I haven’t participated very much on Twitter over the past 6 months or so; since I’ve been gone. I have it set up through Feedburner where my posts are automatically sent out via twitter as well. Other than that, I get on it a couple of times a month, at most. To be honest, I’m almost shocked that Anybody is still following me.
I do plan to get re-engaged with Twitter after I get home next month, and have a faster Internet connection, and my cell phone. However, in preparation for my future increased use of the service, I’m going to be going through the list of people I currently follow, and unfollowing a great majority …
Since right now, I still follow quite a few “marketer” and “gurus”, I fully expect that as soon as whatever automated program they use shows that I quit following them, I will be unfollowed shortly myself … which is fine by me … as if those people actually read MY stuff anyway.
I plan to pare my list down to, primarily people that I know, + people who I find particularly interesting for one reason or another. Ultimately, I’d like to get my count down to following between 100 and 200 people before I start engaging more, and looking for new people to follow.
The one category that I plan to cut back the most on, is anybody who’s profile says that they are a marketing and/or social networking “expert”. I have one or two actual friends who fit into this category; obviously I’ll keep following them. But for the most part, I’ve come to the conclusion that I honestly couldn’t care less about what most of the “gurus” have to say … or more likely, what they’re trying to sell me.
The type of people that I DO plan to start seeking out and following more, are those who share my interests … photographers, fellow weather “geeks”, moms and dads and grandparents, writers of blogs that I actually read, etc. In short, “real” people.
Anyhow, that’s my plan. If by some chance we’re friends, and I accidentally unfollow you … feel free to shoot me a note apprising me of my mistake … I do make them from time to time 
Til later,
p.s. another reason I wrote this post today, is I wanted an excuse to share the bird picture that I took yesterday, then spent about 45 minutes playing around with in photoshop when I couldn’t sleep last night.
I unfollowed a ton of tweeps months ago but only a few actually unfollowed me afterwards. I’m with you on not following twitter tweeps who call themselves networking experts or guru’s. IMO, most if not all the “experts” don’t really give a flip about truly engaging with others – unless you’re another so-called expert in their niche. Very much like a clique and I want no part of that a$$ kissing nonsense. I pop on there from time to time to RT someone and respond to a question directed to me and engage a bit.
It’s been interesting to do a comparison between the amount of traffic to my blog from Twitter vs Facebook. Hands down, Facebook has been better than Twitter tweeps. I just tried to get the number of REAL people I’m following on Twitter but it’s down again, but I think it’s somewhere between 100-200. See on you Twitter my friend, and Facebook and each other’s blogs, where REAL people hang out.
Lin´s last blog ..Paying For College – Should Parents Pay For College Tuition?
Twitter: whoistodd
Hi Lin,
Thanks for bringing that up; I actually meant to say something about it in the post … one of the reasons I don’t get on Twitter much, is because Facebook is a much better use of my “social networking” time … at least for what I’m wanting to get out of it … which is connecting with “real” people.
One thing I definitely still like Twitter for is following large scale news events. During the Tsunami scare in Hawaii after the Chile earthquake, just watching the stream of tweets on the popular # tag, was by far the easiest way to get the full perspective on the story. I also remember when I still lived in Hawaii, we had an Island wide power outage … twitter, on my phone, was a great source of information in that instance as well. But, I can still do those things on Twitter even if I’m not following anybody .. or nobody is following me.
I definitely plan to stick around on twitter, and use it more often than I have recently … but like you, I still expect that most of the really good interactions will take place on Facebook.
Thanks Todd!
Back in the day I added and got a lot of followers because Twitter was the new frontier for Internet Marketing and Affiliate programs. I would buy, review, rank and then cash in. This way much different when compared to the other Twitter users that would just spam their followers all of the time. I just set out to give the people searching for the product what they wanted. It worked.
Back to the unfollowing. I was considering doing the same thing and the same week Twitter Lists came out. So instead of clicking a bazillion times I figured I would just create a list and slowly add the people I actually liked to follow their. Now I just pull up that list to engage the people I most like. Never know in the future how things can change.
But you hit on another major point being high rate of interaction. I am actually in the middle of writing a post about. Twitter accounts with 4k followers can get a much better rate of return due to the high level of interaction and community that can be built. When helping businesses with their Twitter and Facebook marketing the very first thing I educate them on is the “real” numbers they should be looking for and that isn’t the number of followers you have.
Hopefully we see a lot more tweets from you when the internet speed picks up. Not long now.
The Real Josh´s last blog ..Do you need no fluff social media consulting and Internet Marketing advice?
When you decide to do it, make sure you check out Twit Cleaner, http://thetwitcleaner.com/. I thought this was a brilliant program, and since I’m going to assume you have less than 2,000 people following you, it’ll take care of those people you want to delete for you. Great page.
Mitch´s last blog ..Are You Missing The “Social” Part Of Social Media?
be aware twitter is cracking down on people following and then unfollowing those who don’t follow back. i guess they are catching on. so if you do it keep it to under 150 new followers per day. otherwise twitter might think you are being too “aggressive” with your following.
that said, i wouldn’t worry too much about those that unfollow you. if you work hard at it – spend 30-60 min a day – you can easily accumulate a few hundred followers a day, the tough part is getting the real followers, not the automated bots!
Twitter: whoistodd
Hi Mark,
You might have missed my point here …
I don’t really care about getting “a few hundred followers a day”. I intend to follow people who I find interesting; with no worries about whether or not they choose to follow me back. Likewise, I would hope that once I become more active again, anyone who follows me does so because they are interested in what I have to say … not in the misguided hope that I will follow them back.
In short, I’d be happier with 30 or 40 people who actually read my tweets, than 1000 “followers” who probably don’t even know who I am.