Tuesday Twitter thoughts (volume 2)

Here's my latest installment of Twitter thoughts. 

With each passing week, I'm learning more about social media and what it can mean to our biz/personal lives.  Here's four thoughts from last week: 

1.  Follow everyone back (except spammers).  Initially, I resisted this, but thanks to @fayfeeney, I've learned its considered common courtesy.  To follow one back is a sign of respect and acceptance.  My stream is much more interesting and diverse now that I'm following more people.  Also, I follow back everyone who RT's me or talks about me. I use Tweetdeck to monitor "Tim Sanders" mentions or mentions of my books. (Also, when you follow someone back, then can send you a DM and engage w/ you)

2. Unfollow aggressively.  I'm starting, as of this post, #unfollowmonday.  We should publicly unfollow the spammers, over-tweeters, hatefuls and useless.  It's OK to follow back, but if you don't keep your stream reasonably clean, it can get very disturbing.  Case in point: last week, many hateful things were said about Michael Jackson -- hours after his death.  I don't need/want to see that!  I've unfollowed everyone of those folks.  

3. Twitter is NOT about having followers, it is about having influence OR making a difference.  Years ago, people thought that websites were only about traffic, and you see how that worked out.  I will not obsess everyday about how many followers I have.  I'm much better off to spend that energy delivering hi value tweets and serving my followers. 

4. Twitter (much like the internet) is a daytime network.  Twitter via TMZ, broke the Michael Jackson story before Yahoo, CNN and MSN.  By hours in some cases.  That's where I heard about it.  However, if MJ had his cardiac arrest at 9pm, you would have found out via newspapers+TV+Internet+Twitter.  As many of you know, 80% of Twitter traffic occurs during business hours.  This is 1999 all over again! 

Newspapers and TV aren't dead -- they are nighttime!  The internet rules the day.  The absence of afternoon editions or TVs in the workplace fuel that reality.

When I was working at broadcast.com, we learned that 80% of streaming happened during the day when people were at work.  At Yahoo, years later we learned that 80% of all searches happen in the same window.  This hasn't changed.  TAKEAWAY: Tweet during the day, especially your important stuff. Sure, some will look at your older tweets later, but you want to make sure and hit it during 'daypart prime time', which is appx 12noonET to 6pmET.  

Please contribute ideas in comments and RT this post and I'll keep sharing.  Thanks to @karimkanji @mjcarter @JobingSoFlo @audaciousgloop @thatpassionguy and @timbursch for RT'ing last week's Twitter thoughts!  

Comments

[Mark J. Carter]

Great post!

All four points are dead on, especially "Twitter is NOT about having followers, it is about having influence OR making a difference."

Too many people are stuck in the numbers game when they should be in the relationship game.

Thanks for continuing to walk the walk and let others know what to do to build their online and offline reputations!

[Tim Sanders]

Jeannette, Ozzy and Kent: you Lovecats are totally there for me and I really appreciate you!

[Kent McCallister]

Great words for a world that's using Twitter more frequently now that most of us used texting in the beginning. I like the part about unfollowing and not following those that don't resonate with you.

Kent

[Ozzybeef]

I think its good to remember that Twitter / Social Media is a conversation tool. There are social norms - close talker, guy that types in ALL CAPS, friends return voice mail with txt message.

We are trying to figure out how to best use the tools and many people use them differently. I have a buddy that only tweets links. I follow a major book publisher that doesn't ever reply to tweets, not one. Both kind of eek me and I prolly do stuff that annoys them.

I need to unfollow some folks. #unfollow monday sounds good!

Thanks for following me Tim - I think you are a rock star.

[Jeannette Kravitz]

Tim, I felt the same about Twitter from day1 - great tool, but you have to decide who you want to have conversations with and who you don't. Thanks for the rminder!