April 2009

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

My Guide for Twitter

Here’s how I use Twitter. No, this isn’t a guide on how everyone uses it, or what it was designed for, but here’s what I’m doing:

UPDATES

If you follow me you’ll find that I update about three to four times a day. I try to make a mix of personal stuff such as new candy I’ve picked up, whale watch results, photo shoot updates, other oddities along with links I’d like to recommend and any official Candy Blog status updates. (Here’s the most recent Follow Cost - at this writing I’m an awesome mix of replies, not too many tweets and full tweets.)

What you won’t find is an auto-feed of new blog posts. I don’t do that. If you want a notification of a new post on Candy Blog, just use the RSS feed.

imageFOLLOWING

I follow what interests me. I don’t follow you just because you follow me, just like I don’t read the blog of every Candy Blog visitor. No offense, but I have a pretty narrow (but eclectic) bunch of interests. I’d like to keep Twitter relevant to those. And I’d like to be a good follower to those whom I follow.

I do look at everyone who follows me and it’s entirely possible that I’ve added you to my feed reader based on you following me ... at the very least I visited your site based on your follow.

REPLIES

For the most part, I see all replies (though that all depends on Twitter showing them to me). I don’t always respond, but please know that I read them and probably enjoyed them. By the same token, if I reply to you, I don’t need a special reply back unless it’s necessary by the conversation.

WON’T FOLLOW

I don’t follow auto feeds of new blog posts if that’s all the Twitter timeline reflects. (Chances are I’m already following your RSS - I have about a thousand in my various readers & notifiers and if they’re not in there I also get keyword notifiers from Google & Technorati for those times when you blog about something I am interested in.)

I don’t follow people who update too often. I know it sounds weird, but I use Twitter exclusively via the web. I don’t want to come to the page and see it dominated by one person. I go to Twitter for little droplets, not a stream.

When I read I start at the most recent post and go backwards until I reach the spot where I last visited.

I don’t follow people who use serial posts like they’re paragraphs in a blog post. If your thought takes more than two consecutive Twitters, please make a blog post & put up a link to it.

I don’t follow people whose streams are requests for me to retweet everything they say or requests for my help in getting them followers. I see no point in following a person who offers nothing but empty promotion (when the entire stream is nothing but follower building without offering any content worthy of reading).

I don’t follow people who live-Twitter events. I know Twitter is great for telling your friends what seat you’re in at that seminar, or letting us all know how you feel about a TV show as it’s broadcast, but I’ll probably unfollow you, at least for the duration of the event.

I follow & unfollow some people, as the above dictates apply and then don’t. Some people I never follow, only view their page via the web ... I just can’t handle the load (which explains how I might be retweeting (RT) or responding to you). 

Don’t follow me just so I’ll follow you back. I don’t think Twitter is that kind of social media. Either you’re interested in me & what’s going on behind the scenes at Candy Blog, or you’re not. It’s not that big of a deal to me. I’m not out here to be the most popular ... I’m just out here being my real self, I’m not trying to prove anything.

TIPS

You might want to fill in your profile and make a few posts before following others. If I come to your page and there’s nothing there, well, I’m not much of a gambler and I won’t follow. However, I might give it another look-see if I get a reply on something I’ve posted or catch a RT. 

I rarely request to follow people who have a private Twitter feed unless I know them in real life. You might have something interesting in there, but part of me respects your privacy.

I don’t believe in publicly shaming people or calling them out on the their Twitter habits. It’s a tool. Some folks use blog software for stuff that isn’t blogs, I’ve seen some amazing uses for blenders that don’t involve food ... some people use Twitter for stuff that isn’t really Twitter-like. Sometimes I wish the whole stats feature of Twitter wasn’t front and center on everyone’s profile so people could simply enjoy the actual content that flows before them.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:28 am     Curious News




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABOUT

CATEGORIES

CONTACT

  • .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

ARCHIVES

During November it's all about me writing a novel. Sometimes it's about whalewatching. You know, and then there's other stuff.