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Sunday, July 1, 2012

My Twitter Journey

Yes, I'm a twit tweeter and when I started, I really never thought I'd use it very much. I joined back in early January, slowly started following folks and a few followed me back. If I followed someone (or they followed me), I'd always check out who was recommended/who followed them and if it sounded like a good fit for me, I'd follow them, too. My only interface to the Twitter world was Twitter.com.

After the first month I was starting to get overwhelmed. At the end of the second month I was definitely overwhelmed. I was still following WAY more than I had following me. I'd made a few tweeps (Twitter friends) but found it nearly impossible to follow conversations or keep track of who was who. I managed to stay somewhat in touch by using hashtags and my lists, but barely.

I stopped following new people via my "add everyone who follows me and more" add approach by March, I just let new followers find me via my Tweets and my tweeps. I participated in the April A to Z Challenge and found more. I made sure my Twitter handle @DonnaBMcNicol was on my blogs, website, Facebook page and in every comment I made on any blog.

I read an article that changed my mind about ignoring the follow-back unwritten rule. It was a guest post on C.S. Lakin's blog and it has really helped me expand my follower base in the last month. While I don't follow 500 new people every day, I do now follow new people every day.

So I started searching for tips and tools to help me organize and make Twitter more useful for me. I'll pass along a few that have worked best for me in the next couple of articles. I now easily stay on top of who to follow/unfollow and actually manage to have conversations with my best tweeps.

So how are things are working out? Quite well...I hit 1000 followers yesterday!!! When I started, I thought I'd never get more than 100 or so.


- - - > More to come tomorrow

7 comments:

  1. Great start and I'm looking forward to reading more tomorrow! By the way, home come I'm just finding out about CS Lakin? I followed her just today after reading a retweet of one of her posts. Excellent site.

    Always enjoy your posts Donna!

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  2. Lol.. Waiting with baited breath for more.. I need some control.. I am indeed a Twit! x

    Love you blog Donna.. Always something interesting.

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  3. After a whole week of crashing around on Twitter totally out of control I was thinking of writing 'My expert guide to Twitter' - clearly I'm NOT an expert but that rarely stops me - finding posts that actually do give valuable information and advice is hugely helpful, thank you.

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  4. Congratulations on your Twitter milestone, Donna. You know the old saying; "A rolling milestone gathers no floss."... or something like that!

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  5. someone new every day? OMG! I spend more time than I should on the internet as it is, and after a nine-day visit from No 2 daughter it's all I can do to catch up with the ones I already follow!

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  6. Hoping you'll gain something from all this...three more posts to go!

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  7. Very interesting post, Donna. I tend to follow new people every day, sometimes just one or two people I bump into in my tweeps' tweets, sometimes quite a few more. It all depends on how much time I have.

    I used to follow back everyone who followed me, but I'm afraid I'm just not that nice any more--got tired of the relentless self-promoters, people who seem to look for arguments in every corner, misogynists, racists, and so on.

    Looking forward to the next couple of articles!

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