I really enjoyed the post from Sonny Gill yesterday exploring the idea of Broadcasting vs Conversing on Twitter. I think he’s on the money and new Twitter users can learn something from his suggestions – however I wanted to ask the question today:
Is it OK to use Twitter as a Broadcasting Tool?
The reason that I ask the question is that while my main Twitter account (@problogger) is pretty interactive – my secondary one (@digitalps – one connected to my photography site) is not – it’s almost purely used as a broadcasting tool.
Not only do I use it for broadcasting – I don’t follow anyone with the account and yet it still has over 1000 followers. Every day a new tweet automatically goes up on the account pointing to a new post on my blog and every day that tweet sends around 100 people to my site).
While I suspect if I were to use that Twitter account more conversationally that it could be even more effective (it is one of my goals at some point) at this point I’m relatively happy with how it’s working – particularly considering I’ve never really promoted @digitalps beyond a couple of tweets and a single post on my blog.
The other reason I ask the question today about using Twitter as a broadcasting tool is that as I look at the top 10 users of Twitter (in terms of how many people follow them) I notice that 3 of the top ten also use Twitter purely as a broadcasting tool. They have 117,025, 51,030 and 36,168 followers.
While they are either famous or have incredible reach in other ways already – they’re sustaining massive amounts of followers and never really interact with any of them (at least not publicly).
I’m not writing this post to suggest that we should all just use Twitter as a broadcast tool – but I guess I wanted to say that it can be done quite successfully – in some circumstances.
So When is it OK to use Twitter as a Broadcasting Tool?
Let me suggest a few times that ‘broadcasting’ might be appropriate on Twitter:
1. When users know what they’re getting – what strikes me about each of the examples that I’ve used above is that each account has not been used as an interactive tool at any point in it’s history (or at least in my memory of them). When people sign up as followers of these accounts they can clearly see by the archives of tweets from the account that there is no interaction. They know what they’re getting (ie that this is a ‘broadcasting type twitter account) when they sign up and opt into receiving those tweets.
When ‘broadcasting’ becomes dangerous is when you change the rules on your followers and go from using Twitter purely as a conversational tool to using it purely as a broadcasting one.
2. When you’ve got something worthwhile to broadcast – a Twitter account used solely for broadcasting will be increasingly attractive to followers as the quality of the broadcasts increase.
I actually have followers of my photography twitter account thank me all the time for my tweets – because they help them improve their photography. If the tweets were rubbish it’d fail to be useful to people and they’d stop following.
3. When you focus upon a topic/niche – ‘niche’ might not be the right word here but in each of the broadcast examples that I’ve given there is a definite ‘focus’ of what the broadcasted tweets will be about. Barack Obamas tweets are about him and what he and his campaign team are doing, CNN’s account is used for breaking news stories, MacRumors uses theirs to talk about Apple news and my photogrpahy tweets are all obviously about photography.
I guess this taps into points #1 and #2 – users sign up because they have an interest in a specific topic and as long as the tweets are on topic and useful – they don’t mind the lack of interactivity.
4. When you mix it up – of the 7 top users of Twitter that don’t use Twitter purely as a broadcasting tool it is interesting to note that most of them DO use Twitter to ‘broadcast’ from time to time. They tweet their own links, point people to their own projects etc on a semi-regular basis – but it’s not overwhelming.
I find on my @problogger Twitter account that I get very positive feedback from people when links to my own posts go up on the account. What I find though is that my followers are much more open to seeing my links if I’m also posting other interesting links and mixing up my tweets with other interactions (replies to others, tweets about my day, reflections on topics that I’m interested in etc). The more variety I inject into my tweets the more positive feedback I get and the more people seem to click on my own broadcast style tweets.
What Do You Think?
Please don’t get me wrong – I love Twitter most when it is used conversationally, when people truly connect and where it’s used relationally. However I’m not sure it always needs to be used in this way and actually love to see people using it in a variety of ways also.
I’m interested to hear how you use Twitter. Do you ‘broadcast’, ‘converse’ do both or perhaps use Twitter in a completely different way?
