For those of you not familiar with it, Twitter is a social networking site where users sign in and then post a 'tweet' - the question being "what are you doing?".
The twist is that your 'Tweet' (your individual post on Twitter) can only be a maximum of 140 characters long. However, forget SMS text messaging, this isn't a platform for C U L8tr (see you later), more a snapshot of information you can choose to interact with by replying to an individual you're following or who's following you.
Most users make use of Tiny URL's and other such URL shortening services to post URL's to items they want to share.
Anyway, I digress - back to the question in hand.
You can apparently automate your Apple mail to look at a Twitter notification that someone is following you. The automated function picks out the username of the new follower and emails them back saying thank you for following me (or whatever you've set the message to).
This caused some debate in our office as I've received one or two of these thankyou's and to be honest, whilst they're an acknowledgement of you acceptance, they're not very personal and easily spotted.
The rule being that you don't have to follow everyone that follows you - like any other social networking platform, Twitter has its share of 'spammers' usually spotted by hundreds of followings, few followers and even fewer tweets.
Personally, I like to tweet a personal thank you along with an appropriate comment on that person / their tweets / their bio information.
Back to the debate - my colleague argued that you don't say thank you to someone for visiting your blog, only when they leave a comment, however, since you don't know who visits your blog unless they leave a comment... plus Twitter is more of a social aspect than faceless blogging.
Each Tweeter has the opportunity to upload an avatar ( I use the same one as i use for all comments and blogging and do get a few followers based on others recognising me) and many other Tweeters also take advantage of this aspect too. Some you will notice change their Avatar on a daily basis - personally whilst it's fun, it can cause confusion - especially if you're a poor memory for names (like me).
I'll continue to say thank you to my new followers in my own way. I feel it's even more important to acknowledge personally especially in this high-tech age where things are accused of moving too fast to be able to respond but that's a pretty flimsy excuse isn't it?
Jonathan Crouch is Technical Partner for Fabulous Photo Gifts. In his spare time, he likes to share his insights into how businesses can do more business by active participation in various online social media.
Fabulous Photo Gifts - personalised photo gifts
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