I miss reading and commenting on blogs. Last summer and into the fall, I used to it every day, an hour here or there. I enjoyed the commenting I did on people’s blogs, and I presume they enjoyed the reciprocal commenting back my way.
But you know what happened? Twitter got in the way. I twittered incessantly over the winter. It took over my productivity and time management reserved for blog reading and commenting.
While I continued to read and comment on this and that blog, it was nothing to the breadth I previously did. The shift also occured here on my blog, as there were less blog posts to reference when introducing new material.
So, it’s time to make another strategic change to affect both the blogs in my RSS reader and the people I’m (re)following on Twitter.
To help explain why, I point you to one of my favorite blog posts written nearly a year ago by Penelope Trunk about unmashing the mashable:
Each of us is multi-faceted. With a selection of media to choose from, we can express different parts of ourselves in different ways.
It’s clear to me that blogging is best for expressing big ideas. If you can’t convey new ideas on your blog, then you probably won’t get a lot of traffic. And most blogs that do well have a single theme and the audience can depend on the theme dictating the content of the blog. But Twitter is not good for fleshed-out ideas. I see people using Twitter for a lot of stuff, but not for fleshed-out ideas. And Flickr is good for expressing passion. Way better than, say, Twitter.
I used to read and comment on lots of blogs written by prolific writers with names like David Bradley, David Mullen, Mack Collier, Beth Harte, Max Gladwell, Writer Dad, and everyone in between.
Not lately.
I miss their blogs. I miss them. While it’s true I follow most of them on Twitter, I don’t gain the same value to learn and share from.
In recent days, watching the Twitter stream of the relative few people I follow, I saw a lot of chit-chat and haphazard replies. There’s nothing wrong with chit-chat, per se, but some people socialize on Twitter far more than others. I’d rather read people’s thoughts about social tools and technologies, perspectives on media relations and product marketing and journalism, and insights into narrowing the digital gap and improving civic engagement.
So, this is what I’m going to do: In the coming days, I’ll once again unfollow a large segment of the people I’m following; people I’m following solely because I enjoy their blogging perspectives, and I’ll focus on their blogs, not their tweets. I’ll unmash the mashable, following and engaging with certain people in a manner that makes most sense to me.
I’ll add new people to my Twitter stream, whether folks who don’t blog or so-called thought leaders in this industry or that, people I can learn from who I don’t really know. I’ll also use Twitter less for chit-chat and more for networking. Yes, both are intertwined but it’s harder to chit-chat without having a relationship so I will start fresh with many people.
I will also trim my RSS feed reader big time. Right now, I’m following over 100 blogs. Way too many; and a good 40+ I haven’t read in several weeks. I’ll say goodbye to those blogs and maybe follow some new blogs, gain a new perspective into people, places, and concepts I never knew existed.
Chalk it up to a new strategy to emerge from the past and bring balance to blogging and tweeting. Along the way, I’ll share my strategies and tips with you, lessons learned, and case studies to take away.
There is no correct way to blog and no correct way to tweet. Here’s to exploring the brave new world of the intertubes together.
Related posts:
- How to Find One New Blog to Read Today
- Why Joining 38,943 People is Bad
- How Readtwit Improves Twitter Productivity
Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
978-558-0008
ConvoTrack
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 25 comments }
You express well the conflicts I face with quality time management. I want to keep up a credible blog with solid, reader friendly material and also maintain some Twitter contact. It’s pretty easy to develop a following on Twitter but it’s too time consuming to develop relationships. Your strategic decisions echo mine. Thanks.
Paul C´s last blog post..My Second 500 and a Give Away
No relationship comes easy, and I’d argue if your relationship developments takes too little time it may not last. My point is if I’d rather have a relationship with a blogger, then keep it to the blog (or extend it to Facebook or such) and not necessarily follow the person on Twitter.
It’s a learning process for me.
That’s exactly how I feel. Relationships developed through quality blog interaction beats Twitter chatter.
