Twitter, as pointed out very well by Gurprriet Siingh-Joy on Twitter Tuesday morning (start with this one and work your way up), is democratic (his words) and Darwinian (mine). In fact, MySpace executives will tell you that social media can be unforgivingly Darwinian sometimes.
So it is with the Twitter account that screams out “Unfollow me!” If you’re a project manager and you use Twitter primarily on a professional basis, you’ll no doubt be following accounts that regularly bring the goods. And you’ll undoubtedly have come across the accounts that tell you everything you need to know that’s worth saying goodbye to: some timelines might seem too salesy; some offer little that’s relevant for enlightening and informing; others are simply a window to the tallest brick wall you’d never want to look at anyway.
You don't have to follow everyone that follows you on Twitter. But it's far less advisable to not follow anyone at all!
Two years ago, I came to a realisation about common courtesy on the Twittersphere, which held that if you were going to truly engage in this medium, you had to at least follow a few people yourself and, you know, make the effort to engage the medium evident & visible. Erika Flora had a wonderful post about this at her Beyond Project Management blog in July 2010 (a post that earned my support then). To paraphrase, she was turned off by account of an author/consultant who could have brought something usable to the table, but found it unnecessary to follow even one other account on Twitter.
Now, I don’t mind a bit of democratic narrowing down of social media that’s a waste of your eyes, but I’d be a fool to think there is no one in the Twittersphere worthy of your monitor. Who goes on there to spew and not pick things up as they go? While a list of people you follow is not in itself indicative of how well you’re trolling Twitter, it seems bizarre to think that following nobody isn’t by design, and therefore a commitment to truly engage the medium at arm’s length; a model puckering their lips on the runway, not the least bit concerned with what clothes you’re wearing.
The values of Twitter are not a runway. They are a marketplace, worthy of a good browse.
I mention all of this because I’ve come to decide on my New Year’s Resolution, which centres on how I run my Twitter account. And it is one influenced heavily by comics.
Yep: comics. In fairness to myself, your average standup is more sage-like than we’ve ever been willing to give them credit for. I’m reminded of this when I’ve heard a routine that hits so close to home and expresses an idea so clearly and simply, you’re left to wonder how much they can fall back on the “it’s just a joke, people” defense. Whilst I always remember that their intention is to make me laugh, one could surely say that I go for the cmoics that will also makes me think. The late Bill Hicks or George Carlin, for instance: from today, the likes of Bill Bailey, Omid Djalili, Dave Gorman, Demetri Martin, Dave Chappelle, or Patton Oswalt.
I mention Oswalt in particular because he was magnificent in The B.S. Report podcast I listened to last year that touched briefly on the art of good Tweeting. Though he was talking in terms of how good Twitter has been for comics, the principles of what he said can stay with the professional Tweeter, especially those who hang out at the project management hashtags:
OSWALT: “I don’t use it that much to promote things. I’ll wait, because there’s some people whose Twitter feeds (where) all they’re doing is promoting things, and after awhile you (go) ‘unfollow’, cause this is boring. Or all they do is respond to people out of context. My whole thing is: Earn your promotion. Entertain people for awhile, so then the times you go, ‘Hey, I got this show coming up’, they’ll (the customers) go, ‘Hey, that guy, 90% of his Tweets are a funny joke, I can (check that show out)’. Or they know that after that promotion, something funny will come soon.”
All parentheses courtesy of author
Brilliant and considered. If you tailor those thoughts into your intentions for your project management-focused account, you’ve got a nice little equation that’ll get some solid interactions and Maximise the Twitter Account’s True Potential:
MAXIMISING THE TWITTER EXPERIENCE =
Giving it Up For the Fellow Man When They’ve Got Something Your Followers Can Use (retweeting) +
Earning the Right to Promote by Regularly Giving Followers Something They Can Use (advice, experiences, a link to a relevant discussion, etc.)
I’ve asked myself three questions as the calendar spelled out 2012 in relation to the two professional Twitter accounts I maintain on behalf of Arras People (PM_StrayDogg and PM_Tipoffs):
- Am I giving the followers what they want?
- Am I being considerate and offering their valued time on Twitter true value?
- Am I eliminating the kind of actions that would be an open invitation for the dreaded “unfollow”?
Subsequently, this will become my mantra for 2012: These two accounts will epitomise a great experience for the user whilst they choose to check me out. Although I’ve been relatively good about some of the qualities we’ve talked about here, I view this resolution as a chance to re-think it to give you the best quality in the limited time you’ve got to spend: considered and thoughtful, relevant and necessary.
