PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON July 20th, 2010 | 17 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
I think there comes a point when you reach a certain amount of followers that some people start asking you “Well, why do you only follow less than x% of those who follow you?”
I try and explain that if I followed everyone who followed me, I’d never read anyone’s posts, and it would achieve instant pointlessness. So I follow a handful. I add a few more each week. It keeps it manageable. It also keeps me entertained, intrigued, informed, and, when it comes down to it, interesting at parties. A lot of people have asked me how I choose who I follow. So here are my five rules of why I might be following you.
5) You’re interesting to me by being totally different than me, and teaching me interesting things outside of my comfort zone. I don’t know much about child psychology, but I do know that learning about child psychology usually tends to teach us about adult psychology. Dr. Jennifer Hartstein is a child and adolescent psychologist, and a contributor to the Early Show. (Full disclosure, she’s also a friend.) Point being, I read her tweets, and it sparks ideas in me for how to deal with clients, how to teach people to use social media, and generates new ideas.
4)You’re interesting to me because the information you provide helps me in real-time. Time is money, money is power, therefore, time=power. And if time=power, the more you know that helps you manage your time, the more powerful you are. Right? Very few tweets go to my mobile phone – But NotifyNYC does. Provided by NYC’s Office of Emergency Management, they tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it. Trust me – If you live in NYC, nothing sucks more than being on the A train, stuck underground for three hours because of a track fire, EXCEPT knowing that you could have avoided it, but didn’t. There are similar accounts for any major city – Find yours, and save yourself some time.
3) You’re interesting to me because you help me know things I didn’t know before, that I’d have no need to know if not for you. I can’t name more than two of the cast of the Jersey Shore. I also have no idea who the Kardashains are, except that they tend to sound annoying. But, I try and keep up on the most pressing issues in the entertainment world. I do that by reading my stream. I place people into my stream who can offer me that information. The Twitter stream of I Don’t Like You In That Way is one great example. In 15 seconds, I know what happened in the world of entertainment. Plus, they’re great writers. What don’t you know about that can better “round out” your life?
2) You’re interesting to me because you make me laugh. Without humor, I would have been dead countless years ago. If you make me laugh in my otherwise hellish day, I will follow you, and I will thank you.
1) You inspire me. At the end of the day, we all need to be inspired.
Tell me why the people you follow are interesting to you. Tweet
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Awesome, Peter. I think the best people fall into a few overlapping, delicious categories: 1. Funny |
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Great post – and agreed. I look for the following. |
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I follow people who are entrepreneurial and care about community, however they define community. I find many of the people I follow by joining chats like #gtchat to learn how to handle my kids and #socentchat to catch the wave of great minds in social enterprise. I also like to follow those who give me news and those who make me laugh. The combo makes for an always fascinating feed! |
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I’m a believer in that “tribe” idea – that we can only sustain relationships with a relatively small number of people. I’m putting that number at 200 for now, and purposely holding my Twitter “following” count below that: I check out everyone who follows me, and if it looks like I might be able to have a sustainable relationship (or it’s a news site in my industry), I follow back. When I see people with 10,000 following and 100,000 followers I’m skeptical. One human being can not possibly “follow” (in any sense other than Twitter’s technical one) the musings of 10,000 people in a single stream. Of course, if you are smart about using Twitter’s “list” capability you can claim to have 10,000 following and only be actually reading, say, 10. [I have a private list called "meaningful". Twelve people I follow are on it. Twelve.] |
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I particularly like #5, Peter. It’s so easy to follow people that are exactly like us, think the same things, live in our same little ecosystem. Some of the brightest people I know make a concerted effort to follow people they either disagree with or operate in a completely different sphere. This further puts a fire under me to seek out those that are “totally different”. Wouldn’t the world be an interesting place if we all did the same? Great, great post! |
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Hi Peter, Let me get an edit out of the way. I clicked on your link to the “I Don’t Like You In That Way” and got an error. I think you accidentally missed a “w” in the “www” for the url. What makes people on twitter interesting to me are those that help me learn. I’m a nonprofit marketer, so I love following people like @kanter to read about what others in the field are trying. #5 is spot on. Thanks for the great post. |
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Great post Peter as always. I try to limit myself to around following 500 people after that it becomes noise. Thanks for the link to to OEMNY on Twitter I wasn’t following them but I am now. Don’t really need to follow the other accounts you mentioned since you will retweet them anyway when they have good stuff. If it wasn’t for Peter I wouldn’t have known Michael Jackson had passed or Lindsey Lohan was arrested. Peter is my own personal TMZ :) |
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Peter, I don’t expect you to follow me, really, I am probably boring but if you don’t follow some of us how do you know we don’t have information that you need or that pulls you out of your comfort zone. I am not that person, if I did pull you as far out of your comfort zone as I could you’d probably go running for cover but you may be missing out in some instances. Just a thought. Ciao, Ardee-ann |
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Great post Peter. I don’t think people understand sometimes the process we all go through in choosing who is worth following and bringing into our life on twitter. Its no different than what TV show or Magazine or Websites we visit. But those aren’t humans. And so I think people don’t realize it doesn’t change just because its a human. We all in our lives pick people to be friends with and others we might ignore for various reasons. Boring. Grating. Rude. Not Nice. Difference is on Twitter…I can follow you and see you don’t follow me back. Its kind of when someone ultra religious tells me that God knows everything going on all the time. And my response is, if God has such power do you really think they would want to listen in to everyone 24/7? God is that bored? I think God has better things to do. |
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Excellent post Peter… appreciate being allowed “inside your mind.” The reason I follow and interact with people? for the “eclectic input.” it’s about seeing new ideas, different perspectives… and of course, the humor that people share that can make one, especially solo entrepreneurs, laugh out loud while at “work.” |
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Twitter is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolate. You just never know what you are gonna get! I say this, if someone is trying to be social, and they are human and not selling you stuff, you gotta be social back, at least give it a try, if does not work, bail, no hard feelings. Otherwise whats the point of being on a social media site, They can be of interest for many reasons… |
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People need to use Twitter in whatever way they desire. If you want to follow 10 people and have a very small network, that’s fine. If you want to blast your message out and never interact with anyone, I don’t recommend that… but you’re free to do with Twitter what you see fit. I sometimes get criticized for following too many people. “There’s no way you could talk with 37,000 people.” True – that’s why I use lists. Other people have no need for Twitter lists. Just use Twitter in the way you see fit, and it will truly be a reflection of you. Purple monkey dishwasher. |
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I’m much more selective in who I follow nowadays. I agree that variety is the spice of life in my Twitter stream. Nothing more boring that following people who talk about the same thing. |
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