Twitter this - Twitter that - how do YOU manage the FEEding frenzy?

So - I jumped on the bandwagon fully and completely a number of months ago and had been happily tweeting and fully immersed in Tweet Deck.... Recently, I wanted to build my network to a strong but modest level. My goal was to follow and be followed by @ 500 people. A small number in the scheme of things. I am close, but now am finding that I have a problem. It's like an avalanche of micro information and I'm finding that I cannot keep track of anyone, let alone keep up! Some of the people I'm following tweet 6 - 10 times or MORE per day! I am in sensory OVERLOAD! It's taking over! :-)

Short of removing people from my list - which would be 2.0 suicide... what's a person to do?

Anyone?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jay Perreault {DCTechRecruiter} on June 15, 2009 at 12:21pm

Julie,

I carve out about the same amount of time each day to focus on self branding and social networking. What gets done during that time is focused and efficient. There will always be more to do tomorrow....

Care to add another? ;@)
Twitter me @ DCTechRecruiter

Or slower paced:
http://tinyurl.com/Join-Networks-on-LinkedIn

YT,

Jay
703-262-5663
www.sesc.com

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Permalink Reply by Peter Ceccarelli on June 15, 2009 at 12:35pm

Just stop. Have you really ever hired anyone from Twitter? If the answer is no. Then just stop.

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Permalink Reply by Sherry Junker on June 15, 2009 at 12:47pm

Hi Julie. I am finding the same thing. I get on Twitter for an intended 10 mins and end up there an hour! You have it right when you say sensory overload.

Not sure what the answer is, but I have been sorting some of the information that I look for on Tweet Deck by making search colums. Like I have one for engineers, so that when I log on I can just scan down the colum for engineers and see what tweets have been going on.

I am sure there are better answers, so I will be watching to see what replies you get.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Hankins on June 15, 2009 at 1:04pm

Nope - haven't. Good point. But also wanting to continue the networking.... so that is the rock and the hard place!
JH
Peter Ceccarelli said:

Just stop. Have you really ever hired anyone from Twitter? If the answer is no. Then just stop.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on June 15, 2009 at 5:52pm

When I have time, I check Twitter for 5-10 minutes a day. I just can't spend more than that on it. During that time I post a tweet, sometimes about a new search, sometimes not. I scan recent tweets and that's it. The way I see it, anyone looking for a job that is following me, might forward the job tweets along...and I've gotten candidates that way thus far. I can't justify spending any more time on Twitter than 5-10 min a day, it's not productive enough. However, for the little time I do put in, it does help with branding and gets the word out virally on some searches.

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Permalink Reply by Sherry Junker on June 15, 2009 at 9:07pm

Eric you are hilarious! I will definitely follow, and look forward to your tweets

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Permalink Reply by Barby Budds on June 16, 2009 at 12:17pm

Important is not to follow so many people but being followed and the cool thing about twitter is that you don't see things from people that follow u.
So check out in your following list who you r following but who is not following you - you can delete them for sure - and those that are pissing you off - just remove they might still follow you ;)
I hope that i could help you and that you find your love to twitter again.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Hankins on June 16, 2009 at 12:27pm

Eric - you crack me up! I don't think I am addicted as much as I am annoyed. Annoyed at the sonar sound telling me that I have something new to look at (and I have turned it off - whew!) and Annoyed at myself for being the anal multi-tasker with extreme ADD.... ;-) Not one to tweet about life and what I had for breakfast, but annoyed that I get pulled away to read about other's .... and then HAVING to follow a link that leads me to a page that, ugh, is a blog posting about 15000 words long that really REALLY REALLY is not relavant!

I feel that since I said I would FOLLOW - then shouldn't I FOLLOW? Seriously, I guess I have too much the midwesterner handshake mindset (no offense!) and honor. BUT - I don't have the time.... so ..... ugh! ;-)

Ok, whew, ranting done. Barby - I feel like that would be social media suicide to "un-follow" ...

Maybe I will get a 2nd account. Let the other one die a slow and lonely death and start over again with a bit more, shall we say, focus and restraint?

Julie

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Permalink Reply by Julie Hankins on June 16, 2009 at 2:36pm

Point taken! I am really just teasing a bit here, but the reality is is that there is information overload and, well, gee, I guess I'm just the scatter-brained person who thinks that there MUST be true value in these apps..... but maybe not. Twitter is well, according to the dictionary: a succession of chirps as uttered by birds; to utter a succession of bird's chirps; (of a person) to talk in an excited or nervous manner...

That brings us back full circle to Eric's comments..... ;-)

I guess I am just the ADD Recruiter/Sourcer/ Tech Geek who will research and try out anything to see if it works! Lots of fun - but reality? Picking up the phone and doing it the old fashioned "new snail mail way" of emailing....

Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy Roberts, SPHR on June 16, 2009 at 2:45pm

I have a second profile that I use to manage friends, family, and news sources I want to read about. Manage multiple accounts with Seesmic desktop. The newest version allows you to tweet from all of your accounts, as well as facebook. It's a step up from the last version of tweetdeck and allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Michael Specht on June 16, 2009 at 3:11pm

As someone who follows 1,800 people, don't worry about missing things. Twitter is not email you don't need to read every tweet nor should you try.

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Permalink Reply by Julie Hankins on June 16, 2009 at 3:17pm

Jeremy Roberts said:

I have a second profile that I use to manage friends, family, and news sources I want to read about. Manage multiple accounts with Seesmic desktop. The newest version allows you to tweet from all of your accounts, as well as facebook. It's a step up from the last version of tweetdeck and allows you to manage multiple twitter accounts. Good luck!

Hmm - I have been toying with changing over to Seesmic......
Might give it a whirl!

Meanwhile - setting up my "other" twitter account...

On the other hand, not addicted, just frustrated by my ADD! ;-)