Paul C´s last blog post..Writing: the agony and ecstacy
Ari, I’m wrestling with the same issues. I love Twitter for the people I meet and interact with, and the ability to connect personally with people whose work I respect. But I find so many times a person I haven’t tweeted in a few weeks will pop into my mind and I’ll miss our connection, like an old friend. But to re-engage means eventually I’ll lose time for someone else. The value of Twitter is in the authenticity and that means having real relationships. But it’s not always easy to be the consistently engaging person in social media that you would normally be in person. Some days I feel like I’ve got to become a master juggler. As if I wasn’t already!
For any of us who have so much going on with clients, PLUS blogging, blog reading, commenting, social media research, and Twitter interaction things start to really get out of hand. I’m crossing my fingers for an aggregator that helps to stitch it all together and allow for better time management while not having to eliminate blogs from RSS readers or go weeks without connecting with someone you value.
Michelle Tripp´s last blog post..Old Media Falling Into The “Digeration Gap”
When you consider most blogs have Twitter links, you’ll be reminded that way. Also, like I replied to Paul above, there are other social networking sites than Twitter. Not to mention there are people who don’t tweet. So, why focus on Twitter?
Awesome points here. I remember when I first started using social media to generate business connections, I’d read (I mean real read) people’s blogs and comment whe moved to.
That approach was way more effective for creating lasting business relationships than using Twitter alone (like I sometimes fall into).
I’ve subscribed to “business-critical” blogs via email now. Maybe I should go back to using a reader for blogs that non- “business-critical…
Social media strategy has so much time management in it, doesn’t it?
John Haydon´s last blog post..Dogs are cute when they beg – you’re not
I first stumbled onto your blog, John, via another. Maybe a blog link or a reference blockquote or something. I followed your blog for some time, then unfollowed. (I tend to use “follow” for blogs and RSS, not “subscribe” which is too old-schoolish.) Then, some tweets by others pointed me to your blog again… so I have since refollowed your blog, despite not following you on Twitter. And, for me, John, I’d rather keep it that way: read your blog, comment when inspired, retweet to your posts as well, etc. But to follow you on Twitter when we’re having a relationship right here right now? I fail to see the point.
This reminds me of a girlfriend I had years ago. We first met when she came to one of my shows (TOAD in Cambridge, MA) and we started dating. After a while, she stopped coming to my shows because she always heard me playing tunes in our kitchen.
John Haydon´s last blog post..Dogs are cute when they beg – you’re not
I couldn’t keep up with my RSS feeds even before I joined Pownce, Twitter, etc. Sometimes I think I need to schedule activities such as blog commenting just to make sure they get done. While I often comment in response to a Tweet (such as now), I think there are certain benefits to following your blogging niche more regularly, not only when bloggers Tweet a new post.
Aside from issues of time management though, I think you’re touching here on something crucial to social media, which is the inter-connectedness of it all. If Twitter were only conversations without links to news articles and blog entries it wouldn’t be nearly as valuable as it is. Often our Tweets are the appetizer that leads us to the main course – a blog entry. It’s the way these services combine that helps to urge the information along while forging personal connections.
I first met you because of Pownce, where I met David Bradley. I then followed him on Twitter, then (if I recall correctly) followed a link on one of his Tweets to your blog. We got to know each other through blog comments and e-mail where there was more room for in-depth discussion, yet the connection began with social media.
Your approach, to focus on bloggers sounds like a good way to engender more such connections. I look forward to seeing how it works out.
Also, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, I think it’s great the way you are sharing your experiments here. I hate the term “transparency” because it’s often wielded by businesses who are anything but transparent, but what you’re doing here really is what that concept is about. It’s a great way for all of us to learn more about what works and what doesn’t and for your readers to understand how and why you approach things in a certain way.
Cheers,
-Heidi
Heidi Cool´s last blog post..Say what you mean—don’t let jargon drive your visitors away.
Often our Tweets are the appetizer that leads us to the main course – a blog entry.
