Twitter & Me
Hello, everyone. I am a Twitteraholic.
I never dreamt that Twitter would become such a big part of my life. I joined about a year and a half ago and at first, it was just something fun. It’s still fun but it’s also more. It’s a way to let people know what I’m up to. It’s a way for me to find out what people think about the important topics of the day. It’s a way to get truly up to the minute info and insights about our world. And it’s still really, really fun.
Most of my friends can’t understand what I love about Twitter. They say stuff like, doesn’t it take up too much time, isn’t it a waste of time, why would anyone want to know that I just ate a cupcake or stubbed my toe? When I described Twitter to him, one friend said, “I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye.”
One of my Twitter pals (@Pistachio) told me that a friend of hers called it “ambient intimacy.” And that is the best descriptor yet. Throughout my day of sitting by myself at my desk, I am able to tune into this giant flow of humanity anytime I like. I just find it so touching and quirky and funny and surprising and also quite sweet. That’s what I love about it.
Last week, I had the surprising good fortune to land on Mashable’s “25 of the Most Inspiring People on Twitter” list and that was awesome. It made me feel so good. Then I had the pleasure of being followed by a whole bunch of people in a very short time. I can’t lump them together. I want to know who each one is. So I look at the profile of every single person who follows me because I’m so touched that they might want to hear about my life. And I want to hear about theirs!
Well, actually there are some people I don’t want to hear about so much. The big hit of new followers made me think about a twitter strategy, which I never in a million years thought I would need. It’s actually been an interesting exercise to think through.
And btw, if you’re not on twitter, get on it!! Follow me!! Twitter.com/spiver. I promise to follow you back, as long as you’re not trying to sell me something on the physical, emotional, or spiritual plane.
So here is my fascinating follow-back strategy. (But sometimes I accidentally delete someone’s profile or otherwise lose track of my emails. If you think I should be following you back, un-follow and re-follow or just tweet me.)
I like to follow people who
- Are genuine.
- Tweet about daily life, as opposed to their philosophy of daily life. I’d rather hear how it’s working out than any recommended beliefs or strategies.
- Question authority.
- Are going through something extremely sad or extremely happy.
- Have a point of view on something that interests me (social media, Buddhism, Enneagram, cooking & food, love, sorrow, music, outfits & hairdos, writing, Macs, inner and outer life adventures, reality TV, creating world peace).
- Seem kind.
- Tweet encouraging things to others. (Personally, not through random quotes.)
- Are funny and sassy and smart, but not mean.
- Are passionate and human.
- Post pictures of their pets.
- Just seem like decent human beings.
- Tell me they like me (hey, I’m only human).
I’m not so into following people who
- Are in it to advertise their business or service, especially if they pretend they’re not.
- Only tweet about their professional services.
- Only issue tweets and never enter into dialog.
- Only (or mostly) post quotations.
- Only care about success.
- Have never tweeted anything.
- Want me to join in their cause.
- Express any sort of fundamentalist view.
- Exhort me to do anything.
- Protect their tweets.
- Display no uncertainty about self, others, or life.
- Show me their nakedness absent a personal request.
- Are humorless.
- Might be dismayed if I followed them back.
- Have a following: follower ratio of 3249:1
- Act as Thought Police: obsessed with positivity and counsel mind control to avoid anything negative.
20 comments
I love this philosophy of Twittering. I’m fairly new, so welcome others’ experiences with Twitter, and also welcome input into my Tweets. I’ve sent several inviting comments, but none yet. Also love #lovelist on kp_writes, and your Tweet on Buddhism + laziness. Keep inspiring me and others, please!!
Recent (lovely) influx of followers made me think abt who I follow&why. Blogged abt it&here is my fascinating strategy. http://bit.ly/SPxmJ
She nailed it! These are the things I consider when choosing to follow or not. RT @spiver: …who I follow & why… http://bit.ly/SPxmJ
This is helpful. Some of it reflects my thoughts but you’ve also given me some useful direction. I am new to Twitter (about 6 wks in) and a little overwhelmed with the options, and your bulleted list at the end gave me some good guidelines as to how to make decisions about whom to follow.
