Friday, September 12, 2014

Why I Deleted Half My Twitter Lists

Three years ago Twitter was my favorite site for connecting with people. I read a lot of blogs and retweeted any I found helpful. It was fun to pop on, see if anyone was drinking loads of coffee (like I do on a regular basis), say "hi" to friends and hopefully learn some new writing tricks through the links others shared.


I followed new people every day and they followed me too. It became harder to keep track of all these new people, so I made lists. But the lists grew large--too large. I created more lists.

Then I found myself reading fewer blogs at the same time many of my favorite bloggers stopped posting. It seemed like my Twitter feed no longer had fun snippets regarding silly cats, a lack of exercise and excess coffee consumption. It was link after link after link.

I never stopped checking in on Twitter, but I wasn't engaged.

I'm still not engaged.

Yesterday I went on Tweetdeck and wondered about some of the people I "conversed" with years ago. Was I missing something by not making more of an effort? 

This led me to reviewing my lists. Wow. Some of them were full of people I've never exchanged a tweet with. Others had duplicates. And some I wondered why I created in the first place. I had so many lists, I couldn't add them all as columns in Tweetdeck, which meant I never checked them.

Over the course of two hours, I consolidated my lists. I deleted over half of them. When I finished, I made sure Tweetdeck had a column for all of my current lists. Now I can actually see every list's feed when I log on. Isn't that the point of making them? *yes*

I don't know if I'll become more engaged on Twitter or not, but I took a step in the right direction. That's the thing about social media--sometimes we outgrow what worked for us in the past. It doesn't mean we have to quit, but we should tweak it to make it useful to us now.

Have you ever become overwhelmed by a social media site you used to enjoy? What did you do?

Have a fabulous weekend!!

10 comments:

  1. I hear you. I still use Facebook as my main means to communicate with others. Never loved Twitter but I'm on there mostly to search out something. I blog about twice a month and it is so much harder to get around and read once you are writing more. I think social media is a changing animal.

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    1. Hi Terri! Yes, I agree, everything changes pretty quickly online. I'm trying to keep up!

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  2. I also use Facebook as my main social media place. Twitter is one I am getting used to. I don't know where, why, or how some of the ones who choose to follow me find me. I have to make some decisions about how I spend my time on these sights.

    At one time, on Facebook, I received certain posts from 'close friends' as they posted. It took a lot of time for me to keep up with one particular friends postings. I had to eliminate that list.

    Blessings to you and yours.

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    1. Oh, I know what you mean about the Facebook close friends thing. It took up my whole feed! I had to get rid of it too. :)

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  3. I got overwhelmed with Twitter right away. I liked posting more personal things, and the people I followed seemed to be constantly advertising. Either their book, or someone else's... It felt like sitting in front of a continuously running commercial. So I just stuck to Facebook where it felt more personal.

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    1. Yeah, the constant marketing links get old. You have a good plan. I like Facebook too!

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  4. Hurrah for this post! I love Twitter--the fast paced feel (along with TweetDeck) allows me the ease to pop in and out throughout the day and connect with friends and like-minded folks I adore. BUT I so agree with you! It can be overwhelming if we don't tame our lists.

    I've kept my lists smallish from the beginning and I'm fixing to pare down even more. I like being able to see all my lists in my feed--it makes it fun to engage. Also, as a side note, I'm more intentional with who I follow back. When it's a clear case of folks wanting to boost their numbers, that's a definite no. (And lately, I've seen a new trend. Folks will connect and then once they have a massive amount of followers, they unfollow.) Yuck.

    Thanks for confirming what I've felt for a while, too!

    (Had to switch browsers to comment. Wish WP and Blogger were compatible. *sigh* Have a great wk end, sweet gal!)

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    1. I'm sorry the commenting never seems to work for you! Ugh!! But, I'm with you on preferring to see all my lists. Much better than before!! (BTW, folks have been following just to get followers then immediately unfollowing ever since I started using Twitter. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth.)

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  5. I love Twitter but never really got into using lists, except columns for "writers" or my publisher or crit group. Maybe I'm underthinking it. LOL

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  6. I enjoy twitter and have a few thousand people on my feed. I use hootsuite to create lists to follow. I don't chat with personal friends there, for that I use facebook. I look at twitter more of a way to follow podcasts, magazines, and news items from sources I like. My twitter feed is a mixture of links to articles and a few personal thoughts of my own, plus conversations with followers. It seems to work for me, but without the lists, it would be impossible.

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