Yet the more people you “follow” on Twitter implies the more appetizers you are potentially tempted to eat. By focusing on search queries and RTs–and other blogs–to find those appetizers, you can use Twitter to network and collaborate more and chit-chat less.
Thanks for reminding me about your being David Bradley’s groupie.
I’ve become very protective of the time I spend reading and commenting on blogs. For years I never bothered to comment, but when I finally started I realized it helped me process the ideas and find the gems much more readily. Twitter is fun – for me it kind of gives a real-time component to friendships/networking, but not necessarily very intellectually stimulating. And without the ability to break groups apart via tweetdeck, I’m not sure I would be able to handle the noise at all. Finally, I’m not sure I can imagine the firehose your RSS feeder must look like. I’m in the mood for getting ideas but have very limited time so keeping the RSS feeder very trim is a must. After a few weeks of ’sampling’ a new feed, if it hasn’t sparked in some way it gets dropped and thrown in the old favorites folder for the occasional gander.
Fred H Schlegel´s last blog post..Physics, Ideation, Community & Entanglement
Ponder this one, Fred: If TweetDeck and comparable “grouping” clients were not available, and you could only use twitter.com (like you use facebook.com, linkedin.com, etc.), would your perspective be the same?
In recent days, I’ve been using TweetDeck less and twitter.com more and it’s a completely different experience. The number of people I follow is irrelevant. I focus much better and my time management is more productive on the website than with the client, and I’m guessing one possible explanation is I’m seeing less vertical columns–leading to the increased focus.
As far as RSS feeds, earlier today I created a limbo folder in Google reader and moved all the feeds, minus 20 or so I’ve commented on in the past week, to the limbo area. As I read blogs, gain insights, and/or comment, I’ll shift them from limbo to the regular folder. After x period of time and no shift occurs, I’ll remove the feed(s). That ought to work for now. New blog feeds I find will also go into the limbo…or potentially into a transitory folder while I learn more about the blog(ger).
But I don’t think I need to track the same blogs and tweets just because one has a blog and a twitter account.
Neat idea on the ‘limbo’ folder. I may copy that.
I think the key thing that would change is I would become a much more aggressive un-follower. Some folks are very interesting on Twitter, but others are so into self promotion, get-rich-quick or follow-me that I’m afraid the interesting ones would be buried.
Right now my ‘all friends’ feed is kind of acting like your limbo folder – they looked interesting when I followed and now they get checked every now and then. Catch my eye and it moves to a more closely watched column.
It ’tis clunky though, so maybe a pruning is in order. Doesn’t change my opinion of how useful commenting is to my thought process.
Fred H Schlegel´s last blog post..Physics, Ideation, Community & Entanglement
Ari,
Jumping in here again.
I ditched Google Reader a few months ago because it got out of control. After reading this (and seeing your tweets on the limbo group), I cleaned out my reader except for the “must read” blogs and a “Blogs To Test” folder.
Wait. Something just struck me: I would have missed out on some context if I wasn’t also following you on Twitter.
Hmmm….
John Haydon´s last blog post..Dogs are cute when they beg – you’re not
Then unfollow me on Twitter and watch from FriendFeed.
Good point!
John Haydon´s last blog post..Dogs are cute when they beg – you’re not
Interesting experiment. It makes sense to me rationally. Let us know how the experiment goes!
I enjoy following people on Twitter whose blogs I read because I get to see a different side of them, which makes for a stronger connection. For example, I love reading Amber Naslund’s blog. But the reason I know she can empathize with my crazy days as a parent is because of Twitter and the chats about kids we’ve had there.
On another note, thanks for the incredibly kind adjectives in front of my name up there and for including me alongside the names of some very talented people whom I respect a lot. You’ve made my day.
David Mullen´s last blog post..The Worst Thing About PR
My pleasure for the adjectives, David. Glad you’re watching out and caring, which is a trait some of your peers aren’t or don’t.
