This is a very personal blog post that is sort of a document for me and how I’ve changed as a Twitter user but it is also an intention that people can read this and see a bit of themselves and perhaps realize the evolution of tweets and how they affect us as time goes on. What’s the most effective use of Twitter and what are some of the mistakes you make by tapping that post button.
Between March 21st, 2007 and March 21st, 2009, I completed 40,000 tweets at a rate or exactly 20K per year. In Late 2009, I slowed down my tweeting quite severely and with only 2 months away from March, 2011 I am not at 80K as I assumed I would be, I’ll probably be just short of 70K. My frequency went from 20K per year to 20K every 16 months (roughly). I did not hit 60K in March of 2010 and won’t hit 80K until late 2011.
Why the slow down?
There are a few reasons that I’d like to outline:
- Work/Life balance changes. I began working less in early 2010 and focused more on myself which means less time holding an iPhone or computer. In fact, I sold all of my computers and din’t get an iPad or iPhone 4 until way after anyone else got one. Technology has become a 2nd priority in my life which can be easily seen by the content on my Twitter stream and blog posts. Technology talk is 10% of my mind right now
- Leaving the tech scene has lead to less replies and less mentions of me and thus less conversations. I didn’t see a drop in my Klout score but I did see a drop in chatter surrounding my name. Considering the amount of negative attention I was getting then and now, I’d say that all negative attention went away and positive attention increased. This is a good thing.
- I shifted content that would usually go to Twitter and posted it to Flickr and my blog. The choice to turn of the fire hose stream from my brain to Twitter and curate the content into long form writing and edited photos was the best decision I have ever made. There are the obvious benefits of your message being more permanent (Flickr & WordPress are more indexed, searchable, timely and can be backed up. Tweets can not.) Through my efforts to create a lasting message of higher quality content that’s spread further apart and move away from real time, I’ve essentially targeted a higher quality audience who chooses to read my content and takes time to read it. The numbers of readers have dropped but I have far better interactions. Real-time has its benefits but I equate real-time to “interesting now, not later” and I want a message that is everlasting and is not forgotten after 30 minutes of posting. Long form writing and quality photography are better mediums for an everlasting message.
It may appear that I’ve “slowed down” on producing content but that’s only apparent via my Twitter stream. If you measure my word count and time spent writing & practicing photography and break those down into time & 140 characters, I’ve actually remained constant in my time use except my time use of social media comes in blocks.
I truly believe being plugged in should be taken in blocks and not a constant morphine drip. Many users of social media are always scanning feeds on their computers, televisions and mobile phones. The drip keeps the mind from fully embracing life outside of social media. The concept of dipping your toe into the river from time to time sounds good but most people end up diving in and staying there and missing out on real life that’s happening around them. When you only limit your time online to long form writing, photo editing and brief interactions with the stream, you’re able to continue a rich life and use social media for good and not as entertainment.
I’ve certainly come to respect the people who blog more than they tweet. Long form writing is an art. Twitter….well, it’s an art as well and deserves a style guide but only if you use it properly and dip your toe in. Many of us don’t.
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Dom Sagolla published the “12 Stages of Social Media” nearly 4 years ago and it’s still a document that I reference:
- Curiosity
- Interest
- Novelty
- Excitement
- Inviting Everyone You Know
- Optional: Inviting the Wrong Person (skip to 9)
- Massive Use / Addiction
- Slight Abuse / Accidental Use
- Annoyance / Frustration
- Cutting Way Back
- “Going Dark” / “Taking a Break” / “Going Private”
- Acceptance / Renewed Curiosity
I’ve exhibited each of these time and time again with nearly every service adopted in the past 10 years. At one point, I broke free of the cycle at least as far as Twitter is concerned. Breaking this cycle is key to anything in life. Believe it or not, this is very similar to the wheel of suffering that plagues most of modern society. Let’s analyze how I use Twitter today in a fancy bulleted list (since I’m too lazy to create a pie chart). These are ordered in percentages from highest to lowest:
- Interesting, news, content, images, articles, reviews, etc. (50% Tech, 50% everything else)
- Updates about my day & what I’m doing
- Photography
- Blog posts
- Questions
- Mentions
Most importantly to maintain my current following and keep them engaged, I make a point to share interesting content as I find it. Since I’m always on the web for work and reading various RSS feeds throughout the day, this is simple. This is a little more than half of my content. The second kind of content is updates about my life which makes up an additional 25% of the tweets. These range from “Good morning” to “Sleep” to “grabbing lunch” but are sometimes a bit more detailed than that, although not always. My long form content of blogs & photography are usually in the form of links.
