Social Media Noise - Who do you really follow on Twitter?
Chris Penn wrote today that Twitter has limited the number of people that he can follow. We all know they are having their problems over there, maybe this is a way of trying to put limitations on their service while they play catch up.
But lets talk honestly for a second. Does it matter? How many people can you really follow, I mean really follow. Chris has over 2000 people that he’s following. I can barely keep up with returning my emails, never mind write my 2 blogs, voice mails etc. Can anyone really follow 2000 people on twitter, or a 1000 or even a 100. For myself and from my conversations with many of you thats not really what we are doing with Twitter. Most of us scan it when we can. We use Tweetscan to check out what people are saying about us. So the # of people you are following is more about the # than the value of all those conversations.
Maybe Ive missed the point of following. What do you think? How many people do you really follow?
Ps you can follow me on Twitter here, if you can handle the noise:)
Note: Chris Penn commented
“I can definitely say I don’t know what all 2,000 are doing, but I can also definitely say that with a river of stuff that broad, there’s always an interesting conversation to jump in to!”
Im doing most things on my mobile because I travel so much and am rarely at a desk, so i think its harder to surf the river, but Im going to try and think of Twitter following that way for a bit to see if it changes my interactions.
12 Comments »
RSS Feed for Comments on this Post
TrackBack
![[feed icon]](/wp-content/themes/cloudid/images/feed.gif)
im not following a lot of people… i have strangers who follow me.. They follow me and i dont know why.. its weird.
I have enough trouble following my home page on Facebook and updates of my friends. There’s no way I could possibly follow everyone on Twitter (or would want to). Although, I follow you occasionally for fun. So yes, I am a scanner! I also don’t find it necessary to update everyone on my every move (yawn). I’d rather engage with a smaller community and have it be more meaningful than to be boggled down with the “noise.” I would find it annoying and be compelled to constantly update. I do enjoy the scan but “Following” 100 people and their every move would be time consuming….I think it should be fun…not a job!
Hi David,
I totally agree, in fact I just did a quick twitter post yesterday asking whether “people following 1000+ are really using twitter”.
As social media/web 2.0 is really taking off, it is imperative for each individual to understand the time commitment they are willing to make for all of these various sites and manage their usage accordingly. It can be a bit overwhelming.
I’m following 750 people right now and I don’t have a lot of trouble keeping up because most people I know don’t send a lot of messages during the day. So I can just peek in through out the day to see if someone is talking about something that interests me.
I think twitter is fairly ambient as far as communication methods go. There is no expectation of reciprocating follows (though i do most the time) and no pressure to respond to all the messages so you can just let the tweets that don’t interest you pass by without interaction.
I dont get twitter.
Can twitter make me any fans?
I don’t like either Twitter nor Facebook, my mind doesn’t want to adapt to such rigid concepts, these tow roadways to communication are two rigid and shallow, cutting much of people’s creativity. Even Buzznet annoys me plenty. Do you remember the birth of computer classes in high school we had to make a tree of the quiz we needed to create, the entire program expanded on many levels and it grew with the project much like Myspace. Now myspace has plenty of flaws but the creators are trying their best to try to adapt to or needs and expand as much as they can, working night and day trying to please us and help us in our creativity. The others are just supporting their own way of making money by advertisement without giving a thought as to what the targets (us) want or need. All that matters is that the advertisers have the spot they require. Thank you for bringing the subject up. Much fangirl loving David! x
I can definitely say I don’t know what all 2,000 are doing, but I can also definitely say that with a river of stuff that broad, there’s always an interesting conversation to jump in to!
I don’t follow many on twitter. I can see the value in having many conversations to pick and choose from but no doubt, with that much noise, you also miss out on some really great ones! It would be ideal for me to have “favorites” to follow more closely while still allowing other “noise” to dive into when I have the time.
Interesting about Jeff Pulver opening a second facebook account. Wonder if that had to be done under another name? Maybe you need an alter ego David!
It’s really topical for today. I’m not on Twitter, but everytime when I decide to add one more person anywhere in the net to keep in view, I’m a bit puzzled. REALLY follow means you’re interested in their life and know them by names at least. all the rest is just ‘0′ and noise. actually ‘follow’ 999 and more people is impossible, what becomes with life then? the surge of useless information flood the sense. You can lead thousands, but follow??
@chris
thats a great way to look at it. i was thinking the reason it probably doesnt work for me that well is im almost completely a “mobile guy” and get online when i can. (too much travel)
im going to try to think of it that way for a bit and see if it changes how i interact with Twitter:)
@ Rafe I don’t imagine Twitter might make you many fans, but for existing fans it’s just one more way to allow them to feel connected to you. Even for that purpose a blog on your website might be more engaging, but as part of an overall commuication mix it probably wouldn’t hurt if one had the time.
[...] public links >> chrispenn Social Media Noise - Who do you really follow on Twitter? Saved by nullwert on Sun 26-10-2008 Conferences: Inbound Marketing Summit Saved by [...]