Here and there, random thoughts on food, photos, marketing, & customer service

Using Twitter to keep clients and prospects informed and in touch is a fantastic business tool. If your followers are following you to obtain useful information about your field of expertise or your company, then don’t alienate them by posting too frequently or posting useless info.

I follow 55 people, companies, and organizations that help me keep a finger on the pulse of my clients, friends, and what’s happening in Annapolis and Baltimore. I know there’s lots of folks that follow far more than that. I also know that many users also automatically “follow” anyone that follows them. That’s a nice gesture, but are you kidding me? How are you going to keep up with updates from 500 people? That makes Twitter and the valuable information it contains totally useless. Talk about info overload!

Several months ago I was following a buddy who is a very involved Twitter user in area who is very well connected in the Twitter community, but he updated to Twitter just too much. I could not stand it. I kept hoping that the frequent Tweets would pay off and help me stay informed and connect with more business and information in the region. I know this guy personally, but after six months I stopped following him. I hung in there until I just could not stand it anymore. He also Tweets for his company as well and I also follow them (until today). Same problem. He just could not stop tweeting about stuff that just had no meaning to me. I don’t think it’s only me (at least I hope not).

I use Tweetie to stay in touch with Twitter, and this morning he had 10 posts in a row about what a nice day it was, how great it was to be alive, and hello to this person, and thanks to that person, and follow this person or that person, or how certain people were cool or whatever was too much to handle. I stopped following the company behind that Twitter account. I feel bad about it, as I know I’ll be missing out on some info gems that are scattered in between the other useless info. As time went on the useful info declined while incessant useless static was posted.

I dropped another guy today too. He posted 10 or more posts in a row with #followfriday info. Okay that’s cool, but do you really expect people to put up with that? I don’t have time to click on over 100 Twitter users to see if I want to also follow them. This is not some random dude either, he’s a regional marketing player with good connections. I stated following him based on a recommendation from someone else (via Twitter), and because of where he works and who he is, it looked to be a great person to follow. Nope. He just posted useless info and “social” stuff.

I don’t mean to be a sour puss, but If you post useless info ten times in a row, people are going to drop you. I see Twitter users post complaints about losing followers all the time, I know some of it is Twitter SPAM, but I think much of it is folks dropping off because of the white Twitter noise.

There are people on Twitter with massive amounts of followers, and some of them have figured out how to build an army of followers. They don’t do it by following everyone in the universe, they do it by posting useful, interesting, relevant, and sometimes funny posts. A good example is Scott Bourne (http://twitter.com/ScottBourne) he’s a pro photographer (it’s a hobby of of mine). Some of his posts are annoying, but not too many of them. He also posts ALOT, but they all mostly contain info that I want to know about. Lots of his posts are self promoting, but there’s lots of other good info liberally mixed in. You know it’s the real deal when you’re following 188 people and you have 23,430 people following you!

Ok, what am I looking for? I want cool info on cool, in-touch people who are experts in their field and have interesting things to say. Not everything has to be up my alley, but as long as the ratio of interesting and compelling info is greater then the in between tweets of looking for a couch to crash on in the UK (which is somehow funny anyways) then we’re cool. Look up Dave Troy (http://twitter.com/davetroy) if you’re looking for an example of another person using Twitter the right way. You might get a few tweets in a row but they mostly have meaning. He does stuff, but he posts about the stuff that is “interesting” and “compelling”. He might tell you that he’s thinking about picking out some wine for dinner, but you won’t hear about that topic again, and the wine he talks about sounds pretty good too! (Ok, Dave’s a pal, but the other guy I dropped is a friend too).

If you want to throw out a tweet about what’s for lunch, that’s cool (Let’s hope it’s vegan) but make it interesting, and don’t do it everyday. If you do, that’s going to get real old real fast. If you’re trying to use Twitter for business, then your clients (and potential clients are watching) don’t piss them off.

I’m assuming that the folks following MacMedics (http://twitter.com/macmedics) are people who want to hear about stuff about Macs. I’ve never posted my wine choices or where I’m heading for lunch to them. They are important as they help pay the rent, and to me it’s a “professional” relationship. Ever hear the saying don’t mix business with pleasure? I have a personal Twitter account (http://twitter.com/danastibolt) where I post announcements about my personal Blog, funny pictures, what I’m having for lunch every now and again. everyone who follows there there is a friend, I’m assuming that’s what they want to hear about.

I’ve picked up some vegan followers based on my posts about vegan issues, so I have a few “followers” too, but I don’t abuse them.

Keep your posts revenant and your followers will thank you by continuing to follow you. If they do, then it’s a win-win situation for everyone.