How Do You Use Twitter?

Earlier today we spent time reading an excellent article written by Skellie on the Twitip blog about how to follow everyone back on Twitter without ruining your experience. We couldn’t help noticing that it sparked a lively debate about how Twitter should be used.

In the short time that it has existed, Twitter has generated a lot of strong opinions. Everyone seems to think that they have the definitive answer on how Twitter should be used.

In this case, some people claim that it’s only polite to return the compliment when people follow you.

Others argue that it dilutes the relevance of the people that you follow and makes it impossible to keep up to date with the number of messages that pass through your Twitter account.

So that got us thinking…

…Neither view is entirely correct!

The true answer lies in the way that each person uses their account.

There is no right way to use Twitter. It all depends upon the type of person that you are, and the things that you want to achieve. People use Twitter for many different reasons.

We’ve been able to identify two main Twitter models.

Twitter Model 1: Using Twitter To Build Individual Relationships

Many people use Twitter in this manner to keep in contact with their personal friends and colleagues. This model is also common if you create your Twitter account based around a highly specialized subject matter or a niche that attracts few people.

On a psychological note, if you’re the type of person who feels the need to keep up to date with every tweet that passes through your account this is the best strategy to adopt. Once you follow more than a few hundred people, your Twitter feed will quickly become swamped with updates.

Characteristics

a) Fewer friends and followers

b) Highly selective criteria for deciding who to follow

c) Frequent interaction with a small group of people

Advantages

It’s possible to build a number of potentially valuable, long-term relationships with a closely defined group of people.

It’s possible to read all the messages posted by the people that you follow and interact more closely with your Twitter friends and followers.

It’s easy to control your account using the main Twitter interface, a desktop application (such as Twhirl or Tweetdeck) or any of the mobile phone apps.

Disadvantages

Unless you already know someone, it’s impossible to tell whether they are worth following until you follow them/get to know them. So the relationships that you build will only be as good as your ability to follow the people who are most suited to your personality.

The information that you share with your followers will reach fewer people.

Twitter Model 2: Using Twitter To Build A Community

In contrast to the previous model, where people aim to build direct relationships with a small number of highly relevant people, this approach is aimed at building a relationship with a community of people as a whole.

Instead of viewing the individual relationships as the asset, this model views the community as the primary resource. For example, if you build a following of 1000 people involved in marketing or PR, you won’t be able to interact with them as often, but if you need instant feedback or have a specific question, your community of followers will be far more valuable.

And if you follow people who post relevant information and links, this approach will also help you to keep up to date with all the important developments in your area of interest.

Characteristics

a) A higher number of friends and followers (often into the thousands or tens of thousands)

b) Less selective criteria for deciding who to follow.

c) Short bursts of infrequent communication with other people in the community.

Advantages

A community built around a specific subject can provide you with instant answers and feedback to almost any relevant question or problem. In general this information is much more relevant than that provided by the search engines because the responses are human edited.

As the criteria for who you follow is not as narrow, it gives you a chance to evaluate more people. This ability to build your community by trial and error (following everyone who looks relevant, then unfollowing people who don’t live up to the initial potential) is just like networking in the real world.

Attending a live networking event with 200 people will always provide you with a greater opportunity to meet people who are more relevant to your needs than a smaller event with just 20 people.

Disadvantages

Natural dilution of your core subject as the size of your community grows

As you follow more people it will become increasingly difficult to read all of their tweets.

Of the two different models, we prefer the community model. However, if you adopt for this approach, it’s essential to build a quality community through a process of following relevant people and providing massive value for your followers.

For example,

a) Retweet relevant information

Even although you can’t read all of the messages that flow through your account, it’s important to spend time reading tweets at random and retweeting messages that you think will provide your followers with value. Acting as an amplifier in this way allows information that is valuable to your community to spread rapidly. It also increases the chances that other people will pay more attention to your tweets.

b) Answer people’s questions

Likewise, spend time looking through your Twitter feed for questions that you can answer. If you use Tweetdeck, just use the search function at the foot of the general column. If you search for a question mark “?” this will give you a list of all the questions that people you follow have asked recently.

When you find a question that you can answer, send an @ reply to the person. If more of your followers are prepared to answer questions in this manner, the value of your community as a resource will continue to grow.

As you spend time providing value for your followers, relationships will develop which may lead to more direct interaction. And here’s the most important point…the relationships that develop will be the most suitable for your circumstances because they will be drawn from a much larger pool of potential.

Let’s face it, would you rather have the best 10 relationships out of 100 or the best 10 out of 1000?

Many people can’t seem to understand why anyone would want to follow thousands of people. They argue that it’s impossible to follow more than a few hundred people and keep up with all their posts.

This doesn’t mean that their opinion is right or wrong. It just means that they see Twitter in terms of the individual model rather than the community model.

They only envisage following someone if they have time to interact with them on a regular basis.

In contrast, anyone who sees Twitter in terms of the community model won’t see anything wrong with following 10,000 relevant people.

They hold the opinion, and I’m inclined to agree with them, that just because you follow someone, it doesn’t mean that you have to contact them daily. You can still provide them with distant value through sharing relevant information (which they may or may not see) and answering their questions at random. And if any specific relationships develop, they are more likely to be of a higher quality as they are drawn from a larger group of people.

So if you want to achieve the most from the time that you spend tweeting, it’s important to work out why you use Twitter, what you want to achieve and which model will most closely fit your circumstances and personality.

How do you think Twitter should be used? Do you follow everyone who follow you? Is it possible to follow several thousand people without ruining your Twitter experience? Let us know what you think.

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