Justin, I couldn't help noticing you're following 4,873 people.
That's... a lot of people. I can't keep up with more than 400 follows, much less four thousand (I follow about 100 these days). My kneejerk reaction here is that you've leveraged Twitter effectively but that it's pretty one-sided. That is – you're getting plenty out of the deal, but since you can't really keep up with the people you follow, your Twitter presence ends up 99% self-promotional.
Which is okay, if your goals are strictly promotional.
It's worth pointing out, though, that you can derive a lot of value from Twitter by following only those people who say things that are interesting to you. That's the route I choose. As a result, my steam is filled with chatter about subjects I enjoy, people I like, articles that will interest me. I have conversations with people whose tweets catch my attention. I can count on it to serve as useful data pipe, which in the end, I value more than self-promotion. Of course, YMMV.
Hybrid approach for Twitter outsiders: Do Justin's thing for awhile, then after you hit your follower goal, start unfollowing every single person whose contributions don't improve your stream. If they're interesting but not useful on a regular basis, add them to lists. Keep culling your follows until you get under 200, then enjoy your new, always-on chatroom filled with cool people who say useful things.
However I wouldn't say I get 99% and my followers get 1%. I think they get a much better deal than that.
I've made a commitment to find the best content on a daily basis for 365 days a year. Out of 8400 tweets I've posted I would lay bets no more than 100 have been self promotional.
Also, when people ask me questions directly I try to answer them (i.e. when they put @justinvincent)
So although it is impossible to follow the entire tweetstream I do feel like I connect with the folks who connect with me.
I also use the Pluggio streams feature to watch the select few that I find "especially" interesting! ;)
Of course YMMV and it's different for everyone. I've just tried to show how it's worked well for me :)
So, you are just re-linking from news site which in turn have links to the actual content so you are leveraging TechCrunch/HackerNews to do a lot of pre-sorting for you - assuming you link to the actual site of course and not HackerNews or TechCrunch - because that would give away your source and make your twittering a bit more useless.
This is my number one reason to avoid twitter: it is just all re-tweets of re-tweets of news sites and almost never any unique, REAL content. It's all just a huge noise floor.
If I want interesting articles without having to wait for someone to twitter it, I'll just follow one of the countless news sites out there - no need to wait for your tweeting and it will benefit the site and community of that site - not just a single person trying to promote themselves by trying to show how they follow the latest news.
My Twitter feed has almost none of this "RT's of news sites" stuff going on. I will let you in on my secret: I unfollow people who do that. I unfollow maybe one person every other month now.
Twitter isn't "all just a huge noise floor". It's pretty much whatever you make of it. I agree, this person has made of it a pretty crappy ad-hoc news aggregator.
Between "RTs of news sites", "I am having a bagel" and absolutely shameless self promoting plugs I just came to the misanthropic conclusion of twitter = noise.
I know such generalizations are unfair and a bit closed minded... I can't help it, I am just a bit stuck in the pre "web 2.0" 90s/2000 internet and can sometimes only shake my head at some of those hypes and what's going on these days.
But I digress and you are right, I should give it another try and see what I could actually get out of it.
That's how to use Twitter as a personal marketing tool, but I personally block and mark as spam every person like that who follows me.
Here's the real secret to making Twitter Work For You If You're A Real Person: follow people you know and like. Look at who they talk to, follow those people if they seem decent. Talk to the people you follow as if they're your actual friends, because if they're not already eventually they probably will be.
You won't get four thousand followers. You might get new opportunities and contacts, and actual meaningful relationships with people. A direct application of this tactic, applied in the days before Twitter and Facebook, managed to get me a wife, so I think I'm doing better than the OP.
Do you really need to block/spam people just for following you?
Now, I ALWAYS thrown down the spam-hammer if someone tries to get my attention through spammy @mentions, but never for just following me, especially if they're semi-legitimate (like the OP).
Someone who auto-follows me based on a keyword search and posts only links is a spammer trying to raise the number of follow-backs they have and possibly promote their own site/content.
They don't add any meaningful value to Twitter - even the OP's 'curated links' aren't much value given that sites like HN exist and the actual real people I follow on Twitter will post interesting links themselves.
One consequence of this behaviour is that you will only get the attention of people who use Twitter the way you do.
Some of us read all our tweets and only follow people who make this reasonable. We can't really follow people who post 10 times a day, so you're losing us as a potential audience. It's possible this is a worthwhile tradeoff.
I'm a very casual Twitter user, but I have a question for the power users who are following thousands of people (Vincent, for example, is following close to 5,000 people).
Is that level of information even remotely manageable? How much of their feeds do you actually read, and how much of that is meaningful in any way (most likely lacking any context?)
And IF you're not really reading their feeds... is there any benefit to following them, other than the initial prompt for them to follow you back?
Vast majority of those following more than 500 people would be using a client that enables them to group and separate their stream so they can ignore the bulk of them. Sole reason for following them would be to hope they reciprocate with a follow, but not ignore you.
I use the Pluggio streams feature (which is basically the twitter lists feature re-skinned). It lets me curate really interesting people into groups that can be followed more easily.
