How to take too much advantage of Twitter - Updated

 

Now it's time for an explanation.

I truly believe Twitter is a great online tool to get quick updates about what's going on at a moment in time. The PhocuWright coverage was indeed very much interesting to follow via Twitter. Now, when you try to follow a conversation, it makes almost impossible to follow if Twitterers send updates too often. If I take the example of Travolution - and I don't try to offend Travolution publication here, you know that I am a devoted fan and reader of what they do covering the online travel space - on Friday 28th between 11am and 12am, you can see on Twitter that 20 messages were sent from Travolution (answers to individuals, links to their website via Twitterfeed and quick updates). Today, I have been following only 24 Twitterers. If everyone was using Twitter at this frequency, it would mean that on a busy day, I would follow a conversation of 480 messages in one hour.

So here's come my frustration with Twitter: I can hardly follow a conversation or keep up to date with what bloggers want to say via Twitter. Also, I am really amazed to see the growth of how many people follow HotelBlogs and I would really like to return the favor by also following these new suscribers.
But how can I do this if I am already struggling with 24 feeds ???

Maybe this is because I don't know how to use Twitter properly as a reader.

Maybe this tool is not for me after all.

Or maybe I am just frustrated at the moment with it.

Now about the comments which I reproduce below.

I'd call that verging on spam, a single tweet and a link would have been sufficient. Maybe someone needs to publish a tweet etiquette guideline, might help a lot of publishers not frustrate their followers.
Posted by: Al | Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 01:39 PM

Because you are limited to 144 characters, people tend to publish multiple tweets to get all their stories out. Etiquette? Not sure about that, we've already failed with emails, how can we succeed with Twitter.

Guillaume: Not sure what point you are trying to make here, Guillaume. We did not use it to drive traffic to the site. We use Twitter to live blog events, and many people know we do this. So not sure if we are "taking too much advantage of Twitter". Twitter is a microblogging phenomenon as it allows you to produce rapid updates of an event. It works very well for us and I'm not going to change our policy. In fact, so well did the Twittering work at PhoCusWright that we have added almost 150 followers in a week. Some people clearly like what we do with it. 'A1': You might say it's "spam" but that is wrong. Spam is generally one-way and you cannot do much about it. People subscribe to our Twitters update and therefore actively interested in what we produce. Or not. At the end of the day if they don't want to read it, then they just unsubscribe - in the same way i can unsubscribe to the RSS feed of a blog. Maybe I'm wrong though......
Posted by: Kevin May | Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 02:32 PM

Well I am sure you got my point here. Posting links about an article via Twitterfeed looks like a way to drive your followers to go to your website and read your article and consequently drive traffic to it.No?
Your usage of Twitter during PhocusWright was indeed fantastic and I believe this is where Twitter beat the blog because you can update people with a very quick message if there is something exclusive before you take time to develop the story via your blog when you are back to your computer. I also liked the fact you can use Twitter via SMS on your mobile phone but unfortunately this is not working anymore in the UK

And by the way, you will both probably remember how people recoiled in horror every time it was suggested the blogoshere adopt some kind of guidelines or 'etiquette'. Would be the same for Twitter. Posted by: Kevin May | Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 02:46 PM

I agree with you. Having said that maybe Twitter could only allow you to send 2 or 3 Tweets an hour, that would help followers to follow and engage in the conversation more than being frustrated by it (where I am today).

I agree Kevin Twitter messages only ever feel like spam when the content is totally useless and doesn't aim to share the latest news, as it happens in real time. The PhoCusWright coverage was a prime example of how Twitter helped me feel like I was in the same place as the Twitterer, at the same time. I find sharing a digital stream of consciousness in this way absolutely invaluable. There's always the freedom to stop following if the updates are boring or useless.
Posted by: Sandwagon | Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 02:49 PM

But I don't want to stop following Travolution or other Twitter users. I find the people I follow very useful to read. It's just too much noise to follow, that's all. Plus sometimes, people feel to share things like "I am going to bed, Good night!". How useful this Tweet can be?

Comments

[Al]

I'd call that verging on spam, a single tweet and a link would have been sufficient.

