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Summary
Comments (17)
Dec 07, 2008
Segues nicely with an article I wrote recently, spelling out my Twitter rules, which I've added to my Twitter profile. Jacob & I are in total agreement; you can't participate in every conversation and you're just being disingenuous if you follow everyone else back automatically...
Dec 07, 2008
@WayneSmallman I agree completely. When I first got started on Twitter I followed everyone back, but after awhile it just got out of control.
Dec 08, 2008
I follow everyone back that's not a spammer or MLM etc. One guy in particular, I decided not to follow. He is antisemitic, and only follows Jews! It really pissed me off at first! I didn't block him though. Because I follow everyone back, I didn't realize that I wouldn't hear him if I'm not following him. Now he I'm protecting one more person that he might fill my empty spot with. I contacted twitter about his account, but haven't heard anything back, and he's still on twitter.
On a final note I don't care for some of these bloogger's who love to write about social media, but don't want to use it. I'm talking about users with 1 to 2 thousand followers and they are only following back 25 or so. Even worse are the one's who only follow the "twitter" elite, so in a sense stating that there one of them. That's some seriously pretentious bullshit, and I see this type of behavior in LA all the time. They're usually from somewhere else, trying to fit in and just don't get it(anything). A bunch of self important people, who are really confused about there place in life and usually in desperate need to discover who they truly are. Easily Ignored!
Dec 08, 2008
@michaelfidler The issue is that Twitter is an asymmetric social relation...people who might be interested in what I have to say won't be who I am interested in hearing, and so on. For example, there are plenty of companies and brands who follow me because they want demographic data; that's cool, but I don't care what some of these companies have to say. Another side is people who are monitoring buzz for their own purposes; they don't produce, share, etc, but they want to follow those that do; again, fine with me, but I don't want to follow them back.
There is another issue, though. There seems to be an entire branch of users who are just marketers pushing things to each other. There is nothing wrong with being a marketer or PR person, but the old, broadcast-style that just attempts to use social media as another channel simply doesn't work in SMM. So there are huge groups of people all following each other and spamming each other with links to template sites with redirected URLs for "Buy My Ebook" etc. If it wasn't a drain on the Twitter servers, I would say it was just funny...it's like watching people make commercials and show them to each other frantically trying to all sell each other the same things. So I do not follow everyone back, I don't use an automated service, etc., on Twitter, FF, or anywhere else. Every follow and add is personal and I cull connections that don't blossom from time to time (just cut a bunch of FB friends, for example, that had accumulated through games and such). I especially want my FB friends and connections to be real, either personal, professional, or both. 
Dec 08, 2008
Twitter, for me, is like showing up at a neighborhood bar where 'regulars' are familiar with me and each-other, you get to meet new people each time you're there, and you learn something new -- just about ANYTHING really -- every time you show up.
I probably could be more organized about following the twitter 'elite', but frankly I barely see their posts in the few minutes that I check the site each time -- so many other mostly wonderful and interesting posts from all of us mere mortals. I'm loving twitter BECAUSE of the randomness. On a darker note, Michael's comment above concerned me that I might have allowed someone to follow me that has nefarious intentions. Part of the allure of twitter is the user's ability to freely interact with nearly anybody. However, with other platforms, we tend to know somebody (or think we know them, frankly) before we connect with them, and I personally am less cautious than I probably should be. Frankly, if any of my friends or colleagues learn that somebody's a bad egg out on twitter, I'd be grateful to get a direct message with the offender's account name so as to block them.
Dec 08, 2008
BTW, I don't mean Michael being the one with nefarious intentions! Hope that was clear in the last message that it was the antisemite he was referring to in his previous post.
Dec 08, 2008
@thePuck I completely agree with you about Facebook. Early on, I realized that my experience on twitter could only be influenced by the people I choose to follow. Even then then it's a very limited type of control, but I feel the choices I've made regarding followers has made a difference. That's why I've never been in a hurry to add people. Now that I'm around 500, I'm starting to look for the brakes. I'm still open to anyone, just as long as they're not just trying to sell me something. If I am interested in what someone has to sell, that's another story. I'll foolow someone who I find interesting, regardless if they follow back. When someone follows me, I do the same thing that you described. I try to learn what I can about them(BTW, you should try HeadUP: It's a semantic addon for Firefox), and see where we might be alike or even completely different! Because we have the only "limited" control over the conversation that takes place around us, I have been trying to include people with completely different views than mine(On some, but not all subjects). It's one of the best decisions I've made regarding followers. The new thing I've been doing is trying to make it more local, by finding tweeter's in my area. I don't know where this is going yet, but the few follower's I have from L.A., are really cool! Up North this seems to be more common, but L.A. is just starting to twitter. Because of the knowledge I have regarding the way people are in L.A., the same caution I use in my regular life will be applied when choosing followers here. I love LA, but it attracts some of the strangest people! Hope this makes some sense, it late, or early. I laugh at some of the things I write when I'm tired. lol
Dec 08, 2008
Yes, there are no set rules. There are some unwritten 'rules' if you like. If you don't follow those, you're not going to have any followers and you'll be tweeting to yourself. Spamming for example, or only ever talking about yourself - I think many of us did the semi-personal diary blog, and really very few people are interested in what we had for breakfast or the color of our socks today. But, there's nothing to stop you posting whatever you like.
I do NOT auto-follow. I get email notifications, and I go and check, and if their Twitter page looks a little interesting I follow them. Remember one person's signal is another person's noise. This doesn't mean I only include people with my viewpoint - far from it - but I usually don't include someone that mostly tweets about a subject I'm not interested in. 
Dec 09, 2008
This a good article with some very good advice for new Twitter'ers.
Dec 09, 2008
Right. By blindly following people who follow you, you are missing the point of Twitter. A number of people who follow you are just spammers hoping you will visit their profile and click on the links. Look at the top Twitterers. Many of them have quite a few more followers than followees (as it were). To cite the old aphorism: "Quality is more important than quantity." Check out my blog post that helps new Twitterers figure out who to follow.
http://www.twitterthoughts.com/social-media-news-analyses/2008/4/18/follow-you-follow-me-finding-people-on-twitter.html 
Dec 09, 2008
I agree with your view. My view is that Twitter is a tool for me. I am not competing with everyone else, I am using Twitter to best suit my needs.
Dec 09, 2008
I'm trying to build an audience for my blog at http://www.fermentarium.com and I see Twitter as a tool to communicate with my readers and a way to network with other bloggers. So I will return follow anyone who looks like they use twitter to talk to others, especially if it is beer/wine related. Limiting who I follow only restricts who I communicate with, which I see as a bad thing. (@deege)
Dec 09, 2008
I wonder why people follow me when they don't respond when I ask a question to them directly. Am I just a number? pfft.
Dec 09, 2008
@thechannelc I think all of us miss some @ messages and such, but I know what you mean. And I think to some people it is a number game; I have watched people follow me and then unfollow right after I was following them back.
Dec 09, 2008
@Thechannelc I only respond to a DM if I need to. I will reply to a direct question even if only to say I don't know, as I like to be polite. However, I only follow a very few people by SMS, so I don't see tweets when I'm away from my computer, unless I scroll back thru them, and I don't usually have time. I DO see DMs though, as Tweetdeck puts them in a separate column.
Dec 09, 2008
If someone was Guy Kawasaki I wouldn't expect a reply but here's what's interesting, Guy replies! If there's someone who deserves the badges he's giving out, it's Guy himself. He kicks ass.
I know we don't have to follow everyone back but I do it anyways and I'll DM new followers. No answer in 1 week = goodbye. Come now, atleast say "hi". Add something
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