|
Some people tweet a lot. I follow a good deal of them. Sometimes excessive tweeting can include plenty of wisdom. Often times, however, it is just annoying. Chances are that if you follow somebody, you do care what they have to say, at least to some extent. If they tweet too much though, you may find yourself caring less, and you may even decide to unfollow them. Do you unfollow people who tweet too much? Tell us.
Excessive tweeting is at the root of more than one of Twitter’s problems.
The Retention Problem
Twitter has been known to have trouble with user retention. People sign up and abandon their accounts. A common complaint about Twitter is that it contains too much "noise." In other words, there are too many random tweets that nobody cares about.
I’ve always found it a bit naive to assume that just because you find a tweet useless, it is useless to everybody. I’ve long considered that you control who you follow, so if you don’t like somebody’s tweeting, you have the power to stop following them.
This is still true, but perhaps it is more complex than that. I may want to follow @soandso (I’m only using this as an example) because I know that they will say things that I need to know sometimes, but @soandso may also flood my Twitter stream with useless conversation that I have no interest in – noise.
If that noise gets to become to much of an issue, I will likely end up deciding to unfolllow @soandso anyway, and try to obtain the info from somewhere else – somewhere that is less annoying.
The lesson here (from the business perspective) is that if you want to keep followers, you should probably limit your tweeting. That’s not to say that every Tweet has to be incredibly important. Just think before you Tweet, and keep your audience in mind.
The Capacity Problem
By tweeting too frequently, you may actually be hurting Twitter’s accessibility. Interestingly enough, while I was researching this article, I encountered the "Twitter is over capacity" error message a couple times (one with and one without the Fail Whale), which if you’ll notice in the illustrations below, is accompanied by "Too many Tweets! Please wait a moment and try again."
If Twitter’s not operating properly, it’s not going to do anybody any good until it comes back. If you’re tweeting too much, you’re contributing to the problem. Twitter does limit the number of tweets you post in a day.
"We do cap the number of updates a user can make in a 24 hour period, whether via the API or any other input method (web, mobile, etc.)," said Alex Payne, Twitter’s API Lead in a Google Groups conversation back in January. "Right now, that number is 1000, but it’s subject to change at any time. "
I am awaiting confirmation on whether or not this is still the number, but whether it has changed or not, Twitter may reduce it more still, considering the capacity issue. If Twitter wants to keep growing, this has to be a turn off (despite all of the charm of the Fail Whale).
Tweet How the Real Twitterers Tweet
I thought it would be interesting to see how frequently the people who actually run Twitter tweet themselves. As far as I can tell, the frequency isn’t too high. They tweet often, but not excessively. I browsed the last month or so worth of tweets from the following list of Twitter staffers (hat tip to Twittercism who has a huge list of Twitterers), and they all pretty much kept it to 20 tweets a day or less (5 or less or 3 or less in some cases, most were under 10).
10 of the People Behind Twitter
1. Evan Williams (@ev) – Twitter CEO
2. Biz Stone (@biz) Twitter Co-founder
3. Abdur Chowdhury (@abdur) – Twitter’s "Chief Scientist"
4. Alex Payne (@al3x) – Twitter’s API Lead
5. Crystal (@crystal) – leads twitter support team
6. Eric Jensen (@ej) – Co-founded Summize (Twitter Search) – search and text mining technologist
7. Greg Pass (@gregpass) – Director of Engineering and Ops
8. Jason Goldman (@goldman) – Director of product strategy
9. John Adams (@netik) – operations engineer
10. Rudy Winnacker (@ronpepsi) – operations engineer
I have to wonder if Twitter employees have a limit in place for themselves. Of course they know what happens when there are too many tweets. No point in creating more work for yourself.
Can You Tweet Too Little?
Depending on what your goals are for using Twitter, I would say that it is possible to tweet too little. If you are using it for business purposes, then a lack of updates could reflect poorly on your effort to stay in touch with your followers.
As long as you’re not completely dead on Twitter for months at a time, you’ll probably be ok though. In fact, I don’t consider myself a very frequent tweeter. There is just as much (if not more) to gain from Twitter by absorbing the content that is coming in, than there is by pushing content out.
The Moral of the Story
Your Twitter frequency should be dictated by you goals. That said, you do not want to overdo it. You may lose followers from a lack of updating, but I would think you would be more likely to lose them when you update too much. Use moderation. Use other channels of communication when applicable. Use direct messages for one on one conversation.
What are your thoughts on overtweeting? Undertweeting? Discuss with WebProNews readers.
Great article. Better info than most the tweetie books around.
I always unfollow people who tweet to much. If I see more then 2 tweets from the same person in a row in my stream, I simply unfollow and move on.
While I agree that it is a “bit naive to assume that just because you find a tweet useless, it is useless to everybody,” I find it hard to believe that someone really cares what you’re doing every minute of the day. So when I’ve followed someone who primarily sends lots of status updates about their daily activities I unfollow them.