I’d also love to see examples of some of the most effective uses of Twitter that you’ve seen.
I’m looking forward to your comments!
You explore a question that is harder to resolve than it looks.
I use Twitter as a mixed medium.
I converse mostly with those in my ‘following’ list with whom my ‘relationship’ goes beyond Twitter; e.g. they may be bloggers I read.
But occasionally I broadcast things that none in my network has yet discussed but that may interest some in my network. e.g. yesterday I shared the news about Japanese scientists having cultivated functioning human cortical tissues using human embryonic stem cells. I think to me – and to many others in my network – who will all get old, this is a promising development worth tracking.
Just as I do not converse with all, I do not expect all to appreciate the occasional broadcasts. But a balance is important. And if I follow a ’star’ on Twitter, I expect that they recognise this need for balance too. I think Guy Kawasaki is often accused of being a broadcaster but when someone responds to something, he is good at switching to conversation mode too.
I think mixing it up is fair, unless you’re a media mogul. (I’m not.)
The main reason I like have my blog feed shooting out through twitter is that each link ends up in my Facebook profile. And many folks only come to my blog through that profile. They prefer Facebook for conversation. I prefer blogs. Twitter works as a bridge to bring us together.
I agree with you here completely Darren, it’s about expectations and content. When I decide to follow someone I primarily look at their first page of tweets to see if I find value. I also note how many @ conversations they are having. I don’t have a hard rule about what I’m looking for, but I want to get a quick feel for what type of account it is.
The last thing check is their follower to following ratio. Seeing that a good number of people follow them without being followed back show that people still see value even if they can’t interact.
Thanks for the site, I’m loving the content!
@covati
I think that your first point is spot on. I’d also add that broadcasting probably works best if you’ve already demonstrated to your followers that you’re a leading authority on a particular topic.
Niche? I’d think broadcasting is still good when you know that you have something great to share that others (maybe a handful? lol) of people will find it valuable.
I use two accounts one conversational the other is a broadcast. While my broadcast is pushing User Generated Content for a high niche market my Following to Follower ratio is extremely high. I have started to post additional informational entries and have started to slowly see my followers increase over the last month.
@brentnau
@ucftickets
I totally agree with this. When I know that a feed is broadcasting, it’s fine. I read lots of RSS feeds every day, and popular twitter broadcasts are just an extension of that for me. I love twitter as a news feed because it’s microblogging and the data is pre-distilled. I don’t expect @BarackObama to reply to anyone. I also think it’s cool when the heavy hitters (you included, heh) @ reply to you and carry on a conversation. It’s a bit of a novelty, being able to chat with respected individuals and hear what they have to say, and ask questions.
I blog and twitter to follow and meet others into my two main areas of interest: online POD like zazzle and cafepress also DJs in the music. Using keywords at http://search.twitter.com and follow then make introductions is my way of creating some community.
About broadcasting websites that establish twitter accounts soley in website’s identity to update their content, I find very useful. The sites that interact with some real-time and authored messages are the most appealing rather than posting like a bot exclusively. It means that a reply likely could be read by a person and a answer is possible. Since my interests are included in blogs I author, sometimes my writers’s block is released after getting ideas from broadcast posting or the posted link itself becomes my latest blog advice to readers.
I try to do the “mixing it up” strategy myself. I use it to actually microblog, as in share my thoughts and activities in 140 characters or less, and I also use it to converse. I also love to share links to cool things and useful information. Considering I have a pretty good following, most people seem to like it.
I think the point about people knowing what they’re going to get if you’re going to broadcast is good. I wonder if people expect a more broadcast-based content from a Twitter profile that skews organizational or corporate than personal-brand driven.
I think it’s important to distinguish between broadcasting, and sharing. A one-way “broadcast” that is self-promotional may still be of value, but does run the risk (over time) of being self-oriented instead of community-oriented. However, a one-way “sharing” (a pointer to someone’s interesting blog post; a re-tweet; a link to a news article; etc.) may not be meant to create 2-way dialogue or conversation, but is still quite valuable. So, as always, we have to be careful about how we use the term “broadcasting.” I send out a lot of stuff on Twitter that isn’t meant to provoke dialogue, but is meant to inform or entertain.
