Wed 1 Jul 2009
Twitter is for friends not fiends
Posted by DamienBasile under branding, social media
Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!
We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.
Man in the mirror
Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.
The noise won’t stop
When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.
Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play
Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.
Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.
I’m popularrrr
Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.
Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.
Put me in coach I’m ready to play
Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.
Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.
What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.
We all live in a yellow submarine
Twitter is for friends not fiends. I don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.
If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends’ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.
I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand
Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.
One last word, before I go..
Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.
Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.
Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.
These are the people that will carry you to great heights.
10 Responses to “ Twitter is for friends not fiends ”
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I’m totally with you when you write about how overwhelming and disconnected twitter can be. I have a small number of followers and still need to resort to Tweetdeck to keep sane. If I’m reading your post right, I differ with you on point: I don’t limit follows to people I know off line. I do that with Facebook, but Twitter is where I talk to people I suspect I would like to meet offline. I view it as a sort of virtual conference. (Of course, I still crave followers and make goofy decisions.) And, sadly, most of my friends who have tried twitter hate it–find it confusing and competitive and distracting. And it isn’t that they don’t “get it”–they are smart people who don’t like it. This makes your call for twitter as true conversation even more compelling to me.
Thanks so much for posting this. I have been trying to understand the best way to use Twitter and who and how to ‘follow’. I too don’t understand people who accumulate thousands of contacts - I even was wondering if there were points or benefits to amassing huge numbers as some people tweet to request more followers so they can reach a certain number - as though that is their only goal. Your approach makes so much more sense to me. I have been editing my list and deleting those who just make noise, put up multiple posts in a row, dominating the conversation, or who just sell sell sell. Now back to tweet
Generally speaking, I don’t limit connecting just to people I meet offline but lately that’s how things have been working best for me. It may change any day but it’s been that way for the over the past month. I don’t need to actively grow my network because my network is at a saturation point. The best course of action for me is to further strengthen the bonds I have already created.
Damien,
Thanks for such a thoughtful and interesting post. One thing you noted that I think is particularly brilliant and has changed the way I think about things is this: “Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other.”
I, also, have noticed that phenomena – where people who got to know each other only through me started going off and not only chatting with each other, but doing great things together. And the first time it happened, I have to admit, I thought to myself “HEY! Those guys were friends with ME first! What about ME!” It was funny how quickly I felt excluded even though *I had built the community that brought them together.*
But that’s what happens when you continually build out instead of in. You have to let go of some relationships in order to make room for new ones. You can’t expect people to wait around for you if don’t have time for them. It’s interesting how quickly I’ve grown up since being involved in this space.
On the other hand, I have met people on Twitter who I simply adore. You, Damien, certainly, and countless others. People from Turkey and Mexico and California and Canada and South Carolina whom I may never, ever meet in person. People who are brilliant, people who are kind, people who make me laugh. People I now call up on the phone and have some of the most interesting conversations I have ever had *in my life*. This is not an overstatement.
And quite frankly, I don’t know how that happened.
I follow a lot of people because I want to truly understand that particular experience from a first-hand point of view so I can advise clients (and friends) on how it works. I try very hard not to judge whether one way is “right” or “wrong”. Every time I follow someone new it is because I think “Wow, this person is interesting! They sound like someone with whom I might want to have a conversation with some day!” I am of the “hello, my name is …” school of following techniques. I don’t add value right away, and I openly admit it. I wait to see what will happen.
But my actions for today are guided by two principles — one of past results, one of future potential. They are these:
I have met people on Twitter whom I simply adore.
I hope to help define what is possible.
Thank you, Damien, for continuing the conversation.
Twitter is about your goals and how you use it. As a software wizard, I’d like to point out that it’s easy to keep track of many thousands using a “magical desktop sorting application.” People have been using AI filters to scan thousands of news feeds. They closely follow a fraction, but the rest is filtered showing them posts of most interest to them. This is how some people choose to user Twitter. They scan thousands and join the conversations that interest them much like a city community; people have brief conversations everyday with people they only see in passing. Some believe in following back, which means extra software magic for popular people.
My preference is in a community of common interests similar to the one you describe. And I believe in following back those that show interest in me, avoiding bots and pure spam.
