A Retweet Changed How I Use Twitter
It took me a few weeks to finally write this blog post and I held off on blogging about it because I didn’t want it to contain angst or snark. I wanted it to have a few really great lessons and a-ha moments based on what I experienced. Some people may just sweep a story like this under the rug and pretend that it never happened (or never happens ever) but the truth of the matter is, people are going to do things and say things that you may not particularly enjoy and it is up to you to decide how you want to handle it. I hope this story allows you to see that mistakes will happen regardless of how social media proficient you are.
The Backstory
Let me back up a wee bit to one gorgeous, sunny afternoon a few weeks ago. I was walking down the road, enjoying the warmth and the nature and all of the goodness that was surrounding me, and decided to pull out my iPhone to check my Twitter feed. I read through the Tweets, laughing in response to some of the replies from friends when suddenly, I was punched in the gut. Hard.
A colleague of mine, from the same city I live in, retweeted one of my Tweets and added “puke” to the front of my Tweet. That was it, just a simple “puke” but the idea that my Tweet was vomit inducing was enough to stop me dead in my tracks. I replied to the person with a bit of humor and the response I received was even more gut punching than the first one. This person, that I had never met in person, told me that my over the top social media nonsense was what had induced this vomiting fit.
Read MorePodcast: Growing Your Social Media Following (Ep. 10)
We’re pleased to announce that we will be hosting a weekly podcast via iTunes! Each week, we’ll be bringing you a five-minute or less podcast focused on a variety of topics: social media, Internet marketing, entrepreneurship, general business tips and more.
Episode 10: Growing Your Social Media Following
I received a question on my Formspring.me account which asked, “What do you recommend people do to grow their Facebook and Twitter following?”
Growing your Twitter and Facebook following can feel like a daunting task. You start with a profile and an empty list of friends / fans and followers and you might feel as though you’re Twittering and Facebooking to dead air at first. Growing your following is not something that you can purchase or learn about in an e-book so let me save you a few dollars and talk about some natural ways to go about doing this.
This episode focuses on answering that question.
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Cleaning Up Your Twitter Account
This post is focused not only on why I’m no longer following 10,000 people on Twitter but also on how you can clean up your own Twitter account to get more out of it.
Let me first start with the story of my initial Twitter journey. I started out on Twitter with the mindset that I would follow anyone back that followed me. I looked at it as being generous with my Twitter love. It didn’t seem like that big of an issue until I hit about the 25,000 following mark. Then things went downhill.
You see, I started to suck horribly at seeing other people’s Tweets. I was missing all of the good stuff from the people I actually wanted to hear from / listen to. In fact, I wasn’t getting about 90% of that information. So, I realized that things needed to drastically change.
I looked at the feed moving through the “Home” tab on Twitter and realized that a lot of the people I was following really weren’t providing me the value that I was after. Not only that, they weren’t following the rules that I had set for myself on Twitter. They were spamming links, only doing re-tweets but worst of all, they weren’t engaging.
After doing a bit of research, I found a few tools that would help me clean up my Twitter list and allow me to pay closer attention to those people who were providing true value. I’m going to share those here with you.
Read MoreWhat is Threadsy?
Want a better Twitter, Facebook and e-mail integration tool? Want to kick Tweetdeck to the curb? Enter Threadsy. Erin Blaskie reviews this tool and explains why she uses it in this video review.
Read MoreGoogle Buzz 101 #googlebuzz
Google Buzz has hit the market and people everywhere are buzzing about the possibilities… well, they are mostly just complaining. 
Here are a few of the Tweets on #googlebuzz:
Google Buzz 101
If you want to see what Google Buzz is and how it’s integrated into Gmail, watch this video I just created:
My Thoughts on Google Buzz
In using Google Buzz, one of the first things I noticed was that not only were my “buzzes” going to the new Buzz section, they were also flooding into my inbox in Gmail creating double the noise. The beauty with Twitter is that I can shut the website off or close Tweetdeck. It’s not something that is forcing its way into my life like an ex-boyfriend or a stray cat. Apparently, this is a feature that was definitely chosen and there is no visible way to turn it off. One Twitterer recommended setting up a filter… Yeahhh, I’ll filter the buzzes all right – straight into my TRASH!
Second, Google Buzz has zero, easy-to-find settings and the finding friends option is not clearly marked from the Gmail add-on. The interface is pretty simple to use and it mimics the Google Mail interface nicely. For people who are used to using Gmail, this will be an easy thing to use. However, I think they need to make finding friends and the general settings much more prominent on the interface.
Third, Google Buzz has a lot of people talking about geolocation based messaging. What this means is that when you are updating your status on Buzz, it will also point out to your followers where you are. This has many issues for me — I like using apps like Foursquare and Gowalla because they are optional. When I am cool with people knowing where I am (ie: eating sushi with a group of people) I tell the world. If I am NOT cool with people knowing where I am (ie: traveling to a city alone where I don’t really know anyone), I like to go incognito. We’ll see how easy it is to turn this geolocation based messaging on/off. If it’s not, it’s a huge invasion of privacy and freaks me out a little.
Fourth, I think this is Google’s way of trying to rescuciate a dead Google Wave… In all honesty, they should be focusing their attention on integrating Google Wave into Gmail… Oh wait, Google Buzz integrates into Gmail… Google Buzz also does threaded messaging like Wave did… I’m confused. Are they the same? Are they different? What’s happening with Wave? Oh Google… One of my favorite Tweets of the morning is this one:
Fifth, Google Buzz is making use of the mobile market but using browser-based updating instead of an app format. I much prefer to be able to access everything via apps instead of using Safari on my iPhone so I hope that they make an app for this if it really does take off (not a prediction… I predict it dies.)
The world doesn’t need another social media network. The world needs a much more streamlined approach to this entire thing. People want to have improved connections and to be able to update ONE social networking service and not feel the need to update many.
However… those are just my rants. What are your thoughts?
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