Jon Upchurch

I know that there are almost as many reasons for using Twitter and approaches to the use of Twitter as there are people USING Twitter.  I’m one of the people that sees Twitter as a great way to connect with new people both socially and in business, and I see it as a tool that can be used to help grow my business.  My philosopy on Twitter is that you never know which one of your contacts is going to be the one to bring you the next big opportunity. People go to parties where there are a lot of people they don’t know, and Twitter is almost like a worldwide electronic coctail party.

Some people are going to be wallflowers in the Twitter party. Some people are going to show up just to be seen. Some people are going to pass out a business card to everyone they meet. Some are going to get drunk and wear a lampshade home!

My point is that if you only want to talk to people you already know, you’re not going to go to a party! There are other sites that are more of a controlled environment that are more like spending an evening with friends, so going to the party only to be with friends and then complaining about the noise is wasteful!

So at the time of writing this I follow 3,300 people and am followed by 3,100.  Compared to some people that’s (very) small potatoes. Some people look at that and are amazed. I get questions from people periodically asking how I can keep up with that many followers.  My answer is “Honestly, I can’t.”  Even if I never left my computer I could never follow every single thing that people post.  To make it worse, I spend a limited time each day on Twitter. Despite this, I regularly engage with people, and have made new friends and contacts despite following everyone who follows me and having 3,300 people in my timeline.

To answer this, I go back to my party analogy. If you go to a party with 3,300 people there you’re not going to follow every single conversation. It’s just not possible.  What you can do is wander through the crowd and meet people as you go, connecting briefly and moving on.  Then when you wander past them again, you’ve already got a relationship that you can build on.  It’s exactly the same in Twitter.  When I do log on I connect with people I haven’t in a while, and I watch my timeline of what people are posting, and I see if anything draws my attention. If (and oftern when) it does, I engage that person in a dialogue and add them to a more limited circle of people of people I will now head towards as I move through the crowd when I see them.

So keeping this philosophy, really any number of people you’re following or being followed by is manageable.

As for follow-backs, I always follow people who are following me.  First of all it’s just polite.  Someone extends their hand saying “You’re interesting and I choose to listen to what you’re saying” and so in return I extend my hand and say “Then I’m interested in what you might have to say as well!” Short of Twitter accounts that are purely information related and more like announcements than anything else, I don’t understand why anyone would follow someone that refuses to follow them back!  It’s like taking a giant one-way mirror wall to the party and separating people out who are at the same party, that I can see and follow, but who have no idea I’m there. Again, Twitter is about the party, not the get-together with friends.  If someone doesn’t want to follow me, I’m not offended, but I’m also not going to follow them since following them takes up a slot that will prevent me from following someone else who IS willing to communicate in a two-way manner!

So while I don’t begrudge anyone their own approach to Twitter, I thought I’d share mine since I’ve had questions about it. And if you weren’t following me you’d likely never know the answer to this question!

Thanks for following, and connecting!

- Jon