Social Verses

I work in a building with about 400 people in it that is a corporate headquarters for a national chain. My company subleases space from that company. Aside from the my colleagues, I seem to run into the same dozen or so people on a regular basis. What are the chances of that? Granted, the people I normally see are people on the same floor I’m on (it’s a 3 story building), but even then, you’d think I would run into more of the 50-75 people that are on my floor, wouldn’t you?

So that got me to thinking about social media. Are the same people generally online at the same time? Of the (almost) 15,000 people following me, are the same few hundred the only ones that see my tweets? I get @replies from a variety of people, but not everyone responds to every tweet. What’s the true exposure, even with thousands of followers?

What do you think?

This discussion about Generation Y was originally part of my Subconcious Motivation post, but as I was writing, I determined it was really a subject on its own, so I pulled it out to a separate post. If you didn’t read that post (why didn’t you?), it put forth the theory that tweeters and bloggers have two subconscious motivations: they want to make an impact on the world, and they have a need to belong.

About two months ago, I read an article that said that Generation Y (kids in their teens to mid-20s) is not into Twitter. I found that surprising at the time. My thinking was that because that generation is into the texting with cell phones, that should naturally extend into Twitter.

That sparked a mini discussion with @hartsock who agreed with the article. A few weeks later, he tweeted another article to me that teens don’t Twitter.

Having thought about my wife said, this actually makes sense. While Gen Y is at a stage where they want to belong, they don’t care about the world at large and aren’t interested in putting their proverbial stake in it. They are in their own little world, interested in their own friends and family, and aren’t at a point in life where they have the desire to change the world.

Texting makes sense because they are communicating with people they know. Facebook makes sense because, again, only people they know are allowed to be their friends. They would have no idea what to do with strangers that are following them willy nilly. And, for teens, that’s probably a good thing.

These are, of course, sweeping generalities that match most of the group defined as Gen Y. I’m sure there are plenty of teenagers and people in their early to mid 20s that use Twitter. And I bet they fall into the same category as most Twitter users as described above. But given the research, they are in the minority.

Are you a Gen Y-er that tweets? If so, why are you on Twitter? If not, do you think the research is right? Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

As I was preparing to write my Why I Tweet post, I had a discussion with my wife about my thoughts on the subject. While she didn’t really understand what I was talking about, or understand Twitter in general, she understood enough to have her own theory about why people tweet. While she doesn’t like to take credit for it, she has a lot of insight into the human psyche. While my Why I Tweet post dealt mostly with the conscious thought processes of why I tweet, my wife offered a deeper, subconscious motivation.

Her theory was that tweeters are the type of people that are wanting to make an impact on the world. They are trying to make a difference in people’s lives by being informative. On a less flattering note, they are also people that are looking for a place to belong. I had to put some thought into her hypothesis, but I think there is some truth to what she said, in both respects.

I do want to make my mark on the world and, as much as I hate to admit it, I enjoy participating in the clique that is Twitter and in knowing that fellow tweeters like me enough to recommend me for #followfriday.

Blogging is much the same. If you’ve read any of my earlier posts, you know I think of Twitter as a microblogging tool. So as a blogger, I have the same motivation, but just in a more long-winded sense. Blogging would, however, tend to skew toward the impact-on-the-world theory more than the wanting-to-belong theory, but as a blogger, I do like to see comments appear on my posts agreeing with my babble.

Certainly, the blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch are more online magazines than weblogs that the word “blog” is derived from, but blogs from people like you and me are more of our soap box in the virtual Hyde Park of the web.

What do you think? Agree or disagree? Please leave a comment with your thoughts. So I can feel loved.

This is an interesting image posted by manolith.com:

Original post at http://www.manolith.com/2009/06/21/the-story-so-far-of-twitter/.

The simple answer is, “yes.”

Ever talk to that guy or girl that just goes on and on and on?  And worse yet, they’re not really saying anything?  The great thing about 140 characters is that you have to get to the point.  You can say a lot in 140 characters.  More than I expected when I first started tweeting.

I certainly have those moments where I’m squeezing words, using funky abbreviations, and chopping sentences to make things fit, but that’s when it gets really fun.  It becomes a challenge.

The real challenge is when you want to @reply to a bunch of people at once and have a lot to say.  Then things get really interesting.

When you have unlimited space like a blog, you too easily get wordy, say more than you have to, and repeat yourself.  You can also get wordy, say more than you have to, and repeat yourself.

