August 18th, 2008
How Do You Twitter?
Posted by Greg Atkinson under Audio, Blogs, Books, Church 2.0, Church Media, Communication, Greg's Favorites, Podcasts, Random Thoughts, Web 2.0
I had an interesting conversation with some friends this week. I found that many follow several, random people and in turn, those people then find out about them and follow them - thus they have a lot of people following them on Twitter.
That, honestly, never occurred to me. I only follow people that interest me, so it’s a relatively small group (78). I could probably have more people following me if I followed more people (makes sense), but I don’t want to get constant updates from people that I don’t particularly want to follow. Does that make sense?
So… How do YOU use Twitter? Do you follow as many as you can? Are you picky? Are you following me? 
You should. I will be releasing updates and exclusive Church 2.0 info on just Twitter.
BONUS:
Check out my friend, Bill Seaver’s blog on Podcasting 101 HERE.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Thanks for the link Greg.
Regarding Twitter, I think it’s a great tool to discover people as well…but what I’m seeing is that it’s turning a little spammy these days. I think people know it’s a numbers game, meaning some percentage of the people they follow will follow them back, so they just go out and try to follow as many people as possible to boost their own numbers. The people who seem to do this most are those trying to artificially drive traffic to their site and/or sell something directly. I’m increasingly turned off by this and I suspect other people are too.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Echoing Bill’s comment, spam followers are frustrating, but part of the Twitterverse. I’m selective with both whom I follow and whom I allow to follow me. (I do follow @GregAtkinson too) What I find valuable is the ability to connect with others with similar interests. You are able to exchange ideas and get feedback rather quickly on things.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Hello Greg,
We met at the National Church Music Conference in Plainfield, IN a couple of years ago. I have been following your work ever since. I am not into Twitter….I have found you get more of a following and actual work accomplished through a simple blog of devotions and pictures. I have recently thought of adding a video….”Cardboard testimonies” is awesome.
August 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I originally joined Twitter to keep up with friends, but it has not caught on with most people I know yet. Instead, I am mostly following people I don’t know. The nice thing is hearing about website, books, and ideas that people are passionate about.
For example, Looking forward to Church 2.0.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I only follow a few people, and they’re basically broken down into two groups: those who inspire me, and those I do life with. People like Tony Morgan, or Ron Sylvia are people who I’ve never met but may have seen at a conference or read their stuff and found wisdom and encouragement in their lives and work. With Twitter I’m able to amplify that inspiration by following what they do throughout the day (i.e. What they’re praying for, or how they protected their father/daughter date night)
For my friends Twitter keeps me up on the in between times that I care about relationally
And yes, I do follow you Greg, but only for movie reviews
August 18th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
i prefer to follow church tech people. i love the tweets about rehearsals, services, how things went. it’s a good source of ideas and support.
August 18th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I resisted Twitter for a long time. Who cares about what I’m doing? Why should I care about what someone else is doing? I created an account a few months after jumping into Facebook and though I’m not completely sold on the value, I have made several contacts for my video ministry.
I use it to pose questions about what items should be in my weekly “News for the Pews” podcast and worship videos.
August 18th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
The highest value “social graph” I have online is twitter. I follow every person who follows me that is a real person, or I follow people in the fields that I have some interest in. I am always 200-300 people ahead in who I follow as a total then the number of people following me - and I love it.
No, I do not keep up with them all or have them all going to my phone. But I am very quickly able to pick up on trends, news and valuable information very quickly this way.
I love it!
That and twitter is by far the best social network in regards to connecting in real relationship with people offline, nothing comes close.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Hey Greg, I’m one of those twitterers that follows you, yet you’re not interested in following me…hahaha. I had a short list of follows until last week. I decided to see how about 30 church planters are using twitter and what is going on in their daily routines. I don’t care about reciprocal follows as I haven’t intentionally started to network yet. I also follow tweets like yours and some other web 2.0 strategists and interesting people like Perry Noble. Peace.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Twitter: At Westwinds we’ve been using twitter in service which has connected online participants with the in-house congregation. Honestly at first I thought it would be kind of dumb, but I really enjoy it now. It’s a good way to see where others spiritually and emotionally at any particular moment.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I love what Tony said about being able to “pick up on trends, news and valuable information”. I never really thought of it like that, but in the context of conversations we’ve had about listening through technology - a light bulb just went on in my head. Thanks!
August 20th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Hey Greg I too just follow folks I am interested in, and yes I follow you on Twitter.
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 am
I like to look back and see what was important to me in the moment and compare it back to see how it matches up with my personal and family mission. Also, fantastic tool for following trends as Tony mentioned. I follow those I feel I can learn from and if they follow me great, if not I won’t lose sleep (lying of course, my self esteem is connected entirely to my number of twitter followers).
August 25th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
have you on facebook but never thought of hooking up on Twitter…added you to my follow list
March 9th, 2009 at 11:04 am
The biggest mistake with twitter is that people consider it as a marketing tool. However, twitter should be used as a communication and networking tool, to make friends, and setup jv’s with other business people.