Start of Day Twitter Stats: Follow: 108 Followers: 94 Listed: 5
Missed yesterday? Go here to read what happened on Day 17 – November 30, 2009 (Mon): Post an Action Tweet
This Twitter Churn and Burn Hypothesis seems to have some legs. It makes me think a lot of folks waste a lot of time on Twitter. Why else would they follow and unfollow in less than 24 hours? I can almost understand the marketers doing this with all their fancy machines. But regular folks? And, especially, non-profits? @BPOrchestra, out of the blue, followed me. Since I feel I belong in their target market, I followed back. Then they unfollowed me. Go figure. So I asked them why with an “@” question. They haven’t updated their tweets in a while so I might not hear from them until tomorrow. But, instead of worrying about my followers – or unfollowers as the case may be – on this day I learn I should worry about my own motives.
Today I’m supposed to put a string of tweets together. It seems old Joel Comm wants me to end up directing my followers to take an action. Specifically, I think he wants me to sell something. At this point, I realize Joel has designed this plan for a marketer, not a conversationalist. While earlier in the book Twitter Power he agnostically states one must decide if one wants quality or quantity in terms of followers, it’s clear his 30-day plan really encourages quantity. This is just one problem I’m slowly discovering with my experiment.
The other problem possibly looms more significant, perhaps enough to nullify any results and analysis I might offer. I now realize I had no plan entering into this particular Twitter foray. In creating other Twitter accounts earlier this year, I had a clear purpose in mind. My AstronomyTop100 Twitter account dealt solely with AstronomyTop100.com, the IYA2009 outreach project. This had a targeted audience and has grown steadily with little spam followers since its inception – despite a dearth of tweets. In another – the FiduciaryNews Twitter account – targets an even smaller market, a market I suspect may not even use Twitter. Still, in less than two months it approached 200 followers. And it just tweets news articles for ERISA fiduciaries.
So, what’s my objective for the ChrisCarosa Twitter account? Well, let’s talk that out. I certainly want to attract followers and follow-back people interested in Buffalo, Rochester and, in general, Western New York. I also want to attract people who might be interested in my blog. Those would include writers, speakers and social media types. To date, other than the Buffalo Bills, I haven’t been tweeting much in terms of those subject areas. Today I started doing that by tweeting interesting stories about the old media – specifically, the demise of the old media. It also implies I should search out and follow people in those categories. I’ve been doing that on the Western New York Side, but not with the other categories. Add that to my to-do list.
Despite all this soul searching, I took a peek at my Google Analytics data and discovered the number of pages viewed on my blog have steadily increased during the course of this experiment. Ultimately, the ChrisCarosa Twitter account does not exist in a vacuum. It’s merely a means to an end, and right now ChrisCarosa.com represents that end. So, I must be doing something right. If only I can figure out just exactly what that might be.
How many followers do you think I’ll have after 30 days? Click here to enter your guess on my Survey Monkey survey “Chris Carosa’s 30-Day Plan to Dominate Twitter Experiment.” There’s no prize, but the fan who guesses the closest correct number the earliest will “win” and I’ll mention you if you want me to.
Find out today’s results on Day 19 – December 2, 2009 (Wed): Try a Different Sequence
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