I was not an early adopter of twitter. However, soon I was running multiple accounts as I launched the Chase Your Lion blog. I’ve tried to be very intentional with my social media strategy. A year after joining I posted my thoughts on the 5 groups you see on twitter. The past few months has been about simplifying my online presence by merging my blogs and phasing out some twitter accounts. I’d like to answer the why, how, and who behind all this twitter mania.
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Why do you follow so many people on twitter?
I believe that I have an important message to share and want to share that with as many people as possible. I was trying to build my Platform though I hadn’t heard Michael Hyatt call it that yet. While many people use tools to auto follow people back, most people will follow back someone who is real, sharing useful information, and engaging in the conversation. Using a tool like TweetAdder does mean that some spammers, companies, and not so good people slip through the filter so I’ve had to be intentional about blocking and unfollowing lots of folks. I am working diligently now to sort through all of my followers to weed out those are real and engaged and those who are not. Right now the breakdown is about 55/45 of my followers who are real vs. spammers. You may say that’s a lot spammers, but I look at the flip side. Yes, I get more DM spam than you can imagine, but I’ve met some great people around the world who share my faith in God and desire to spread the Good News. One of my strengths from the book StandOut was as a Connector and I am trying to build connections around the globe.
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How do you gain and follow so many people on twitter?
Early on, I started using TweetAdder after trying out SocialOomph/TweetLater. These tools allow you to target followers using criteria like location, topic, who they follow, and who follows them. I use TweetAdder to follow people and unfollow those who don’t follow back. I then use HootSuite
to put followers into lists by different categories to make it easy to follow some of my favorite Tweeters. HootSuite also allows me schedule tweets ahead of time, track clicks on my links, and post to multiple platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I can also easily see who’s real and who’s not and HootSuite has a handy dandy “Report Spammer” and “Block” button. Can you really keep up with 20,000 followers? Not without HootSuite. With it’s dashboard I can scan my lists, DM’s, replies, and retweets. It makes replying to new followers simple. Remember, the point isn’t to broadcast, but to engage.
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Who cares about all this twitter stuff?
When the Techology Show was started the intent was to discover new ways to use technology to engage the church and spread the gospel. That’s the approach I’ve taken with twitter. How can I use the available tools to engage as many people in a faith conversation as possible. It’s all a wonderful experiment to me. How far can we go? What’s next? After web 2.0, where do we go from here? What’s been most surprising to me recently is the number of people who have similar twitter profiles. They have 500-1000 followers, follow 600-1200 people, and have tweeted 3,000-5,0000 times. Those are the folks I’m hoping to engage with. That’s why I’m filtering out all the noise to get to heart of the matter to help people discover their purpose, passion, and possibilities.
What do you think? Am I crazy? How do you use twitter?
Loved this, Heath. And I’ve always been a “twitter-admirer” of yours.
So, should I get TweetAdder for $50?… thinking about it… but need your advice? I was an early adopter of facebook, a way too early adopter on blogging, and then an early quitter (5 years ago) and then a recent return to blogging (as you know) and a very late adopter to twitter… so i’ve always wondered how I should USE twitter… which is so different than all the others
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Twitter recently sued many 3rd party companies like TweetAdder because of spam and several have shut down. The folks at TweetAdder have fought the charges and sought to be compliant with all the Twitter rules. It’s all in how people use it. Personally, I would buy it again and I’d be more than happy to get you up and running if you make that choice. The settings are VERY important to monitor, but the benefits have far outweighed the negatives for me.
Thanks for the great info Heath. I appreciate you taking the time to explain something like that for folks like me who feel like they have something worth saying, but don’t always know the best ways to accomplish that.
Random side note… does the Standard theme for WP have any sort of mobile version? Your site loads fine until it gets ready to load disqus, and then the blog text itself disappears? Only notice it when I’m viewing from my phone web browser…
I just switched to a new theme and haven’t had a chance to get all the mobile settings right, but you’re not the first person to tell me about the mobile issues. I’ve had problems viewing other blogs on mobile as well. Thanks.
I never liked the idea of you follow me and I’ll follow you on Twitter, and that’s probably one reason my my following is the size of a flea compared to yours. If I follow Rick Warren, I don’t expect him to follow me back. I wouldn’t even expect David Drury to follow me back except that we know each other in the real world. I guess I let some people down in the Twitter world, when I don’t follow them back, but the people I get want to hear what I say. I’ve got a female college freshman from my church that follows me, but I don’t follow back. I occasionally check her feed and it’s about typical young girl stuff. We talk in real life, she babysits my daughter, and we’re FB friends, but she knows the stuff she posts on Twitter is not my thing. Also, even with my small number of followers, I have to block SPAM bots at least 2x a month. If I had a bigger presence, that would be a nightmare.
Tweetadder allows you to unfollow only people I have followed with the program. People like Rick Warren, John Maxwell, etc. that I have followed on Hootsuite are safe and most folks like that follow very few people. One of my goals from the beginning was to follow every Wesleyan Pastor around the globe on twitter. So far, I’ve connected with many great men and women. Appreciate the comment!
G’day Heath,
Just found your blog (via a post on Twitter) and it looks like I should be following your podcasts. I run a Christian bible study blog as part of a website & I am in the process of updating the whole site. I use Twitter mainly as a promo tool to build a presence on the web & bring people back to the blog where the teaching happens. I have an FB page as well…sadly neglected. I’m afraid I just don’t “get” Facebook, at least not for ministry purposes. For me Twitter is more useful…I guess as an evangelism tool.
I have no idea how you connect with tens of thousands of people! I think Twitter only lets you put up 1,000 tweets a day before you get locked out & if I had 10,000 followers at that rate I could only connect once every 10 days!
Anyway thanks for the article as it was quite useful. I’ll check out your other stuff as I think you might be able to assist me.
God bless,
John.
I attempt, sadly, to blog. I use my twitter for my everyday personal thoughts and feelings, but also to try and grab some blog views while at it. I’ve recently deactivated my FB because it is simply to school for me. Entirely to much drama and high school comments from people who should be attending 20 year anniversaries.
I love the idea of follow who follows, but I am simply TOO lazy to make lists. I suppose I should get over that and do it. I mean, no one wants to get on twitter for a few dozen followers, right? If thats all you’re doing, might as well be talking to a wall.
Thanks for the post! Like David, I am a “twitter(among other things)-admirer” of you, myself.