Okay, people. We need to talk. I’m sure by now you’ve all heard about twitter. If you haven’t, you can skip this post, because it’s not going to mean much. Also, you might want to consider leaving your cave from time to time. A lot happens while you’re in there.
I am an avid microblogger and microblog reader. I think it’s a great idea and the low barrier to entry really encourages a very interesting (if kind of passive) global discussion on an unprecedented scale. That’s why we need to talk. You’re doing it wrong.
I know what you’re saying. “But Jaybill, you’re not the boss of me and I can tweet anything I want!” You sure can, little buddy, but if you want to keep your followers from becoming, well, former followers, I’ve got a couple of tips for you.
#1 – Answer the Question
The question Twitter asks is “What are you doing?” This question can be answered any way you like, but your tweets should answer it nonetheless. I would even go so far as to say you could answer a similar question, that being “What are you thinking about?” Just barfing every little bit of random information into twitter isn’t going to do anything for anyone, especially you.
#2 – Make Sure Everyone Cares
Yes, microblogging is very easy and you can do it any time you like. That does not mean you should. Your followers are following you for one of two reasons. They’re either your friends or they follow you because you’re interesting to them. If most of your followers aren’t going to care about what you’re about to tweet, save it. This is especially important if you’re someone who is an authority on some topic. If you’re a developer with a popular blog, most of your followers are doing so because they want to hear your thoughts on software. They’re probably not terribly interested what you’re having for lunch or the last time your child voided his colon. If you have a professional following and a personal following, why not create two twitter accounts? That way you can keep your main audience interested and still have a place to talk about child droppings.
#3 – Less is More
If this isn’t the whole idea behind twitter, I don’t know what is. The 140 char limit doesn’t mean you should break up your 7000 character blog post into 50 tweets. The casual consumption pattern of twitter virtually assures that a multiple tweet thought is going to get broken up in a way that makes it very hard to follow. A good rule of thumb is that each tweet should be a complete thought. If your thought is bigger than tweet size, blog about it and tweet the permalink. Give your followers the option of going deeper, don’t force them.
#4 – Use URLs Sparingly
Remember that a good portion of twitter users will see your tweets from a phone. With the exception of the iPhone, most cell phone browsers are complete car accidents. If your tweet does contain a URL, offer some word of explanation as to why you’re tweeting it so as to allow those with phones to decide if they want to brave the mobile browser or find a real computer. You also generally want to use a URL shortener for all but the smallest of URLs so as to cram the whole thing into your sub-140 character tweet.
As an aside, if you’re a web developer, please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not write another URL shortening application. That problem has been solved so many times over you might as well end the URL for your app in ‘dango‘.
#5 – Watch the Volume
This relates to #3 and #2. While I enjoy reading tweets from interesting people a few times a day, there are people who get into 100+ tweet per day territory. In addition to being a waste of your time, that volume of tweets puts a lot of psychic weight your followers. You can’t possibly have that many interesting things to say in one day and your interesting tweets will get lost among your boring ones.
So there you go. I hope that helps. Feel free to follow me on twitter if you like, I will follow you back until you start wantonly breaking the above guidelines.
One last thing. Twitter has spawned a whole group of new words. Posting to twitter is obviously a “tweet” and the act of posting is “tweeting”. (Not “twittering”. Shut up.) Please, please, please do not attempt to describe the past tense of the word “tweet” using a four letter word with an “a” in it. If you don’t know why…just…just trust me.
On March 8th, 2008 at 8:30 am Frank said:
Sorry, I am a right-brainer, don’t much care to live strictly by the rules, that’s no fun! Rules are made to be broken right? If it feels right for you, do it. Remember that we choose who we follow, can always stop following those that don’t fit your style or interest, and I have, as I am sure others have with me …
:) Frank
On March 9th, 2008 at 3:09 pm Jaybill McCarthy said:
@Frank – Thanks for the comment! Never said they were rules. Who the heck am I to tell you what to do? These were *tips*. Tips if you want *me* (and likely others) to enjoy following you. Take them with large grains of salt.
On March 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm twitter, bitches — Luke ‘n’ Kim said:
[...] shite like that invisible, i’m sure the twitter logs would be about an eighth the size! so why bother then with it [...]