By the way: I checked the account that drew Erika’s ire two years ago to see if things had changed. I saw good things that follow the principles discussed above: it gave followers free advice they could go forth with and impart into their working lives. The hashtag usage was fairly quiet. It, in principle, seemed strong on the advice tweets, to the point that I wondered if he should scale back. But I could not locate a single re-tweet when I followed the timeline back to the beginning of September.
And I still saw that huge nought above the “Following” category.
To give you and idea of how puzzling this was for me, I went to the “Similar to @…” section, searching for whether this was even a common practise on Twitter for people of this account’s ilk. The numbers suggested, “Not even close.” I clicked View all, and now offer the Following & Followers statistics of the accounts similar to the one in question (and I will maintain their anonymity as I’ve maintained his):
| User # | Following | Followers |
| 1 | 1,790 | 1,938 |
| 2 | 1,854 | 2,096 |
| 3 | 98 | 468 |
| 4 | 14,259 | 13,898 |
| 5 | 1,572 | 2,148 |
| 6 | 1,014 | 2,471 |
| 7 | 35,247 | 37,423 |
| 8 | 13,864 | 42,015 |
| 9 | 976 | 3,053 |
Some of these people really use Twitter, and even if their Follower/Following Ratio is extreme to one side:
- They do have a ratio (which our unfortunate No followers example cannot claim)
- Some are so keen to pick up information from elsewhere, they probably don’t mind following more accounts than they themselves are followed
- None of them have even 5x as many followers as people they follow
Clearly, there’s an ethical practise that has been weeded out here. As life teaches us, rules can be bent for extenuating circumstances and no one’s the worse. So it is with Twitter: while its not advisable to return in kind the follow of someone else, following no one is the extreme of such behaviour, and to your Twitter account’s ultimate detriment.
T-shirt image and “i use twitter wrong” wording courtesy topgold @ Flickr and re-used with permission.
Twitter: projectmgmt
My own guidelines on who to follow and who to follow back on Twitter are really quite simple. I look for people who mix up their Twitter feed – sometimes it’s about project management, sometimes they’re tweeting about what they’re having for dinner or commenting on Question Time. Twitter for me is about blurring the lines between professional and private. We have LinkedIn for professional, Facebook for personal and somewhere in the middle is Twitter. If your twitter feed is all about work work work it’s sure to lead to unfollow, unfollow, unfollow
Twitter: PM_StrayDogg
It’s a good rule of thumb, Lindsay. Jack becomes a dull boy rather easily without some semblance of a real-time, real-life personality in their timeline. I always found fascinating with Twitter (and Facebook as well) the ability to trace a comment back to an event and understand where the account holder’s thinking was at that specific moment in time. Insight into who you are doesn’t always hurt, unless your relatability to the people you want to attract is too far beyond reproach. Some people can tell you quite a lot about who they are, and can go a tad far on certain occasions. “TMI-Unfollow! Unfollow!”
Twitter: RADTACLtd
Hi Dan – an interesting post and well observed.
I’ve also come to the same conclusions and know how I’d like to use Twitter, however what I’d like to do and what I can do sometimes conflict! Specifically, comparing personal and business accounts (I run both), as a person it’s easy to throw in daily anecdotes and thoughts (sometimes too easy) alongside the ‘giving’ tweets. In fact I have no need to promote myself on my private account – it’s all for fun and I’ve a surprisingly large following given that I’m not even that active! For the business account on the other hand, the use of the company name seems to exclude the ability to post randomly about the weather, sport, what I had for breakfast or whatever. It would somehow seem unprofessional. So, unfortunately the emphasis is much more on promotion – definitely too much so and with a risk of accumulating some ‘unfollowers’… Meanwhile, I badger and berate directors and associates for blogs (none
), insights and their personal anecdotes (preferably at least mildly business related) – and retweet their comments from their own personal tweets on the company twitter account. The other approach is to review related Google Alerts stories and other’s tweets in order to share related stories – and hopefully there are enough to encourage followers to remain!
It’s a hard balance to get right – but I think I have similar New Year Resolutions to you!
Cheers.
Twitter: PM_StrayDogg
Thanks for commenting Lindsay and Donna! Donna, it’s nice to know that you’re not alone, I can say with resolve. A corporate account can get you so stuck in on the good of what your group is putting out there that you can become isolated and detached. I look at it this way, albeit in a way that is somewhat sporty: brands get remembered, but quality never dies. If Twitter is about consistently bringing and sharing the goods without giving away the farm in a small amount of space, the quality has to be unmatched, unrivalled and smart. For us, though, it cannot be about being incendiary just for the sake of being so: the informed and the entertaining get the Follows and, eventually, the greatest following. I’m glad you’re striving to do this as best you can: go after it!