socialplasm

In an ironic turn of events, I found that I lost a few Twitter followers recently and I can only attribute it to my last post where I called out those that reply-to-all with short, non-descriptive replies to another Tweeter: an example would be someone that sends out a tweet to all of their Twitter followers that says “@soandso that’s great!” … keeping everyone else in the dark as to what exactly was “great” about “that” …

Some people commented that this is the whole point of Twitter; an unfettered method of communicating to-and-from a global audience.

That being said, I wanted to clarify something. I believe that Twitter is an excellent social medium to broadcast a message and bring in a whole world as your audience … brilliant!

Twitter can be like having a loud conversation on your phone in front of a bunch of people that follow your every move, or can be likened to shouting something from the bell tower at the NY Trading floor to the sea of people below hanging on your every word. In any case, it enables someone to say something very briefly and then let loose a flood of follower-activity to either view and internalize your message or seek more information on their own. Pitch-free!

There have been many times where, even in a very short convo between someone I follow and someone I don’t, that my interest has been piqued and I have looked up someone’s profile to learn more about them, tracing back through the message (you can trace back through someone’s reply on Twitter by clicking on the “in reply to…” link at the bottom of their message - either from Twitter.com or from a 3rd party app such as TweetDeck). I have found many intriguing people to follow this way and have developed some great new friendships and even some business opportunities.

In short, if you want to lose Twitter followers, read my first post. Or, do like I did and actually write an article similar to my first post and let a bunch of people un-follow you

Then you can do like I am and backtrack a bit and tell everyone what you forgot to tell them the first time; there is no one way, or one right way, to use Twitter. Just use it wisely - whatever that means to you.

P.S. Thanks to Michael Samuelson (@mlsamuelson) for being really funny and insightful, constantly.

written by socialplasm \\ tags: twitter

I love Twitter. But even though it can let you know what your friends and associates are doing, if used improperly, can also flood your phone or account full of partial conversations and dead end replies.

Being a Tweet Noob

A “Tweet Noob” is someone that starts using Twitter and before you know it, they are sending, replying and commenting to anything and everything with wanton disregard for the “direct message” function built in to Twitter.

Here’s some examples of some Tweet Noob replies … maybe you have received some that are similar:

“@soandso congratulations!”

“@soandso where is that happening?”

“@soandso no, it was cheese … who knew!”

“@soandso that’s great news. Wear a foil cap!”

It’s not that you should always avoid ‘replying to all’ when you respond to someone. It’s just, if you’re going to, you need to make sure that you are providing them something worth reading.

Let’s say you have 415 followers. If you send out a dead-end reply or a reply without any useful information for all 415 followers to use, here’s what happens:

… not to mention, you flood the Twitter servers with 415 tasks to send out now!

Step 1: If You Must Reply-to-all - Make it Interesting

Even if its one I can’t really do anything with, I enjoy reading what others have to say. It only grates on my nerves when I feel like the tweets that fill my in-box makes me feel like I am walking down the street, picking up useless bits of other people’s conversation.

Here’s how we can adjust the aforementioned responses so that they are tweet-friendly for all of your followers:

“@soandso you bought a gorilla? congratulations!”

“@soandso you have a rash? where is that happening?”

“@soandso I watched the debates. I was hoping for some really good depth to their answers. But no, it was cheese … who knew!”

“@soandso you’re moving to Roswell, New Mexico? That’s great news. Wear a foil cap!”

See? Just a few more characters and now I, as one of your 415 followers are clued in and possibly even amused. Also, I may be interested in @soandso’s new gorilla, so I head over to their profile and start follwing them. And just like that, you’ve helped the Twitter community to expand and become a more united group of Tweeple.

Step 2: The Direct Message

If you can type the letter ‘d’ then you can direct message someone. I know! It’s crazy!

A normal reply is typed like this: @soandso I bought that same meat for my cat.

A direct message is typed like this: d soandso I bought that same meat for my cat. (notice the ‘d’ before the user’s name/nickname and you don’t use the @ symbol when direct messaging).

Now here’s a few things to keep in mind when direct messaging:

• your direct message is not seen by the rest of your followers … thus the word ‘direct’ being used in the description
• direct messages are not tracked by the @reply function in Twitter or other 3rd party Twitter apps.

Be Direct or Be More Interesting

We all love a good Tweet, and the point of Twitter it to expand the Twitterverse through good conversations! Help your Tweeple out by either clueing them in a bit … or removing them from the conversation; really they probably won’t mind.

In case you already forgot how to direct reply to someone on Twitter … or your mouse broke and you suddenly can’t scroll up the page, Twitter has provided instructions on how to get started using some of these functions and more!

Happy tweeting, Tweeple!

written by socialplasm \\ tags: twitter