As you might already know, I stopped using my @jimconnolly Twitter account on 31st of January. The reason for this, was that following over 20,000 people took up way too much time – largely because of the hundreds of Direct Messages I received each day, (often over 400 a day and occasionally over 600).
By trying to’ do the right thing’, I got it all wrong!
I got it wrong. As a community builder, I wanted to follow everyone who followed me. This worked initially; until the numbers grew so huge, so fast, with SO MANY people feeling the need to Direct Message me! The reason the numbers grew so fast, is because I wrote a LOT here about Twitter and this is a very well-read blog. Each post is read by thousands of people – sometimes tens of thousands of people. I have posts here with 200, 300 and in one case, a post about Twitter which has over 600 comments.
In just a few months, I attracted over 23000 followers. At the time, even Chris Brogan (a Social Media genius), had taken 2 years to attract just 15,000 more followers. My Twitter account grew too big, too fast.
Following back
Following so many people back is what caused my problem.
I would still have seen ALL the @jimconnolly messages sent to me, without following everyone back – and these were almost always the most valuable. PLUS, I would have had MORE TIME to respond and connect with more people, because I would not have been ploughing through several thousand Direct Messages each week. But it was too late – So, I decided to leave that Twitter account.
Tweeting again “small time”
I had a ‘chat’ last Thursday with Laura Fitton @pistachio, and explained what had happened with my account and why I was no longer using it. Laura is a REAL expert when it comes to Twitter and has always been super helpful to me. Laura explained that I could actually clear the account, so I could keep the same Twitter user name (which is my actual name,) and use it to follow friends, clients and contacts.
In 5 minutes, I had lost well over 23,000 followers.
I had an account with 0 following and 0 followers.
As a result, my @jimconnolly account is active again – BUT this time, I am only following friends, clients and contacts, (which will be quite a large number in itself.) If I am not following you on Twitter and you want to get in touch without sending a tweet to me (for whatever reason) – you can contact me WITHOUT being limited to 140 characters. After all, I have always been extremely easy to get in touch with.
I’m VERY contactable without Direct Messages!
- You can call me on 01427 891274 if you need to speak with me.
- You can email me via the blog, if you want to write to me.
- You can get in touch with me via a comment on the blog, if you want to share your feedback with thousands of other people.
- You can send a message to @jimconnolly via Twitter if you want to share your message in 140 characters.
- You can even write to me via snail-mail – My FULL postal address is here.
I think you would agree, I make it very easy for people to get in touch.
The ‘right’ way to use Twitter!
It’s weird – we live in a society where it’s ‘cool’ to say “I’m learning all the time,” yet it’s ‘uncool’ to say; “I made a mistake and I’m putting it right!” So, I’m about to be very uncool!
I GOT IT WRONG!
.
I believe that each person should feel free to use their account however they want; so long as it’s not breaking any of Twitter’s rules.
Robert Scoble @scobleizer follows 65,000 people. Darren Rowse @problogger follows around 9,000 people and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams @ev follows around 900 people. Each uses Twitter the right way FOR THEM.
All I know for certain, is that following over 20,000 people was wrong FOR ME.
I hope you can appreciate my decision and maybe even learn something from my experience.
Related posts:
You may want to try it again, and maybe be more selective?
As a very new twitter,I expected it to be a place where one can find people with similar interests, wherein groups will naturally form, large enough to provide diversity, but small enough to benefit from everyone’s input.Which is very often not the case.My guess is that in groups over 100 most of the info is lost=noise.But then I understood there’s also a popularity contest going on, so it’s not really about connections and interestingness, it’s more about fame…M-hmm.They should put it on the front page, just to be clear for everyone:”Contest ongoing!Biggest number wins!” But then again, we are all free to give and take whatever we need, and obey our own standards of quality.Best of luck, Jim!
Anna,
Not sure how much of my post you read, but your suggestion, to try again and be more selective, is actually what the whole post was about.
Well done, Jim. I hope my post does not cause the negative side-effect to generate loads of followers you have to deny following… http://tinyurl.com/cu58vm
An earlier comment summed up how I decide who to follow:
“I do not follow all the people who follow me. I look at their profile, their last 20 tweets and then figure out whether we have anything in common.”
My contact email is readily available on my web site (which is easily seen in my Twitter profile) and is almost 100% guaranteed to get ahold of me. I scan my @ replies and try to respond to any that are still relevant.
I am shocked at the dm’s my little account gets, but even more shocked when I click a link that looks interesting and does not even have a valid URL. Thus I do not feel to bad about not responding to dm’s, esp if they are not following me.
Hi Jim,
I don’t know.
Currently I have less than 10% of the followers you had and I am having trouble trying not to be rude. I feel bad if they do an @calgreg and I don’t have time to respond.
However, I’ve done testing and found that we are lucky if 2% of your followers see your tweets at all. So, if you want to get a good message out, to grow your blog perhaps, then your results will be pitiful unless you gather a ton of followers.
If I had a blog already in the big time like you do (and very deservedly, I might add) then I could dump Twitter.
