After a few months of using Twitter, I now have ˜800 tweeps I am following, and ˜860 tweeps who follow me.  Not huge, but my goal is a manageable, rich network of people I can both learn from and help.  To get a good network is like Topiary: and this post is dedicated to bush trimming.

Before I go any further, I must state that I find Twitter enormously helpful in my professional endevours, but also entertaining when watching car-crash TV like Britain’s Got Talent (Twitter tag: #bgt) with fellow tweeps across the country, all simultaneously sharing occasionally witty observations.

If you’re reading this and don’t get Twitter, then I’m not going to try and convert you to a Tweep: like anything in life, you get back what you put in to Twitter, and if you use other social networks then you probably don’t have time for Twitter.  Is your other social network doing what you need?  I use LinkedIn to keep track of contacts (and help them follow me), my blog to publish my thinking on major topics, and Twitter for my daily learnings.

The goal of my involvement with Twitter is to build up a network of people who I learn from, and who I can help.  I learn by finding interesting people to follow AND stopping following people who don’t teach me – stopping following people keeps “my stream clean”.  I help others by hopefully posting interesting tweets, which includes re-tweeting (RT’ing) the tweets of people I am following.

monalisa_paHowever, when you get near a thousand following/followers, with daily churn of adding/removing people, you get what can only be called an untidy bush.  You need to keep on top of your bush with regular growth encouragement and trimming where applicable.

OK, hedge clippers at the ready, here’s my housekeeping method that I try to do once a week.

I’m interested to learn how you manage your Twitter account, what goals you have, your ideal Followers/Following profiles, and tools you use – let me and Dear Reader know in the comments!

Write down your goal and objectives each month.

Know what your goal is for Twitter, and translate that into your objectives for Following and Followers: ie. if you want the biggest network ever, then you are likely to have minimum/no standards for who you follow.  If you want a rich, dense network, then work out who it is you’re interested in.

Write this on to a one pager and keep it up to date.  The more you review this doc and review your Followers/Following, the better your network will be.

Explore your network each week.

Traverse the network, by clicking on your immediate Tweeps (e.g. someone you follow) – then click on their “Following” link to see who they value.  Follow the ones you like, then click THEIR “Following” link – etcetera.

Follow people who are RT’d by your immediate network (e.g. if someone you follow RT’s a good tweet from someone, click on their name and possible Follow them).

Stop following people who’s Tweets don’t make the grade.  I stop following people who post famous quotes, ping.fm music, and also if they have a profile that reads like: “real estate, CEO, marketing, lover, brother, father”.  I go as far to block people like this, including the porn spammers.

Create a Twibe, if you and a group of followers share a common interest.  See my group at good2great as an example.  As people join the Twibe, you find new people to Follow.

Use online Twitter Tools to prune your bush!

Follow

Follow

Follow Tweeps who have started Following you using Tweepular, if they are someone you can learn from / help.

ThatDwayne tweeted about WhoShouldIFollow.com which will recommend people for you to follow: it worked well for me.

Unfollow Tweeps who stop following you using Qwitter.com, and who are stale / haven’t tweeted in the past month with UnTweeps.com.

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