By Alan Skorkin of Skorks. Follow him @skorks.
I recently got myself a brand new twitter account! Yeah I can hear the gasps already, ‘How could I abandon my followers like that’? Well before we get judgmental and call me a Twitter traitor, let me tell you about my old account and what prompted my move.
The Twitter Trap
I joined twitter for the first time about a year ago, at the time I was just getting into social media – a relative newbie. I was however savvy enough to know that the info was out there for me to find, so I set out to learn how to use twitter properly. I started learning how to get followers as well as who to follow myself, I read about how to tweet, when to tweet and what to tweet. I joined all the ‘popular’ twitter services, Twollow, Twitter Grader (and many others), I tried out TweetDeck and Twhirl. I was steeped in Twitter culture and my account was growing by leaps and bounds. Before I knew it I had 5000+ followers and was following over 4500 people. My twitter client was always on and I was tweeting 20, 30 or more times a day, I was talking to all sorts of people about all sorts of stuff. And despite all of this I was finding that I was not really satisfied with the whole twitter experience. Where were the deep connections that all the ‘experts’ were talking about where was the ‘value’, why was I doing this anyway? Sound familiar?
I didn’t really understand what the problems were until I decided to engage in a retrospective of my Twitter experience. For those who don’t know this is a software development concept where you look back and try to identify problems to see what can be improved (as well as identifying things that went well so that you can keep doing them). I identified several problems and I believe these don’t just apply to me but to many people who join twitter and get caught-up in the excitement before they really know what’s what.
The Issues (Almost Everyone Faces)
- Mass following people. I don’t mean mass following spammer-style, but following dozens of people a day is still mass following. You don’t really know who you’re following, there is no time to find out, and you don’t know why you’re following them, you just know you need to follow people, all the experts say so.
- Following people for no other reason than to get a follow-back.
- Following everyone that anyone recommends.
- Not filtering your own list of followers. Who else is being followed by several hundred bots and spammers (don’t be shy raise your hand, you know it’s pretty much all of you)?
- Spamming your followers twitter stream with anything and everything you can find. What you’re doing, what you’re reading, what other people are doing and reading, all day long…
- Retweeting not because you like the content, but because you need something to tweet and if someone else retweeted it, then it must be great.
- Relying completely on a twitter client (TweetDeck) because there is no other way to keep a handle on your account
- Making at best superficial connections with your followers, and at worst no connection at all.
This is where I was and this is where I think many people are. Your twitter account is bloated with thousands of useless followers, people you never engage with, people who you don’t really care about and who don’t really care about you. You never see 99% percent of your stream since you get hundreds of tweets per hour despite the fact you’re on twitter all the time.
What Others Were Doing
Then I heard about a new trend where some people would try to ‘restart’ their account by un-following everyone they were following. I found that I had an ethical problem with that, it seemed somewhat duplicitous to un-follow people like that, after all you were both playing the game (follow me and I’ll follow you), but you decide to change the rules without telling everyone else. And what’s the point anyway, all you get is hours of effort wasted un-following everyone, but the people following you care about you just as little as they did before. This is where I had a revelation. Rather than ‘restarting’ your current account, why not phase it out and get yourself a new one. You give all your followers the opportunity to keep following you on your new account as you slowly abandon your old account over the course of a few weeks. You get to keep the followers who actually care about you and you get the benefit of a clean new account.
The Brand New Account
So we’re back at the start of this post, I’ve got myself a brand new twitter account. These days, I am not a social media newbie any more, in fact I am pretty savvy. I’ve read all the experts and have drawn my own conclusions I know how to handle a Twitter account (or any social media account for that matter). Does THAT sound like you? Well, here is what you get from a brand new twitter account:
- An opportunity to rebrand any way you like. Choose an account with a handle you actually want to be known by.
- You no longer need to mass follow anyone, you know exactly where that leads. Only follow people you you’re actually interested in following. You can’t make a connection with someone you don’t care about.
- Talking about connections, you finally have the opportunity to make some genuine ones, because you only follow people you actually want to connect with and there is few enough of them that you have the time.
- You can tweet what you feel like and what you think is worth tweeting as you no longer need to ‘satisfy’ your ‘fans’. If you tweet great content – fine. If you tweet inane bon mots – also fine. Oh and only retweet content you actually like, you even have time to read it now.
- You can follow your twitter stream on the web! Throw away your twitter client (if you want).
