How I use Twitter
I use twitter. A lot. You’re free to follow me.
In fact I encourage you to follow me. I’ve stopped all the mass emails to everyone’s relief. Not that I was so horrible but it’s just one less thing to clutter the inbox.
Here’s the thing, though. I don’t automatically follow everyone back. Don’t take it personally. Really. It’s not you. I just need some time to get to know you.
I will respond to anyone who sends me an @myerman reply. And I will follow you if you’re doing something interesting (and yes I may disagree with you but still find you interesting).
I also tend to follow other Austin city dwellers, those who work in my field, funny people, smart people and so on.
Consequently I have more followers than followees. That’s just how it works with me (and I reserve the right to change my mind later). You might have a different way of doing things and that’s cool.
How do I use twitter? I point to interesting things I find on the interwebs. Some of it relates to marketing, some of it to the radical decentralization of everything (particularly to the death of newspapers as there are many object lessons there for all students of business), still others are links to writing.
I mix in some fun too. I tweet about my hobbies (photography and poker) and about things that tickle my funny bone. I will tell you if I’ve found something cool or had that weird breakthru thought (not that common).
In other words I’m not some kind of robot. Twitter is just an extension of what I’m doing and thinking and saying.
If you’re doing the same, well then I’ll retweet you because good stuff is good stuff.
If I find you on twitter and follow you, I won’t be offended if you don’t follow me back. And if I unfollow you, it’s just that my focus is changing and it has nothing to do with you.
(I opt out of seeing all your replies back and forth with others, which helps me make sense of the world.)
That is all.
Barbara Hudgins Said,
April 13, 2009 @ 6:40 pm
I’ll follow you if you follow me. For the life of me, I can’t see it doing me any good but all the book coaches, life coaches, publicists, marketers and such are on it like crazy. If fact one woman is using Facebook like a Tweet station. She’s my “friend” but I get 15 posts a day all really short and full of hyperlinks. I also get a newsletter from her, and mostly her tweets on Facebook are bits and pieces of her newsletter. But this woman makes her money by coaching and mentoring thousands of wannabe writers, mostly fiction writers. I’m going to have to unfriend her she uses up so much space!
First it was “you have to have a website”, then “you have to have a blog” then it was you have to be on Facebook and now Twitter is the ultimate havetobeon. Luckily, all except the website is free (I pay someone to maintain my website, but basically neither he nor I do anythng much with it.) How does Twitter make its money?
Thomas Myer Said,
April 28, 2009 @ 8:29 pm
You don’t have to be on anything, not really. Just concentrate on bringing value to those around you. If that value comes from Twitter, use it. If it involves holding monthly workshops out in the woods without internet connectivity, do that. If it involves anything in between, then do it. The Twitter thing is just another tool, like all the rest. I only posted this because people were asking me how I use it. Sorry for the slow response, have had a ton of travel and deadlines and haven’t had much quality time with this blog.