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Feb 27 2011

The Erosion of Twitter – Who Do You Follow? Are They Still Tweeting?

Category: social media,tech opinion,twitter way — jmacofearth @ 9:20 pm

A recent stat I read said that 50% of Americans use Facebook and only 7% use Twitter. And a few years back the Twitter drop off rate after 30 days was about 80%. And then there's the stat that 10% of tweeters make up 80% of all tweets.

Okay, so answer this. Do you ever go back and clean your twitter followers list?

One of my favorite tools to manage Twitter is called, ManageFlitter (Twitter started suing all companies that used Twitter in the name). It's important to clean out the scammers and deadbeats off your followers list, and even more so from the list of people you are following.

So running the tool recently I was amazed by the number of Twitter accounts that had gone over 5 – 7 months without a single tweet. A pretty good sign that the tweeter has moved on. And what's the use of tweeting anyway? Especially if you are trying to make a quick buck in social media, Twitter might be a cornerstone of your initial strategy, but if the dividends are not quick in coming, the commitment might dry up.

You can see the fallen Twitter accounts with great names, even custom avatar logos that look quite professional. But if you don't get it, "what is Twitter for?", you might not see the value in carrying on a conversation with people who don't really care about your product or brand.

So in my recent purge of followers, I deleted 500+ accounts that I was following who had either gone dark or were clearly spammers. And if you are looking to grow your LIVE Twitter followers, you will need to unfollow the deadbeats pretty quickly or you will rapidly reach the "you cannot follow any more people at this time" limit.

So what is your Twitter strategy? Who do you follow? And have your figured out how and why to tweet? It's an ongoing conversation…

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://uber.la/2011/02/erosion-of-twitter/ ‎

Twitter Discovery – Lists – Who To Follow & How to Find Them

Category: community building,social media,tech opinion,twitter way — jmacofearth @ 1:00 pm

Finding good people to follow on Twitter can be a real challenge these days. The spammy list just keeps getting longer. The spammers are finding more irritating techniques to clutter the stream. Here is a strategy to find "good" tweeters who are genuine people who are crafting tweets about subjects that matter to you.

People constantly ask me, "How do I find good people to follow?"

Twitter Discovery using Twitter Lists
Click image to view full size, or download the PowerPoint file from Slideshare.net.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://uber.la/2011/02/twitter-discovery-lists/

read more Twitter wisdom on The Twitter Way page

Tags: art of the tweet, auto-generated is bad, auto-tweeting is terrible, discovery, don't auto anything, finding people on twitter, follow me, follow this list, learning twitter, searching twitter, the twitter way, twitter discovery, twitter lists, unfollow, using twitter, who to follow, who's follow this list

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Feb 25 2011

Twitter Lists: Use Them Don't Abuse Them

Category: social media,tech opinion,twitter way — jmacofearth @ 10:38 pm

Once upon a time, the introduction of the List on Twitter was a big deal. Today as the twitterverse gets spammier and spammier, Lists are also getting gummed up. Enter the newest List Auto-Generator: formulists.com

Any time the word "auto" is used in conjunction with Twitter I want to pull out my "unfollow finger."

So what's wrong with a little bit of auto-listing, auto-generating, auto-organizing Twitter magic? I guess nothing is wrong with the concept, I mean we all need ways to streamline our social media experience. BUT… When I see "this list was auto-generated by @formulists" I don't get a warm fuzzy, and here's why.

When lists were created they began to be used by actually Tweeters and humans as a way to group the important people in our tweeting universe. It was quite an honor to be added to someone's Twitter list. After all, if they took the time to actually tag/add me to one of their 50 lists, it put me in quite an elite group. It's like someone cared not only about following me, but about adding me to their IN list.

Now, instead of being excited when my LISTED number goes up, I check it and am underwhelmed by the number of auto-generated Twitter List. Sure, maybe you set up a filter to add certain keywords, or tags to your lists. BUT, when the "social media leaders-3" list contains me along with 500 other listers, well, it's not so impressive. So now the spammers and tweescamers have found out how to gum up the list system using these type of tools, to generate new lists and add themselves to them. Along with the Chris Brogans of the world, if you list yourself along side him enough times, perhaps you will gain some tweet cred.

So I once said, LISTS were the new currency for Twitter authority. Now I'm wondering what the next thing will be to thin down the PROMOTIONAL Tweets from the human-generated, not-autoed, real-time tweets.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://uber.la/2011/02/twitter-lists-on-auto/

read more Twitter wisdom on The Twitter Way page

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Tags: auto is bad, auto twitter, auto-tweeting, formulists, real time, respect the tweet, twitter

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