Ducks on Twitter!

I've recently spotlighted a couple of blogs here who have provided excellent tips and links on how to use Twitter, so it's time for me to chime in on the conversation...

For those who don't know, you can find me tweeting at jm_neeb. But I'm not mentioning this in some sort of misguided attempt to draw new followers. Back in the day (uh, a couple months ago...), I might have. I thought it was important to try and follow as many people as I could to have people follow me back. My goal was to try and net as many followers as possible. I figured - before recent revelations - it was a good vehicle to draw readers to my blog and articles.

Well, I was wrong. (Who says that men are incapable of saying such things???)

As is the case with many things in life, quality trumps quantity and really deserves to be the focus. I truly regret the fact that I am following 1400-whatever people and have almost 500 following me. Let me quick point out that a ratio of almost 3/1 is absurd. What kind of dialogue can be achieved with such disparity? Now, I've rationalized it by saying "I enjoy 'listening' and keeping up with what is going on," but the fact is that it's insanely difficult to try and keep up when you have a very large feed of tweets. Utilizing tweet decks is probably one way to rectify the situation, but I want to move in a different direction, anyhow.

My new goal is to pare down my lists as much as possible and foster healthy relationships with fellow writers. Some bloggers I'm following on Twitter - and will continue to follow! - include: Elana, Karen, Tianna, and Tara. Anyone I add via Blogger will stay. I consistently read their posts, make comments (when I have comments to make), and sometimes they read and comment here, too. This is a dynamic I hope to have with fellow writers. Additionally, if I know someone in real life (Luke, MI PhotoBooth), I'll continue to follow them, as well. Essentially, I'm hoping for a more personal experience.

Okay, I don't have any kind of relationship to him, nor will there likely be any two-way interaction, but I'll continue to follow Conan O'Brien. He's too funny not to...

One more is the author Colson Whitehead. He's the reason I joined Twitter in the first place. I was very interested in reading his tweets, since I'm a big fan of his writing. I doubt Mr. Whitehead will follow me in return, but c'est la vie.

I don't want to be one of those people, and I've certainly been guilty of this, who is just trying to do a self-promotional "monologue" of sorts. As such, I'm not going to. Nor am I just going to sit back, read, and be a non-contributor. I have thoughts on various topics and issues and am able to provide perspective and help to others. I enjoy doing that kind of stuff. I enjoy it a lot more than trying to herd people. That being said, I'm probably going to tweet a link to this post. I'm interested in seeing how much, if any, traffic it derives.

Truth be told, even if tweeting sends a million people over here, it's not going to change anything for me. This is my not-so-new-year resolution and I'm sticking to it.

Last night I started going through my "following" list and un-followed a hundred or so tweeples. Now, I don't mean any ill will towards them. Heck, most of them probably have no clue as to who I am right now. I'm fine with that. So fine with it, in fact, that I will continue to whittle down that amount. Those who are left will be what I consider "quality" tweeple. Peeps whose thoughts and tweets I will care about and, hopefully, vice versa.

Now, I can't really control how many people choose to follow me, so I'm not as concerned with that. My ultimate goal, though, is to follow 150 people or less. So I need to un-follow at least 90% of those I already am.

Why 150? Well, you'll have to come back because I have even more thoughts...