Twitter Weeding
Like my garden over the last few weeks, my Twitter account has been exploding in growth. Both seem to be running rampant right now but like the garden, the Twitter stream needs weeding.
After much thinking about this, I’ve decided that Twitter is very much like this blog. Fun to do, somewhat addictive, free-wheeling and open-ended but not at all mission-critical to what I’m doing as a writer. Yeah, I know, garden writers have watched me veer away from the mainstream before and pretty much refuse to drink the cool-aid for the latest hottest “thing”. I’ve tasted a lot of “hot new things” in my Internet publisher role and continue to look for new technologies and models to work from and I’m more than satisfied with some progress I’ve made on other fronts lately.
But the Twitter stream thing had a good run and a good test and it was found to be a bit weedy rather than a repeat-blooming fragrant flower.
And again, I’m sure there’s a lot of folks out there who disagree with me. Great. That’s their business model. If they’re making a living on Twitter or by selling you on the use of Twitter, then good for them. Or if you find value in spending the time doing it – great, that’s your call.
If you’re still with me and care… Here’s the how and why of it.
People. Yes, I’ve “met” some interesting people and I’ll continue to follow them. But if you’re in my timeline, and not in the filters for me to read every day, I’m only skimming you at best. This takes up time and I’m no longer willing to devote that time to skimming something I rarely use – the time:benefit ratio is way out of whack there. Those folks have me similarly filtered so neither one of us is in a conversation. Why bother? I routinely unsub from blogs that no longer interest me and sub to others so why is this different?
Technology. I run a desktop bit of software (Seesmic) to follow Twitter. It automatically goes to the Net on a timeline and sucks down the latest tweets on my stream. The more I read, the longer it takes to run and the more broadband it uses. I’m on an island with wi-fi being pumped over. So sometimes the system doesn’t run as fast as I might like and having Seesmic automatically and increasingly slowing me down as my list grows is becoming a drag. The alternative is to go to the Net and read tweets (too many) and/or shut down Seesmic and only use it when I want (defeats the purpose of the software). So technologically, it’s becoming a drag.
Response rates: The response rates to any tweet have remained pretty much consistent as my followers increased. Not in percentage terms but in raw numbers. So it’s like a core group of readers reads those blog posts of things they find interesting and everybody else pretty much ignores it. One might suggest that bloggers twitter and twitterers blog and it’s a pretty small subset that’s doing both with me. But few, if any, of these folks are my target audience – general gardeners.
So that leaves me to think I’m twittering and being responded to mostly by a group of fellow garden writers- a social network if you will. Emphasize “social” and not the marketing in this process. And I do believe there are other ways to accomplish this without the major amount of time sucking it takes.
Business developments: I’m sure you all have your very own reasons to be on Twitter (if you’re still reading, I’m assuming you’re on Twitter as everybody else’ eyes have glazed over by now) I’ve been working on a model for online publishing for some time now and both the model and the technology to accomplish that long term model are maturing . So I have a working business model for online publishing and twitter is one of the low-yield activities compared to others for my target market. It may not be for yours – but for mine, it’s not the most productive way for me to spend my time. So if you can justify your time on this – great. I no longer can.
This is all the long way of saying that I’m going to prune and weed the twitter following list. If you’re reading this, the odds are you’ll still be on my timeline when the dust settles and the Twit-compost bin is full. I may accidentally prune some (I do that regularly in the garden) and I’ll have to re-follow when I realize my mistake but for now, that list is going down. Way down. And hopefully by the end of this coming weekend, both the garden and the twitter stream will be a lot cleaner.
Interesting thoughts, Doug. I thought I would hate Twitter, but it turns out that I enjoy it. I enjoy the day-to-day contact with far-flung colleagues. Does Twitter help drive traffic to my blogs and gardening site? Sometimes. Do I stay on Twitter all day and tweet frequently? No. I try to be social and comment on (and RT) tweets that interest me. But there are times I’m swamped at work and don’t go near Twitter for a couple of days. I’m sure that diminishes its business usefulness. Still, I’m going to stick with it until it’s no longer useful to me. As you say, different models. What do you see coming next to replace it?
