Re: I am now a TWITTER...ATTN: Pete Egeler
 

Awesome!

I've been using Twitter quite regularly since a few months now.

My twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ankeshk

Some points about twitter:

1. You won't realize the power of twitter unless you follow 60-70 people. So don't give up before that (and yes - you will feel like giving up).

2. Twitter is very fast paced. Its ok if you don't keep up with every message of every follower you have.

3. Twitter can become very addictive too. So make sure you are disciplined with it from the beginning. Have rules like checking twitter just twice a day. For not more than 5 minutes.

4. A lot of people use twitter for conversations. I use twitter as a means of distribution. So the more followers I have, the farther my news will spread (if its good ofcourse).

5. So how do you get more followers on Twitter? Twitter popularity = 20% personality + 80% mathematics.

Personality: Share useful stuff with people. Be helpful.
Mathematics: The more people you follow, the more people will follow you back. So slowly and gradually - start following more people.

6. Don't make a mistake of following 1000 people together. Because otherwise, people will think you're a spammer. So increase your follower count gradually.

7. Feel free to unfollow people who don't follow you back too. Ideally - you want to keep your "followers" count within 5% of your "following" count. And you can't do that unless you unfollow people who don't follow you back.

I disagree
 

I disagree with following more people. And Doubly disagree with number 7 - unfollow people who don't follow you back. Because it Proves you are NOT interested in what they write but only want followers for your stuff.

BUT

In all likelihood, you'll only end up with people who also think like you and just want Followers and have no interest in reading what you twit.

You do NOT need to keep your followers within 5% of your following count. Ashton Kutsher is following 40 and has 30,700 followers. His misus - Demi - is following 31 and has 20,700 followers. And actor Stephen Fry has 146,600 followers.

Can you imagine trying to work your numbers into this? It'd mean Fry should follow 139,270 people. And there ain't no way a person can Physically read all the Tweets from so many people - not to mention the Direct Messages as well.

My take is... follow people you want to read things from. This way you keep your Received Twits within your areas of interest. And your Twits go into other people's areas of interest.

Your way sees a bunch of people all tweeting and no-one reading. Just like placing ads in a FFA ezine. People subscribe not to read ads but to Place ads. Ads which are seen by people who don't read them and only subscribed so they could place ads. And it ends up Negating the usefullness of Twitter.

When everyone is talking, no-one is listening.

Michael Ross

Re: I disagree
 

Thanks Michael for your opinion.

What you do on Twitter depends on your purpose.

Do you just want to be aware of news?
Do you just want to have conversations with people?
Or do you also want to use twitter to promote yourself?

I personally want to use Twitter to promote myself too. And I don't see an easier way of increasing my number of followers - unless I'm already popular - than to following people and then un-following the ones who don't show an interest in me.

Of course I don't un-follow everyone who doesn't follow me back. But I do un-follow many of them.

And because people use twitter for lots of various reasons - and only a few people use it conciously as a promotional tool - I don't see twitter becoming like FFA ezines.

Re: I disagree
 

Ankesh,

Advocating following people just so they will follow you, is Akin to a FFA page or ezine. Because no-one is interested in what the other has to say, they just want Numbers for them to say stuff to.

When everyone is talking, no-one is listening.

When everyone is tweeting, no-one is reading - because they cannot physically read thousands of messages, nor do they want to as they only want people to send messages to.

THAT, is what you advocate. And in the end it makes Twitter useless. Like an FFA where people promote themselves to others who are promoting themselves while having no interest in the incoming promotions.

If that's what you want to do, fine. Just be aware that you are creating a list of people who don't have the physical ability to read your promotions. Making them, a waste of your time for the result.

Michael Ross

Re: Thanks Sandi, Michael and Dien
 

Michael, I agree with you but, I find that all the 'gurus' seem to follow each other, passing each other messages, but they seem to ignore the 'little' people, like me.

That confirms to me a suspicion I've held for a while: The IM scene is a closed shop and the guys at the top do business together, selling as much as possible to us without giving us the opportunity to join in.

That sucks.

A lot of these guys go on about the hard times they had before they 'made it', yet they seem to very quickly forget about those 'hard times' when it comes to helping out others.

Makes me wonder if those stories are just that, stories.

I don't expect everyone to follow me and I don't follow everyone but, I do expect something as opposed to just another route for them to offload the marketing on me.

My business is improving and when others email me for help, I find it difficult to turn them away because unlike those guys I DO remember how it felt only a short while ago.

I'm still not in the big leagues, but I'm getting there.

I pray to God I remember the problems I've had along the way when others come to me for advice and help.

Am I wrong to think this?

What do you guys think?

Re: I am now a TWITTER...ATTN: Pete Egeler
 

Here's my Twitter.
http://twitter.com/mikemayhew