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I’d like to pause briefly to detail something that’s really bothering me about syndication of content. My blog and flickr streams have very few subscribers in the traditional form (email & rss) alerts. The majority of my traffic comes from my tweets. This puts me in a very unique situation and I don’t think I’m alone. For the longest time, I’ve considered leaving Twitter entirely and just keeping the account for big announcements and transitioning my content to my blog completely. The problem is, as I blog more, I don’t gain many new RSS subscribers. T’hey’re mostly at a standstill but I do continue growing in Twitter followers. Here’s the problem. If I make Twitter a syndication point for new blog posts and photo uploads and abandon the other activity, My relevance and follower count will drop. People will essentially stop reading my tweets and the traffic Twitter was sending to my other content will drop. I’m in this unique position to continue feeding Twitter with my thoughts and daily going ons only as an engine for driving traffic to my blog.
How do I solve this? I don’t really think I can. Attempts to get subscribers to this blog haven’t worked. Do I just go all of the way and leave Twitter and hope for the best that people will resubscribe to this blog? It’s not really a theory I’m ready to test yet. Alright, back to the breakdown.
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Finally, the rest of the content is regular questions and perhaps a reply to someone I know but I usually delete my twitter replies to other users within 24 hours so my stream looks clean and tidy and it’s easy for people who check out my page once a day to see what I’ve been up to. I still stand by this tactic. It’s important to keep my stream clean. Not everyone agrees but it’s worked out well for me.
The issue of tweeting too much is that people don’t really see you tweeting. They see a post and assume that you’re on a computer or ignoring friends. Believe it or not, employers and family and friends still selfishly hate social media. I say selfishly as it’s a bad thing but it’s a completely understandable emotion. I may get out 20 tweets while in the bathroom or on my lunch break but colleagues and my boss could come to may and say “you’ve been tweeting all day. you’re obviously slacking off.” I could send a few posts while in the restroom at a restaurant and family would say “you were tweeting during dinner?!?!” and chastise me. These are very common issues. I don’t think this will ever become the norm in society and I hope that’s the case because human interaction and work productivity are very important. I’d say tweet responsibly and imagine who will be reading this post. Half of your tweets may not ever happen if you follow this rule. There should be an understanding that tweeting is just as easy as sending a test message to a friend. Most people in their 20s or parents with teenage kids do it constantly. SMS messaging isn’t frowned upon if it’s done occasionally (maybe 10-20 sms messages a day) but when you say “You’re tweeting 20 times a day”, it takes a different definition and is considered as slacking off. I see both sides of the argument but this is very much similar to a parent catching you smoking. Every parent assumes their child tries cigarettes at some point in their life (I still haven’t) but if they see you trying that cigarette, you’re gonna get it.
Maybe Twitter does take a while for some people, for me, it doesn’t. I just wanted to send fair warning that you should be careful about what you tweet, where and how often. Content, frequency and timing are important when broadcasting a message to the world in public.
In summary, my frequency of updates has decreased since joining Twitter but the quality of relationships and interactions has gone way up. As always, I recommend that you find your own style when using Twitter but, just as in life, you have to avoid standing still. Always be changing up your style and evolving how you tweet over time. You may get pros and cons from each change in your style but change is good and remember, it’s all about having fun and learning a thing or two. As long as you’re doing that, you’re not doing it wrong.
I don’t know if I’ll be using Twitter forever but given the advantages of staying in touch with others and syndication of my long form content, I don’t see any advantages to leaving. It also gives me the chance of keeping a few toes in the tech bubble and on the pulse of emerging trends. I still do social media all day at work so that’s extremely important.