Tuesday, March 17, 2009

What's That You Tweet?

In recent weeks I've gotten more serious about my relationships on Twitter - who I follow and why.  For whatever reason (and I'm truly humbled), I've gained a few hundred new followers in the past few weeks, and that number continues to grow.

What's daunting to me about that is that I take my followers very seriously because, they chose to follow me for a reason and I sincerely hope I can capture their interest and keep it - chances are they have something to share with me as well.

When I get notification of new followers I don't automatically follow every one - even if it takes a little bit of time, I do check out each and every profile of my followers (now it's taking longer than it used to... but I make the time to do it)  

Here's what I look for when I decide whether 
to follow back or not:  (I'm using @jasontryfon as my example)

Step 1 - Review Twitter Bio - If you can sell me in the short Bio I will follow - generally those who say they are passionate about anything I'll follow.  If the Bio is unique and funny, I'll follow.  If your Bio gives me enough sense of your business goals and they relate to me or my clients, I'll follow.

If your Bio is generally a product pitch - I probably wont follow, unless you pass step 2...

Step 2 - Review Recent Tweets - Your Bio may be blank or just not grab me, but you haven't lost me yet.  I will check out recent tweets to see what you are sharing with the world.  I look for personality, humor, sincerity, industry related info (social media, internet marketing), or information that my clients may find useful.  I also look for ReTweets, and real conversations - not one sided tweets.  (Being a Christian is a plus too.)

Seeing followers in conversation with mutual Twitter friends is always a plus too!

If your recent tweets consist only of "buy this", "great deal on this", "make a million dollars an hour working out of your home" and so on... chances are I will not be following you (sorry)

Still not satisfied after reviewing recent tweets?  The game is not over yet - onto step 3...

Step 3 - Review your Site or Blog - I may have already followed you after steps 1 or 2, process doesn't always hit this point, but I will take the time to check out your blog or website for interesting content.

**  If you are new to Twitter, doesn't mean I wont follow - we all start somewhere.  If you have a Bio and a site link that's relevant I will follow you and will enjoy watching your personality evolve!  **

How I introduce myself?  I will most definatley send you a DM referencing either one of your tweets, your Bio, or your website/blog.  I want you to know that I took the time to learn something about you.  I used @jaysontrfyon as my example here and chose an interesting tidbit to ReTweet.


@jasontryfon has it all going on.  His Bio
 is full of information that is relevant to my industry, his profile background rocks, his tweets are genuine, AND what caught me was on this quote on his background "Jason has gamered his acclaim as a noted customer satisfaction evangelist..."  YES!  Now you are speaking my language!  I let him know that too by Tweeting that little qoute :)


I am big on ReTweeting the good info of others and paying it foward whenever I can. (#payitforward).

So if you are following me and have not heard back from me yet - never fear - I need some time to do the real work!

Why do you follow and how do you introduce yourself?  I'd love to hear!

Like this post?  Please RT!  See yah on Twitter my friends!


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3 comments:

  1. I'm not a Tweeter or Twitterer or whatever you call it, but your simple explanation intrigues me... keep bloggin', and Tweeting...

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  2. Wow, totally flattered : )
    I just try to engage and remind people not to forget their priorities. For example @wholeexpanse has 100 followers over 1000 tweets and has a debilitating disease where he has to blog and tweet with one thumb (if it's working) yet there are others who have 60k followers and can barely interact with people, let alone blog multiple times per week. This is where Twitter priorities of who's following who seem to be lost. We need to change this and interact as a community and care for others just as if we were doing so in person.

    Thanks again, I'm flattered to be used as your example.

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  3. Wow. You make it sound so easy - thanks for clearly letting me know. You have made me look more closely at who I am connecting with and following. I do try to check them out before connecting on LinkedIn or befriending on Facebook, but I am not consistent. I will be in the future. You are helping make Twitter into a community by responding to what people write. And you are also holding people responsible for what they write by not following them. That is good for the community, too. Thank you for taking the time to figure this out and share in your blog posts.

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