- You can filter your account mercilessly. No more bots or ‘money experts’ following you, give the Twitter ‘block’ feature a real workout.
- Spend 15 minutes in total on twitter per day and still get more value from it than you used to.
At the end of the day what you really want is for people to follow you because they care about what you have to say, not because they expect a follow-back. Sure you won’t get a massive account with 1000s of followers (who knows though, you just might, you may be that interesting). What you will get is an account which is almost a community, an account where you can engage 90% of your followers when you tweet as opposed to 1%. That’s powerful, considering that to engage 90 people you would need to have 100 people following you, whereas with your old account you would have needed to have 9000. I’ll leave it to you to decide which you would rather have.
In the meantime I am enjoying my brand new twitter experience. Feels a little like a breath of fresh air, refreshing, fun and liberating. Send me a tweet if you like and I’ll reply, because I care about what you have to say, and I can keep track of my whole stream, from the web, with no trouble and minimal time investment. Can you?
[image credit: tomsaint]
@altexor
Brilliant post.
Whilst I have elimiated some of the chaff and focus on the wheat I “hear you” and when I find the time and cjones I think I might join you in Twitter rebirthing experience.
@snowvandemore
When you figure out that Twitter is about you and not everyone else — then you get it. That’s why I follow less than 500 people and actually plan on cutting that down to a more managable number in the near future. I use Twitter mainly to broadcast my blog posts — and catch up with a few good friends, but that’s about it. I spend probably about 10 – 15 mins a day on Twitter. That seems to keep me satisfied.
I don’t want to dump my original (and only) twitter account and start a new one — but I can improve the one I have to be whatever I want it to be. I believe that is really what we are talking about. Making the most out of our own personal Twitter experience.
Great post and really give us something to think about.
@GreenLasagna
I totally understand. I did the same thing, changed my name, kept both accounts for 30 days, posted several times that I had changed my name, and invited my tweeple to follow me there. I followed some of my old tweeple under the new name. It took me a long time to catch up to where I was, but I lost all the followers that did not care a whit about me, and maybe that’s a good thing. Now I regularly “cull” my account, and only follow those who I truly feel will add something to the mix. I get a lot of follow friday people, and I might find two or three of those I really want to follow back or just allow to follow me.
@dasparky
Great article – Snow recommended
. I’ve made some of the mistakes you mention above, but recovered rather quickly. I’ve used TwitterKarma to radically cut down who I follow. I do think the “unfollow” everyone strategy can work, however. One of the folks I follow did it, but tweeted about it, and said “if you want a follow-back, let me know”. I did, saying something to the effect of “if you still want to follow a crazy goose lady, please do!” and he did, with a laugh.
Then again, perhaps if my follow list was bigger than what it is, I would have missed his update.
@skorks
@snowvandemore thats exactly right, ultimately you need to use twitter in whatever is the best way for yourself. It that means just chatting to friends thats cool, but if you want to meet new and interesting people, following 1000s may not be the way to do it either.
Sometimes if you’ve already made a bunch of mistakes but now know better, the time investment needed to fix is not worth it, and it is better to start over.
@MarComSpclst
This is a very intriguing idea. I currently have 3 Twitter ids (one for my business, one for my personal blog, one for my current job hunt) and already, I’m thinking of rebooting at least one of them for all the reasons listed above.
@michael_cowen
Good, common sense advise. here’s for 100! Nice post
@pixelcellar
I like the idea though to be honest for me it’s never really been a numbers game and my followers/following ratio pretty much reflects this.
I want to follow people interested in the industry I work in that have interesting things to say and some of them follow me back. It keeps me in the loop with the world, kind of putting RSS feeds to death at the same time which isn’t such a bad thing as that used to eat so much time!
I regularly cull my followers if they’ve not really said a lot of interest or are indeed bots or similar. Ultimately I’m happy with the account I have and I have no issue in un-following those that are not worth following wether they are following me or not. That’s what Twitter is about, the whole Follow Me and I’ll Follow You thing is pointless really and ultimately leads you to either start over or un-follow loads of people.
Keep your followers clean and relevant and you’ll get the best out of it.
Interesting. I’ve never followed someone just because they follow me and I wish I could tell folks that it isn’t necessary to follow me back because I’m not in a race to get followers. I do need to go through and cull some of the folks I follow because they really add no value to me. I do follow people who do things that interest me, people in certain professions, and people wo provide information that interests me. I never went into Twitter thinking of it like a race to get followers but a place to get information, mine information, and keep up with folks.
