The Fallacy of Qwitter

I will admit, I use qwitter. It’s a challenge not to take things personally, but at the same time I view it as a way to be better informed about my followers.

We state that social media is great for PR and customer service, so is qwitter not just another way for us to check to see if we’re satisfying people? If I find that my frequent rants about the number of followers I have cause a dip in the number of said followers, perhaps that will cause me to think more about what I tweet.

Obviously, there are those who don’t care about the contentment of their followers and don’t want to pander to them. That’s perfectly all right. But I think being informed isn’t a bad thing.

(Yes, obviously you’re assuming that that particular tweet was a back-breaking straw and you didn’t just happen to tweet at a time when someone was cleaning out their followers list.)

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Well I’ve been referring people over here all night, perhaps I ought to at least comment!

Great post Amber (as usual) I think you hit it right in the middle.

As Twitter grows, we have different issues than we used to – but driving ourselves crazy over unfollows shouldn’t be one of them.

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I just like to know. I don’t really care and I don’t believe for a minute it’s ever been the subject of my last tweet. Sometimes people just clean house and that’s fine. I just like to know if someone I actually have a real life relationship with qwits. The rest, if they like me fine, if not fine.

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Qwitter isn’t about making everyone love me. It’s about making everyone love me more!

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I will preface my feed back by saying: I am not “in” Social Media. That means I don’t make my living in PR, shilling anything or writing (well nothing anyone here would have read). I’ve brainstormed ways to have social media work in my highly specialized line of work and there is nothing there. I enjoy social media as I enjoy any reference, news outlet or social circle but I don’t make a living through it. That does not mean I don’t pay attention to it or don’t consider that some day I might use social media in my career.
I think of Twitter as a really cool party. I walk into the room and see hundreds of people. There is no way that all of these people are going to like me or agree with everything I believe but that does not mean I am going to alter who I am. I will be polite and avoid being offensive but I still want to have fun. As I travel the room I end up in different circles, having different conversations. Some I participate in; some I linger and listen to; and some I pass by. Sometimes I try to escape conversations and sometimes, as I am talking, I see my listener’s eyes glaze over and I finish my sentence quickly. I don’t want to bore people but I also don’t want to waste my own time. If people unfollow me on Twitter, I rarely take it personally and when I do, I am quick to let it go. I did not contribute to what they are looking for but that doesn’t make me bad – just not their cup of tea. Similarly, if I unfollow someone, this is not an indictment on their life. I just have too many conversations I am trying to keep track of and their conversation did not fall into all the things I am interested in learning about or mulling over.
Heck, I’m not even human on Twitter. When people started to take Twitter too seriously and it became reminiscent of high school, I changed my persona and name to a guinea pig. I gave people permission to not take me seriously but other than entertaining a few people from my cage and singing skat, to cheer people up, when it comes to what I believe in, I still state my opinion. I still ask to be educated and sometimes ask to be listened to. If I don’t add value to your life in some fashion, I don’t want to waste your time. You are not a quitter of ME – you just would rather have a different conversation. I’m cool with that.
Someone else already said Qwitter is a tool to further automate Twitter and they are right. If you need a tool to tell you someone quit you, I think you have a bigger issue. Analyze your message & how you are delivering it. Quitter is not going to give you that. This is life, not high school. There are no short cuts or cheat sheets.

Never heard of Qwitter and not interested in Qwitter, but thank you for the advice.

I totally agree with your post. I don’t use Twitter as often as I would like, however, I do enjoy it when I’m there. The idea of connecting with people I would never know in “real life” is amazing.

I learn something new everyday………….:)

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Great post and I agree with your philosophy wholeheartedly.

However, there is one thing I *do* get out of Qwitter. I’ve noticed a trend among marketers (as Twitter inches toward the mainstream) to follow me. Then, if I follow back, they immediately un-follow me. Basically, they are trying to improve their ratio of followers to following in order to seem like more of a resource.

It’s a dishonest tactic and I don’t understand why people would resort to it. BUT, I do know that I don’t want to follow people who resort to these shenanigans. Qwitter lets me know right away who the lame folks are so I can purge them.

Otherwise, I totally agree that people are getting a little nutsy on Qwitter. If they put half the thought into their posts as they do in their Twitter numbers, the world would be a more intelligent place.

Best,
DJ

@MarketerBlog

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I haven’t used Qwitter, on purpose. There was a brief period of time when I had Feedburner send me updates whenever anyone would unsubscribe to my blog – and I would contact them and ask why. Only a few responded, and they had good points. Soon I stopped worrying about it and focused more on writing what my core readers and commenters wanted – now the subs go up and down, and I have learned not to worry about it.

@DJ good point, and what a more tactful way to end a relationship!

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OMG this is both hilarious and psychotic!!

Amber, I loved this!

I have to say I agree with DJ above. The only reason I use Qwitter is to weed out the tweeps that “collect” followers. I call them out publicly to basically say “Hey, I noticed you like collecting tweeps and I want everyone to know you’re not in this for the conversation.”

If one of my favorites quits me (you for example!), I’ll be DM’ing them in a second to find out why.

I want to contribute to the conversation, to be a part of our community. At the same time, I want those who follow me to know that this isn’t a numbers game. For everyone that has met me in person or online, they know I tell it like I see it, call it “tough tweet love”. )

Thanks Amber, for your excellent perspective! BTW: I do understand what Eric was talking about, and I highly value his opinion on the topic. Maybe I will remember not to get so annoyed by the obvious tweep collectors next time!

Hi Amber

I just saw a link to your site via twitter (and enjoying your posts), and was interested to see what you would say about qwitter.

I too wondered what the morbid fascination was with qwitter – if someone leaves, they leave. Maybe because I tweet too much in one afternoon, maybe they don’t like my musical references, maybe they are cutting down on people they follow…maybe, maybe, maybe. I’m not sure if knowing why someone stops following me would make me change my tweets…

The thing I love about twitter is that I’ve connected with some pretty cool people who point me in the direction of very interesting/random/diverse things in the on-line and off-line world. People who I have stopped following, or people who have stopped following me have never made that connection. And you can’t take it personally…because it never is normally a “personal” thing (unless you are REALLY offensive! Ha!).