Tweet Week: Twitter Following
I have decided that this week will be Tweet Week. Why?, I don’t know. Just accept it and let’s move on…
From time to time, people ask me questions about Twitter. Usually, I tweet a reply as soon as I can. Sometimes, it goes on my To Do list and never seems to get a reply. Take for example Judy of Brower, Miller & Cole. Many moons ago, she asked me a question about following on Twitter. Don’t worry. She found the answer on her own, so it’s not like she’s been sitting around waiting on me, which also made it a bit easier to keep putting it off.
At any rate, I will answer her question and more on this, Day One, of Tweet Week.
Twitter Following
When you’re starting out on Twitter and don’t follow a lot of people, it’s generally easy to keep up with everyone just by watching the tweet stream. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the tweet stream is the list of tweets that show up on your screen when you access Twitter from the website. The “Home” menu item in the sidebar will show you the tweets from all the people you follow. That’s the tweet stream. The “All” menu item in the sidebar will show all the tweets from everyone on Twitter, unless the have set their tweets to private. This can also be called the tweet stream. You’ll also see your username in the sidebar, preceded by an “@”. Those are all the replies directed at you as well as mentions when anyone mentions your username in a tweet. You can call that a tweet stream, but, more specifically, it is your reply stream or mentions stream. Finally, there are your direct messages, which you can call your DM stream.
Of course, you don’t have to call any of these streams, but you probably will hear people talk about the tweet stream more than any of the other streams. They are called streams because they show the flow of messages. So, what you see is a constantly flowing stream of information or messages.
Obviously, as you follow more people, that stream gets more crowded. In fact, it can reach flood levels! So, how do you keep up?
You don’t.
Every one has their breaking point, and, sooner or later, everyone reaches a point where they simply cannot keep up with all the messages in their tweet stream. Even if they were on Twitter 24/7, it would be humanly impossible to keep up.
Some use that as evidence that following a lot of people is of little value. Why follow people if you can’t keep up with them?
To answer that question, do you think that attending a party is of no value because you can’t follow all the conversations going on? Do you think that it’s not worthwhile to go to a chamber of commerce meeting because you can’t listen in on everyone’s conversations? Do you think that attending a tradeshow is a waste of time because you can’t listen to everyone all at once?*
It would be ridiculous to attend a cocktail party and expect to follow every conversation simultaneously. And, how many parties have you attended where every one took turns talking so that everyone in attendance could be part of that same conversation? Not very many, I bet. People break off into groups and talk amongst themselves. People will also hop from group to group, or walk around and form new groups of people talking. You might stand in a group and see that group dynamic change as people come and go from the group.
And, bear in mind that Twitter, unlike a cocktail party, isn’t something that’s over in a couple hours. It’s on all the time (excepting unexpected or planned downtimes). If 1000 people attended a three-hour cocktail party, you’d be hard-pressed to talk to everyone, wouldn’t you? But, if those same 1000 people were around for a weekend get-together, you’d have better odds of talking to everyone, no? And, if there were 5,000 spread out over a week-long party, you’d still have good odds of talking to everyone.
So, no, you cannot possibly carry on a meaningful conversation with 50,000 followers every day, but you don’t have to do so! Bear in mind too that some people are just there to listen. Others are there just to try to sell you stuff, so they don’t care what you say anyway. And the rest you can get to over time.
On Twitter, if someone comes to your party (that is, you follow them and they follow you back), it’s not like they’re using up a parking spot. It’s not like you have a limited number of parking spots available for them. You have unlimited parking spots available!!! (Bear in mind that only non-followers use up your parking spots. You can follow 10% more than follow you with a 2,000 follow minimum. So, if someone follows you back, that’s an even exchange. If someone does not follow you, they are occupying one of those available spots. If those spots fill up, you cannot meet new people and follow them! The non-followers cost you; followers don’t cost you anything!) So, there’s no reason not to have a large following! And no reason to not also follow those people back!
Should You Reciprocate a Follow?
Many people disagree on this, and people have different ways of using Twitter, so there may not be a “right” answer for this. But, my opinion that you should follow people back who follow you, with certain exceptions. I try to avoid following back spammers (which includes porn spammers) and fictional characters. (I may follow a fictional character if their tweets are funny. Entertainment has value.)
When I spot that someone has unfollowed me, I’m generally pretty quick to unfollow them back. Some people frown on that, but, as I’ve mentioned, unfollowers cost you parking spots. As long as they are following you, it’s an even exchange. Once they unfollow, they’re costing you a spot. On top of that, social networking is about socializing. If they don’t want to hear from me, why do I want to hear from them? Would you invite someone to your party if they stopped inviting you to theirs? Same thing here.
Those Tricky Marketers
As you probably well know, marketers are increasingly using Twitter, which is okay as long as they understand the social part of social networking. Unfortunately, many don’t.
At first, you saw that marketers, in some cases people that are considered (or consider themselves to be) “gurus,” wouldn’t follow but a select few people back. They didn’t want to interact. They just wanted to use Twitter as an RSS feed or as one-way communication, like a newsletter. They didn’t get the “social” part of it.
Then, things started changing. You started seeing some of those marketers begin to follow back everyone that followed them. A-ha! They were starting to get it, right?
Wrong.
Sure. They may follow everyone back who follows them, but they may not be really following everyone back. You see, some third-party applications let them select only certain people to really follow. In other words, they might follow 25,000 people but, instead of seeing the tweets from those 25,000 people, they are really only seeing the tweets from maybe 25 people that they select. So, you may think, hey, so-and-so is following me! But, so-and-so may be technically following you, but they’ll probably never even see your tweets!
That’s not social networking! And, it’s very sneaky and deceptive if you ask me.
Now, I know you’re thinking that I said earlier that it’s not humanly possible to follow everyone. But, that is different. With the former, you always have a chance at being seen. Some people may not read every one of your tweets, but it’s still worthwhile if they read some of them. But, if your tweets are not being seen, if you’re not among the 25 or however many people the gurus are really following, your tweets will never get seen. So, there’s no value there–for you! For them, there’s a chance you will see their tweets and you don’t really know that they’re not seeing yours. So, it’s a win-win for them but a lose-lose for you.
And that’s not being very social, is it?
That’s All for Today!
That’s all for today’s Tweet Week post. Make sure you keep coming back for the rest of Tweet Week!
* For credit where credit is due, I’ve heard Perry Belcher describe social networking as a party and Dana Willhoit has described Twitter as like a chamber of commerce.
I am fast ……..
I’ve always believe that I should only follow people that I find interesting, and that those that follow me should not expect an autofollow back in return, but your way works, too….
[...] (or thought I heard), she was working on a revised edition. You might want to contact her. I did a Tweet Week series earlier this year on my blog. Maybe you might find something useful there [...]