Maybe someone needs to publish a tweet etiquette guideline, might help a lot of publishers not frustrate their followers.

[Kevin May]

Guillaume:

Not sure what point you are trying to make here, Guillaume. We did not use it to drive traffic to the site. We use Twitter to live blog events, and many people know we do this.

So not sure if we are "taking too much advantage of Twitter".

Twitter is a microblogging phenomenon as it allows you to produce rapid updates of an event. It works very well for us and I'm not going to change our policy. In fact, so well did the Twittering work at PhoCusWright that we have added almost 150 followers in a week. Some people clearly like what we do with it.

'A1': You might say it's "spam" but that is wrong. Spam is generally one-way and you cannot do much about it. People subscribe to our Twitters update and therefore actively interested in what we produce. Or not.

At the end of the day if they don't want to read it, then they just unsubscribe - in the same way i can unsubscribe to the RSS feed of a blog.

Maybe I'm wrong though......

[Kevin May]

And by the way, you will both probably remember how people recoiled in horror every time it was suggested the blogoshere adopt some kind of guidelines or 'etiquette'.

Would be the same for Twitter.

[Sandwagon]

I agree Kevin

Twitter messages only ever feel like spam when the content is totally useless and doesn't aim to share the latest news, as it happens in real time.

The PhoCusWright coverage was a prime example of how Twitter helped me feel like I was in the same place as the Twitterer, at the same time. I find sharing a digital stream of consciousness in this way absolutely invaluable.

There's always the freedom to stop following if the updates are boring or useless.

[Nathan]

yeah, i think this is a shade unfair too (disclosure: i work on travolution's sister magazine). The phocuswright stuff was high volume, but the event's importance to travo's market merits that. It isn't comparable to e.g new york times travel, who are only on twitter to dump in 15 consecutive links once a week. Very true that twitter can be annoying though, but i'd rather see them introduce better filtering tools than start developing rules on how people use the service.

[Soultravelers3]

Interesting! There are as many different ways to use Twitter as there are people.

I understand your frustration to a certain point, because it can be hard to hear all that you want to on Twitter and separate the wheat from the chaff ( for each individual).

You must realize that most people follow many more than 24 people & the many of the top people follow thousands and have thousands of followers.

Many people do tons of tweets and build relationships through twitter. That is why many people say good morning or good night, a way to let others know when they are on or off and what time of day it is in their world which may be a continent away from many of their followers.

Many people twitter various events where there are massive tweets every second for days.

The hashtags allow many people around the world to connect and have productive meetings. These are usually filled with tons of chatter that can be confusing for those not participating ,but thrilling and useful for those that are.

I do believe there is a way to temporarily turn off a twitter who is doing excessive tweeting for these reasons. I think you can also turn off all @ if you want.

There are many different apps that can be used that help make twitter better, so perhaps you could check them out.

Perhaps this new website by problogger might be useful to you:

http://www.twitip.com/

I think following @Pistachio and @chrisbrogan ( who do have lots of tweets, but are experts on marketing using social media) & their blog posts also might be useful to you. They both often say goodnight! ;)

@Scobleizer ( who tweets probably more than anyone & has the most followers) recommended this recent blog post by @timoreilly about why he loves twitter:

http://radar.oreilly.com/2008/11/why-i-like-twitter.html

It is about why he loves Twitter.

I truly understand your point about the noise, but the freedom is partly what is so great about twitter & most of the top users are tweeting a lot... most more than @Travolution.

The main rule in twitter is there are no rules. That is the beauty & perhaps sometimes, the frustration.

[Nomadic Matt]

Twitter is a great resource for networking but there can be a lot of noise. I try not to follow people who post 1,000 times a day. I just don't like the clutter but there is huge potential for networking and marketing.

[Guillaume Thevenot]

Thanks Nathan, SoulTravelers3 and Matt for your contribution and tips about how I we can manage better the usage of Twitter. I agree with you Twitter can be of great asset to networking and update your peers quickly and more rapidly than a blog.

Guillaume

[Alex Bainbridge]

One thing I have found (as a new twitterer) is I don't really like being informed about new blog posts via twitter (or at least not every blog post).

Just written about that on my blog.