My Twitter Philosophy (Updated Today) http://ow.ly/nhoc
Nothing stays the same on the Web. This update, at the address above, shows how to integrate about five or six elements to effectively build build a Twitter community and ensure that your blogs are promoted using Twitter updates.
Wow. What great people! I am not kidding.
I think almost everyone on Twitter is great with some obvious exceptions that need not be mentioned.
So why have I zapped going on 7000 great people from my following list? Because I want to follow mainly people who gather and post content, news, cultural things, etc. People who provide references for their tweets. People who Tweet at least once a day.
Why?
So I can reach my followers with the most salient information, including retweets from the folk I follow. The ironical result of this activity will be to improve service to folk who follow me!
Just this morning, going by hand through profiles, I found some great things to retweet. Check out today’s tweets.
If everyone on Twitter observed the Twitter advice to follow no more than 2000 (a manageable number) there would be considerably more sharing among members of useful things. And those who did the most effective sharing would have more and more followers.
And I would still be in contact — better contact — with the great people I am no longer following. Vis @ messaging and RTs. And the provision of better content.
How does one “get” followers when one is paring down to a smaller follower group? When you reduce the number you follow, you clear space to send invitations (follows) to an increasingly targeted group. If you have a good profile and produce good content, you will add followers who are interested in what you are tweeting about.
I intend to invite people regularly to increase my “following”.
How do you actually pare down a list. I go into my follower list and enlarge it with control + and read the latest tweets — if they are personal or clearly business related I unfollow. I also tend not to follow quotations or maxims. If I think the tweet suggests content I open the profile and if the person is regularly posting interesting content with references, I continue to follow that person.
I now use one bit of automation. http://huitter.com/ to clear out those who are not following me back. This means that I will never exceed any ratios imposed by Twitter. There is a valuable thing huitter does — it shows you who you have unfollowed. I go through this carefully and reinvite anyone I think will be interested in my content.
Fortunately I now have enough follows from content providers, that there is no real need to follow anyone who does not follow back.
Twitter Not Addressing Follow Glitch
UPDATE 8/10/09 Seems obvious from increasing notes to the link below that the problem is widespread still and, worse, that Twitter has either closed tickets submitted with no action or simply not responded. Going into a weekend, that is not too swift. Though Twitter is free it clearly depends heavily on its users for its full value. I am tempted to suggest that people send messages @ev (the CEO of Twitter, perhaps with a copy @ your most favored news outlet).
UPDATE 8/9/09 AM Randall’s long comment below should be read as context for this post. I have not yet tried to follow today, but I am definitely not convinced that the problem is solved. As to what Twitter is or is not doing to address it, I am also at a loss. Please add comments that indicate if you are having success or to offer insight on the problem.
EARLIER UPDATE: Still able to follow but people are still reporting a problem.
EARLIEST UPDATE: Just followed ONE person successfully. Please report your experience in a comment. When I get reports from a total of three I will take the “not” out of the title.
Twitter has been receiving complaints from many users that they are unable to follow persons whose updates they wish to include among those they regularly read.
CLICK HERE TO READ TWITTER USERS ON PROBLEMS OF FOLLOWING
It is hard to imagine all the problems Twitter would have as a fundamentally user-driven utility with milions and millions of members. That it has taken more than a week for Twitter to address this problem is probably symptomatic of growing pains.
In any case I am among those who plays by the rules and cannot perform this basic action. I figure the best I can do is flag the problem and see if the Web can work some magic and elicit a response. I will happily update when that moment comes.
Twitter Tip: A Radical Approach to Spam Follows
If you invite someone by following them, you are ALREADY following them, whether or not they reply with a “following you” email.
This means you do NOT need to fear deleting ALL your “following you” email. Acceptance emails complete the loop. The rest of your “following you” email is spam or prospecting for followers.
If you want to go completely radical on this and pare your list of followers down, then post something like the following as needed.
SPAM follows. I now delete all following email.If I miss you, send me a @ reply with FOLLOW. I will check these. Thanks. S
To rephrase this, I believe if someone you want to follow gets missed, he or she should be invited to send you a @ reply with FOLLOW as the message. This means I can check the profile again and follow the person.
Naturally if you get mail from someone you follow and recognize it, you can and should keep it. But if you are getting tens and even hundreds of spam and prospecting follows each day,an approach like this may help.
My Twitter Profile | My Twitter Philosophy | More Twitter Tips
Twitter Tip: Paring Down Your Following List
Tweepi is presently the only utility I use to manage my Twitter activity. You can pare down the number of folk you follow according to multiple criteria. Reducing the number of people you follow is a choice, not a necessity. Eliminating persons you follow who do not follow you back is likewise a choice.
I value followers who retweet or reply to my tweets. I list these as Folk you should follow. I use these lists to find salient tweets to pass on. You can find these lists at https://twitter.com/stephencrose
Updated March 9, 2013
Stephen Curtiss Rose 