How to get yourself outside the box!
If you ask one of the people on Twitter “Why are you using Twitter?” I think the proper answer would be “to interact and establish relationships with other people” whether its personal or for business, but when someone answer your question by saying “I just follow the people that I know and the people that I’ve met personally before” then you should probably shout at them and say “Go and use Facebook, thats why its there!”.
I use Facebook to contact with my friends overseas and share pictures and stuff, but I’ve never used Facebook to meet new people because I thought its just too creepy for me, or it is a little dangerous to have a lot of information exposed to a total stranger.
That’s why Twitter is considered an amazing web service, it allows you to follow anyone you want, at any time, and any place, but you are making a really big mistake if you just follow the people that you JUST KNOW or people that you MET IN-PERSON, you need to get yourself out of the box that you’re making for yourself, for example, if you are a blogger and you want to succeed you need to follow bloggers like Robert Scoble @Scobleizer, you need to follow Darren Rowse @problogger , whether you are living in the North Pole or in the middle of the ocean, you must not strict yourself to your circle of friends, you need to get out there and start following people that you haven’t met personally before but they share their knowledge and give you their opinion about anything you want.People who follow their personal friends or have a small circle of friends that they follow on Twitter are like a blind man with a group of guides, you can’t see or feel anything outside that circle, you don’t know about anything until someone in that circle shows it to you, you are weak when you are not following new interesting people, and you get weaker and weaker if you keep doing that, if you are using Twitter for marketing and you are being followed by 1000+ and only following 30 of them then there is something wrong, following new people and asking for their opinion might help you in updating your brand/company/web business and making it bigger, because everybody is full of interesting ideas, that’s why people like Gary Vaynerchuk @garyvee are so good at what they do, he always asks for opinions on anything, if you check his following list you would probably find out that maybe he didn’t meet 20% of the people that he is following, but he followed them because he knew that he will gain knowledge and ideas through them,and by using this knowledge he updates his business and keeps it fresh and make it bigger year after year, Gary didn’t strict himself to a small circle of friends and said “Whatever, I’m just going to follow my friends that I’ve met before or grew up with”, that’s the reason of his success, so if you are into Social Media and Marketing, you need to get out of the stupid box you made for yourself on Twitter and follow more people, that’s the purpose of using Twitter.
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@ahmed Well said, I don’t agree with having to follow everyone but also don’t agree with just following A listers or ‘people you know or have met’
@Roger Exactly, that’s why people should maybe start searching for keywords through search.twitter.com or check any of the online Twitter directories to find new people to follow in order to learn more and more through this great service ;)
Ahmed Naguib´s last blog post..The great effect of Twitter on my life
Couldn’t agree more. Im still very active in tracking down new people to follow, I simply don’t totally rely on getting the followers. Generally I like to be in control of who I spend my time talking with, so the best way to do that is to go out and find them people yourself.
That’s the only real way to ensure a good mixture. Best not to rely on one way or another.
Graham
@Graham Smith, A good mix is def what’s needed try getting out of your normal people to follow and try some new people with different interests!
Very nice post and I too would agree with Graham as most of us (if not all have varried interests) and as such we need to be able to follow people in those areas (and hopefully be followed back). I don’t spend much time searching for keywords and such to dictate what I tweet or retweet about though, I prefer to read and respond. It’s not as cost effective timewise as people who autoreply or bots to acquire followers but as Graham say’s it’s better if you care about the quality of people you follow or perhaps think of them as people rather than another # in your quest for followers.