Thanks for making me think.
@alexpriest
I agree… and disagree.
Currently I follow not quite 200 people–a few of which are news organizations (to keep up with breaking MSM news). I’d say probably 95% of the rest are people I’ve at least had one conversation with either in person or via twitter, and I’m usually very careful about who I follow–I rarely follow others simply to get them to follow me back.
So I have about 300 followers, which is just fine with me. I’m not too concerned about numbers. But at the same time, I disagree with some of your final conclusions (although this is purely on a personal basis, I can see the value for other people). Personally, I find great value in a twitter client–tweetdeck being my client of choice–and I really enjoy spending a fair amount of time on Twitter. Rarely do I spend more than 5-10 minutes at one time on the service, but I probably spend at least an hour interacting with people via Twitter on most days. I truly enjoy forging deeper connections, spreading news that is valuable (and not just retweeting for the sake of having something to retweet).
I don’t know, I guess all I’m trying to say is that you make a lot of good points–you shouldn’t do any of the things you say you shouldn’t do. But at the same time, I guess I’m saying that personally I’ve found a happy medium. I’ve forged great connections with a moderate amount of people, and find spending an hour or more each day on twitter enjoyable, enlightening and excellent for networking and the like.
Regardless, great post
Follow me: alexpriest.com \\ twitter.com/alexpriest \\ linkedin.com/in/alexpriest
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@banana_the_ poet
I only ever followed people I was interested in. I have no idea how to use a TweetDeck. I have about 700 followers but they have built up over a long period and I do read all my feeds – I’m a quick reader so it isn’t too onerous.
My only gripe is that Twitter only displays a few followers per page on my list starting from the newest first. So if I want to go back to the beginning to send messages to my older followers who might not be tweeting so often – it is very hard work to keep pressing more… over and over again.
If Twitter displayed 100 followers a page it would reduce the calls on their data base and make my life easier into the bargain.
I’ve found many interesting, friendly and informative people on Twitter and I hope I’ve been helpful and fun for my followers (although I wish they were called something else, followers sounds like we should be meeting at the full moon in flowing robes and sharing rituals together) – I enjoy meeting new people and learning new things and sharing with as many people as I can manage.
It probably helps to have a frighteningly short attention span and a butterfly brain – so you’re fitter for Twitter if you are a flitter.
@overmortal
I do a regular audit of the people I follow in an attempt to refine the information that I consume in the Twitter feed.
@alanamorales
So then, do you think it can be beneficial to have multiple accounts for different purposes?
@dinemag
I loved this post. Although, I do have multiple twitter accounts, the one that I find the most valuable is not the one where I have the most followers, but the one where I’ve been the most selective. I can’t stand the one where I signed up to gain more followers and have completely shut it down.
@naturalhealthez
Good argument for starting a new account – it seems that many people will be doing that since so many people open the account not really understanding what the heck twitter is, and then they figure it out and wish they had done some things differently…
@nataliav
Since I start to twitter I’ve learned, too. I think that creating a new account is the easy way out, I prefer to apply my experience to my only account, and even if it takes time, I try to clean my following list (unfollow people that I’m not interested in), block spam followers, etc. Changing is a natural process and it makes more sense to me than starting from scratch.
@lisahartwell
I think I just heard Ed Dale singing Halleluia! I followed Ed onto Twitter over 2 years ago and he has been preaching this method of using Twitter from the beginning. Thankfully I agreed and have been happy with my interactions. I hope folks don’t think I’m being rude when I don’t follow them – I’m happy to interact still – but the people in my Twitter stream (the people I follow) are those that give me value on a day-to-day basis or who I want to listen to when they have something to say. These people change on a regular basis, and I don’t care whether they follow me back or not.
I get really annoyed when people tout themselves as Twitter experts citing their huge numbers of followers, but then you see that their follower numbers pretty much match the people they are following and you can see why they have that many followers – they simply follow everyone back – spammers, auto follow bots etc.
Great to hear the tactic written so eloquently – I really think you will love Twitter all the more now.
@alanroyhocking
I only started tweeting a couple of weeks ago and fell straight into the “you followed me so I’ll follow you” syndrome. by week two I had decided just like you to only follow people who where in my niche or complemented my niche and agree with everything you have to say especially the engaging 90% of a smaller group makes much more sense. Thanks for confirming my initial thoughts. Great post.
