my job field or those who see things differently from me so I can continue to learn.
IMO, what you wrote in your post said that I didn’t matter to you, that you didn’t value a relationship with me, that I was not one of the chosen few. You chose those words, you would follow people that brought value to you and then share that value with others. That was loud and clear. You don’t value those that follow you! That also spoke volumes to me as I was choosing speakers I would pay for an upcoming conference. You’re a social media consultant & speaker and your very actions said that you did not want to have a conversation with others, or help, or see others of value. For me, that said a lot about how you would treat a customer and an audience. Whether my perception is right or wrong by your intentions, perception=reality. Consider it a lost sale.
As I’ve said before, you have to earn my attention, my trust, my time. For me, what you did is no different from a marketing spammer that amasses a big following then does not build or nurture a relationship with those followers. The spammer only wanted a big following so they can broadcast their message in hopes to get someone to buy their services.
If you really were focusing on quality, why didn’t you close your account and start over from scratch with a protected account, hand selecting those you wanted to follow and approving who could follow you. That’s what I really don’t understand. You still took advantage of having all those followers.
I didn’t close my account, Jeff, because I was unsure what would occur with my Twitter history. I didn’t know–and still don’t have an answer–if Google and other search engines would retroactively remove tweets indexed in their systems. Not wanting to risk that loss, I didn’t close my account. Fair question, though; and one many including me, asked.
Of course I value those who follow me on Twitter, on my blog, on Facebook, and anywhere else online or off. That doesn’t translate I must reciprocate. That used to be my strategy, when I followed all and auto-followed all, but that’s not my strategy now. If my strategies brand me as anti-social in your eyes, I can live with that. If companies don’t lose customers and don’t gain critics, they’re not doing a good job. Thanks for the feedback!
Twitter Train is a F%$#*&^ TRAIN WRECK!
I foolishly joined and then lost a key Twitter account with it.
I hear that the train creators have been using it to Spam the hell out of Facebook as well.
DO ANYTHING YOU CAN TO AVOID TWITTER TRAIN!!!
Twitter: erenmckay
July 15, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Hi Ari,
I believe there is no right or wrong use of twitter- just what works for each individual person ( of course except for spammers- they are definitely using it in the wrong way).
It’s just like organizing. Some people swear by one method while others just can’t seem to make it work in that way.
We have to tailor everything we use to work for our specific situation, personality type and also for our goals.
For example I feel really bad if I don’t follow people back. Some I choose not to follow back simply because I don’t see anything in common with that person and I don’t even think they would enjoy my tweets. That’s just me and I don’t think everyone has to do things a specific way.
In your case it just seemed better to follow certain people that are relevant to what your goals are and that’s great too.
Tweetdeck is a tool that has helped me keep up with specific people.
Anyways – this is a very insightful post!
All the best,
Eren
.-= New from Eren Mckay: Summer Sun Safety Tips for Kids (Plus Activities & Worksheets that Help You Teach Sun Safety) =-.
“Twitter is being sued for patent infringement. Surprised? OK, probably not, but you’d think the plaintiff would at least wait for Twitter to actually make money before striking. According to TechCrunch: ‘Twitter is being sued … by TechRadium, a Texas-based technology company which makes mass notification systems for public safety organizations, the military, and utilities.’ The abstract to patent #7130389 describes it: ‘A digital notification and response system utilizes an administrator interface to transmit a message from an administrator to a user contact device. The system comprises a dynamic information database that includes user contact data, priority information, and response data. The administrator initiates distribution of the message based upon grouping information, priority information, and the priority order.’ Two other patents are involved as well.”
- source slashdot
It’s amazing how at one point we are totally addicted to Twitter, then concider it useless. Then find it relevent again. I’ve gone through this cycle several times now.
I am not much comfortable with Twitter, but this makes sense. To follow the person who can add some value to your stream, But i found twitter as a best hideout for spammers lol .
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