I used to have my Twitter account set up so that a portion of it would appear on this blog in a little window off to the side, but at the time the service was going through such a rough spot that whenever it was down (which seemed to be most of the time), it would actually hang up my blog as well. So I took it down.
I’ve been a bit more active on it of late, mostly because it’s a fun tool and seems to be an easier way to keep in touch with friends. What I’d like to know, however, is how people who have, say, thousands or even hundreds of people on their “Following” list manage to keep up with all of them. Surely they don’t read them all?
I’ve noticed that, since becoming more active on Twitter I’ve been getting an email or two every day letting me know that so-and-so is now following me. Most of them are people I’ve never heard of, but out of politeness and curiosity I check out their Twitter profile. Invariably these are people in the interactive media/blogging/social media industry, which likely means that they’re anxious to expand their online presence in order to generate the most buzz about their services. I started automatically reciprocating by following their Tweets as well, but recently I’ve become more careful about whom I follow, as inevitably I start losing track of my actual friends as opposed to my new Twitter followers.
Most of them just send out Tweets advertising their own services or pontificating on some aspect of social media marketing…Yawn. Not that I’m not interested — if I weren’t, I wouldn’t be blogging or Twittering — but after awhile all the “commercials” start to get annoying. They’re not conversation, they’re advertising. And that’s just not cool.
I tweeted my last Twitter a while back — I didn’t really see the point, and it seemed like a big time-waster. Facebook for friends and family; blogs for my blogging buddies and writing purposes — that seems like plenty to me.
I primarily joined Twitter to follow you and the writers for Eureka. It get the same emails for followers but all of them are just like you describe – essentially advertisements. The reason I stay on it is I can use it to pop off a comment at random and know that at least one friend will see it. I don’t check it or tweet everyday but it’s fun to read yours and keep track of what you’re doing – kinda like cybervoyeurism…hmmm, that sounds wrong.
Dear <>Betty<>, bonjour! You know, I haven’t even tried Facebook, although I think may have an account. I like keeping Twitter in the background for just basic, quick ranting, but mostly to keep up with the few friends I have on there. Dear <>Vic<>, one of the things I like about Twitter is that I can just fire off a really quick, really short missive about what I’m thinking at the moment without having to spend time crafting a long post, as I would in my blog, ya know? Plus, it’s just fun. I saw this woman’s rant the other day on her blog where she complained about “Twitter Snobs,” i.e., those who don’t follow people who follow them. My take is, just because you follow me doesn’t mean I’m obligated to follow you. I have a handful of people I want to keep up with, and adding strangers just because I feel obligated to means obscuring those people I <>really<> want to follow. Gah.Cheers,Marjorie