Twitter is Like Car – if proper maintenance is done, it can be maintained at peak performance

First off, let me say that I can completely understand why people stop using Twitter shortly after starting – they either don’t get it, don’t know how to use it, or they just get frustrated throw up their arms and say screw this I’m done.

Twitter is like a car – you need to do maintenance to maintain it. Friends and followers are a great thing to have, however how many of them are listening to your ‘Tweets.’ There are a lot of tools out there that can tell you this information, which I will go over in a later blog post. In doing some maintenance of my own recently I noticed that over 15% of the people I was following hadn’t posted ‘Tweet’ in more than a month – if you haven’t posted in more than a month you have been unfollowed. This is the rule that I have for my Twitter accounts. I have also unfollowed those who are pushing spam, that have gotten through my ‘Vetting of Followers’ on SocialOomph. (they hold followers for 72 hours and if you don’t ‘vet’ them within that time, it goes into automatic – which is fine. I don’t always have time go get to the site to vet my followers so some of the moron accounts get through.)
You can use software like TwiPing to help you with you Twitter account(s). This program can show you when someone last sent a Tweet, as well as other parameters, so you can cut down on your moron followers.
I use the above program once a month for my Twitter maintenance purposes. If you have some other sites or programs that can help ‘Vet the moron followers’ feel free to share them below.

The one problem with Twitter is there are so many people out there, some pushing their business, others talking personally, and then there are my favorites – those watching the Phillies or Penn State sports and posting updates and pics of what is going on with the game. (the Big Dance should be fun in the coming days.) The best way to get past the ‘clutter’ of Twitter and Tweets is to stop, take a breath, have a little patience, add some focus to your Twitter profile message, and talk about more than your business when sending a Tweet. Stop the endless message of how your ‘selling Donkeys 2 for 1 for the Circus for only $99 with the purchase of two clowns and a pooping elephant.’ Be yourself, if your at Starbucks and you got great service, tell us about it. If your in traffic, tell us about it – you never know who your going to help – if someone does a search on Traffic in your area, you may make their day as they can plan an alternate route to work. Social networks are meant to be ‘social’ – so say hello to your followers on occasion to show them that you care about their messages, respond to their ‘tweets’.
  Become more interactive, that’s what is fun about Social Media.

Justin Phillips works as a Voiceover Artist and Social Media Guru. He is available for consulting your Social Media project. If you would like to set up a call (via phone or Skype) email him at your convenience.

justin.phillips@live.com

Justin can be found on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn with daily updates. For more on Justin click here


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