I have something to admit; I’m still struggling with Twitter. I think it’s an amazing marketing platform (more specifically an announcement platform) and brand monitoring option but using twitter to engage in ‘conversation’ with more than a dozen people is something I can’t get my head around. To me it’s like simultaneously watching lots of TV shows; it ends up being just a lot of noise.
I often hear people talk about how many followers they have and it seems bigger is better. I’ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to convince myself that size doesn’t matter but I digress. If you ‘follow’ (a twitter term synonymous with ‘to listen to’) more than 100 people how you can have any meaningful conversation?
When I ask this question the ‘twits’ talk about lists. They explain that you can group and sort people into lists thereby allowing you to follow the most important people and, I assume, ignore the rest? If that is the case what’s the point of following them in the first place? It’s like telling someone “It’s great meeting you, let’s be friends! Just don’t ever talk to me because I don’t actually have any interest in what you have to say.”
Some of my best friends in real estate, including thought leaders and top performing agents, have more than 10,000 followers. Because of “reciprocal following” they are probably following nearly all those people back. Reciprocal following is the biggest joke of it all; it’s the twitter equivalent of saying “Thank you for following me! Because you want to hear what I have to say I want to hear what you have to say too!”
The truth is that anyone following 10,000 people is ignoring 9,900 of them.
The only way for someone to actually truly follow (aka listen) to hundreds of people is to sit at their computer all day watching the stream of comments (aka tweets). Please tell me people aren’t doing that. In fact (and more importantly) please admit, just for once, that following more than 100 people is more about bragging rights and ego than practical conversation?
There are multiple programs and Websites and applications that help you manage all of this tweeting noise with Tweetdeck being the most popular. The product was recently updated and the following video details some of the enhancements. It still doesn’t solve my problem though, hopefully it will for you:
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Personally, I don’t follow people just because they follow me. I follow people who consistently produce relevant content (links to articles and blogs, witty comments or cool pictures), or who I need to be following because of their place in the space.
So I try not to concern myself with the numbers (as mine clearly indicate). Twitter is a tool to gather information, and an content filter if I am selective about who I follow. Probably even more effective than google reader, since I can read through stuff posted by people I trust, not just because a term is used and caught by a search engine.
Stephen:
Right on the money with this blog; I think the numbers of people who drop Twitter after the first month or so demonstrate it’s a medium that’s mostly a substitute for SMS and once people figure that out, they’re perfectly happy just doing SMS without another account, profile, etc. I blogged about it a while ago, too; maybe this will be another perspective for your readers to enjoy.
http://www.matthewferrara.com/rssfeed/twitterdumb/
Have a great day!
Matthew
Stephen, Some great points. I have a file of emails about people following me that I intend to check out and decide if I want to follow thm…when I get some spare tim! I suspect that won’t be this year!
I am intrigued with stories of folks using hashtags to build thir reputions with the press. Hashtags for conferences also seem a way for people to get some info.
A work in progress and maybe too much of a time suck to figure it all out!!!
Many hugs and Smiles,
Joeann
I’ve flirted with Twitter a few times over the last few years. I actually signed up before the hype but, like Steve, I don’t ‘get’ it. My problem is made worse by the fact I share my name with a well known soccer player and I am convinced that many people used to follow me in the hope of some insight into the weekend’s Premier League game.
Due to work, I have recently reactivated my account. I still don’t get it and once again I get daily e-mails from Twitter telling me someone else is following me. They are going to be quite bored if they wait for anything interesting to come from my account. I think the last ‘meaningful’ tweet I made was confirmation that I had washed down my patio….in September 2009.
So, I intend to be a Twitter voyeur and will sit back and watch the minutiea of other people’s lives drift past in little packets of 140 characters or less.
Stephen,
I encourage you to check out the Hootsuite desktop Twitter client. I used Tweetdeck for a couple of years and experienced much of your frustration. I’ve been using Twitter almost daily and very seriously since mid 2007.
I don’t worry about an etiquette issue in non-engagement with most followers. What matters to me is applying appropriate filters to follow discussions and topics. A large number of good follows offers superb content when the right filters are applied.
Engagement is haphazard without a good plan. Conversational engagement is less important to me than (1.) opportunities for research and (2.) exposure in highly trafficked locations using focused Twitter feeds (Huffington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and elsewhere).