@dsgnnews
Hi!
Very interesting post.
I have the same oppinion. I am a social media newbie (just started twitting a few months ago) I never follow someone who I wasn’t interested to. So far I’m following about 80 people and being followed by about 75. During this week I raise more than 20 followers, but I think it’s because I try always to have something nice to twitt. It’s good to know that there is people interesting and interested in what we have to say. I’m not trying to have thousands of followers just for nothing. I prefer to continue like this.
Hoping that people can realize this.
Keep going!
Cheers,
Deize Serrano
@scrappintimes
i made that same mistake with facebook. so, when i got a twitter account, i decided that twitter would be more managable. and intimate. and, as a consequence, much more interesting and fun!
@adamwozniak
Wow! This post has really hit the spot for me. I feel like almost all of that applies to me and my twitter experiences so far. After I get a handle on my other social media accounts (which I feel I’m getting MUCH more out of than twitter at this point in time), I think it will be time for me to also re-boot my twitter experience.
Thanks for this helpful post.
@J_padme
That’s way I enjoy my Twitter account the most! No more than 150 people around…
Too happy with it!! =))
All the best to you and your new account!
@Alrady40
I’m also @darlaville and part of a team on @ehowexperts.
I started doing what you suggested here a while back. The problem is that I am attached to my Alrady40 ID. So now I have both and try to use both. (when I remember) . On the Alrady40 I am starting to remove the Trumpsters that ONLY post the trump link and no replies to personal stuff. Same with other niche marketeers. BUT I also post a lot of links to stuff I’ve written so I don’t want to be too harsh.
I find that the ones that really care do make time to talk with you anyway on both accounts. With a crazy at home lifestyle it is hard to be dedicated to super deep friendships on twitter, although I have found some that are just gems and hope to meet someday.
I am always open to input on better ways to do things.. I f you can tell me how to let go, I’d be glad to. I confess I have had to use TWEETDECK a lot more because it is so much FASTER .
GREAT blog and great topic !
@khanar
I have a bit of a dilemma. I am happy with my personal twitterID; I have been able to manage it reasonably well. However, I am not sure if I should use that for my blog site or have a different one.
I think it is similar to having a personal email address and a business one. Suggestions?
…and if you do have to use two separate accounts, how to do go about managing them?
@burnman
When you have so many unrelated tweets flying at you, it’s hard to engage your followers in conversation without losing the message in deluge. I am not sure deleting your Twitter account and starting over with a new one is necessarily the best approach for everyone, but it’s definitely an option. For example, my twitter username is perfect for me so I would hate to lose it. Creating a second account for more a more engaged experience would be another option.
Fortunately I caught myself early on. When I noticed that 90% of the tweets popping up in TweetDeck had nothing to do with anything I was interested in, I realized it was time to rethink my strategy. I’ve begun unfollowing people who I do not relate to, and my Twitter experience has been improving. I don’t feel guilty about unfollowing anyone who I do not relate to, as I am not doing them any favors by bloating their follower statistics with a false positive.
I completely agree with this post all the ppl who play (follow me and I’ll follow you) game must read this n all those who spam ma twitter stream by tweeting even when they r pissing….
@alrady40@yahoo.com
and also @darlaville for those that aren’t spammers LOL
One thing not mentioned is that with Twitter there is a RATIO thing. I know I have seen some people with 10K followers and they follow 3 people. I wonder how that happens. My understanding is that you can only have a 20% ration of follower/following. So I had to let go some tweeps that I enjoyed just to keep the ratio and add MORE tweeps that I enjoyed.
I figure if @MCHAMMER can followback then so can @joetheplumberorthepeoplenextdoor.
On the other side of that by doing auto follow I ended up with some porn star wannabes. My solution is I just weed out the stuff as I see it. And I request followbacks from the big folks too. I can always@ at message them anytime without following them and I can check directly what they are tweeting about without following. SIGH.
@SusanCarroll
Great article!
I totally agree with how you’re setting up your new account since that’s how I started and continue to use mine. The unfortunate thing is that most still use the “follow-a-lot” to get followers method which means most of those people don’t actually ever read anybody’s tweets. In fact, I’ve tried to get some interactions going with my followers but so far nothing except when I responded to someone else.
