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How To Keep Up With Many Twitter Friends
May 16th, 2008 · by @WarrenWhitlock · Filed Under: How to Twitter
If you have a lot of friends you are following, you might have thought that there is no way to keep up with them all.
Here’s some ideas I’m using to follow thousands
1) Skim a lot. As a Twitter addict I must admit that I spend a lot of time looking through the feed. When I’m looking for new ideas, or trying to get a feel for what’s happening on a broad scale, I focus on tweets that don’t start with an @. Other times, the @ conversations lead to some of the most interesting people I follow
2) Use an aggregater. Some of my meat-space friends (and family) expect me to find and read every tweet they post. I create a link to catch there tweets daily at TwitterDigest This will allow you to get an RSS feed of a user or users conversations, or display a web page of the last days tweets. Here’s the latest from me
3) Use the profile page for the person you are following. I have a link to @coachDeb hooked to a button on the links bar of my browser. In an instant, I can see what she’s up to, and try to keep up with the many conversations she has going.
4) Instant Messaging. My IM client is always open to Twitter. Any mention of "Twitter Handbook" is displayed there. I can easily reply if needed.. and know when there is a lot of activity on that phrase. It also allows me to see DM’s before my Twhirl client gets updated.
As more and more people discover Twitter, and many more uses for the technology, we’ll have more data flowing to us. Tools are being developed to filter, extract and condense the information (who would’;ve thought.. 140 characters is too much? <grin>).
There’s not much chance of less data. So your choice is to ignore it, or try these methods to keep from spending all day trying to keep up.
What’s you favorite Twitter Time Saver?
Post a comment here.. so we can quote you in the Twitter Handbook. (be sure to include you @name and real name)
May 16th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
How do I keep up with many twitter friends? Well, you’ll need to define “many” and “friends”. Just cuz I follow so many tweeters, don’t mean they’re all friends. In fact, about 2-4 times a week, I have to reaccess WHY I’m following many of them, and whether or not I should unfollow them because they are only contributing noise.
On the flipside, I have made acquaintances with many tweeters, via mutual subject matter being shared on Twitter. Whether it’s similar humor, or interesting subject matter, finding something in common is both refreshing and useful (which makes them friends, I suppose, even if I don’t know them that well). If it’s neither humorous or newsworthy, then frankly it just becomes noise.
Quite often, we all make “noise”, otherwise known as meaningless jabber! However, too much noise from the same person makes following them of questionable value. That’s where the “how” part of your question comes in for me. Regardless of how many tools there are that help one organize their twittering tweeters, a tweeter who is a twittering twit has no more value than a bunch of noise that distracts from the value of tweeter’s tweets on Twitter.
To some, I suppose, my humor is just a bunch of noise to them (although, for the life of me, I cannot understand how that could ever possibly happen
They may consider unfollowing @markgilbert, in order to cut out the incredibly side-splitting, roll-on-the-floor, laugh-until-you-cry humor that leaves them in a psychological stupor. Understandable, I guess (well, not really, I’m just lying in an effort to make a point, or entice you to follow me at @markgilbert).
In any case, it’s all about management and discipline. Whatever system you use to “keep up” with your Twitter friends, it will take both to be a successful tweeter.
May 20th, 2008 at 7:32 am
I track my own name on i/m — that way I always hear what’s being said to me even if I’m not following every twitter thread. I also track topics I’m interested in so I can see what’s being said about them by people I don’t follow. And when twitter slows down, you can still see what’s being said about you or a topic you care about.
August 7th, 2008 at 7:00 am
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