I Don’t Know Who the Hell My Twitter Friends Are

So, I was trying to figure out why I’ve been enjoying Facebook more than Twitter lately, despite their crazy new terms of service. (Which they’ve adopted and rejected, interestingly enough.)

And I realized, it’s because I don’t know who the hell half my Twitter contacts are.

On Facebook, I try to only connect with people I know personally, with a few exceptions. It’s relaxing to chat with them, and interesting to know what’s going on in their lives.

On LinkedIn, I talk with other professionals, and try to answer questions when I think I can contribute something.

With blogs, I visit the site to read the content, and comment back and forth with the author.

On Twitter, I’ve added people because I met them, liked their blogs, or because they were on some list back in the day when I first started getting into social media. Some of them are people who started following me, so I checked out their updates and followed them back.

But aside from a few people I’ve connected with in other forums as well (aim, LinkedIn, blogs, conferences, email, or in person), I don’t have much to say to my contacts.

I’m not a famous enough person to broadcast my activities, and I’m not using Twitter to promote my blog or business. So, do my followers really care that I have a new laptop cover? Do they really want to see pictures of my cats fighting an orange? Really?

Some people use Twitter very successfully. They spend a lot of time there and have built their own networks, or use it to read and provide useful content to others.

I’ve had luck using Twitter to connect with professionals, or to strengthen connections made in other forums. Going forward, this is probably what I will stick with, rather than trying to forge new connections with random contacts.

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