I’d love to know how you identify the the spammers. I’ve only identified 8 so far and they were easy to spot since all 8 started following within seconds of each other and all had the exact same updates on their pages.
You can bet I’ll be retweeting you about this article as I’ve done for some of your other insightful articles. I just wish more would read and actually follow your advice.
@dennysugar
Did this about 6 months ago…really enjoying twitter now. Made some great connections as well.
@AuctionSecrets
Cleaning up a current account is a possibility but it might be too much hassle. Starting over is the easy way for sure.
This is the most level-headed approach to Twitter I’ve read in a while. I does bother me sometimes that I follow only around 60% of those that follow me, but I don’t auto-follow, and like to choose whose updates I receive. I enjoy being able to really get to know the people I follow — and may very well take this advice to heart. Too many follows and followers DOES often feel as though I’m standing in a crowded stadium trying to hear snippets of conversation around me. I’m more into real exchanges… and reducing my twitter numbers means less chance I’ll have to read that someone is a “#rockstar” 100 times a day.
@the_guv
Nicely put.
Twitter newbie here .. already grasping about for filtering tuts .. ha, back to Google!
@jvaidya
Great post. Although I have not personally experienced having thousands of followers, I have often wondered what real benefit many of the users I see with thousands of followers generate when the real opportunities lie in personal connections.
I have grown both my personal and professional twitter accounts very meticulously and have found the experience to be both beneficial (for me and my connections) and manageable.
I hope more people continue to follow this path and limit their connections to those individuals who they really wish to interact with (though I doubt this will happen).
@Miragi
I’ve never used a Twitter client, just good ol’ Twitter itself. I follow new people when something about them interests me, but generally weed out the list when it becomes clear that there’s not too much of a connection. Never been obsessed with gaining the 10’s of 1000’s of followers. Nearing 1000 now, and not sure what to do about it! You’ve given me some solid ideas!
Great thought process, really enjoyed the post, thanks!
@photofunstudio
Wise words! And something I’ve recently done myself. I started my first account (@greenpep) a while back with the intention of learning about Twitter and how to use it effectively. I built up a large following but was never one to follow everyone just for the follow-back and wasn’t trying to get lots of followers – it just happened. I’ve all but abandoned that account (I’m in the process of handing it over to someone who can use it) and felt kinda mean to the followers I’d got to know but now I’m putting what I learnt to good use and starting over with a brand new account – and a different agenda. Great article, good to hear others are experimenting with, and benefitting from, a ‘rebirth’. Thanks Alan!
@inplainenglish
Well, you certainly were steeped in tweeps (I had to say it) with your first account. I’d like to say that almost everything you indicated above described me to a T, but full confessions don’t come easy.
It’s easy to get caught up in the quantities of followers, friends, contacts, etc. and lose sight of the purpose of the activity: to create meaningful dialogue that enhances our lives in some way.
You did get me to look at my Twitter experience and I will be re-evaluating what I want it to be and I’ll look seriously at starting fresh.
If you’d like to update us on how the transition is going (or went) from your first account to your new account, I’m sure that’d be helpful to many of us.
@JoHart
Totally agree with you! Great post you provide a voice of reason to counter all the get more followers hype.
I think I was lucky as I started cautiously (result of both my own preference and excellent advice from @suewaters) – dipping a toe in the water as it were and realised very quickly how easy it was to become swamped. My aim from the beginning was to have two-way interaction with other educators and build both social and professional relationships with them. I felt that if I wanted just to find out information there were other channels. After 9 months I only follow around 200 and have about 250 followers. Even so I probably only interact with about 20% of my active follows on a regular basis. When I reached the watershed of not being able to see all the overnight tweets on Tweetdeck in the morning I thought very hard and posted my thoughts on my own blog at http://johart1.edublogs.org/2009/05/30/twitter-what-makes-me-follow-someone/
Jo Hart
@skorks
@GreenLasagna culling your account is definitely something more people need to engage in
@dasparky unfollowing can work, but depending on the size of the account it can take a massive investment of time, also you will need to give people a grace period and so it stretches out even longer
@pixelcellar agreed
@ Ginger you’re welcome and you’re lucky you didn’t get caught up in the hype
@alexpriest as long as you’ve found what works for you then you’re in a good place, if you enjoy spending time on twitter by all means keep it up, i completely agree with your points about forging connections
@banana_the_ poet this is where a twitter client would actually come in handy for you as you can sort/search through your followers more easily, you could also try looking for greasemonkey scripts that do something with the default twitter web ui, there must be some around, the web interface can be clunky
@alanamorales it can be beneficial to have multiple accounts as long as you have the time to devote to more than one and you’re aware that you’re branding as multiple things/people. I personally find it much easier to have one account, but i don’t tweet about diametrically opposed things so it is easier for me.
