Hopefully, in part one I gave you a compelling enough explanation of why I've enjoyed interacting with 1189 twitter folk. Now let me get to some of the nuts and bolts.
How in the world can you keep up with so many people? Here are a few tips:
- Change the way you read. When I first started using Twitter, I followed a few dozen people. I would check it several times throughout the day, and I "read it thorougly" with the intention of "keeping up with everybody". Now I'm skimming, not unlike looking at a newspaper, looking for something interesting. Sometimes it's a funny one-liner, sometimes a great link, or even a prayer request somebody has. (The flip side of this is that it's changed the way I write, but I'll save that for another day.)
- Turn off device updates for everyone except for your close friends. This could be a good middle ground for some. When you're online you can skim the masses for information, and when you're out and about with your phone you can check up on your close friends. One caveat: if you are prone to getting a lot of direct tweets, this method will not work. Obviously if you follow more people, that's more people who can DM you. You will get overwhelmed. Trust me.
- Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck is a cool desktop app that presents your tweets in columns. Each column is a different group. You can see everybody you follow in one panel, and your @ replies in another. You can create custom groups with it, making organizational sense out of hundreds, even thousands of incoming tweets. @recreate, @spencesmith, @michaelhyatt have all been using TweetDeck and seem to like it. I have it and use it occasionally, but I'm not a big fan. Yet. Right now, it feels kind of clunky and Windows-y. I have a personal policy of not using any computer program that makes me feel like I'm on a PC. (Sorry!) But I get the sense that they're on to something, and that future updates will make it even cooler.
- Twittelator Pro: Twittelator Pro is a wonderful iPhone app. It's elegant and easy to use. You can quickly look at people and see their tweets and who follows them. You can search based on topic, person, or location. This is my prime Twitter app when I'm away from my computer. Highly recommended.
- Follow people manually: There are several apps to automatically follow everyone who follows you. Unless you have tens of thousands of followers, I would still recommend the manual route. While you want to follow every person that follows you, you probably don't want to follow every company that follows you. I have also run across a little dose of Twitter spam that is to be avoided. It only took me half an hour or so to follow my initial thousand, and I've added the others incrementally along the way. But if you use an automatic service you like, by all means...
That's about it for now. Well except for my secret spy way. That's for the next post...
Do you have any apps or ideas for making it easy to follow a BUNCH of people on Twitter? Let me know!
I can barely keep up with my family of 4. I don't know how you all do it. The last thing I need is to know what everyone I'm not responsible for is doing! Facebook status lines are good enough for me. Twitter on techies! :)
Posted by: Diane (Yip) | November 16, 2008 at 08:28 PM
First off, let me say, you have a great first name.
Secondly, nice blog.
Thirdly, thanks for all these awesome tips. Now I'm stuck on Tweetdeck.
;)
http://twitter.com/themarque
Posted by: Mark | November 13, 2008 at 12:06 AM
I am STILL trying to figure this out. I tried to send a message from my phone. I got a message back asking for my name, and I really don't know if I put my full name on there or not, or if it wanted the userid? Anyway, I don't think it worked.
Are you using Twitter for your facebook? Or is that totally separate? I just thought I remember you or someone saying they were using it or getting a message or something.
Hopefully I add something worthwhile to your facebook once in a great while. LOL
I have noticed that you post less on here now, though. I kinda miss that. More in depth.
Posted by: Melanie | November 12, 2008 at 04:31 PM
Ooooh ... I've been looking forward to this article. I've been using tweetdeck for the last 3 or 4 weeks and it's pretty okay. Of course, I don't follow hundreds of people because I'm sane ... mostly. I'm especially looking forward to your "secret spy way" post. Anything "spy" is gonna gain extra "cool" points.
Posted by: ultraspy | November 12, 2008 at 03:17 PM
Excellent post Mark. I was wondering how you were going to pull it off.
I have been using Spaz for Twitter, it's open source so I can customize the code. I like it better than Tweetdeck since you can customize the interface using simple HTML and CSS.
The version I am using has rollover twitpic. I just roll over the link and it shows the picture without having to click twitpic links.
I will send you a screenshot in email.
Posted by: Christopher | November 12, 2008 at 11:17 AM