OR, I could go on collecting lots of followers and just do the best I can and not worry about the people who hate me for not responding. Hey, I would never have met them anyway, right? Nor they, me. It’s a wash.
I want to declutter my life. One way I am doing that is selling off my domain names and websites and whittling those down to a precious few (Adsense revenue).
So, I do totally understand your decision. I think it is right for you. I will be popping in here as often as possible as well.
Keep up the great work, Jim!
welcome back! i missed yah. oddly i was going to stop by with a comment that i had stopped following your blog as closely b/c lack of Tweeting when your newsletter arrived. you’re just too good at branding yourself Jim. too good. you spent just enough time away for me to miss you. and poof you return. lastly DM on Twitter isn’t a good communication tool at all. Twitter to me is all about letting it all hang out publicly. (though information control is grand too:) join the conversation and follow up via email.
I read the last (related) post and am glad to hear you’ve come back around to Twitter. I have been on 2 or 3 weeks maybe, and recently did a follow dump. I was trying to do the “follow your followers” with all nonspammers, but it was overwhelming. I can only imagine what 20,000 would have been like! Now I’ve adopted a policy of interesting + relevant (valuable/resourceful). A lot of Tweeps post the same links–which one the does it in the most amusing, concise way? Some are interesting but don’t really add value (and throw in lots of drama). I’m sure the policy will get tweaked over time, but it helps.
Thanks for the insight on Twitter, we at TPI are very interested in new media.
Hi Jim – I’m beginning to have the same sort of problem as you with only 300+ followers. It’s funny how when we join twitter we get obsessed with the number of followers we have – then when we have a lot we suddenly realise we can’t cope.
My best experiences with twitter have come from interacting with people with shared interests. Too many random tweets and DMs and I can’t spot these people any more.
I’m going to follow your lead and be much more careful about who I follow – and certainly stop the autofollowing.
Ian
You are incorrect about Chris Brogan Jim.
He isnt a social media genius. He is a broadcaster. When I used to tweet I quickly realized he was not communicating with people. He was only able to see what his followers were saying AT him. No way can a person communicate with as many followers as him.
Hes making a very amature mistake. How can a professional communicator set up a communication channel and then fail to interact with 99% of the people? Sorry Jim but you are wrong on this one
Caroline,
Chris Brogan may or may not be a genius but he is not how you described him in my experience. Perhaps he has reached a saturation point but I think he is rushing to shore that up with outside help.
Chris Brogan is A++ in my book.
Greg,
You make an excellent point. Considering how many people he follows, I think he does great.
Jim – I understand your desire to reset the number YOU follow. But I think it’s terribly sad that you also reset the number who were following you. This wasn’t their mistake.
Vicki,
It would have been extremely arrogant and totally unfair of me, to delete everyone I followed BUT keep THEIR follows. This way, I am slowly being re-followed by all the people who originally followed and spoke with me. I am now able to deliberately develop a high quality, smaller twitter network. Sadly Vicki, the reason there’s still thousands who have not found me is that they are the ones, who never read my blog.
Otherwise, they would have known I was back a week ago, when it was announced. That post, announcing my return, got over 20,000 hits last week!
Hi Jim,
Another ‘challenge’ I noticed for these people with lots of followers is polluting their stream with of “@keen_fan yeah it was good” or “@keen_fan thanks” tweets. This seems to happen when the person has 5mins and wants to bang out a load of responses. Since the Twitter interface doesn’t allow conversation following without clicking on each msg its not too great a user experience for followers i.e. the content:tweet ratio is pretty low. I guess that’s a reason why following back might be a good idea: you could send a direct msg in reply to banale tweets and keep the stream for more interesting stuff that would appeal to a broader audience.
Just a thought…
Cheers,
James
Ps. loved the tone of the post
Sorry, my previous post doesn’t make sense. The person being followed can send a direct message to the follower without needing to follow back. So, just send a DM and keep the stream clean for ‘the good stuff’
Welcome back into the fold Jim, I thought I saw your “old” twitterID pop up in an RT t’other day…
It’s liberating to scale back the chitter (chatter on twitter!)
I’ve decided to migrate at least half of my efforts over to Facebook this week.
I posted some Facebook stats in my blog. They definitely opened my eyes.
I still love Twitter, but I think we need a recouperative separation?
I’m so glad that I came across this post. I just thought to myself “I haven’t seen Jim Connelly on Twitter. What the heck happened to him?” Kudos to you for making the decision to re-tool your Twitter strategy. I agree that the Twitter noise can be deafening and each person should have their own tactic for handling follows. I hope that your new plan works out for you. Best of luck!
Your right!
The root of the problem for is “Thank for Following” DMs.
My preference is to follow back and un-follow if tweets are all self promotions vs. twittering worthwhile ideas and links.
Wonderful!
The internet world is evolving at an incredible rate and I’m delighted that someone else is also having difficulties in keeping up. Plus Jim has the strength of character to own up. The longer I spend at this game the more I appreciate such honesty.
Mike,
Thanks – I really appreciate that!
How does one “clear” their Twitter account quickly, without having to “unfollow” or “block” ~ one by one…by one by one… for hours?