@nataliav as i said it all depends what stage your account was at. Cleaning up an account with 20000 followers/following can be a great deal of work, that time could be better spent
@skorks
@lisahartwell I am enjoying more already
@dsgnnews keep it up but remember social media stuff can be seductive, don’t get caught up in it, stay true to what works for you
@adamwozniak you’re more than welcome
@Alrady40 you should trust other people, if you let go and switch over the ones that care about you will follow you, the others you don’t really care about anyway, they add no value to you. The ratio on twitter only applies when it comes to you following people, i.e. you can’t follow more than 10% more people that are following you (after the first 2000). If you only follow 20 people, then as many people as you want can follow you.
@khanar this is more about branding, your personal if is part of your personal brand, your blog might be a separate brand all together or not. The main thing is, are you happy to associate your personal brand with your blog? If you are then it’s fine to use your existing twitter handle, if not then maybe it is best to get another one.
@Gaelen2
I have one account, one ID, choose who I follow and follow fewer people than follow me (~ 210 followed vs. ~ 280 followers, with maybe 2/3rds of those names overlapping.) I try to only follow people whose tweets add to my day without overwhelming it or stuffing my tweet stream. I just unfollowed a couple people I really like whose tweets suddenly jumped to over 75/day (if you tweet that much, you need a blog!) I discover a few interesting new people every week, and I cull those followers who haven’t tweeted within the last 60-90 days. I do use Seesmic when I’m working–but I like the website, too.
The advice to use Twitter the way that works best for you was the advice that made the most sense to me, right from the start. Content and conversation rock; the rest of it is just background noise. I try to avoid the backgorund noise and focus on the content, both to me and from me. I may never have more than a couple hundred followers or follow more than I’m followed–but I think effective reach is more important than extensive reach.
@Wedge
I don’t recognise any of the problems you’ve listed in ‘ The Issues’ in myself. I have taken care in how and who I follow.
@richardxthripp
I just did a massive unfollowing, reducing my list from 133 to 12. Darren is one of them, of course. I honestly don’t care if it’s not nice to unfollow everyone like that. Everyone I unfollowed I had a shallow connection to, and almost all of them I followed because they followed me. I never got anything useful out of it.
Creating a new account is stupid. Even if you picked an awful name, just change the name of your current account to keep people following you. You’ve spent a lot of time on your current account; don’t throw it all away. Creating a new account also confuses people, because your real fans have to find you again, follow your new account, and remove your old account. Bad advice all around.
Now I don’t need a Twitter client because I don’t have that many new tweets to sift through. I don’t feel any pressure to follow people back, because they know not to expect it when they see someone who has 172 followers but only 12 himself. I’m more likely to follow people who don’t follow me and to be followed by people who I won’t follow back. It’s a wonderful thing.
@MauiByPhoto
Nice article. I just went through something similar when I started a second Twitter account for my new Maui website. It was a very rewarding experience by starting with following just my top tweeps from my first account (two years ago) and growing organically from there. It’s been slower, yet picking up followers from replies and retweets rather than mass #ff chains and such as with my first account has led to higher quality followers.
Very true as to “if I had known that back then”.
I did a complete sweep of my own Twitter account and now I’m only following those who are in it to give me good information and not for spamming. What I found while in there was that there were quite a few people I never agreed to follow – not sure how that happened, but out they went. Is there some kind of application out there that automatically makes you follow people without your knowledge?
@skorks
@inplainenglish everything is going well with my new account as far as I am concerned, i try to treat it the way i treat real life. e.g. I won’t follow anyone unless I have spoken to them several times and think they have something interesting to say when i check their stream (i.e. just like you would do when you make real life friends
). I do follow some people from my industry who I admire (but don’t expect them to follow me back) and I follow people who are my friends in real life. I’ve had a few people migrate over from my old account but only a few, I only plan to tweet on my old account once more, to say that it has been permanently abandoned and give people a final chance to come over to my new one if they want.