Another of my pet peeves are the Twitterers who tweet the same message several times a day. I unfollow them too.
While it is certainly understandable that you wouldn’t want to see what someone is doing every minute of the day. I believe there are actually people who enjoy that kind of thing with certain people.
I agree that tweeting the same message throughout the day can get pretty annoying.
I usally don’t follow people unless I am interested to follow up with them however who follow you is another story. Once I checked who follow me to remove spammers/porn preachers and discovered that someone -or maybe a bot- is tweet about nothing but time!
This makes me not only wonders about this weird world but also wonders about abusing the resources of the network in such stupid way. It was something like that:
it’s 11:30 am
it’s 11:31 am
it’s 11:32 am
I haven’t seen tweets like that yet. Since you mentioned I’ll keep a look out for them. It is really stupid. I unfollow people mostly when they unfollow me first or if they are tweeting too much about irrelevant topics.
I can’t stand it when people post every freaking five seconds! AHHHHHH!! Sorry, I had to get that out and I thought this would be a good place to do it.
More than just random posting I can’t stand 10,000 Retweets!!!! Seriously?? Do they think that anyone actually cares??
Similar to Toni, I unfollow anyone with three or more tweets in a row in my timeline.
I have seen these people just pour out the treats. I limit myself to one tweet a day
YES…!!!!!!!
Yes, I unfollow people who tweet too frequently, if it is nonsense. If they’re tweeting quality information/links, that’s different. I especially unfollow people who insist on tweeting their location, as in, “I’m in Overland Park”. Srsly? I don’t care. If I wanted to know where you were, I’d call you. If I don’t have your phone number, I definitely don’t care where you are.
Good point Lisa. There is definitely something to be said for quality of tweets.
Thanks for the article. I have to admit I just sent (3) tweets but one was a follow-up because of the 140 character limit. Overall I do a couple in the morning and maybe later in the day if something important is happening. I hate the spam tweets, the you can make $$ tweets, and the very inspirational tweets (a little is good in that category).
Once again, thanks for the article.
Hi I tweet all the time, news, articles, videos, I update news headlines about 3 times aday and love it when I get an RT. The social marketing tools on the SERP on gasta.com make simple and irresistle to tweet!
I tend to unfollow those who tweet the same things over and over. I really UNfollow anyone with a MLM, marketing scheme, business “opportunity”, that they forever tweet about. Oh and the ones that say “get so many followers”… Yep, they get the plug pulled too.
Great article… I use twitter for both my personal branding as a internet marketer and for my company and getting barraged with tweets from those im following tends to make me unfollow them. I generally only tweet a few times a day and only if I feel its of interest to my followers. Sure I mix in some human interest so that its personal but overdoing it has the effect of annoying people.
Follow with care is my advice!
Joe
If i get more than 5 tweets in a row from the same person, I stop following them. Recently I had people just repeating what the tennis score was.
Annoying to receive multiple, connected tweets from the same person. Twitter was intended to be an effective and convenient tool. 3 Tweets (in a row) and you’re out?
Too many tweets from one url is enough to tell me to stop following them or to block them. It is annoying that some folk have to tweet everything they list. I tweet about once a day which to me is enough. I have better things to do then tweet!
There are some tweeters that are like me, only shout a little and I like them. Now I am not against tweeting, just too many of them from the same person within 10 mins, 1/2 hour and more.
I still think Skype is the best, all these other forums mess the market, you don’t know where to be.
Skip every one, but Skype
Skype forever
I most definitely unfollow people who Tweet too much- or people who include links through to SPAM ‘I can make you $1 million’ links. Those who pertain to be valid business people, but who just spout nonsense irritate me the most!
I don’t mind the conversation tweets or even the inspiring quote tweets. But one after the other of anything is tedious to try to sift through.
And I agree that the Spam tweets are crap. I have one account that not one person READS tweets, they just tweet to hear themselves speak and spread their spam.
I don’t use that account anymore.
I’m probably a little too patient sometimes, and as annoying as it is to watch someone post 10 times in a row for each separate item they just listed online for sale, I probably will just close the page and go do something else… if they go into the 20, 30 or 40 tweet in a row range, then I’d probably unfollow, because that’s just ridiculous… lol
I unfollow more people for being negative, foul and hateful, than “spewful” (lol)… just no room for hate or cruelty on twitter or anywhere.
I rarely tweet, if at all, these days… as Vintage Rose said, there are far too many other fun things to do!
Have a nice day all!
Well I tweet quite a lot telling my followers about my virtual real estate website. I find it a great way to advertise my website, I have had plenty of sign up’s to my website which I am very happy about.
I don’t tweet every five minutes but perhaps about four times a day. I also include news stories that may be of interest as well.
My twitter name is cjbmeb14 and I have 1259 followers.
I absolutely stop following people who tweet to much, it’s sooooo annoying.
I Tweet when I have something
meaningful to say, Not when my
plumbing is stopped up or when I’m having
a frustrating day!
