Thoughts on (over)using twitter
Finals time = crunch time. I’m avoiding hmwk by using the internet (bad, I know, but every student out there knows what I’m talking about), but I’m still aware I’ve got work to do so this is gonna be a quick post. It’s something that I’ve been tossing around in my mind for a few weeks now and I really want to have a discussion with you guys about this.
Here are three tweets I just sent out:
- I scan all @replies on twitter (not just to people I know), but I tend to tweet assuming most other people don’t. Is that weird?
- If I want to highlight someone’s work I’ll make sure that their name isn’t the beginning of the tweet, etc.
- By assuming that ppl don’t see ALL my @replies it gives me the freedom to engage in as many conversations as I want to w/o feeling obnoxious
Personally, I was orignally somewhat concerned that I was tweeting too much and I would just annoy people. But I know a lot of people only read @replies to people they know. Since that’s a option, I have started assuming that most of my twitter followers do that so that if they want they don’t have to have their twitter stream clogged w/ my tweets. I decided I couldn’t let my worries about annoying people keep me from engaging in all the fun conversations on twitter.
Did that makes sense? I really really want to know what you think about this. How do you deal with processing twitter overload? Do you worry about contributing to the overload?
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PS because I really want to have a conversation about this, I’m reminding you that you can subscribe to the RSS feed for the comments on this post. I’m not sure how to send that feed to your email (sorry I don’t have a link that automatically does that) but I’m sure someone can explain it) -K
UPDATE:: Nicktabick was kind enough to show me this link which will let you have the comments emailed to you so you can keep track of the conversation (which is getting really good!!): Feed My Inbox
This entry was posted on December 4, 2008 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: @replies, comments, conversation, feed my inbox, rss, twitter
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December 4, 2008 at 3:20 pm
You have to pick and choose who you will have a conversation with. I look at twitter as a massive cocktail party for networking. You won’t get a chance to talk to everyone you might like to (eventually you can roll with the big dogs though) and may have to talk with some people you don’t necessarily want to. Twitter is all about starting conversations and managing and directing your efforts.
I’m sure you have a cadre of loyal tweeples who will always talk with you…ask them about their friends and people that they recommend you follow…and keep spiraling down and out :). Soon you will have quite a bit of people to talk with.
Twitter is random…roll with the randomness and talk with the people you want to talk to. Engage at will :)
December 4, 2008 at 3:36 pm
I’ve found a lot of people I like to talk to about different things, especially the local twitter community.
I guess I was trying to get at the issue of creating noise. I like reading twitter full blast and seeing all @replies because it’s a great way to find new interesting people. But because I tweet so much some people might not want to see all my @replies… but I decided that instead of worrying about annoying people I would just tell myself that they aren’t seeing @replies to people they don’t know. It might not be true, but they’ll unfollow me if it gets to be too much. No hard feelings :) This way I don’t have to curtail my involvement to appease the anonymous unhappy follower.
December 4, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I have Twitter set to show me replies to everyone, including those I don’t follow, and if I see a conversation going on between two people, I tend to read back and forth, occasionally providing my own input as I go. I know that quite a few of my followers do this, because it’s amusing watching people I know in real life and people I know through things like IRC networks and my IPTV show, people that I guarantee have had no prior communication, trade tweets back and forth like they were old friends
The way I see it, friends and followers are two completely different concepts on Twitter: you have your followers (and the people you follow), and those are the people you want up-to-the-minute information on simply because you’re more acquainted with them, but everyone on Twitter is more or less your “friend”, if you’re willing to think that way. (If you didn’t want to think that way, you wouldn’t be letting the world read your tweets, right?)
And to answer your question about sending your comment RSS feed via e-mail, Feed My Inbox does exactly what you want.
December 4, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I thought about this after using Tweetdeck for awhile. I can’t assume everyone is using a similar app (some people still swear by the website itself!), or that everyone sees all replies.
Your 3 Tweets are very thoughtful. I wouldn’t worry about contributing to the noise…unless your contribution is crap (read: spam).
