The Evolution of How I Use Twitter

I've written severallengthyposts on how writers can use Facebook to platform build.

I've said very little about Twitter use.

That's because it's so difficult to give advice on how to use Twitter that would apply to everybody.

So much depends on:

My philosophy about Twitter tends to align with the opinions expressed in this article, "Twitter Is NOT a Social Network." In it, a Twitter exec says:

And that's how I use it.

I'm sure you've noticed my weekly Twitter round-ups by now. It's not about Twitter, but about great content I find through Twitter.

Since I started the weekly round-ups, I've gone from a few hundred followers to 40,000 followers. How did I get so many followers?

That strategy hasn't changed since I joined Twitter in May 2008.

But I've had to change my approach in following people and information on Twitter. Here are the stages I experienced:

By stage 3, I was following about 3,000 people, and it became meaningless to follow anyone else. Why? Because there was far too much information in my stream and I had to stop looking at it.

So I resorted to Twitter lists, RSS feeds, and Yahoo Pipes to scrape information (tweets) from the people who I really needed to follow—to keep up with the industry and to report on best tweets.

Unfortunately, this has meant that my live Twitter conversation is fairly limited, even though I keep an eye on Twitter throughout the day. It puts the burden on other people to initiate conversations with me. I've always felt guilty about this.

So Now I'm at Stage 4
I actively unfollow dozens of people every week, in a slow march toward a manageable number of people to follow. Why bother now, you might ask?

This is critical: There are now tools (third-party applications) that use who you follow on Twitter to generate valuable content mash-ups.

Two popular examples include:

If I want to make the most of these tools, then I have to follow only those people who use Twitter in about the same way I do: To spread valuable information.

Perhaps more important: Because these tools can create content that the larger public can tap intoand follow, then it becomes imperative that I'm selective with the people I follow. Otherwise the content that's generated becomes a meaningless hash.

No one wants to ostracize their followers, but for the good of the many, it seems necessary to focus the following list. (Certainly Twitter lists are supposed to perform this function in part, but I'll leave that discussion for another day.)

I welcome your thoughts, especially from those who have been using Twitter since 2008.