I don’t broadcast very often. Once in a while, when I really want to point out a new post, fine. But otherwise I’m just twitting.
I think it’s funny how some people react though. I’m a loony liberal, rabidly anti-conservative type and I’ve made more than a few caustic political comments during the recent U.S. election.
Did anyone un-follow or even blast back at me? Nope.
But just once I mentioned an Ebook I wrote and had two instantaneous un-follows.
From this I gather that not one of my followers is a Republican but at least a couple of them hated the idea of me trying to sell anything
Hey, I just noticed something – the comment info has space for email and website, but not for Twitter name. Wouldn’t it make sense for a Twitter bog to include our Twitter names?
I’m “pcunix”, by the way..
I signed up for twitter long ago and didn’t use it much, but decided just this week to start using it for broadcasting. I like the idea of using it to announce content, as I have a niche blog and a good portion of my regular readers are twitter users. I’d say have about the same number of followers/people who I’m following. I see conversational tweets a lot, but will probably not use it all that much for conversation myself.
Darren,
One additional reason why your use of @digitalps is so effective is that you’ve helped others with @problogger. You’ve made valuable contibutions to the twittersphere and folks trust you.
These “karmic” contributions on Twitter have much greater impact than some of us realize.
John
Darren, what a great post you gave me a good idea (and I would be happy to write a post here on TwiTip about it). While I see pro’s and con’s to broadcasting messages, I think you’ve nailed the perfect way to do it. Have a main account that you interact with people on, but get twitter “broadcast accounts” for all your blogs as well, and promote them on your blog just like an RSS feed. This way whenever you do a new post you can do a twitter broadcast from your blog’s twitter account. This way everybody who’s interested in your site will subscribe, and be notified instantly about updates to your blog.
Currently I’m using twitter more for conversing. I’m still very new in blogging so nobody will listen to me whenever I broadcast. @bonoriau
I think the quality of the content broadcasted is the most important factor to consider when using Twitter to broadcast. I’ve never followed or un-followed numerous people whose frequent broadcasts seemed to be self-serving and/or without helpful and interesting content.
I occasionally broadcast my posts if I think they will interest my followers (I have a very narrow niche), but am always aware of how much I do broadcast them. I try to mix them in with other interesting URL’s and retweets.
Of course, I look upon twitter more as a conversational tool than a medium for self-advertising, so your mileage may vary!
Like Freelance Twins, my take-away here is that it’s probably a good idea to have multiple Twitter accounts for different purposes (including, for example, a protected account for testing, so you don’t tweet something like “Hi {!firstname_fix}, read my latest blog post!” to the entire world).
And I strongly agree with point #1, because setting up user expectations and then doing something different isn’t good. Setting up a new Twitter account would be preferable to taking an existing one in a new direction.
So, are we going to see an aftermarket in Twitter usernames, like dot-com domain names, becuase “all the good ones are taken”?
Darren,
I love using many of the social networks for broadcasting, finding old high school friends, and networking. My experience with Twitter is limited, but I plan on using it as a forum to announce my live Seminars in Colorado.
I solicited feedback from some of my users and as a result I now use @ganjablue for my conversational tweets and some broadcasts and I use @ganjanews for broadcasting breaking news.
Here’s a tip for you broadcasters. I use Google Reader’s Shared Items feed + TwitterFeed to integrate Google Reader seamlessly with Twitter.
Am not getting anything in broadcasting to my 50 twitter followers about my new posts. @digisteps
I both broadcast and converse on twitter. I broadcoast my own posts on my various blogs, but I also broadcast various articles from my RSS feeds that I think are good enough to pass on (or rather, ones that I think people following me will find as interesting as I do). But I also use it to converse with the various people I follow. I don’t get a lot of replies to my replies, but I get a few, and am starting to get a few relationships starting. I’ve been on Twitter about a month, and it’s really the firs social networking tool I’ve tried that I’ve really felt like it was working to really build a network, and part of that is the conversations that go on. I feel a little lost in the big networks in StumbleUpon, but with the daily contact with people I follow, it feels easier to build those relationships.
