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"Getting My Twitter-On"

After hearing all the raves about the internet’s latest hot social networking tool, Twitter, I decided that I should go on and see what it was all about.  After a month or so on the platform, I found myself with about 500 “followers”.  I decided to send this week’s letter to them to discuss my Twitter-experience thus far and maybe get a little advice on how to get the most out of it.

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My Twitter Followers,

I would like to thank you all for following me.  I joined Twitter a few weeks ago, so I’m still sort of a newbie. I have always been a high-volume text messager, so Twitter’s 160-character limit was a familiar format for me.  I was eager to see what all the fuss was about.

I had some issues with the whole notion of “following” other people.  I consider myself a “Type A” personality – a leader who takes control of a situation.  I had a mental block with becoming a “follower”.  Call it selfishness or stupidity, but I want everyone to follow me and me not to follow anyone.

I expected that when I started my Twitter profile, followers would line up at the door.  Yet after two long weeks, I had amassed a list of just one follower.  I might have been able to look at that as a small step in the right direction, if only that one follower hadn’t been me!  (I had opened two accounts).

Obviously my strategy wasn’t working.  I decided that if I wanted to have any fun with this thing, I had to put away the Type A personality and follow some people.  And boy did I ever follow some people.  I might say that I suffered from a temporary addiction to Twitter, but that sounds a little understated --- I went freakin’ nuts.

I tried to hit up the more popular Twitterers – the celebrities.  At first I only followed those celebrity Twitterers that I truly liked.  But then I said screw that and just followed everyone.

I then went to the more popular pages like Ashton Kutcher, John Mayer, and Ellen Degeneres to see who they were following.  For all their popularity and legions of followers, a lot of celebrities don’t follow many people themselves.  So I followed the same people they followed.  The general thought was something like, “Hey, if this dude is cool enough for Rob Thomas to follow, then I should follow him too.”

Eventually I found myself on Dave Navarro’s page.  I had become a follower of Dave’s a few days earlier and now went to see who he was following so I could follow them too.  I went to his list and started clicking away.  Until I noticed… Dave follows a helluva lot of girls that look like porn stars. 

So I did some online research – looking up some of these women by name.  I searched every single webpage of all of these women and it turns out that they were indeed porn stars.  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing… so I double-checked my research.  Then I triple-checked.  Yup… they’re porn stars.

This was a bit of an epiphany moment.

What was I doing?

In a few weeks, my wife and I are expecting the birth of our daughter who I hope to raise into a strong woman with high moral character.  And here I am following porn stars on Twitter, albeit somewhat unintentionally.

When the dust had settled I was following almost 2,000 people (the maximum Twitter allows) and had close to 500 people following me.  That was the culmination of five days of selective twittering.  And by “selective” I mean the only one in the world I absolutely refused to follow was Spencer Pratt.

In addition to porn stars, I follow such wonderful female role models as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears. 

There was a lot to my list that didn’t feel very sincere.  I don’t find Dane Cook funny at all… but I follow him.  I am not a big fan of P. Diddy, but I follow him too.  I don’t really understand Ashton Kutcher’s popularity, but I’m adding to it by following him.  I didn’t vote for Obama, but guess what?  I follow him.  I have serious doubts as to the legitimacy of global warming, yet I follow Al Gore.  I could continue this forever…

I decided it was time to take my stand and make some deletions.  I couldn’t believe the people I was following – Miley Cyrus, Neil Diamond, Tila Tequila, Perez Hilton, Andy Dick, Heidi Montag, Tony Robbins,  Courtney Love, Jamie Kennedy… the list went on and on.  It’s nothing against these people and their careers; they’re just not my style.

I cleaned up my list a bit and felt better about myself and my future on Twitter.  I will continue to follow people I don’t know, but I will try my best to be a little more selective.  The way I see it, none of my current followers would have followed me if I hadn’t reached out first.

In the mean time, I continue to read as many of my incoming tweets as I can – I have found a great deal of helpful information and quite a bit of laughs in them as well.  If any of you have some ideas on how a newbie can enhance his Twitter experience, I’d love to hear them.  Thank you all again for following, and I look forward to following you for years to come… as long as you continue to follow me back.

Humbly Twittering On,

@ALetterAWeek

 

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