I Tweet when I wish to promote a friend’s
new marketing idea….
I Tweet when I have a new music
performance or Video or song on the Web….
I Tweet when I find something COOL on the
Web that I think Fellow Tweepers will enjoy!
That’s why I Tweet~~~~ GOGOGOGOGOGO TWITTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Two comments…
1-I unfollow people who are negative, sales oriented and/or voice opinions that are no inline w/my personal opinions.
2-I used tweet deck to follow people I “want” to hear from and let the rest of the people go to my regular feed. Right now I have 15 different columns on TweetDeck and see this as a great approach for now.
Too many tweets suck, but here’s the problem (at least from a business perspective): as more and more people join Twitter and follow, the amount of time your tweet is on that first page (and is actually read) is very very short. I would be interested in knowing how many people click the “more” button at the bottom to read beyond those first 20 or so posts, kind of like going to page 2 and beyond in SERPS.
I haven’t had any problems where I found myself wanting to unfollow someone yet and I’ve been using Twitter for quite awhile now, but I do unfollow those who unfollow me. Most everyone I follow are people that are sharing the same type if info through their tweets or they are looking for the info I share in my tweets.
i agree – too many nonsense tweets – unfollow. I have been following at least 3 that always appear at the top of my tweet list – too many tweets… i have considered unfollowing, but a percentage of their tweets i am very interested in – so i keep them. thus so far, the benefit outweighs the too many tweets of those 3. i understand they want to stay in the forefront of their followers’ minds… but it is too many… i don’t want to pester anyone with our happenings… events and interesting things to do here in our County.
besides, how can anyone read more than 20 people’s tweets or less??? if anyone of them tweets 5x/day… i have missed some that i saw RT and i know i am following them…. but i missed them b/c the ones that tweet the most stay on top of my list. in a sense i don’t get the whole twitter thing… but think it is neat to see what folks are doing or thinking about..
You’re right I just don’t want to know someone had a good movement after dinner. Those folks need a life, but I continue to tweet do to the valuable information in one place
Click my title to follow me
Rick
Interesting article.
However why does everything on the internet have to be a vehicle for business. Why should twitter have to be about your latest business idea, your business website, your latest business blog. Why can’t it just be a fun tool for ordinary people to communicate with each other about ordinary stuff.
There are tons of ways to push your business or network online without making twitter another business link tool.
M
Well, WebProNews is a business publication. Twitter can be both a fun tool for ordinary people to communicate, and it can benefit businesses in a variety of ways as well (not just marketing). I think if you look at pretty much any medium where people are communicating, you will find businesses taking advantage.
I just joined Twitter a few months back, and didn’t feel too good about using this forum to promote my business for the reasons you’ve stated here. Therefore my updates were minimal. I totally agree, it would be nice to just have real conversations with real people. As opposed to constantly promoting something. However, I recently logged-in and discovered the Twello Pages. I am thankful to have a “business” section for which I can do a little marketing of WheelchairsAbound.com. It seems they’ve thought this thing thru!
Heavens YES! I’ll “un-follow” someone in a heartbeat if I see over 20 Tweets in under 30 minutes. I love seeing what people have to say, but for someone to just come in and take over . . . well, that’s rude and they won’t be in my “follow” list for long.
If they had great nuggets of gold to share, it may be harder to do, but most people are just plain bored and tweet about things that just doesn’t make sense.
SO yes. I’d say excessive tweeting can be hazardous to your follow list.
The only time I unfollow is when there is an inordinate amount of profanity being posted.
I don’t need to see how many times one person can properly use the F-word in a sentence.
If you’re pumping out 20 to 30 tweets within a few hours, I’ll unfollow you because you’re hogging it up. There are others’ tweets I want to see. Two or three tweets a day is good. Please make it relevant to why I’m following in the first.
I am new to twitter, I started a few days ago, my twitter is davidlyons3000 , I have already unfollowed even respectable followings as they tweet too much. I want to use this for my business to keep my clients informed about my recruitment software as a service product, I intend on keeping it to 4 or 5 a day, afterall as someone once said, if you havn’t got anything good to say, dont say anything…
If your tweets seem to be an automatic feed, you’re histoire with me. If I want quote-of-the-day or joke-of-the-day I’ll find my own feed, thank you. There just isn’t all that much new material out there to feed, anyways.
Automatic “thank you” DM’s put you on my “watch list” – especially if you followed me first and I took the time to look you up and writing a nice personal DM after following you back.
Rarely do I follow somebody with no website or at least substantial timeline with content. If your location is “Universe”, or similar, I wish you well on your journey but I won’t be along.
YES – I generally un-follow excessive tweeters in other words.
Thanks for letting me vent!
I don’t need some robo message. I don’t need to hear about how I can gain 1000 followers a day. I don’t need to see the latest gimmick to game Twitter. I don’t need to learn how to make thousands in real estate. I don’t need to earn money from home.
MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME tweets are boring.