I've been on Twitter for a while now, long enough to have some thoughts, such as they are. In no particular order, just stream of consciousness. What do you think?
UPDATE: See also 5 Mistakes of New Twitter Users
UPDATE 2: Choose your user name wisely. One of the main things - length. Yes, size matters. When you are writing your tweet, that 140 character limit may not come into play, but when someone tries to reply, direct message or retweet, every letter in your username eats up valuable real estate. For instance. "@pinkelephantpun" is a killer. You can attach and display your real name with your account if you so choose - so your username can be short & sweet.
Add a profile pic or avatar. That default is ugly and far too prevalent. But...don't steal someone else's avatar...I'm just sayin'
Put something in your bio and/or post several updates before you start following people who don't know you. They will click onto your page to see who you are and what you're about. Give them some information to go on.
See also: Setting up a professional profile on Twitter
UPDATE 3: It is good to tie your blog to your twitter account, and there are several tools that tweet for each new blog post. However, those give no 'value add' to the info and, if the sole content of your tweet stream is from tweetfeed, why bother? If I want to follow your blog, I can use RSS much more efficiently. If you have nothing else to say and don't want to join in the conversation, Twitter may not be for you.
UPDATE 4: Say something! As of now (Jan 31, 2009) E_Stampede ["Informational Network about Social Media for Republicans"] has 5 updates in 5 days, all saying the same thing. Yawn. If you are going to bill yourself as all about social media, perhaps ya' ought to be sociable....
Posted by Vox at December 7, 2008 07:32 PM | blogs , generalI follow the 80% rule on my followers, if I know you or have a similar interest I'll consider following you. If I don't and you are a real person I won't necessarily block you but why should I follow someone I don't know or care about?
I check the reply section regularly and will reply to folks I don't know who follow me and have good comments, I eventually often add those people as followers.
If you add twitter and don't use it I'll ponder dropping following you after a few months of silence.
I only block spammers and mass adders who are self-promoting without interacting with others.
Posted by: Thomas at December 7, 2008 09:23 PMLast thought RE: "2,013 followers while you only follow 31"
People don't scale there are only so many personal relationships they can manage. I find 130+ people I follow plenty and don't add many new anymore, I know I am not far from a practical limit. Scoble has tried to link to many more (Factor of 10) and he has noticed he can't keep up with conversation.
That said there is a balance, just because I follow Wil Wheaton, I don't expect him to follow me, he does look at his replies and has replied to some of my comments. But if someone is famous they simply can't match half or maybe 10% of their followers, I am more concerned are they replying to people who do tweet at them and they don't follow.
In the end it's about conversation.
Posted by: Thomas at December 7, 2008 09:37 PMI definitely see your point about follower/followee not scaling. However, it seems that if you are on a lot, and you are contributing a lot, you would find some people worth following. There are many ways to filter and avoid overload (which I should really use) and so much info to be had. It just seems odd that anyone would want to participate and yet have very little desire to consume.
Even someone in the media, though I realize their numbers will, and should, reflect a higher percentage of followers to followed, should be a bit curious about what is going on in the conversation.
But, what do I know....
Posted by: Vox at December 8, 2008 08:43 AMAnd, just to be clear, I don't think that he should be following ME. I just think there are bound to be people out there that would be of interest to him if he was willing to look. That's all.
BTW: I admit to having no idea why anyone would follow me, but I am always surprised to see people post "I got some new followers. Why are you following me?" Because it's Twitter - that's what we do.
Of course, I don't ever want to ask because I figure it would lead at least a few people to say, "You know, why AM I following her?"
Posted by: Vox at December 8, 2008 10:23 AMI follow you because I am new and you followed me first... no idea how you found me though... maybe through #tcot.
If you are wondering why people follow you, aside from your witty banter, your twitter-pic probably keeps em hanging on ;)
Posted by: cacoop at December 9, 2008 11:09 AMI have to agree with you on every point you made here Vox. Now that I have been doing it, I now get it and the appeal. Weird how this happens with every single person who now tweets.
I also can see this being something valuable in media, politics and so on. I'm also trying to use it in the employment arena - though I'm struggling what to tweet about on my career twitter account because I can't keep saying, "I'm looking for a job or updated the resume, etc." over and over - so that one is a work in progress right now. I haven't gotten anything out of that account yet.... but I know that will take off soon. Just a gut feeling it will be a good way to network very soon.
The one thing I have struggled with is to follow someone who is following me. The question is... to follow or not to follow? Some people, even if they follow me, I don't find their twitter interesting enough to follow just because they are following me. Lately though, my biggest fault is I haven't been adding people to my followers list just because they are jumping on my list to follow me faster and faster and just haven't had the chance to check em out yet and reciprocate. ha!
Posted by: Martini Girl at December 9, 2008 02:50 PMoh... here is one really annoying thing that makes it also difficult. I have the personal twitter account and I have one I created for career networking... the sucky thing about this is that Twitter doesn't let me log into both at the same time. If I have the one logged up and then open a new tab with twitter.com it just shows me as signed in on the one. So I have to sign out completely on one to log onto the other. This makes it a hassle and defeats what I'm trying to do effectively. I want to be able to have them both up at the same time. Gah.
Posted by: Martini Girl at December 9, 2008 02:57 PMAll I know is you are Sexy and Twitterliscious!!
Posted by: D at December 9, 2008 03:03 PMLori:
I don't think you will ever be able to, let alone want to, follow everyone who follows you. Sometimes, I imagine, people will follow you based on a reply you made to someone they follow - and not really have anything in common with you at all. You are unlikely to follow back, and they will probably drop off.
I was thinking more in the big picture sense. A huge following should, in most cases, result in a decent size group of followees. There are a few exceptions. hotdogsladies and NickWarren are basically broadcasters, not looking to 'converse'. I love both of their quick stories, but there is no reason for them to follow anyone. Are you following them, BTW? Fun
cacoop:
Don't remember how I found you. I assume I saw you say something witty to someone I was following. I am a sucker for someone who makes me smile. Thanks for the follow back :-)