The irony of your mention of Amber is I also enjoy reading and commenting on Amber Naslund’s blog. Yet, it is the very rationalization above that I unfollowed Amber on Twitter moments before reading and replying to your comment here. Maybe I’ll refollow her later, but I’ll definitely stick with her blog; because I’m not a parent so that babble is meaningless to me.
The comments on this post are great, (which I think says a lot about the post). I am not sure that we need to have one system for how we deal with streams of ideas. Maybe mixing things up is okay as long as we always feel like we have new ideas coming our way.
The other thing I’m thinking is that maybe I can track my twitter and blogging by my menstrual cycle. I have a low attention span and high need to get up from my desk and eat a lot of salt when I have PMS, so I use twitter. I can engage for a second, stop. Then restart. And it starts to sort of look productive is I’m on twitter.
I always end up writing my funniest blog posts when I’m ovulating, (which I’m convinced is related to men liking women when they laugh more, so I am subconsciously doing that.) So I pay more attention to the blogosphere when I’m ovulating.
Oh. Wait. Maybe I could test my hypothesis by tracking blogosphere traffic in relation to moon cycles.
Anyway, my point is that I’ve found that different streams of info are good at different times in my week/month/life. And that seems right. And I like hearing how this works out for other people as well. So thanks for the fun discussion.
Penelope
Penelope Trunk´s last blog post..Tips for coping when your startup is out of cash
Penelope,
You raise a humorous, but interesting point. In the end, we’re all human – with ups and downs, great ideas and bad ideas.
Guest -> Act -> Assess -> Act again -> Do something stupid -> Find out it was stupid -> Start over again.
John
John Haydon´s last blog post..Brian Halligan Speaks At The Inbound Marketing Summit
I was about to write something that I like what you suggest and know what you’re talking about…but…I don’t ovulate and don’t have such cycles. The moon, I can go by and track how blogging or twittering relates to eclipses.
Thanks for sharing your, uhh, perspective!
Haha. I totally agree: http://twitter.com/tmonhollon/status/1789240991
In fact, this is one of the reasons I resisted Twitter for so long. But I’ve been feeling a lot lately that I miss the depth and conversation that was such a part of the blogging experience itself when I first started… but to be fair, I comment on blogs a lot less than I did before. Sure, it’s lovely to have hundreds of people click on a link to your blog from Twitter, and to have people RT your posts, that’s definitely a “high five,” but I also crave that conversation, that vetting, that collaborative thought process that posting more and commenting more brought. So to get it back there, first, I have to change my own habits. May not take the same approach you’re using, but thanks for the motivation to change!
Tiffany´s last blog post..What the Personal Branding Debate Can Teach Us about PR, Social Media & Ourselves
I think I’m the opposite… I pay more attention to people’s blogs more than their Twitters, although I usually always reply to those who directly mention me. I spend less time on Twitter, and more time commenting, and I think that is much more valuable in learning more about my readers, and the things that everyone is interested in.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Fetching Friday – Resources, #FollowFriday, WordPress Security, and Amazing Animations
I couldn’t agree more. Twitter has changed everything about the way I consume information and interact with my online fellowship. What I need to do is just what you’re suggesting – take the time to clean out my reader. What happens now is that I see hundreds of unread items and feel like they are going to eat me, so I just stay away and figure I’ll stick to Twitter. This isn’t really fair to those writers who are hungry to have their content read, especially when it’s worthy. Truth is, there just aren’t enough minutes in the day. Really well articulated, Ari. Thanks.
Writer Dad´s last blog post..Why LOST is the Best Television Show Ever
Ari, I personally feel that twitter is slowly eating up the micro-blogging culture. I find it little uncomfortable with tweets and re tweets. On the other hand blogging makes us feel so good and it is like virtually staying in touch with your peers. Perhaps i am not accustomed completely to the entire tweeting process.
New from Girish@Car Hire New Zealand: Rugby World Cup Car Rentals
Comments on this entry are closed.