Keeping Up With Twitter

[yuri21]

Hmmm... can I ask a quick question? For all those people who get at least 10 to 20 new followers per day, how do you keep up with it? I think I'm going to drop returning people's PMs and just... continue tweeting a couple times per day. (Using Seesmic here.) Because most of my PMs are nothing but soliciting! :( And I'm tiring of sounding like a spam bot, repeating the same old message.

Edit: Oops! Should've started a new topic. Thanks, mods. :)

[Lynn Terry]

I simply ignore solicitations or spammy DM's (Direct Messages).

I am on Twitter for the connections & conversations, and so that's all I focus on there. Mainly my real DMs (not automated junk) and my Replies.

[yuri21]

Oooh... so most of them are Automated PMs(I didn't even know you could do that)? But you just add those people anyways? (If not, it's Twitter list cleaning time! :D )

Thanks 'cos I've been reading some etiquette guides for Twitter and this got me a little worried.

And how does one tell apart real DMs from Automated PMs anyways?

[Lynn Terry]

Some of them are, yes - I just ignore those. It's some program they're using to send you an "auto welcome message" when you follow them. So you don't know who uses it until after you chose to follow them.

I don't worry about it, just ignore them and keep tweeting.

As for Twitter Etiquette... you can only worry about yours, not theirs.

[yuri21]

Oh, so can you drop those people with an automated program? 'Cos it's irritating, annoying and my list is getting flooded! :O

So far, I've chosen to not follow people with private tweets(unless I know them) and with tweets that're too heavy on proselyting.

My Twitter Etiquette: been brushing up on it. Sometimes, I violate the rules but I'm getting better. ;)

[torontocarol]

I don't necessarily answer when people first follow me. I just try to tweet and retweet when I can and answer questions when I can.

[DeirdreJ]

I am very picky about who I am following. I know it seems time consuming but I always check out their info/site/etc before I follow back. So many people are using AUTO DM software these days and it is such a turn off when I get a spammy DM. Unless I truly believe their tweets will benefit what I am doing or my interests, I don't follow back. That may seem snobby but everyone uses Twitter differently and I like to keep my stream very focused.

@deirdre_j

[TraciKnoppe]

I keep up with those I follow by using TweetDeck. I have tried, and occasionally use, other programs - but prefer TweetDeck. I organize some people into Groups, so I can better keep up with them: like the SSWT Elite members. :)

I have opted out of receiving auto DMs. SocialToo or SocialOomph has that feature/option and they tell you on their site how to opt out of auto DMs.

I do not auto-follow. When you follow someone, you are accepting to receive what they tweet about. If I auto-follow, I'm basically telling the spammers: "sure send me your spammy tweets" or telling the porn people: 'sure send me your nekkid photos'. Since I do not want read or see these things, I do not auto-follow.

I also have turned off receiving email notification when someone follows me. I sometimes go and check out new followers and will follow some back, but it's when I choose to.

[yuri21]

Thank you, everyone for all the tips. The last straw was when I got a couple more follows from people I didn't know when I was craving for the times when I could see only a few people's tweets that were actually important. ;D To think I wasted precious time on this when I'm not even done with Day 4 30dc yet.

So, I've decided to "unfollow" a lot of people and even start blocking some people(who seemed a bit too spammy or with content that's little to do with IMing).

And I'm very sure this thread will be useful to anyone new to Twitter. Keep on rockin', people! :)

[drmani]

Oh, so can you drop those people with an automated program? ...
My Twitter Etiquette: been brushing up on it. Sometimes, I violate the rules but I'm getting better. ;)

The nicest thing (imho) about Twitter is that there is only one "rule"... and it's this:

"There are NO rules on Twitter" :D

It's the ULTIMATE permission-based medium. Anyone can choose to follow or unfollow you depending on what you do. And that privilege is yours, too, with regard to "them".

Realizing that early helped me enjoy Twitter more!

All success
Dr.Mani
(@drmani on Twitter)

[Iris]

I'm with DeirdreJ . . . I'm very selective about who I follow. I don't particularly want any tweets streaming that are of little interest or totally outside my interest or core of beliefs. Every couple of days, I go through my "new followers" list and select those I want to follow based on their bio and their tweeting history. I want to follow people who offer something of value, whether it's humor, business, personal or health-related.

Some of these people out in Twitterville are clogging the Twitter stream with worthless tweets. So many of the ones popping up now as followers are using automated software to build their list of followers -- a lot of those people have shady businesses set up or are in the adult-entertainment business.

As for the DMs I get, I read them but find 90% of them appear to be "canned" messages set up to automatically deliver that message to every follower they receive. If I come across one that addresses something particularly specific to me, or mentions one of my tweets, I will send them a tweet addressing their DM.

I enjoy Twitter but sometimes it's a pain trying to weed through all the crap and crap(sters)! :-)

[nar321]

You can now create lists on Twitter. Which should make it even easier to only keep up with those that you want to.

You can unfollow anybody at any time for any reason or even no reason. Twitter doesn't care no way or another. There is even a Spam reporting feature on Twitter http://twitter.com/spam (check it out before you need it as they have modified the procedure several times). You can also block twitters(or as they are sometimes called tweeps or even peeps)

[drmani]

As for the DMs I get, I read them but find 90% of them appear to be "canned" messages set up to automatically deliver that message to every follower they receive.

At one point I got so annoyed by the auto-DMs that I wrote
this (quite a few people enjoyed it ;) )

http://Niche2.com/TwuckYou.htm

All success
Dr.Mani

[Clay Franklin]

I suggest Socialoomph (http://www.clayfranklin.com/socialoomph) free version to turn off auto DMs.
I suggest to not auto follow.
I suggest tweepi.com (http://tweepi.com/)to decide who to follow.
I sort by influence and add column for @ replies and RT's to determine who is in a conversation and who is just tweeting.
It shows 20 people at a time and if you tweet the URL it shows 40 at a time.
It only sorts the 40 shown, yet you can then follow or unfollow up to 40 at a time.

I suggest to not block people unless they are porn. If you do not follow them back you will not see the tweet stream.

I also usually review new followers tweet stream an then use tweepi to catch up every week or two.

I use Wefollow and twitter grader to find interesting people to follow in my industry or leaders in my area (Silicon Valley).

I use twitter for business since none of my old time High School buddies use it or facebook or email. I have made new friends on Twitter that I would not have if I did not follow a good number of people. Like @JeanetteJoy, we met on Twitter and became good friends IRL on the marketers cruise.

I actually only follow about 10% of my new followers so I loose most of them and am on a steady course to keep adding followers slowly. I also unfollow about one person a day that tweets teeth whitening or trump network.

In October I had over 1,000 clicks on my Twitter links and it is actually the number one source of my affiliate income right now. I follow a rule of about 10% affiliate tweets and 60% conversation and 30% just random tweets.

[balsimon]

Twitter recently introduced a function called "lists" that lets you limit conversations to only those people you follow who you want on the list.

Additionally, you can make the list private (only you can see who is on the list and what they're saying) or public, where everyone can see what's going on there. You control the membership to the list in either case, though.

I haven't fully explored it, but it looks like an intelligent move in twitterdom.

- Bal

[yuri21]

Wow, all of you rock. :) I decided to review this thread and again, the tips are strong, quality stuff. :) I've got quite a few quality relationships on Twitter. :) And after a few more(a combo of those who followed me and from boards), I'll stop adding more for now.

I did add a bot or two though: not for the connections but for the information. A bit spammy yeah but oh well. :)

angelina_wang on Twitter. :)