@ChrissyMorin
I recently did a “do-over” on my twitter account. I had 3-6 different accounts.. a personal one, a biz one, a local one and then I “tweeted” for a few of my clients It was just getting overwhelming so I started over just as “ME” We’ll see how it goes. I’m happier with it already and furiously unfollow bots and broadcasters…
@jonkranz
I just started taking Twitter seriously about 6 weeks ago. Since then, I haven’t racked up big numbers — and feel perfectly fine about that. I don’t follow everyone; I don’t follow everyone who follows me; and I block followers whose purpose is transparently commercial.
In other words, instead of restarting my account along the lines you suggested, I actually STARTED it that way — in ways contrary to the prevailing wisdom.
But you know what? By being selective, I’ve been able to make meaningful connections that have already led to a wonderful guest-blogging gig (ClickIdeas) and a webinar in front of a terrific audience, MENG. That beats thousands of “followers” any day.
I have never felt the need to follow or be followed by masses. Both have stayed in the 50-100 range. I prefer to cull followers for the spammers and those that don’t post . Those I keep are generally tweeple who actually may have an interest in what I say, just as those I follow are people that have proven to be interesting, bring valid news or have engaged in some back and forth. i have two accounts, business and personal and try to keep then and their character separate. Gives me a little more freedom to engage in interests and discussion without prejudicing business followers. Who is not more circumspect in the business context? I use Seesmic as the search list lessens the necessity to follow ‘everyone’ yet allows me to participate in # groups. Aids in finding interesting f0llows and presenting to truly interested followers.
@bradtee
I agree with the spirit of the post, but disagree with the concept of scrapping an account and starting again. I think you’ll find that as you start unfollowing those people who you are not interested in, that they will readily and quickly unfollow you too. Most of those followers would be using software to automate the follow/unfollow process.
@jan_lynn
What’s interesting is that some of us started out using Twitter for all the reasons you list under “new account.” We didn’t follow everyone back. We weren’t interested in numbers for numbers sake. We followed people who were interesting, or experts in a particular field. We recommend people we actually read – and we actually read the people we follow.
We don’t need to start over with new accounts, because ours are already functioning as you described. It’s kind of ironic that you’re considered the Twitter expert…
@alexschleber
I think this “cure” is a bit radical… unnecessarily so.
You mention Tweetdeck, and I agree it is far from ideal as far as keeping a decent overview of what is going on with people you follow. Main reasons: 1) Tweetdeck has persistence issues (a big problem combined with the Adobe Air memory hogging) as well as 2) issues with the API limit, and worst of all 3) the entire multi-column UI metaphor makes for a very noisy, unfocused, frantic experience.
Before I forget, 4) filters (search) on Tweetdeck groups are rudimentary.
Enter FriendFeed, which rather nicely solves just about all of these issues at once. By creating tightly focused groups (called “friend lists” on FriendFeed) around your favorite topics, you can follow a good number of people in each without all of the overwhelm.
Currently I have about 1,000 out of 3,000 Twitter friends imported on FF, I am working on a sort-of promo to get the majority of the rest to join me there as well. There really is no reason not to, FF offers great ways to deepen the conversation in ways that just aren’t possible on Twitter, all while still tying in Twitter in a number of ways that create nice feedback loops and effects.
For those 1k, I can do some pretty sophisticated searches over the entire “Twitter friends” feed, with the archive going all the way back, not just 7 days like on Twitter Search (if you’re lucky). Very useful to add people into your groups by keyword, asf.
BTW, FriendFeed is by no means perfect, but with a little effort it can be used in very powerful ways. And the design team is pretty good about listening to the user community about suggestions. Personally I would like to see them make FF even more Twitter-friendly, so it can be a full featured Web based client surpassing Tweetdeck and Seesmic.
Again, I’d say the solution to overwhelm by technology is better technology, not retrenchment..
@successidea
I completely agree with you.
Most of us when we first start using twitter, we have absolutely no idea what we are doing. But as we become more savvy about twitter, as you say, we choose to rebrand ourselves.
I have recently started anew on twitter, because my original account was being spammed by every man and his dog, with offers to visit the next best internet sensation, or to be given the rare opportunity to purchase somebodys fathers left testicle….
As an Internet Marketer, I look to offer value to my site visitors, not to sell them something at every opportunity, after all would you try and sell you family and friends each time you saw them??
Twitter, can be a great tool, but it should not be used as another method to spam people.
Again, Great post & great site.
