I like Twitter.

I like it because of its simplicity, because of its connectivity, because of the absolute wealth of information and willingness to share amongst its users.  I have learned an abundance through some of the professionals who are so confident in their craft that they don’t mind throwing a bone to “n00bs” here and there – that’s impressive.

There are things on Twitter, however, that don’t make any sense. And these are sometimes committed by otherwise sensible people. 

Here’s one issue:  Why are some so obsessed with the number of people following them and try at lengths to garner more baseless readers?  Are you the cool kid in gym class if you have 4 or even 5 digits of followers?  Are you more profitable?  The answer may be yes to both, but what do I know?  I’m happy with my hundred and change followers.  I’ll even admit that some of those followers auto-followed me, so it lends no credibility to me as a person, as a professional, or as an interesting read.  However, I can actually read all the Tweets of my followers (and those I follow) because I have a manageable number of both.

That leads me to another not entirely separate oddity: Someone tweets “Help me get to 5,432,623.53 followers by the end of today!” or worse “RT: My Friend @WhatevaHisOrHerNameIs needs to get to 5,432,623.53 followers by the end of today! Please help him or her, (s)he is a really great guy/gal, you will love his/her Tweets!”  I personally don’t care about that many followers, especially if I don’t reel them in based on something that actually interested them.

Note: I totally subscribe to and engage in recommending other Tweeters based on credence or likability.

Disclaimer: If you are stuck at 666, it is ok to try and reach 667.  No one wants to be stuck at that dreadful number. 

I’m a live and let live kind of guy.  I am not offended when I am auto-followed or auto-DMed.  I don’t even care when I am followed by someone who is firing off follows one after another without regard to whom they’re following. 

The reason I’m writing about this is… I. Just. Don’t. Get. It.  This person below has FAR more followers than me with 5 updates!  He is not the first one to do this, won’t be the last so I’m only kind of sorry I’m picking on him.  But Mica happened to follow me when I had nothing else going on so I decided to try a little experiment:

That many followers with that many updates?

At midnight on Sunday, January 25, 2009 (the life of a web marketer, sheesh) – immediately after Mica followed me I went to his Twitter page to check him out (as I usually do for new follows).  That’s when I noticed the anomaly.  I repeatedly hit the refresh button to watch as “1852 Following” and “172 Followers” became “1842 Following” and “193 Followers”.  Let me break that down: Mica adds as many people as he can as he is auto-followed by many in response.  Then Mica unfollows folks he realized didn’t auto-follow him in return.  So, he follows fewer people as his followers increase.  It was kind of fun to watch in real-time.  So I’m a nerd. (FYI – Mica’s account @MMMaverick09 was suspended before I finished writing this post so I didn’t get a final screen shot of his followers vs. following dern it!)

So ok, fine.  That’s Mica’s way.  But why?  Is it possible that spam still works? Is it worth it to go through the trouble?  It’s pointless as far as I can see…

I’ll probably never have 4 digit followers and I’m ok with that.  And I don’t follow everyone who follows me.  I like my little clan of “Tweople”, I can keep up with them. Twitter works for me because I follow who I want.  Interest me and you’re getting followed – like it or not.  I’m not even concerned if you don’t like me enough to follow me back.

Whew – done and thanks for the outlet.  If you enjoyed this mumbling, go ahead and subscribe.  It’s free and I would love to have you along.

So, what are your Twitter annoyances? Surely Mitch and I are not the only ones!

For newcomers, the wikipedia definition of Twitter is the free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Syracuse.com setup a Twitter-feed in order for Syracusans to keep their fellow cold-weather mates up-to-date on the holiday shopping happenings around town last week. Tweeters merely type “#cny” or “#syracuse” in the micro-blog for it to post to this feed.

Not only has this been fun for social media users to connect with others locally, and an ingenious idea for a fledgling newspaper industry, it also reinforced how others in the local area believe in the power of web interactivity.

More and more small business owners will see the limitless possibilities with social media marketing. As I’ve said many times before – interacting with your customer builds brand loyalty. Beyond that, it’s an easy and fun way to generate new leads and keep previous customers up-to-date. Best of all, it’s FREE! And isn’t that what it’s all about when your business is small and up & coming?

If you’re interested in Twitter for small business, here is an introduction from Small Biz Trends (with Twitter tutorial video).

Now that you’re a pro, come and follow what I’m doing right now.

Until next time!