If you think 140 characters isn’t enough, you’re not challenging yourself.

I recently read an article about how Twitter employees use Twitter. They don’t tweet very often and they don’t follow very many people. They appear to be using Twitter in the manner it was intended rather than in the manner it has become.

Twitter was intended to let people–a small group of friends and family, perhaps–know what you are doing. That’s fine, but Twitter has evolved into something much more than that. Unless you’re a personal friend of the person that’s tweeting, you don’t much care if that person is eating breakfast or sitting on the can. What Twitter has evolved into is a collective of thoughts, ideas, and information that is beginning to influence the world around us. A Tworg collective, if you will.

In the article, CEO Evan Williams responded to the observations of Marshall Kirkpatrick with this statement:

Many people fall into the trap that you should follow all or most people back out of a sense of politeness or so-called engagement with the community. … I believe people will generally get more value out of Twitter by dropping the symmetrical relationship expectation and simply curating their following list based on the information and people they want to tune in to.

I don’t think it’s a trap. I think it’s a choice. And I think it’s the better choice. Here’s why:

Communication in general, and Twitter specifically, is a two-way street. People are willing to listen, but they also want to be heard. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you actually listen, but that you are willing to. Celebrities that follow back get more followers because they *might* be heard.

I currently follow over 11,000 people. Obviously, I can’t read everything that all of those people tweet, but that’s what filters are for. Desktop clients like Seesmic and TweetDeck to a very good job of allowing you to create groups so you only have to “listen” to a select few. I have groups for personal friends, for technical tweeters, and an “other” group for those people I generally find interesting. However, every once in a while, I glance over at the “All Friends” feed and something catches my eye. I’ll investigate that person further and if their previous tweets are interesting, I’ll add them to one of my filtered lists. If I didn’t follow back 90% of the people that follow me, I would have missed out on some very interesting people.  This is partly a time issue because I can’t properly evaluate every single person that follows me, but I give them the benefit of the doubt.  And I can either filter or unfollow them later.

The way I see it, my personal Tworg collective is better the more people I have in it. Everyone is welcome to join my collective so that I might find something interesting come across my communication neurons. The exception is that if a new Tworg tells me they made a lot of money on Twitter, or I can get 16,000 more Tworgs to my collective in the next 30 days, I’ll sever my connection to them and leave them in deep space with a can of processed meat to chew on until they find the next cube.

We are Tworg. Resistance is futile.

I first started tweeting for business.  Our company uses social media to turn traditional media ad campaigns into viral ones.  Our corporate Twitter account, which has excess of 18,000 followers will be used to help kick start some of those campaigns.  A few months ago, I decided to bolster my own Twitter account with followers to help the cause.  After all, two accounts with 18,000 followers each is better than just one, right?

I had already been a member of Twitter for a number of months, but the account was more for testing our application’s interface to Twitter more than it was for tweeting.  But now it was going to be converted to a second corporate account, from a developer’s point of view.

As I started, I did what most people do.  I answered Twitter’s question.  I managed to get one or two #followfriday recommendations that first week, which surprised me.  I’m not sure if those first few were just randomly choosing people for #followfriday, or truly liked my tweets.

But after a while, I realized, the question isn’t “What are you doing,” but “what are you thinking?” And if you ask your own question at the end of your tweet, it engages people.  Fellow tweeters respond.  And that’s where the magic happens.  After all, it is called “social media.”  It’s about learning what others have to say, retweeting things you think others will find interesting, and expressing an opinion.

I don’t care that your sitting on your porch staring at the stars, that your watching Britain’s Got Talent, or that you’re in line to see Star Trek.  I do, however, want to know that you found a cool link about the aurora borealis as it looks in space, whether you think Susan Boyle should have won or lost (ok, that one might be overdone a bit), or you have something funny to say about the new Star Trek movie.

What Chris Crum wrote in his article is really true.  Twitter is a microblog.  If you have something to say about a topic, you might write a blog post (like I am right now), but if you just have a quick comment, you might tweet about it instead.

I don’t forget that I’m using my Twitter account for business and throw in the occasional plug about my company.  But I’m also having fun getting people to play #namethattune, retweeting cool links, and being surprised at which of my tweets get retweeted.

Ultimately, it comes down to the interaction with fellow tweeters that make tweeting fun and addictive.  That’s why I tweet.  Why do you?