December 4, 2008 at 3:59 pm
@Robert:
It might be worth defining what you classify as spam. Myself, as well as other people I follow, will occasionally plug some of the projects they’re working on or blog posts they make to their personal sites. Would you consider this to be spam or just getting the word out of something they think is cool?
December 4, 2008 at 4:05 pm
@Nick: I do the same w/ watching conversations. Also, when I see a few tweeps I really respect talking to the same person I’ll usually check them out and start following. With what you said about jumping into conversations– I love that! I love that on twitter that’s perfectly acceptable. It’s one advantage over an IRL cocktail party (or whatever) because you really don’t have to feel awkward talking to people you’ve never met.
Thanks for the feed my inbox tip. I’ll add that into the post!
@Rob: if you can believe it, I still swear by the site. I’ve used twirl and tweetdeck, but I always go back to the site. I think it’s easier to navigate through to track to other end of conversations and other stuff. itweet.net is pretty nice too though. And of course hahlo.com on the ipod touch.
Part of what got me thinking about this was watching how Chris Brogan tweets.. he sends out TONS of tweets and he’s still got thousands of followers. Obviously he’s tweeting great content, but also a ton of @replies.. I wonder if he doesn’t have the same sort of mindset about people only seeing all @replies if they want to. I don’t know. Just speculating :)
December 4, 2008 at 4:33 pm
@Kathleen I worry if I’m overusing it and/or annoying people with what I say, so I tend to ebb and flow in my usage. It does also fluctuate depending on my projects at work, but if I think a conversation is going to stay between two people and carry on for a while I’m liable to pull it into another medium, either DM or chat.
But I don’t think you’re overusing it and your volume of usage doesn’t bother me.
Speaking about Tweetdeck, one of the things I really like about it is the ability to split people out into different panes so I can keep an eye out for people who don’t update very often but who’s tweets I don’t want to miss. I also like having the Twitscoop pane open so I can see what topics are trending. It’s certainly not a perfect application, but I value it highly.
December 4, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Kathleen, I had totally forgotten about the option to see only responses directed to people I follow. Like you, I’ve kept it on the full-on setting, but lately it’s been harder and less fun to keep up. I’m going to try backing down to that option and see how it feels for me.
I am only now understanding why some people have multiple accounts. (Well, it makes sense to have separate accounts for yourself and for a brand you represent. It’s less clear to me why people have multiple personal accounts.) It’s for people who want to follow multiple philosophies of tweeting. I love following local tweeps; it’s like an ear to the ground in my community. But, I also have interests that are separate from locality, and it can be nice to be able to separate them out. I’m interested to know how people deal with that.
This thoughtful blog entry hits just as I find a lot of us are moving from the “what the heck is this?” exploration phase to the “how do I keep up with this?” phase. Great work.
December 4, 2008 at 5:18 pm
@Maurice, I worry less now than I did a few months ago. Again, I think it came with a change in the way I thought about what my followers are seeing. As for two person conversations, I’ll keep it on twitter if it’s something I think others might be interested in or want to join in. When it becomes a more personal discussion (talking about anything private or making plans that no one else cares about) I take it to a back channel. Also if something gets too heated between me and someone else I’ll try to take it to the back channel– doesn’t happen too often because I generally avoid confrontation. It can lead to ugly discussions that I don’t want publicly attached to my name. (also, taking it private usually calms people down) I digress.
I think that tweetdeck is a great tool. I think it opens a ton of sorting options that really cater to how different people process information (in this case, the twitter stream). For me though, I’ve never stuck with it. As I’ve followed more and more people I’ve gotten more and more used to the speed of watching what everyone is saying. It helps me engage in conversations from different groups of twitter friends instead of fixing on just the locals who are the easiest to categorize. It absolutely has some great uses, it just hasn’t become a habit for me. I mentioned to Rob though, I do like itweet,net. I like keeping twitter in a tab I guess and itweet automatically updates. It also has a few extra features that some of the downloadable apps have that the main website is missing. No sorting though.
