I received a tweet the other day from a follower letting me know I was a royal pain in his backside.
@newmediaphoto. you are an @ pain in the ass. you like to hear yourself tweet.
At first, I laughed out loud. Then I wondered: What was he talking about? Was I self-promoting too much? Maybe. I’ve been known to do that at times.
I checked my tweets; most of them were promoting others, sharing information and sharing the love fest at Photo Plus Expo.
Then I checked his profile. It was locked but I noticed he was only following 30 people with 16 tweeters following him.
I wasn’t mad. I clearly remember the early days of Twitter and feeling the same way about someone when I was only following about 35 people. One day Jay Berkowitz tweeted that he had a friend who was about to hit his 100th follower and would someone help him out. I ended up being KeithBurtis’s 101st follower.
What I didn’t know was that Keith tweeted and tweeted and tweeted all day long. He was really getting into social media and wanting to find new ways to promote his wood-turning business. He tweeted so much that he eventually inspired me to write a post at Prosperous Artists titled, Twitter is not for chatting. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and unfollowed him. It wasn’t personal.
About a year ago I gained a better understanding of the platform and started to pick up steam. I offered more quality content. I tweeted 10-20 times a day about social media and photography.
My numbers started to climb. Once I was following more than 100 people no one seemed to dominate my Twitter page anymore. It was a flowing stream of content, opinion and information mostly about photography and social media-related issues.
Over the last summer, when I reached 3,000 followers, I started thinking of Keith Burtis and wondered what he was doing. Keith is now knocking on the door of 9,000 followers. These days he is not as concerned about how to promote his woodworking and is helping others with social media.
Although many of us from the early days of Twitter have many thousands of followers — some close to a 100,000 – it still nags at me sometimes if I’m that guy dominating someone’s Twitter screen.
With new people jumping on the Twitter train everyday, the answer is obviously yes.
The average number of followers per account is around 70. I know that eventually the people who embrace Twitter for the incredible media stream it is will tend to have hundreds of followers. In most cases, they will miss 90 percent of my tweets.
So, to the fellow photographer who finds my tweets overwhelming, I encourage you to tear down that wall. Start connecting with more people in the Twittersphere and start offering valuable information. You will be much more satisfied and I will not have to live with the guilt of being a pain in your rear.
Rosh
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Tags: blog, Facebook, Keith Burtis, Mass media, Online Communities, social media, Social network, Twitter
WHAT? There is something wrong with this person. What he/she said about you is false. Your twits are helpful, informative and ok maybe, sometime not interesting for me but I would like to say that 90% of your twits are very informative and helping to grow my business. With your twit, I discovered Wave, Strictly Business, Prosperous Artist, Black Star Rising and so on, so on… But if he or she is not happy with your twits, it’s simple, just unfollow. Like you say, if you don’t like someone twits, just remove it from your list.
Keep us inform Rosh on New Media Photography, I love it… but you already know that.
Take care,
@fsphotography
Thank you for the support Frederic, but, I don’t think we need to be defensive. This is a common issue. The person didn’t even say bad things about my Tweets. I think it was more of too many Tweets for their taste.
Yes, we all have control of our Twitter stream.
Rosh
Rosh, Wow.. those were early days. I’m sorry I dominated your stream back then, but I think it’s something we all go through and is surely a learning process. Personally, while I was inundating everyone else with what I was passionate about I was unfollowing Chris Brogan because he was inundating me with what he was passionate about! Chris and I have become very good friends, but back then I just thought he was some guy dominating my stream!
I agree with your call out to your photographer friends about engaging and getting to know more people. However, for the last year and a half I have actually toned my tweets down by almost 2/3rds. I am very cognizant to the number of followers I have and I really try not to dominate their stream. It’s an interesting contrast though because I was called out in the public timeline by a very long time follower and friend the other day because I am not tweeting enough lifestream type content.
It’s hard to know what is enough and what is too much. I tend to just follow my gut. Frankly it was much more exciting to get you as my 101st follower because I knew that you would be someone of like mind rather than getting ‘bettyblueboobs17867′ as follower number 8765. A large network can be great and it can also be your biggest challenge. When I talk to companies and individuals about incorporating social into their mix I tell them not to worry about the numbers but rather to focus on the relationships. An individual starting at zero has massive amounts of opportunity!
It took me over a year to grow an organic base of 500 followers and 2.5 more years to grow the other 9000. For me it’s because I try to answer others questions and be of massive value to the community. I share what I’ve learned with others, and I love being an ambassador for the new arrivals.
Great Discussion Rosh ~ Ive been listening to you podcast for a really long time!