Christopher Hatch

I had a Twitter epiphany the other day. I unfollowed loads of people because I never read a word they wrote, nor did I care.  I’m not saying they were boring, just with so many people Tweeting the noise became too much.

Some may have in turn unfollowed me.  However I really couldn’t care if they did.

Why? Good question. Let me answer. I decided to take the age old advice, control those things you can and ignore those you can’t.

I can’t directly affect how many people, and who, is following me. I can hope that my 140 character insights into events, my life and quick quips are entertaining enough for people to wait for the next one with abated breath, but if they are not I’m not going to loose any sleep over it.

What I can control is who pumps their thoughts into my computer. So I decided to focus instead on people that fall primarily into three different camps:

1. People in 4Networking.  From a business and social perspective it makes sense to follow and interact with these people.  Some I consider my friends and all I consider potential suppliers / clients.
2. Celebrities – well why not. Perhaps I am helping to massage their egos but they add a little spice.
3. Local people – this was my main directional change, yes the Internet is world wide but that doesn’t mean I should follow people in Texas just because I can. Again, from a business point of view my aim is to have my company known locally.  By interacting with local people that meets that aim quicker than interacting with an American.

This rather useful website was one that helped me find some local people, then by following their followers, well you know how it works.

Will this strategy prove useful in the long run – who knows. Certainly it has had the benefit that Twitter is no longer just noise, but posts that might be useful.  And I am in no way suggesting that every local person is interesting enough to follow (and those that do not grab will be dumped!) but focusing what I’m looking for can only help improve the whole Twitter experience.

Perhaps the summary of this is too many people seem obsessed with the number of followers (@desperate Please RT, only 4 more to get to 1000 followers, help me get there), but it is not the number that matters.

It’s the value of them. I now value the people I follow. Do you?