Race For Followers

To start off with I will presume that you already know what Twitter is. If not click here. I know that people use Twitter in different ways but I really don’t understand the race for followers. I can kind of understand it from a “superstar” perspective where they just want to broadcast out information. Twitter is mostly about two-way conversation. If you have a million followers how can you have a conversation? That is as preposterous as walking into a football stadium and trying to have a conversation with everyone in that stadium, at the same time.

As I have already said, people use Twitter differently but overall I think the main purpose of Twitter is conversation. Therefore, my goal on Twitter is quality rather than quantity. Cliche, I know. I have probably unfollowed five to ten times, maybe more, as many people on Twitter than I currently follow. The reason is simple. I had come across someone that I think might be interesting based on one or two “tweets” but over a period of time I find that what they have to say on a regular basis just does not interest me. The number of people that I actual follow, and reply back to, on Twitter is probably closer to a hundred. When I start getting into the bigger numbers I find I start to loose interest in Twitter due to the increased number of uninteresting “tweets”. I use Tweetie which allows me to save searches so that I can follow topics that I am interested in. This gives me the ability to follow ideas or interests and not just people.

In the end, I find it easier to build conversations with a room full of people rather than a stadium full of people. After all it is about quality vs quantity, right? What do you think?

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