It seems we’ve been thinking along the same lines regarding Twitter. I unfollowed almost 400 people over the last week or so, and I find that I’m tweeting less and less. You’re absolutely right about the click conversion rate. I’m seeing the same thing: more followers but the same general number of clicks coming from Twitter.
I had a group set up on Tweetdeck for those people I really am interested in conversing with, but I deleted it by mistake and now I have to put it together again. Much easier now that there are a few hundred fewer people to sift through
Though I get a little bit of traffic from it, I definitely don’t see Twitter as being integral at all to my business. More than anything, I use it to connect with people I find interesting. I have to say that I really don’t understand this push behind getting as many followers as possible — especially since it looks like (much like the ratio of commenters:subscribers on a blog) only a small fraction of followers will make the effort to click links in my tweetstream.
(Um….I’m not being pruned out, am I?)
I like following your ups and downs ( sidetracks, maybe) in your internet quests. Like Colleen I find myself twittering less.
Eventually I intuit that twitter will have its place, like blogging. I Haven’t looked at either as making money. Twitter not at all and blogging only as supporting itself on the avocation level.
…eventually the pruners have to come out to make everything manageable- every good gardener knows that.
I did some “Twitter weeding” myself recently. I decided to trim down my Twitter account to only personal friends and then set it to private. That way I can gab with friends around the country and not worry about “watering down” my twitterstream and turning off followers who are connecting with me for another reason.
What does that mean? It means I unfollowed you!
I’m still subscribed to your blog so I figure I can continue reading here and if I want to interact on Twitter, I can do that from my new, public account (@begeem).
I do web development and work from home and am interested in gardening so that’s the primary reason I read this blog–to figure out how to garden better!
@brian – and no problem from me either – I’ve been doing that for some time. If I read a blogger, I no longer read their tweets.
I am not sure Twitter was ever suppose to be for business and even though people have latched onto it for marketing I think it will ultimately be unsuccessful. I automatically block followers that are promoting a company( and porn ). If I don’t know you in some capacity (like I read your blog) then I will block you too! That being said I have found Twitter very useful in finding blogs that interest me, usually through RT or checking out who your followers are Doug. I also like the latest blog update tweeted as it is a day later when I get an email notification.
Twitter as a business tool no, but Twitter as a social activity, yes.
@colleen – nah, you’re not getting weeded out (not yet anyway)
And I’m trying to decide if one of us should be worried that we’re thinking like the other ??
@Ilona – I think I prefer to call them “sidetracks” as I create this model I’ve been working on.
And I think you’re right that twitter will find a place like blogging (Blogger is 10 years old this week) but I’m really not sure what it is – it’s not central to my readers – it may be central to networking but one can only spend so much time (we agree) on that. And I love the garden pruning analogy.
@judy lowe – the day to day stuff is indeed interesting but I’m finding facebook much richer for that- and I’m not spending much time there either.
As for what’s coming – I think it depends on your vision of the Net and how you want to make money or use this form of communication. There isn’t one size fits all but a multitude of publication and interaction options. Some more financially successful than others obviously but still you get to pick. That’s the long way round saying I have some ideas that I’m going to chase down but no idea what works for the rest of the publishing world.
@Katherine – interesting, you’re using it as a social tool as @Brian is – and a reminder service as well. I confess I tend to socialize face-to-face and not online. Haven’t really started reading anybody online that I met there – maybe I need to get out more. I have met a few garden writers there that I hadn’t met offline so that’s to the good.. (at least my good) From a business point of view, if I do it during my day, it’s part of my business activities – social stuff comes at night and I rarely use the computer after I’ve hammered away at it for 8-10 hours. Close it down and get real.
Yes to all of it! I find myself Tweeting less and less these days. I too thought it might be a good way to entice readers to my blog. While it did do that, the response rate wasn’t enough to justify the time I invested. I did find some great new blogs that I follow and I’ll continue to check in and poke around a bit, but I have better uses for my time these days — like gardening or reading a good book.