I did a search for “twitter manifesto” and I am sad to say that I was not the first to coin this phrase. Darn, there goes my legacy.
For the last couple of months, my participation on Twitter has grown significantly and yes, I have become somewhat addicted. I tend to follow certain peeps who I think I can learn from as well as personal friends and colleagues. Recently I had an ego “reality check” when I realized that a few of those peeps don’t follow me back, even though I attempted to interact with them on several occasions. I then asked myself, “do I provide value to those who follow me?, can people learn from me?, am I not liked?” I always thought I was a pretty likable guy.
I realize that I was taking this way too personal and that the world does not revolve around me; a sad truth of course (jk). David Berkowitz actually sums this situation up quite eloquently. He gives some examples of why one might not reciprocate by following their followers:
- They post too often
- They post too infrequently
- They only post about themselves
- They only post links with no commentary
- They’re boring
- You’re overwhelmed by your current volume from who you’re following and you’re cutting back
- You only follow people you really know
- I would hope that the last two bullet points exemplify my personal experience.
Nonetheless, I decided to craft my own “Twitter Manifesto” just for Michael Brito. So, here goes.
Don’t expect the people you are following to follow you. It would be virtually impossible for someone like Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) to follow all of his 8,000 followers. He is already following over 5,000 and I give him tons of credit for that. If and when someone wants to follow you, it’ll happen organically. If they don’t, DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL (I am talking to myself right now). If you don’t want to wait, you can always respond to and/or blog about one of their tweets.
Participate. Ask questions that require responses. Try to start conversations; and reward people who actually respond (i.e. @britopian said that companies don’t listen enough, I agree).
Thank new followers, when possible. I try and thank each one when time permits. Of course, when your followers are in the thousands, it’s not really scalable or realistic to do so. If someone doesn’t thank you, don’t worry about it.
Reply. Always, always reply. I always try my best to return any @’s sent to me, even if I am several hours late doing so. Replying to @’s are the building blocks to creating long term relationships.
Minimize self promotion. I try and follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of my tweets are conversational about anything including responses and personal updates. 20% will be links to my posts here on this blog or on Conversations Matter.
Maintain a 1:1 ratio of followers and those you follow. Don’t “mass follow” just to build your network. Chances are you wouldn’t be able to read everyone’s updates anyway.
Unfollow when necessary. For the reasons listed above, it’s okay to unfollow certain people.
Thanks to Steve Spalding and a few others who helped me by sending me their Twitter rules of engagement. Do you have any rules that you live by? Please share.
Twitter manifesto.
