Twitter Conversation - 10 Reasons
March 5th, 2009 by Jerell | Filed under Tip of the Day, trends.Lately there has been a trend of some really big people on twitter engaging in massive unfollowings. For me I don’t agree with this as I really believe that the golden rule of Twitter is that you have to engage in the conversation. This means that in my opinion it is a good idea to more or less have the same ratio of following to followers. My reasons are simple and I want to share them, but as always you should use Twitter as it best fits your needs, how you want to use Twitter, and not how someone should tell you to.
1. You can’t engage in a conversation if you don’t follow people
2. I don’t want to hear just myself speak
3. I can learn more from others
4. There are a lot more people interesting than me
5. I’m not an expert in everything
6. I’m not some self proclaimed Social Media Expert
7. I’m not into pumping my EGO – (I’m not talking EGO in the Rand sense) but in the modern negative connotations
8. You have a larger group of friends that you can talk to
9. You have more opportunities to engage in the conversation
10. It opens up new opportunities and networking results.
Tags: conversation, Twitter
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I wasn’t aware of major players doing a massive unfollowing. If they are, then to a significant degree, they lose “major player” status for me. I know social media means many things to many people, but I don’t think you can redefine “social” to mean one-way flow.
This comment is long, and I won’t be offended if you skip to the next comment.
I decided recently to dramatically change my “follow” policy.
My previous “follow” policy was to look over the person’s profile page, check out their web site (if available) and then make a decision based on what I learned.
I would follow folks I thought were interesting, shared some of my ideas and values, seemed to have something to offer, or at least were entertaining.
I would NOT follow people who were on Twitter (it seemed) only to promote themselves and not provide a lick of value to anyone else. I also wouldn’t follow someone who seemed completely opposed to my philosophy of life (I’m one of those who believes in hard work, ethical conduct, rewarding people who produce in life, that type of thing).
But I digress.
I decided to follow EVERYONE who follows me. Whoah! Big change. Why did I make this change in my follow policy? Three reasons:
1) I use TweetDeck which is a great Twitter tool that allows me to create groups and also “follow” keywords. I have several groups created on TweetDeck and two or three columns of tweets that mention my keywords. These filters give me access to the tweets I want to see right away. I of course also have the “group” which is all of the people I follow. So I will check that from time to time and if someone strikes me, I move them over to one of the “top” groups!
2) I found out through SocialToo, a Twitter Tool, that a handful of people were unfollowing me almost within a day or so of following me. Hmm. Why is that happening? My first assumption was: if I didn’t follow them right back, then why should they follow me? Some folks are into creating huge followings (for a variety of reasons) and if they don’t get an almost immediate return follow, then they cut the cord. Right? I guess the other possibility was they found out something about me they didn’t like and off they went. I know it’s a bit cynical, but I think the first might be the more likely reason.
3) My purpose for getting on Twitter was to connect with people. People are people. Yes, like-minded folks tend to hang with each other. But I decided I had something to offer everyone. Whether it was a piece of business advice, an observation of an area of life, or a humorous tweet that simply brought a smile or laugh to someone.
So, all things considered, I’ve got my TweetDeck to help me view the tweets I want to view right away. I’m opening the doors to everyone. I’m anticipating that some of the folks I would NOT have followed before will “get to me” in a positive way and I’d like to think I’ll do the same in return!
Okay, one admission here: I did block this one girl whose Twitter profile was a picture of a VERY scantily clad blonde female. She had five updates that were, well, major air. I think she was trolling for a good time and I’ve been happily married for quite awhile, so not following her seemed the way to go.
Anyway, that’s my reason for the change in policy. Hope that helps.
http://twitter.com/inplainenglish