RT @spiver @DharmaJen: She nailed it! These are the things I consider when choosing to follow. Who I follow & why. http://bit.ly/SPxmJ
I like twitter too. A good list to consider! Although, hard to tell what real intentions folks may have. It’s like a big swimming pool with some toys that float and some that sink, some you have to dive for and some you can just reach out and grab. Possibly, folks that don’t understand twitter just haven’t gotten in the pool and played yet. Thanks for playing! This is all new to me, so I’m learning too. from constancenow on twitter
Hey Susan,
I’m new at this. A little more than a month I’d guess. Thought I would pick and choose who I follow based on their last few tweet pages. But now I find it more convenient to follow back, knowing I can unfollow any time as I have a few times for what I consider commercial spam. This in the belief we are all on a learning curve and the nature and frequency of anyone’s tweets can change in a matter of days or weeks. I like visiting links and those that land on blogs of people I am following. But I am not spending hours each day with Twitter and know I likely miss a lot of good stuff. I do like quotations and post them at FB so I copy and save quite a few, from time to time, knowing I could find entire web sites devoted to them. Guess I don’t always do things the easy way. I know in a matter of weeks or months I will be addressing this question again on someone’s blog and the response will be different. I expect this adventure to always be interesting at the least and often inspirational.
Blessings X 10,
Ed
RT @spiver Twitter follower considerations & strategy. http://bit.ly/SPxmJ
Ed, Constance, Nancy, Debbe–thanks so much for comments and you’re going to get so much out of Twitter. The best strategy is to be as genuine as you can and follow people who also are.
Constance, your pool analogy is awesome! It is hard to tell who is who at first, but rather quickly it becomes clear.
Ed, you’re right, you can always unfollow. I forget that!
So nice to know you all on Twitter and I look forward to getting to know you.
xo Susan
Wow! I just clicked on your blog link from twitter. I checked out your book from the library yesterday, not realizing I just started following you on Twitter! No wonder I’m getting so much from both….you are the same person! Thanks for the inspiration!
Jenny, that is so amazing. Karmic coincidence! Hope my book is useful to you and I look forward to sharing Twitter with you. xo Susan
There are people on Twitter looking for your book (they might not realize that’s why they are here), but just being available there you are advertising.
I have found I”m not separating the person from the livelihood much anymore, so just talking and being in this world through Twitter is a form of advertising – called social media marketing.
It is not a dirty thing. It is a wonderful thing that a system exists that will allow the whole person to shine through. As people get used to letting that wholeness shine they sometimes have to separate the tweets into personal and business – a “my cat is so cute” and “click here to read my blog (which contains affiliate links)”. But I hope that eventually people will relax and fall into the conversation and let attraction-based marketing flow.
I’m training several small business how to use Twitter – and that old-school push marketing is really favored. My charge is to teach them a more human, authentic way of marketing through social conversation. It is a task sometimes!
RT If you want GOOD followers, read @spiver http://is.gd/3HUAd
Hi there Susan
I love that you blogged about twitting uhh twitter-ing.
I have only two friends who activly twit, while all the rest are still getting to know Facebook!
Hopefully, more of them will join in the fun soon.
“I will have to make them read your post to help convince them”.
The only thing I don’t like about twitter is the amount of “hey im single / any cute guys” followers. Cant they see Im not a guy! I promptly block those. I wonder if they are bots, hmmm.
Well, take care,
am having a look around your blog… it’s nice.
#twitter Twitter & Me — Susan Piver http://tinyurl.com/ycbgb49
#twitter Twitter & Me — Susan Piver http://bit.ly/Wt2xc
I like what @spiver says here, and I will make it my own. http://bit.ly/k5PAU
H, thanks for checking out my blog!
Okay, I’m not sure I agree with all of the not’s, since twitter naturally brings a lot of those with the territory. I’ve seen many inspiring quotes come out twitter posts. But I’ll agree to disagree.
Agreed!