Twitter is not only for friends. Build a small close community of friends or a wide open community of neighbors. Use Twitter in the way that’s best for you, your goals, and within the limitations of your technology.
good points all, especially for those who are just dipping a toe in the twitter pool. however, I question your statement in the comments section: “I don’t need to grow my network because my network is at a saturation point.” the utility of twitter is exactly as lisa describes it, in its ability to connect us with people we might never otherwise meet. this serendipity cannot occur if I say “no mas - I’m at capacity.’
that said, if I tried to manage all my conversations via twitter’s native interface, I’d be one confused and buried pup. that’s why a minority of twitter users use the service through twitter.com. one commenter alluded to tweetdeck. I recommend it to anyone using twitter, even new users.
I also use topify to screen followers. now when someone follows me, I get an email that shows how many followers the person has, how many they are following, how “conversational” they are (using @replies, retweeting, etc rather than just broadcasting), and their 4-5 most recent tweets. (note: I believe that twitter is improving their new follower notifications, but I like topify anyway)
I don’t block anyone, even the obvious spammers and salespeople. I _do_ exercise discretion on who I follow back. that gets them a spot in the ‘all friends’ column in tweetdeck and ensures that I see their replies to others I’m following. then, I use groups to make sure I see all the conversations for people I find especially worth hearing.
it’s not about the numbers - very true. but it _is_ numbers that provide the real value to twitter and other online social networks. properly managed, personal networks that are open to expansion can provide answers, insights and different perspectives that are invaluable to personal and professional growth.
David, I *totally* agree that Twitter should be about your own personal goals, and that as long as you’re not abusing other people there shouldn’t be judgments on “right” vs. “wrong” ways of using it. On the other hand, these discussions are valuable just so that people *can* think about what might work best for them. I know people, for example, who have followed by 30,000 people and then unfollowed them all without warning because they suddenly couldn’t handle it (or wanted their numbers to look better, hard to say). Regardless whether that’s right, or wrong, or even wise, it’s good for people to know that that’s can be a potential consequence.
Interestingly, I used to use Tweetdeck to sort, but at some point I went back to the web interface. I look for interesting tweets (yup, from all 20,000 of ‘em). I try to interact with at least a few new people a day. But the people that I know and like and value (regardless of whether I consider them “friends” or not), those people I always check in on their Twitter profile page every few days. This gives me the “ambient awareness” that Clive Thompson of the NYT’s has talked about, and if there’s anything important to respond to, I do.
Hi,
What a interesting piece. I can truly relate to the idea about the blinker on the car. Our son [he’s 10 going on 11] is autisch and there is a possibility I myself as well. Being that autism a sort blindness is for social traffic, we find ourselves each day rediscovering social ‘cars’ whom don’t have the extra ‘social blinkers’ which are needed to prevent us from ‘bumping’ and from taking the wrong ‘exit’, finding ourselves at odds at what to do.
The cool thing about the way our son interacts with his autism, is that he is very analysing person. When each new ‘extra social blinker’ is constructed by explaining in the topic in more detail, about the whys and how’s , writing a sort ‘subprogram’ finally the pieces of the puzzle fall in place and he ‘sees’ what’s going on and why afterwards it’s the common knowledge. He has also the capability to redesign his subprograms to suit a new but almost identical social situation.
Reading the other committed that were placed, I see online social networking as a dream come true. So I am a regular in a dutch language chat room for the last 5 years, were I can exercise my language skills, being that I was born and raised in the USA to two dutch parent, however 20 years ago I made the move to live in the Netherlands. Online I am ‘forced’ to explain myself with only letters only, plus I have learned by trail and error how to build and maintained friendships, something I never would dare to do before.
About the fact that some people seem to have a million friends, leaving us to wonder why. It may be the fact that we tend to ‘compete’ with the ‘Jones’, what they have we want cause otherwise we are not ‘in’. In some countries it’s a sign of richness is how many camels you have. In some cultures is a sign of beauty if a women’s backend is huge. So we can go around and around finding something that seems out of the ordinary for us cause we see things differently then the next person.
Once again a great read Lisa! thnx