I have two Twitter accounts. I set up Hootsuite with 10 tabs and eight columns in each tab. Some columns follow Twitter lists (people in categories), other columns follow topics (HUD homes, online newsrooms, social media policy, etc.), some follow hashtags du jour, and some columns follow geographic areas. I segment various media, and I segment some real estate specialties. I also follow brands (real estate and other).
Hootsuite is more valuable than an RSS reader in my life … it provides a rich research tool surpassing anything I have ever seen.
I am a writer. Twitter and Hootsuite offer tremendous opportunities to share information relative to presentations, Webinars, and conferences. I was invited to keynote two live events as a direct results of live Twitter reporting/engagement.
Tweetdeck may be the most popular desktop client but I don’t think it is the best tool for serious Twitter users. Perhaps when we chat soon we should set up a meeting and I will show you my desktop Twitter client … You might be surprised
Hi Frances, I will def take you up on the offer. I do use HootSuite but as a broadcast tool and like you, have broken out various brands. Again only for announcements, not engagement, so I’m interested in seeing how better to use the tool.
Hi Stephen,
Do you still feel the same way as when you first posted this 3 monts ago? Because if you have seen the light, please share it. I just posted a primal scream of frustration on this very topic here:
http://myfictionwritingtips.com/.
I read Frances’ tip and it sounds like she is handling it in a spectacular way, but I still wonder how many hours a day it takes? For me it takes approx. two – balanced about 60/40 on both ends of my writing day. I try to stay off the Internet and WRITE (my occupation) in the middle of the day. Except for sneak peeks here and there. I still feel I’m falling behind. So can you blog an update? Thanks.
Hi Lynne,
I feel exactly the same. I agree that Frances is dealing with this in a spectacular way but she is a spectacular person. As a result I think Frances represents a very small part of the population that not only gets twitter but also uses it effectively.
I can’t help but look at the problem from the perspective of the greater population and think that 90% or more not only don’t get twitter but never will. I don’t know if that number is valid but using data that is available (http://tinyurl.com/ybh2fa9) the vast majority of people are either not on twitter or sign up and use it once or never at all. Of specific interest to me is:
1. A large percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive, with about 25% of accounts having no followers and about 40% of accounts having never sent a single Tweet.
2. About 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times.
3. Only about 17% of registered Twitter accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009, an all-time-low.
The number of tweets is astronomical but what percentage are conversational and therefore of higher value? I would guess it is inline with email ; Microsoft says that 97% of total email sent is spam meaning 3% actually provides value (http://tinyurl.com/2jahj3).
I’m looking forward to speaking with Frances in more detail but I suspect that while I will personally benefit, a lot of the tips will be beyond the bulk of Internet users. It’s not because I’m cleverer than them, it’s because I spend all day, every day online managing a Web based technology company and so I live in a different world, an online one.
Should my opinion change I will definitely write another post, until that happens this remains my position
Steve
I think there is a lot of serious innovation happening with third-party developers relative to re-purposing Twitter content for the larger masses. The first time I saw Lynne’s name was at More Magazine online.
Presently, there is opportunity for “exposure” and “connection” at major national sites with loyal readership counted in the millions.
* More Magazine poses interesting opportunities to connect via Twitter feeds with hyper-topical focus.
* Huffington Post has numerous Twitter feeds … they attach Twitter content to most topics there.
Increasingly, mainstream media is using Twitter for small content bytes.
I don’t think you need to use Twitter every day. I find myself drawn to a “project” approach … Tweeting a conference, or a speaker’s presentation, or a Webinar (sometimes I Tweet for a client, using his/her Twitter account) … Occasionally I follow up with a news story or press release.
My prism of Twitter sees existing content. I’m not concerned with unpublished content. The same rule applies to blogs and other online publishing platforms. In real estate, fewer than 5% of agents publish their own blogs. Most of those blogs add noise to the space and demonstrate no real value. My guess is at least 90- 95% real estate blogs are worthless. I explore the ones that work, and work to tweak the ones that don’t.
Check this out, Huffington Post now has a Twitter edition!
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/Huffington_Post_Twitter_Edition.pdf&pli=1
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