I’m not going to buy what you’re selling!
You know, I have been a member of Twitter for some time (nearly 2 years now). When I first started out on Twitter I had a different name. Then I changed my name when I started this blog to @anIMjourney. I am contemplating changing again. Am I a fickle Twitterer? Li’l bit, I guess.
The problem is that although I am doing this blog and although I am still (albeit slowly) learning about Internet Marketing, I have come to a realization. That realization is that Internet Marketing is not WHO I AM. I don’t mean that I don’t want to do Internet Marketing, but I think I’ve decided that it’s not the main representation I want to make of myself on Twitter.
Does that make me deceptive? I would like to think it’s quite the opposite. After much thought and consideration, I think I want to change my Twitter name yet again (hopefully for the last time) to something that represents more of who I am than just a budding Internet Marketer. I have only one Twitter account…and I’d kinda like to keep it that way.
Up until a couple of days ago, I followed only a few (less than 60 or 70) people on Twitter. I only had a few (right around the same number) of followers. Then I started a little bit of an experiment. I started by following the people who were following me that I wasn’t following (how many times can one person say “following” in a sentence???) I then followed several people that a few of my friends mentioned in #followfriday. Since then, I have followed new people who are following me, and my number of followers has nearly doubled in about 2 or 3 days. There are a few people that followed me that I followed and then immediately removed because of the spam-like content of their posts.
Anywho, back to the reason for the title (and first sentence) of this post. Although I am not new to Twitter…I’m new to following as many people as I now follow. I’m working on being more “open” to following more people. It’s taking some adjusting, but I think I’m getting used to it. If you follow me, I am happy to follow you in return, so long as you don’t spam the crud out of me!
Look, I have grown to like Twitter. I enjoy letting my followers know when I make a new blog post or if I come across an interesting article or, heck, even say I’m spending time with my wife. I’m not sure how much anyone really cares, but it’s a little fun and slightly addicting. And I really enjoy when I see tweets from the people I respect. There are some of you out there who I am sometimes downright conversational with on Twitter. But if you follow me, and I return the favor, I don’t want my eyes beaten to the back of my skull by the hoards of things you think you can sell me. I also don’t want to see you post the same sales pitch over and over and over. There’s a pretty good chance I am NOT going to buy anything from you. If all you do is make it harder for me to find the tweets that I actually enjoy reading, I will promptly UNfollow you, possibly even block you. Then, what are you following me for? Something tells me I don’t have anything you’re interested in seeing if you’re just looking flood me with sales pitches.
I’m am (and I am not) sorry for this rant. It’s not my typical style on this blog, but maybe someone new to Twitter might come across this some day and feel some relief that they’re not the only one who feels this way.
Other than that…if you are following me on Twitter and not trying to spam me to death…THANKS FOR FOLLOWING. I am trying to pay attention, now, when I gain new followers and add them to the list I follow. I WANT to return the favor and I WANT to have a mutually beneficial Twitter relationship. And – if you’re a respectable and good Twitterer…then who knows…maybe I WILL buy something you’re selling someday 
If I end up changing my Twitter name, I’ll let you know so you’ll know who that guy is you’re seeing posts from!
June 4th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Hi Dustin! Great post. Twitter is such a strange and bewildering social network online. I also felt strange about it at first – but I now have grown to really like it. If you change your twitter name – please let us all know ok! For me, I make little posts on twitter about life and also about business – all of my stuff is just meshed together.
Also Dustin – I love the title of this post – it is a real hook. Anytime you tell someone why they shouldn’t do something – they will want to do it!
Holly Mann´s last blog post..Social Networking & False Internet Personas
June 25th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I understand. I don’t try to follow everyone who is following me anymore – it would take several hours a week just to check them all and filter out the spammers. Plus even if I follow everyone who looks like a nice guy, my Twitter stream gets so full of stuff that I can barely find the posts I am really interested in. But … that’s just me. For some people, other systems work, and that’s fine too.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Great post (rant), On my first twitter account, I follow everybody that follows me. On my name account with my first and last name. I only follow me I want to know and see what their tweeting about. It feels a whole lot better following only the people you respect.
Deneil Merritt´s last blog post..Twittley Review
June 28th, 2009 at 8:45 am
Holly – I really must visit my own blog more often! I had no idea you commented, LOL. Unfortunately all of my blog comments go to an email account that I’m not checking as frequently as I ought to…but I figured out a way to solve that…so I will be working on that here in a few minutes. As far as how you twitter and how you blog – I like your style and actually it’s kind of a model for how I want to orient my blogs. I like how you mix and mesh the business and personal aspects. As for the title of this post being a hook – it’s probably the first time in my life I’ve done that intentionally on a blog! I guess it worked LOL.
Anna – Your comment got caught by Akismet as spam!!! I don’t even know why…you have approved comments from before and I can’t see anything in your comment that is spam-like! If you aren’t already using it, you may want to check out tweetdeck. I know your connection can be funky at times, and I don’t know if tweetdeck would help or hurt the situation for you, but you can group things together and create custom search “columns” that make finding what you want to read in your twitter stream a whole lot easier. I actually have it on both my laptop and my iPhone!
Deneil – thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your input as well. I have been heavily debating with myself if I’m going to create a second Twitter account or stick to one. Much as I’d kind of like to “start fresh” with a new one, I’m not sure I want to go through the hassle of re-following a bunch of people…lol. Laziness or sharp thinking? I’ll let you be the judge.