How I use Twitter

Saturday, January 31st, 2009
by jbrotherlove

So you’re on Twitter and (possibly) wondering why I’m on it, too? You’ve come to the right place!

My tweets are a mixture of comments on the web experience (including web design/development, blogging, social media, etc.), music, movies, black folk issues, LGBT issues and random, personal crap. I tend not to be interested in sports, politics, hip hop or top 20 network television programs.

In general, I “protect” my tweets (make them private) unless I’m attending a public function with heavy Twitter participation, such as SoCon or SXSW. I like knowing who is (potentially) reading my tweets, especially as Twitter grows in popularity.

Occasionally, I’ll go public for a change of pace. But I’m not interested in collecting more followers than the next person and don’t have an overwhelming need for everyone to read everything I tweet (because, sometimes, I will tweet just anything).

As a result of having a protected Twitter account, my follower requests get backed up. If you’ve requested to follow me and I haven’t responded, send me an email (< hover), keeping the following in mind:

Generally, I follow:

  • People I know IRL (in real life)
  • Longtime virtual/web friends
  • Web Designers, Developers, Producers
  • Social Media participants
  • LBGT folk
  • Atlanta folk
  • Generally interesting people

Generally, I do not follow:

  • People I don’t know who tweet about things I don’t care about
  • Social Media/PR/Marketing “experts”
  • Most apps/products
  • Accounts that haven’t updated much (or at all)
  • Accounts that only tweet an RSS feed
  • Fake anything accounts
  • People who don’t tweet in English (because it’s the only language I can read)

I will unfollow:

  • Accounts that tweet offensive and/or insensitive crap
  • Accounts that haven’t updated in months
  • Accounts that tweet too often and/or about things I don’t care about
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11 Comments

xian (@mediajunkie)

January 31st, 2009
at 12:29pm

It’s a cool idea to declare what sort of guidelines you follow for yourself (one of the things I love about twitter is how each person can curate their own experience).

I think my own list of types of people I like to follow and don’t would be very similar, or in some cases analogous to yours. (Especially the distinction between social media participants vs. “experts” and don’t get me started on “gurus”!)

I think people need to get over their fear of not being followed. I know sometimes I tweet “too much” for some people and I will lose them. I’d rather be myself, within reason, than stress out about someone losing interest in my day-to-day thoughts.

Take care (and see you in SxSW?)

(christian aka xian aka mediajunkie)

Lynne d Johnson

January 31st, 2009
at 2:40pm

It’s interesting. Your Twitter rules are similar to my Facebook rules, which in fact, I’m about to cut some friends back on FB bc there I really only want to manage the people you mention in your first set.

On Twitter, it’s different for me though, bc sometimes I represent the brand that I work for and not just myself.

jbrotherlove

January 31st, 2009
at 2:51pm

@xian Doh! How did I forget “guru”? Meeting up @ SXSW is a definite.

@Lynne I understand your position re: Twitter. That’s another reason I’m private. I don’t want any confusion about my account representing anybody or anything but me.

There are too few brands/companies who respect transparency. And, as we’ve seen recently, people get confused (or pretend to) when someone represents both personal and business on one account.

Amber Rhea

January 31st, 2009
at 8:09pm

Love that you emphasized social media participants. It’s a really important distinction to draw.

Patricia

February 1st, 2009
at 5:43am

So often I feel I do social media wrong because while it seems others are trying to grow bigger, badder and stronger networks, I’m worrying about mine getting too big. I’m constantly looking at the folks I follow and trying to pare down. That gets to be harder and harder to do, of course, once I start communicating with folks. It’s one thing, say, to stop unfollowing Wil Wheaton who wouldn’t know me from every other person on the net vs unfollowing someone with whom I’ve exchanged replies back and forth on. So now I’ve learned to just be slower in adding folks.

I like seeing how others manage their networks. It makes me feel not as crazy for being so rigid with mine. :)

Thanks for the post.

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February 2nd, 2009
at 1:37am

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2Serenity aka TheJennTaFur

March 5th, 2009
at 7:37am

The day I decide to return to twitter is the day I read a post by you that always made me adore you. Thank you, Jbrotherlove for keeping it real.

Happy Birthday! March 5th?! xoxo

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