December 4, 2008 at 5:40 pm
@Daniel I tried it cutting back breifly, but didn’t like it. It made my twitter stream a little more of a bubble. I can discover new people in a more organic way when I see who everyone is talking to, rather than just who they are promoting (though that’s a great way to find people too). 6 months ago I’d have freaked out if I knew I’d be tweeting at such a high volume, but I also think that the community has upped the volume as well… so I’m tweeting w/ people who tweet a lot and others around me have started tweeting more too. (I don’t think that made sense. oops)
The multiple accounts idea is really interesting, but I think I’d be worried that one would become my “professional” account and one would become my personal account. The perfessional account would probably have a less authentic voice. Also, I’ve built up a friend base with KathleenLD and it would be hard to do that again… of course I wouldn’t have to if It were just a listening account, but I think I’d forget to check it. I check twitter constantly so I see personal, “professional” (which for me just means people talking about social media– chris brogan-type stuff), and news all in the same stream. I don’t have to go from place to place to check it out (as far as twitter is concerned). For me, I think keeping it all in one place is the best way to go. I can see how that would be really useful for people though.
Thanks. This is something that I’ve been contemplating for a while and I really wanted to have a conversation about it… apparently the best way to do that is just to tell everyone you want to have a conversation! Deceptively simple, no? :)
December 4, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I’m the outlier. I have a huge conversation soup. So I never worry about saying too much any more. It’s an opt-in platform. I say evolve, and let the chips fall where they may. Oh wait, that’s Fight Club.
I think people can filter you, if they want. That’s my answer.
December 4, 2008 at 6:06 pm
@Chris, I don’t think you’re so much the outlier as the trend setter (sry, can’t think of a less worshipful phrase). I think the way you use twitter is becoming more usual… of course, we can’t all have 20k followers… But I think that also puts you at a disadvantage because I assume it makes it harder for you to have the interactions that the tweeple in harrisburg (or wherever) are having in terms of a small local community bantering and discussing and keeping up w/ each other’s lives… I think that that was one of the main things that led me to stop caring about tweeting too much. I wanted to talk to people all over the net, but I couldn’t do it at the expense of my local tweetup group.
December 4, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Have you seen this: http://twitterholic.com/kathleenld
Interesting stat machine.
I find it intriguing that some acquaintances I follow have seemingly overtaken my feed with their tweets (you tend to tweet more than others I follow). I wouldn’t worry about it, though, because I’d just stop following someone if I felt they were over-tweeting.
Personally, I don’t like how Twitter has almost made me give up on blogging. It’s just so easy to throw thoughts out there, rather than sit down and write a post.
December 4, 2008 at 6:08 pm
@chris I agree on the filtering thing. If I tweet too much for someone, that’s cool :) No hard feelings. I’ve had to unfollow people who were too noisy too. It’s not a big deal.
December 4, 2008 at 6:30 pm
@Rich Hauck:
It’s hard, but I’m sure you can find a happy medium. One hundred and forty characters is too few for some things people have on their mind. I should know; I suffered from the same dilemma, and now it’s just down to me finding more than thirty seconds to pound a few posts out.
December 4, 2008 at 7:04 pm
@Rich I can see how that would be really frustrating. I didn’t start blogging until after I was using twitter but I think twitter is a good way for me to filter my thoughts.. If I have something that’s just nagging on my mind (like this issue was) I’ll know it’s a better bet for a blog post than just a tweet. I probably cuts back on what would be junky posts and keeps the content quality “high.” Well… you know, higher than if I blogged my every passing thought ;)
Yeah. Nothing wrong w/ unfollowing someone who’s too noisy. I’ve done it. Plenty of people have done it to me I’m sure. (I’d just rather not hear about it… so I stay away from qwitter.com haha… to each his own)
December 4, 2008 at 7:31 pm
@Kathleen (just in case anyone gets confused):
It’s actually useqwitter.com/. Qwitter.com redirects to someone’s blog.
December 4, 2008 at 7:36 pm
oh, thanks for the correction, Nick!