Often I come across those articles that tell me how I should use Twitter effectively in order to gain and retain followers and how to better engage the community. There are also the people that tell me what I should and shouldn’t be tweeting. To be honest it’s a load of bollocks.
I use Twitter for three main reasons:
- Follow other webbies: With the exception of a few celebrities and people I know offline I follow other web people in order to find out information and see what’s happening in the community I work in.
- Promote myself: I tend to tweet about the work I do and the blog posts I write primarily in the hope those that follow me find it interesting and helpful.
- As an outlet: I no longer use Facebook that much so I will use Twitter as an outlet. I either tweet about what I’m doing or rant or even pass on information I think is useful or fun that doesn’t apply to either of the above uses.
The large percentage of my tweets I write are from the last point above. I don’t go as far as regaling followers with my toilet activities but I do use it to talk about any old shit. The articles I mentioned at the top of this post will tell you by doing this I’m using Twitter wrongly somehow. The fact is I don’t care what people say, I will use the service in the way that I feel I want to use it. If people don’t like the way I use it then they can just not follow me.
Too often we’re told how we should act or use online services. People create their own code of conduct and expect other people to live by it. Or in the instance of Twitter they expect everyone to be using it as a business promotion tool instead of just another way in which to make friends and communicate with them.
In my opinion so long as I’m not hurting or offending anyone else I’ll do what the hell I like on Twitter.
7 Comments
I’m with you Kean, however I’m not a great fan of those who use services such as Gowalla or Foursquare that appear as spam in my tweetstream. That said, if I find it to be too much of a problem I tend to unfollow the offending Twitterer.
Scott Mallinson | www.scottmallinson.com 8th February 2010 @ 10:16 am
Very good point, people should use Twitter however they want.
One thing though, I realise I am being one of those people, but perhaps promoting yourself and using Twitter as an outlet perhaps to vent anger might be mutually exclusive?
Plus if someone doesn’t like your tweets, they can always unfollow you, eh?
David Whitehouse | www.david-whitehouse.org/ 8th February 2010 @ 10:24 am
You’re right – articles like that are usually drivel: at best they’re really “How to trick people into following you”. They never say “Consistently write something that people might actually be interested in”.
Having said that – they are generally aimed at businesses and other marketing types who are trying to get-rich-quick via social media. i.e. not you particularly. Don’t take it personally.
James 8th February 2010 @ 10:28 am
[...] original here: How to actually use Twitter effectively | Kean Richmond a UK web … Share and [...]
How to actually use Twitter effectively | Kean Richmond a UK web … | 007Nova Articles | 007nova.com/articles/archives/3198 8th February 2010 @ 1:54 pm
Soooo true! Social networking should be, strangely enough, about networking…socially. I have “met” incredibly interesting people on Twitter with whom I would have never communicated otherwise. Some tweet about things that merely interest me, some tweet about my active hobbies, and some tweet things of value to me professionally. But I get really bored with following them if they don’t post “any old shit,” too, as you so astutely described, because I need to see a person’s personality and true self show through to build a real connection. Thanks for cutting through the nonsense and telling it like it is.
Michelle Drabik | madmusingsblog.blogspot.com/ 11th February 2010 @ 2:23 pm
I’ m with you on this. I tweet things of professional interest that catch my attention, usually with a wry twist of my own added. The idea is to amuse and inform and generally illustrate that I know my work stuff. If I have a blog going out I refer people to that and occasionally I refer people to my website to get a better service than whatever I have just tweeted about. The occasional rant creeps in if it is in my work area of interest.
What I DON’T do is bang on about inconsequential stuff. Who want to know I’m off to the shops or whatever? Also I don’t follow people who do that either because I don’t care what they are up to. I DO care what they think about though.
See bob_shepherd for interesting tweets on business, economy, marketing and any sort of business relevance.
Bob Shepherd | bobshepherdassociates.co.uk 11th February 2010 @ 6:26 pm
Nothing like some shameless self promotion @bob_shepherd :p
Kean 12th February 2010 @ 9:10 am