In my previous post I mentioned that I’m now officially a member of the Twitter community. Since then Twitter has become practically ubiquitous, a mainstream media and social networking channel. Twitter is here to stay, at least as long as SMS is around and not supplanted by something more flexible.
Some quick advice for my fellow Twitterers:
- Tweet less. Seriously. I am starting to unsubscribe from Twitter feeds for people who simply Twitter too much. If I log into my Twitter home page and see your icon 5 times on the screen you are unfortunately a candidate for me to stop following. And even if I don’t unsubscribe from your feed I’ll unconsciously tune-out your truly relevant points when the are drowned out in “…is eating breakfast” Tweets. I’m guilty of this too sometimes…
- Think of me when you Tweet. I follow people on Twitter because I want to learn new things, keep track of the INTERESTING parts of my friends and colleagues daily lives, and laugh a little. What do I really like? Hearing where you are. Links to interesting pieces. Interesting blurbs and thoughts from conferences that I cannot attend. Events in your life. Requests for help. I understand that people use Twitter for different reasons: some people just have fun with it and (almost obsessively) post social notes; others have very specific discussions with a small work group of people. I understand why they use Twitter for these purposes…I just don’t want to follow it.
- THINK ABOUT WHO WILL READ WHAT YOU WRITE. I cannot believe how much people (even those my age) will mix the personal with professional on Twitter. I have had co-workers post truly juvenile, obnoxious things on their Twitter feed. I often read these Tweets while I’m sitting at work. If you want to make comments about your social adventures, consider making a personal Twitter feed that is unconnected to your professional profile. Not doing so really says volumes about your judgment.
- Use Twitter Search (fka Summize) to track the RSS feed of responses to your tweets. For instance, I have an RSS feed for “@kevindewalt”. Thus I will catch replies to my tweets that I would otherwise miss.
- Introduce me to new people on Twitter. I’ve done this a few times quite successfully and I’m surprised that it isn’t a more popular practice. Find a good feed? Know of someone I should meet? Feel free to drop a “@kevindewalt meet @MadamX. You guys both…”
Hopefully I’m not giving folks the impression that I’m not excited about their Tweets. Indeed, it makes a nice break in the daily routine to hear from bucchere, 8of12 and some of the other people I follow regularly.
But a little “consider the audience” goes a long way in Web 2.0 just as it has in the rest of human discourse.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for posting this! I’ve had to learn the hard way not to fire away too many posts at once. I have noticed that some people actually WANT you to be a rapid fire poster and pass on information. Others feel they are being shouted at.
I’ve also noticed that people who use TweetDeck or other tools don’t mind a more rapid pace of posting. I’m trying to keep it modest and space out my posts, but sometimes a discussion gets really rolling and you can’t help but make a bunch of tweets.
I wish there was a time-limited “mute” button that you could apply to certain posters. If you want to keep following them, but you don’t want to hear moment to moment details as they wait for a concert or have a fight with another Tweeter, you could just shut them off for a few hours and then automatically unblock them.
Thanks!
Twitter.com/CharlesGnilka
Hi Kevin,
Great post and glad to see your blog back online!
Even though I have little (or no) separation between my work and personal lives, I realized recently that I should probably at least separate them on Twitter. To that end, I created http://twitter.com/thebdgway for business and left http://twitter.com/bucchere for personal. There’s still quite a bit of cross-over because when you run your own business you really have no life.
I agree with much of your advice on tweeting “appropriately” although I’m a little less sensitive to my web stream. I follow pretty much everyone who follows me (except MLMers) so I get about 100 tweets an hour. That doesn’t bother me. However, I’m *extremely* selective about who ends up going via SMS to my iPhone. That’s limited to close friends, bdg-ers and precious few others. Once upon a time I followed Scoble with device updates on and that didn’t last long — don’t get me wrong, I really like Robert and I respect what he does, but he was overwhelming both me and my mobile phone bill!
I would add to your pseudo-rant that people need to make judgment calls about when to use DMs vs. when to make public replies (with “@”). Chances are if you’re replying to something, I don’t care about it, especially since Twitter doesn’t let me know *what* you’re replying to. Consider using a DM instead unless there’s something publicly interesting about your reply.
All-in-all, your post offers some great advice to fellow Twitterers, Kevin — especially the part about making an RSS feed to track your replies that don’t actually show up as replies. I rant about that here, BTW:
http://blog.thebdgway.com/2008/08/are-twitter-replies-fundamentally.html
Chris
Hi Kevin,
After reading your blog on twitter, I finally joined the twitter world…:-) However, I was looking to learn how people are using it and how we should be using it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the topic. I agree with you. Here is what I am thinking how I should use it-
1) update where I am now but not what I am doing (e.g., out of town, at a conference, at an offsite meeting etc. but, not I am at a resturant eating…)
2) cature interesting thoughts that we all have from time to time after hearing something or seeing something that you want to later explore more or may use as a topic for your blog.
I like your diea for using twitter to make a quick intro. I also like the suggestion for separating personal vs work twitter. However, I am in the same boat as Chris since my life is consumed by my startup for the most part…:-)
Syed Rayhan
blog: http://blog.syedrayhan.com
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