Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Community

Twitter, and in fact many social networks, has established a new form of digital 'community'. While there continues to be countless seemingly random shouts of "Need coffee", and " Tweeting is cool!", there is more often a purpose to these 140-character comments. Conversations are happening. People are sharing information. Business is being done. Economies are building. Yes, there are even the shills, and charlatans that appear wherever communities form. The 'Twitterverse' is just another medium for them to grow in, with its own unique rules, limits, opportunities, and language. The fun thing is that you can choose which communities to be part of. And similarly, like with the cool group in high school, you're not always comfortable fitting in. I'm establishing my role in a few communities as I go. Comfortable enough to join in. Not yet bold enough to lead. We're working on it.

Followers: 2,226
Following: 2,240
Updates: 168
Rank: 12,560th

We've reached a very significant milestone. No, really, I'm not kidding! The 2,000 follower mark is not just a nice number, but the TFF ratio rules change at that point. Twitter firmly believes that nobody can follow more than 2,000 feeds, so they don't let the average user pass that mark until they've passed the 'I am worthy' test by having a similar or greater number of followers. The actual number is shrouded in mystery, but is believed to be within 10%. That means that a TFF ratio of .01 is NOT acceptable once you hit the magical 2,000 number. TFF ratios approaching 1 or better are required to stay in business. Our healthy .99375 is well within limits, but we're going to need to keep it healthy, or we'll be forced to cut down on our followers to maintain the balance. Of course, since followers and friends are mutually exclusive, we could simply drop a large portion of our following category. However, remembering that there is a community out there, it's unclear how the community would react to such treatment. I'm not prepared to test those waters just yet.

I hope you're as impressed by the 2,200+ follower number we've reached this week as I am. It certainly gives some hope that this journey is not as impossible as it seemed in the beginning.

Onwards and upwards! And don't forget to follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/campbed

Friday, June 12, 2009

Reinstated

I'm back! Whew...that was a close one. After several days of waiting, and even longer trying to get a Twitter tech to answer my messages, I finally got the account reinstated. It happened as suddenly as the suspension. No explanation, no conversation, just 'lights out'...then 'lights back on'. Perhaps the admins just bought themselves "The Clapper", hooked it up to my account, and were testing it out. I'm still not really sure what caused it. It might have been the link to this blog being interpreted as spam. (I could understand my writing being called 'crap', but spam?) It might have been the sudden increase in followers and friends. It might have been a combination of activity from this account that had essentially been dormant for 2 years. Who knows? I'm just glad we're back in the ballgame.

Our balanced approach of friends and followers, along with a healthy dose of relevant tweets, seems to be working quite well. The numbers are going up quite steadily, and I've actually started to notice a bit of a momentum impact. Initially, getting a new follower was the direct result of a tweet that caught someone's eye. Now, there seems to be a true network building, and followers tend to trickle in all day long. This should be fun to watch.

Followers: 584
Following: 511
Updates: 156
Rank: 62,138th

With only 140 characters in a tweet, many people opt to use the limited space to reference a more detailed posting somewhere on the Web. For many of my posts, I've tried to adopt the opposite strategy and post the content directly into the tweet. As you might imagine, this is often quite difficult, and can sometimes seem...shall we say 'compressed'. For example, I gave an entire recount of the movie "Jaws" as follows:

#movie Jaws: Big shark eats people. Beaches close. Killer hired, dies. Sheriff explodes shark. Town saved!

I think I captured it really, don't you? I then stretched into the 'howto' business with a series of self-help content, such as this:

#howto race #NASCAR: Start engine. Stomp on gas pedal. Turn left. (repeat) Pit for gas. Turn left. Blow a tire. Curse.

I think you'll admit, it's a lot easier to read the tweet than to click on some link. And you get to read the 'executive summary' version, so before you're bored with the topic...it's over! No wonder Twitter is considered the ultimate tool for people with ADD.

Until next time...don't forget to follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/campbed

Don

Monday, June 8, 2009

Suspended!

Hmmmm.....I think we have a bit of a problem here. I was establishing new followers and increasing our friend count in alternating thrusts when I logged into the account only to see the following message:

"Account Suspended
This account is currently suspended and is being investigated due to strange activity."

That can't be good. In fact, it pretty much stops us in our tracks. No new posts. No new followers. No new friends. I was just starting to enjoy the 500 tweets per day I was receiving telling me how I could make money on Twitter, and meet up with lonely women, and that someone just woke up and needed coffee. Now what will I do? Luckily, there is a process to follow to request reinstatement. I'm giving that a try. I'm not exactly sure what triggered the suspension in the first place, but it might have been the link to this blog (possible spam?), so if I get the account reinstated, I'll definitely try letting people find the blog on their own (it's mentioned on my Twitter background page). It also may have been the fact that the account sat at 3 followers for 2 years and is now rapidly increasing. Who knows?

Still, it's worth looking at our progress to date.

Followers: 201
Following: 1,050
Updates: 147
Rank: 282,419th (Note: This is the latest ranking listed, but doesn't reflect all 201 followers.)

That's a significant increase! While the FFT ratio isn't ideal, it's mostly due to being stopped cold before some friend cleanup could take place. It's hard to know what is happening with the account during this suspension period. Will followers miss my witty tweets and simply stop following? Will my growing fan base wait patiently for me to return? Will the account ever be restored? I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Apparently it's all up to a Twitter administrator named "delbius". If you're reading this delbius, take pitty on us. Wish me luck everybody!

Don

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Balance

Obtaining Twitter followers is not an easy task. You can't just create an account, sit back, and watch the followers arrive. It takes work, but more importantly, it takes balance. The ratio between Twitter followers and friends (sometimes called the TFF ratio) is a delicate balance. When this ratio is high (ie. more than 2.0), it's an indication that you have some status and that people want to follow you. You don't have to follow back in order to keep people happy. They're so enamored with you that they'll follow you even if you don't care about them. Oprah Winfrey currently has approximately 1.3 million followers...and 14 friends. Sad isn't it? You'd think with all her money she could at least buy some friends. I'll be your friend Oprah. Twitter me, and we'll hang out.

On the other end of the scale is the pathetic losers...ummm...let's call them 'puppy dogs'. They love to follow you around, and don't particularly care if you follow them. They have TFF ratios well below 1.0. Who would want a ratio like that? Perhaps people that want all your insightful tweets, but don't have anything valuable to give in return.

What's the perfect ratio? Probably somewhere around 1.0. You need to show that you care about what others have to say, but you're not overly dependant on them. You also need to have many reciprocal relationships, as they are more socially acceptable. You may find that followers STOP following you if you don't follow them in return. It's a balance thing remember. The other reason for reciprocal relationships is that you must follow each other in order to direct message someone. This gives you the ability to send them the equivalent of a private email. Very important in the overly exposed world of public tweeting.

So how have we done in the last few days, and what's our TFF? Let's take a look:

Followers: 24
Following: 31
Updates: 138
Rank: 767,253rd


Improvement. A decent TFF (1.3), but the overall numbers are not good enough. It's time to get in the game! Not only do we need to keep a decent TFF ratio, but if we're going to get one of the 'F's to 10,000, we have to get the other 'F' up there too. We need to follow some more people and work our reciprocal relationships.

I'll keep you posted on my progress, and you keep following me on Twitter! twitter.com/campbed

Don