Regards,
Rob
Part of the problem for me is that I have twofold purpose with twitter to expand horizens AND to promote articles. more followers=more article reads. I am now using other id to promote articles both on ehow and another ID for sites other than ehow. I really don’t have a rhyme or reason as to why but ehow has been good to me so I don’t mind promoting from my personal account my writings as they are a part of me. Just like music is part of hammer, basketball part of shaq and beauty tips part of my model twitter riends. I learn from all of them too. Not surehow useful this post is to the conversation, but it made sense when I started.
@FreeTwitForum
I agree 110%. This I think has inspired me to create a new main personal twitter account. I mean we all know this is going on, but really thats what everyone does.
I’ve always blocked those who followed me without any connection to me and what I am or do. I usually have about 140-150 followers and follow about 80. I do have another account I opened recently, but that is for a new venture. I am not a big magazine/review site who can legitimately look at having 5000 followers
I’ve never understood the follow everyone thing! If I don’t like someone’s tweets, I unfollow them, just as I’d expect them to do with me. I have common ground with all those I follow.
I have a live search going on a keyword involved in what I’m seriously in to and this is a great way to pick up new and meaningful twitter connections.
I hope more people follow your lead (sorry about that!) as I’m sure that’s how you really get something from Twitter.
@Real_TechGuy
I’ve been thinking about this very topic for the past few weeks. I’ve tried multiple twitter strategies and I am finding my experience to be unfulfilling.
Yeah, I see some traffic coming to my blog and some people clicking my links, but I know there’s more to twitter than this. After reading this post I think I’m ready to start my new account which will be quality over quantity.
Thanks for giving me the push I needed to start over.
@tsbmagazine
OMG!! I just redid my old account. We never used it much but we had a bot collecting followers like an idiot. I spent all day today unfollowing (un doing what I had done) Now if I could only convince my partner to stop refeeding crap and just RT’ing everything. He seems to just want to refeed everything or just RT stuff to try and get traffic like link dumps.
How can I convince him to make his twitter account real, I mean his flat out looks like a bot is running it even though it’s a human behind it?
@alrady40
MIKE… I dont’ know your boss but most bosses like to see results. Rather than try to convince him by talking – show him.
Build another ID that you can eventually merge… Got to that tweet penquin and justtweetit and twibes etc. and add people that YOU are convinced are of value. For me I find value in eclectic and very varied interests. For your purposes it may be people in a particular field – I dont’ know. I am sure you get the idea . Spend 15 minutes a day at least building the relationships and even more if necessary. We all waste some time so count it your FUN time. LOL
After one week show him the results… the better retweets, the better responses personally and hopefully increased exposure for whatever it is you do .
Also just in general I am amazed at how few businesses take advantage of tweetads for tweets and twitwalls. There is gold mine opportunity with lots of low priced ads available for more exposure… maybe your boss would be interested in that. A lot less work than weeding out robot additions.
@tsbmagazine
I found twitwalls, but what is tweetads for tweets?
@ParfaitMediaPR
Great advice. Although I don’t feel the need to do it with my own account, I think it would be great for anyone that is in your situation to start off the new year with a fresh approach to Twitter. I was clearing out some followers a few days ago, many of them because they simply abandoned their accounts months ago. I think your advice would come in handy for some of those folks.
@floridahalfback
Thank you for putting the true context of Twitter to print. So many folks are determined to grow their followers without regard to the value. The simple principal of quality over quantity is the greatest ROI for our valuable time!
@/allenshadow
I don’t have half the experience you have, but I figured most of what you came to from the near beginning. First, I vet all followers. If they’re junk, I don’t pursue. I don’t have a small, more meaningful following, and I tweet about my passions, including interesting, well-written posts from my blog. I figure I’m still learning — like the rest of us — but I’m doing it my way.
@MattMeeks
This article is equivalent to the New York Times saying, “You know what, when we started printing we didn’t really have it down to a science and a lot of the people who read our stuff don’t ever write back to us, so… we’ve just decided to delete our subscription lists and start over.”
@ariherzog
Adding to the wonderfui advice above, an easy way to delete your account and start fresh is to 1) Go into your twitter.com settings and change the twitter username; then 2) create a new account with the old username which is now available. Then, phase out #1.
I just started with new brand in Twitter and I feel so good
Actually the most important task is to spend those 15 minutes every day on your Twitter account, without it does not work.. at least not for long