No need to use Pluggio for that tho, Twitter lists on twitter.com works perfectly well.
Justin, I have to admit, I unfollowed you a while ago for this very reason. I'm reading a lot of the same blogs and news sites as you do and was a bit annoyed by the fact that your tweets didn't had any sources ("via ..."). You could provide me with a great service providing pointers to great news sources instead of just copying their headlines. This would've helped me in search for content. The second problem is by spreading out the stories over the day, they became a bit out of date it felt a bit pivoting of information. I'm sorry.
Sorry, but this is exactly the kind of behaviour that will get me to unfollow you very quickly (or more likely avoid following you in the first place).
I read Hacker News and a bunch of other tech websites via RSS already. I have an RSS reader on my PC and my phone which I use to keep track of articles I find interesting. I really don't need yet another twitter user selecting their favourites and reposting them for me.
I like to follow people who actually create or add their own value rather than just duplicating a bunch of content that in all likely hood I've already seen.
Sure, the occasional "hey this cool [link]" tweet is fine, but 10 a day is just spam to me.
There are far too many people who do this, and it provides absolutely no value. Why would I be interested in 10+ links a day from somebody I don't know who is just picking his favorite articles from sites that I visit anyway?
Imagine if everybody on Twitter did this, it would be unmanagable. The most successful Twitter accounts (and in-turn, most followed blogs etc.) are people who write and produce original content. That is what I follow on Twitter and I assume most people in the HN audience would be doing the same.
I definitely think it's debatable whether or not this is the absolute best way to use Twitter for everyone - I don't like getting 10 tweets from someone a day. However, I really appreciate how well written and convincing this is and likewise, how you're able to "sell" your product without actually selling it. This is a prime example of providing value without expecting much in return. In exchange you're probably end up getting some users.
Agreed. Definitely not best for everyone. For example Jason from TZ wouldn't like to do it this way. But I'm hoping there are a few folks who find the info useful :)
I must say it's been great to have all the feedback here on HN and start this discussion. Unexpected bonus.
I find the most important aspect to make Twitter 'work' is to stay on topic - at least when you are starting out and trying to attract followers. If you run your twitter account as a 'stream of consciousness', I find that attracts much less followers.
Twitter discussion aside, this is one of the most compelling 'sales' posts I've seen in a long time.
It offers the reader something of value just for reading it, with the promise right there up front, and it introduces the product naturally as a solution to the difficulties that arise doing this by hand. The only think that seems to be missing is some kind of social proof.
Justin: great work! Can you post some feedback as to how it affects your signup rate in a week or two?
I'm guessing that "missing some kind of social proof" really means that Pluggio's "View Testimonial Source" links are broken. Your post (and web service) is definitely the sort of thing that HN needs. I'm sure you'll have great success with Pluggio.
You mention "Tweet a link to something funny or informational that someone else created" - Is there a way you prevent from posting duplicate or similar items with the rest of the stream? I find that a lot of the twitter feed is the "most popular" items of the day or the most recent RSS updates (from HN, SAI, etc.), especially when the follower base is so focused.
I just make sure that I hand curate any links that I post. So I never "automate" the selection of links, that is an entirely manual process. In that way I can be sure that I only ever post stuff that I really like and that I never double post anything.
If you mean how do I stop tweeting the same thing that someone else tweeted... I wouldn't know how to go about doing that...
No need to use Pluggio. Just follow the daily recipe described within and you can do the exact same thing with Twitter & an RSS reader!
Re the price of Pluggio. I spent a lot of time getting to the current price points. I think the best thing I can say is try it for 30 days (no need for any kind of credit card, and it has instant sign-up) and then you can get more of an idea of how useful/valuable you find it with zero cost. At the very least you would get 30 days worth of following growth for free! Hope this helps. :)
I'll give the trial a shot. It really does look amazing, and I really am not opposed to paying something for it, it just seems to me (broke-ass student) a bit much.
Great way to solve a problem, however, even if most people don't know they had that problem.
That's... a lot of people. I can't keep up with more than 400 follows, much less four thousand (I follow about 100 these days). My kneejerk reaction here is that you've leveraged Twitter effectively but that it's pretty one-sided. That is – you're getting plenty out of the deal, but since you can't really keep up with the people you follow, your Twitter presence ends up 99% self-promotional.
Which is okay, if your goals are strictly promotional.
It's worth pointing out, though, that you can derive a lot of value from Twitter by following only those people who say things that are interesting to you. That's the route I choose. As a result, my steam is filled with chatter about subjects I enjoy, people I like, articles that will interest me. I have conversations with people whose tweets catch my attention. I can count on it to serve as useful data pipe, which in the end, I value more than self-promotion. Of course, YMMV.
Hybrid approach for Twitter outsiders: Do Justin's thing for awhile, then after you hit your follower goal, start unfollowing every single person whose contributions don't improve your stream. If they're interesting but not useful on a regular basis, add them to lists. Keep culling your follows until you get under 200, then enjoy your new, always-on chatroom filled with cool people who say useful things.