Welcome back!
Twitter has quickly become my favorite site on the web, I love it because it is so simple and does so much. Who knew the possibilities contained within 140 characters? Twitter has become so awesome, in fact, that it seems everyone wants to connect. One of the latest trends is to connect with people in hopes that they’ll connect with you, supposedly in hopes that if you’re connected then they’ll be able to reach you. This has created a ton of meaningless connections.
I assume this means that marketers are testing the waters to see if they can capitalize on Twitter’s success, but they’re breaking one of the rules of social marketing. Social marketing only works when you have something people actually want, you have to add value (I hate that term but it fits). The best example I can think of is Dell. The only way this medium will last is if people are enjoying it.
A new trend is emerging. Unfollow everyone and start over. I just learned about it last night. At first I bristled against this but after giving it some thought I think its brilliant. The whole point of social media is to connect with people online. If you aren’t saying anything that I want to listen to, then why would I maintain the connection? Loïc Le Meur unfollowed everyone in his Twitter account yesterday, and is slowly adding people back. Its beautiful. Its the equivalent of hitting the refresh button. It preserves the value of Twitter for him. The alternative is to ditch social media altogether, and where’s the fun in that?
I don’t have 23,000 followers, so I probably won’t need to do this anytime soon, but I’m also not following everyone that finds me. If your Twitter account has become unruly then this could be just the trick to set things right. I promise I won’t be offended if you drop me, there’s a chance that I’ll unfollow you.
17 Comments
With tweet deck there is no need to do that. Follow all that you care in different columns and let the full firehose effect of twitter continue in the main feed but only glance at it when you want.
I’ve never tried Tweet Deck, I’ll have to check it out. I’m pretty happy with Digsby myself, though it doesn’t have this feature.
I think its a natural consequence of a sites success that it will become inundated with companies jumping on board. I think whether or not it will ruin the user experience depends on how the site owners react.
Facebook very much tried to work with business owners to allow pages, groups, bespoke advertising campaigns and applications. Its given plenty of room for businesses to stay within their own medium.
Bebo however has not flexed enough, and now my account ‘friend request’ folder is packed full of request from fake accounts fronting for adult websites and comments along a similar line too. This has simply driven me away.
So in conclusion I think that Twitter needs to create accounts specific for companies to stop firms encroaching on the user space.
Btw – for admin – “Comments with a company or product name as the link will not be approved. ” has a grammatical error.
great blog, I’ll return often!
It has become rather an addictive habit for people to follow almost everyone on twitter. But with that vast number of people, organizing what each person has to say everyday is a pain in the head. I’m not really active with it so I only have quite a handful of people that I follow.
Tweetdeck doesn’t really help if you just blindly follow everyone back, you still end up sorting people out into groups (columns in Tweetdeck). A better approach is to go through your follow requests/notices in email, and check each person out to see what they have posted recently, as seen on their Twitter page. Even if someone is supposed to be a guru, I don’t follow that person if all they do is talk about their cat, drinking beer, or going out to dinner. You should only follow people with whom you have interests in common, or, alternatively, someone who has NOTHING in common with you but who writes well and offers lots of interesting links. That’s the benefit of Twitter, randomizing your input so you’ll find new and helpful ideas that you haven’t found in your own narrow channel.
Use tools like http://twtrfrnd.com/ and mrtweet.net to find new and interesting people rather than just following back those who are following you. Also, if you want to get rid of stragglers, you can use a tool like http://www.mycleenr.com/ to find people you follow who don’t follow you back. There are lots of people who only want to get lots of followers but who don’t really want to hear from you. They just want to sell you stuff, not learn from you.
I love how Tweetdeck has Twitscoop built in. there’s nothing cooler than seeing trending news… I found out that my favorite football player, Brett Favre had retired, followed the entire hudson river plane crash… can you imagine 9-11–that might have crashed twitter.
Ian is right
Tweetdeck is an awesomely powerful tool if you have a bunch of people you follow, but only a few you care about.
I think tweetdeck has probably saved my life! (or at least my sanity)
I’m new at Tweet, still don’t get what it’s actually used for because I haven’t checked the site or review. Just heard so many times that it’s a good marketer.
Yes twitter has become one of my favorite sites too. It has developed awesomely in resent past.
I still uphold my theory, that Twitter is a waste of time. Maybe if You have 10k+ followers it might pay of, but if You just have a few hundreds like most people, then it’s just worthless effort.
I have gotten into Twitter in the past 6 months. I do my best to make a Tweet be a nuclear powered article in that I concentrate something important down to the Tweet maximum character number. But I don’t know about unfollowing everyone. Some of those folks who appear to be following me for no reason might have developed a reason or liking to my stuff.
I’m still new at Tweetdeck. I’m still getting the hang of it however, I think it looks promising.
Well, what is the true value of Twitter then. What 140 characters are so compelling I can’t wait to read them?
unfollow sucks, this is not internet !
I’m not a new on Tweetir but use it not so much. My first idea how to use Tweet.opportunities is to write corporate news from my site. In this case I found nothing better then follow everyone I’m interest in as manufacturer. But, time pass and what did I see: just 2000 people I can follow, and more than 50% are not interesting for me. Now: only interesting tweets
I used Twitter just recently and I’m loving the real time search feature it has so I’ll be sticking with it for awhile.
I’m new in Twitter,i think its a good way for to connect with people.tis good market for Social marketing works