Is It Time To Shake Up Your Twitter Routine?

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Is It Time To Shake Up Your Twitter Routine?

13 Comments 14 May 2011

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Human beings are creatures of habit, as such once we getting into a routine it is incredibly hard to break out of it. A person will drive the same path home everyday, even if the traffic is horrendous, rather than search for an alternate path. It’s just easier to stick to the script.

In recent months I’ve been reexamining my Twitter strategy, questioning the way I interact with people and how they respond to me. I’ve come to the realization that of my 16K followers I only converse with a handful of them (couple hundred). This is partly due to the fact that their aren’t enough hours in a day, but mostly because I tend to chat with the same group of friends everyday.

Twitter

This led me to question why do I have so many followers to begin with. It can’t be for bragging rights, my wife is not impressed. Also the majority of the links I post to Twitter are to sites other than my own, so I’m not benefiting from the traffic. If the whole point of social media is to be ‘social’ then how did I end up conversing in the same finite group of followers.

I got comfortable that’s how. When you see all those familiar faces it’s tempting to jump right into the conversation, you feel at home. While being a part of the informal ‘socialmedia tech tribe’ has it’s merits, I tend to feel that I’m doing myself a disservice by not engaging the followers I spent so much time building.

This is why I’ve decided to shake up my Twitter routine, throughout the day I constantly remind myself to reach out to new people. Even going as far as consciously ignoring my closest Twitter friends in favor of chatting to new followers.

My iPhone has proven to be the best tool for reconnecting with my followers, when you strip away all the functionality of Hootsuite and the realtime stream from Tweetdeck your left with a more intimate Twitter experience. Because I have to manual update my stream in Echofon it forces me to read more tweets and discover the people behind them.

Another trap I’ve fallen into is creating multiple Twitter lists only to spend all my time following one of them. Looking back at my earlier lists I’ve discovered a treasure trove of old acquaintances that got misplaced overtime.

Perhaps this is due to growing pains and mismanagement, nonetheless I’ve learned my lesson and I’m making every effort to improve my engagement on Twitter. The results of my changes have been quite positive, I’m back in touch with old friends, made many new ones, been added to new Twitter lists and my follower count is spiking week over week. Engagement pays off big time.

What about you, do find that you’ve settled into a Twitter routine that needs some shaking up?

You can follow me here: @KevinMinott

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http://twitter.com/LeoWid Leo Widrich

Kevin, this is a fantastic post and a great reminder for us all! You are so right in saying that we are falling into this trap of conversing with the same people and not expanding our conversations.

I think there should be room for both and the focus to scale your new interaction you are taking here is very inspirational. Let me follow your lead and try something of that too in the coming days!
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Growth comes from breaking out of our comfort zones. In the early days of Twitter I met people from all walks of life with varying interests. I’m trying to get back to that discovery phase.
  
  Thanks for stopping by Leo.
http://twitter.com/carlitarocks Carla Moreno

This is good Kevin. I’ve tried to make it a point myself, to say hello to tweeties that probably aren’t in my everyday circle. I think there’s only so much I can do though. Some peeps just aren’t on there themselves so I may not get a response/dialogue even after reaching out. But this is a good reminder. Thank you for posting.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  With automated tweets it is becoming harder to tell if a real person is online or not. I use Twitterfeed and many people think I’m a bot. It’s a major juggling act to connect with so many people.
http://twitter.com/carlitarocks Carla Moreno

This is good Kevin. I’ve tried to make it a point myself, to say hello to tweeties that probably aren’t in my everyday circle. I think there’s only so much I can do though. Some peeps just aren’t on there themselves so I may not get a response/dialogue even after reaching out. But this is a good reminder. Thank you for posting.
http://ioretradingindia.blogspot.com/ Anil Kohli

Hi Kevin,

First of all thank you for forwarding the link.

You have just about nailed it all over again. We need to stop building & living in ghettos in real, professional & virtual life.

We seek our comfort zones once we reach there, risk taking is abandoned,minds closed,& blissful existence that is what we think we have achieved.

Sincerely
Anil Kohli
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Our minds become closed to the endless possibilities when we settle down. It’s a good habit to introduce change every once in a while and bring in new people with fresh ideas.
http://www.gitanablog.com Gina SuuperG Stark

So well put and a healthy reminder to rattle our own cages. I am so torn between wanting to stay in touch with people who I’ve connected with and appreciate, and tapping into vast Twitter pool of yet more potential awesome connections. I do the best I can in the time I have! I use my lists BIG time and continually add new people to them.

I think it’s a stuupendous problem to have to discover so many interesting, dynamic, multi-faceted, fun, funny and caring people on Twitter that we are pulled like this. I’m happy to know and connect with you, Kevin. I love your topics and your writing style. Cheers! G
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Hi Gina,
  
  My main issue is that I’m such an information junkie I naturally want to engage with people who post tons of links about tech, art, Apple etc.
  
  I’ve come to the realization that I’m missing out on so many great conversations outside of my immediate interests. Each follower you gain is like a new world to explore.
  
  Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day.
http://palter.ca/web/ Jay Palter

I’ve always felt that Twitter’s value lay in the engagement opportunities it afforded me. I could tell authors of my favourite books how much I enjoyed their writing. I could connect locally with like-minded social media types. And I could make new friends and acquaintances.

The key to this strategy is quality over quantity. I’m not sure what I’d do if I had tens of thousands of followers. There is a human limit to how many connections we can engage with.

I guess, in the end, my working philosophy is to strive for quality in who I engage with on Twitter. And this is not to be misunderstood as snobbery of any kind. Different things matter at different times and different people will fulfill our needs for engagement. But always strive for quality.
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  Whether you go for quality versus quantity on Twitter is dependent on your long term goals. Is it to make friends, read the news or as a marketing tool. All require different approaches, what I’m tackling now is how to best use it for all three.
http://twitter.com/carltonf Carlton Flowers

I have been leaning on my lists to better manage my Twitter experience. People I often interact with go on my private friends list. If I have good interaction with anyone, I’ll add them to my friends list and monitor it often to see if there’s a topic I can jump in on and interact. I’m not nearly as active on Twitter as I was back when I first started in 2008. The initial “thrill” burned away after my first couple of years. I used to chat with just about anyone, and follow random accounts. But now I focus more on interacting with my most valuable contacts. I look back on my general Twitter stream and wonder what I was thinking when I added 90% of the people that I follow. Many of them are useless business Twitter accounts who spam or post random useless information. One day when I get the time, I’m going to prune the entire thing down to something more manageable. Until then, I’ll just use the list feature. Great post Kevin!
- http://komverse.com/ KevinMinott
  
  I also clean up my account from time to time. You have to get rid of all the spammers and MLM schemes. Twitter would be unmanigable without lists, it’s the only way to zero in on people who add the most value.