Twitter – Forget individuals, follow their community instead

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For you to understand what people are talking about on twitter there is one thing you should know. When you follow Dacort, Loudmouthman, loic Lemeur, Jeff Pulver or many other people including me you’ve got to follow those that they are talking to as well as those that are listening. By this I mean that twitter is not about individuals so much as community.

If I spend the morning speaking to the English community then there are many names that will appear again and again. In so doin you’re going to be curious to see who’s on the other end. As a result of this you may decide to follow one person, then another and it continues. Over a period of days you may start following a dozen or more, people, maybe even hundreds.

As two people follow two others so the six degrees of seperation comes into force. I have links into the London, Geneva and Paris community for example (in terms of face to face meetings) and many more people via online conversations. What this means is simple. If you follow the right core f people you’ve got easy access to some influential people. In fact you may be one of them without realising it.

If twitter is simply about what you’re up to then that’s quite a restricted way of using twitter. To get the most out of twitter you have to find a good community and add it’s members. In so doing you can participate in some really interesting conversations. I’m within the social media conversation at the moment but over time as more groups participate so the conversation should be tailored to your needs. If you see someone @ another member see whether you can add that person too. Twitter is about the community, not individuals.


Comments

One response to “Twitter – Forget individuals, follow their community instead”

  1. Mcwflint avatar
    Mcwflint

    And from Twitter, you discover their blogs or the blogs they are reading, the videos they watch, the things they are thinking about which only leads to more people and more Twitters.

    I like how Twitter has shrunk the world for me so that my neighborhood isn’t just a geographical region of Flint Michigan in the United States. It includes people from Chicago and San Francisco, from London and Paris and ..

    Twitter is product reviews and conference debriefings.

    Thank you for your thoughtful explanation, one I plan to share

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