The Big Twitter cleanup | Jun08 |
I’ve had trouble convincing some of my friends to try Twitter; most of the non-media types aren’t on it. Every time I do have that conversation, though, I come back to the same argument. It’s not Facebook. Its power lies not in socialising with friends, but as a tool for connecting with individuals in a specific area of interest, and sharing content and news in a timely manner within that network.
Lately, Twitter has been less useful than itwas, and I’ve been checking it less and posting a hell of a lot less. It only dawned on me the other day that I wasn’t heeding my own advice. I was following too many people form too many different areas.
I’ve culled my list of over 100 people I was following back to 47. For me, around 50 is the magic number. It’s enough to dip in and out of whenever I want, and to be able to catch up with the flow of information without feeling overwhelmed. Selective following is also the key to getting the most utility out of Twitter: in my own culling process, I stopped following plenty of people I know personally and who are pretty interesting. But those people often used Twitter amongst friends for social reasons, or for a completely different network than my own. For social interactions, Facebook is a much better platform. Personally, I use Twitter for following the thoughts of those people in media on the subject of media, so I also unfollowed plenty of journalists and so on who Tweet their personal business more than anything else.
The tool I used for this whole process was ManageFlitter.com. It’s an excellent free service that will show you which people you follow are not following you, who’s inactive, talkative, shares links, etc.
If you’ve been less in love with Twitter recently than you were before, try a little spring clean. It really does change the entire feeling of your stream.
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Posted by Dave Molloy in •Tech