I’m also Jodith on twitter if you want to follow me.
You’re talking about the very thing that I can’t stand about Twitter. It can be useful, but broadcasting is a nice way to describe a deluge of spam tweets. I don’t need to be pointed to your lone blog post of the day three times, yk? Reviewing my stats shows me that, for me personally, Twitter is not giving me much of any ROI wrt my time. If I’m following you in my reader, I don’t need you to broadcast to me. I cut those people out of my subs and the next step is to unfollow.
As many others have mentioned above, setting expectations for an account are key. The types of accounts I follow on Twitter range from specific individuals to brands leaving status updates and companies querying for feedback. If the account is meant to be a broadcasting tool (like @vctips), then it is entirely appropriate.
I tend to scan through the user’s last few days of tweets and then determine whether or not I will follow them. My biggest problem is when I sign up based on one perception of a user’s microblogging activities and then later get hood winked when everything becomes a lifestreaming broadcast. That’s about the time I quickly hit the ‘unfollow’ link.
-Mike
Twitter isn’t a broadcasting tool?
I wrote a post ‘What are You Doing Using Twitter?’ and some have told me my ideas are slightly rogue which I absolutely love hearing.
Question from someone on Twitter: “Twitter, what do you guys like best about it?”
My answer: you can legally stalk others…Actually you can get an insider of what makes people tick. This is my online mastermind group. (i.e.; other bloggers)
I think it’s always okay to broadcast on Twitter that is what it is for.
Hi
Check out the stats of some of the so called well known people their DUST 
People who think it’s all about them are in for a rude awakening.
I always thought it was strange how people who don’t follow anyone,go to other people’s blogs,leave comments on other people’s blog,respond to their emails have such huge followings.
It doesn’t make sense. I like the technology of twitter but have found most people on there to be snobs so I just have it set up to auto twit my post.I’m looking for regular cool people to interact with not snobs so I don’t care much about Twitter one way or another. I rather keep it real and loose the so called celebs. 2009 is the year of the Underdog
@Infonote
In my opinion it is OK since after all the blog/site that you are linking to is satisfying a need.
Bu conversation is much better.
Reading: When to Broadcast on Twitter http://tinyurl.com/572vz4 @problogger
@ariherzog
I can’t add to the conversation other than saying like you, Darren, I have two accounts. One is my personal account, linked above.
The other is @ariwriterdotcom which is a broadcast-only feed of my blog’s content like you do for the photo entries.
I rarely tweet about the broadcast feed, yet it builds organic momentum due to a link on the blog.
Other than some Boston-centric feeds, I follow no broadcasts. But I provide a broadcast for those who want it.
@mollermarketing
Not sure who said this but I feel it sums it up when talking about using Twitter. I have 5 twitter accounts and use primarily one of them @mollermarketing. The others I set up to protect the names. I plan to use them mostly for broadcasting new posts and to build “numbers” for advertising options later on. (If I can tell a potential advertiser that I have over X followers on my blog/twitter account, that has some merit I think.)
Thanks for the insights…
@goffgrafix
This is great food for thought – thank you!
I like to follow people who post interesting links, but who will also take the time to respond to people. On the other hand, twitter users who just chit chat exclusively annoy me. They fill up my twitter screen with fluff and bury the useful twits.
The uprising and popularity twitter is getting is unbelieveable. I remember a year ago you never saw a tv station or celebriting twittering. In just one year everybody is using twitter. This includes all business like sportscenter and local news networks.
I have not been able to get into twittering. To be honest I do not understand it yet. I am really eager though to get started with it and learn some techniques for building followers.
I only use twitter for news and gossip and also to catch up on friends.
Don’t give out personal information like where you live or your phone number as in every community there are always bad people lurking around.
@4layouts
Great post. I used to use Twitter solely for broadcasting for my sites 4Layouts.com and theWebmastersPlace.com. Never got any significant traffic from it though. Now I am trying to mix it up (after reading this article), start interacting with other posters and retweeting others links. I’ll let you all know if that changes much for me.