How to Survive Tweet Overload
Mount Umunhum of the Santa Cruz Mountain Range
A few times a week I hike the trails of Quicksilver from sea level to about 1,000 feet altitude. The hills are at the base of Mount Umunhum in San Jose, California and offer spectacular views of south San Jose. The 1,000 foot ascent offers a great workout and there is a delicious relief when I make that last turn and start heading to the backside of the ridge to enjoy a nice downhill relief.
Reviewing Twitter each morning has become an uphill hike with no cardiovascular benefits.
I have to be honest and admit that I’m in Twitter overload. The more followers, the more tweets. I feel compelled to keep up. I am one of those who looks at email regularly and likes to keep a “clean” inbox. With Twitter, that is just not possible, is it?
Add your business Tweets campaigns and accounts and you could spend your entire day managing the Twitter posts and conversations. This phenomenon did not happen with email because no one with a brain will send you 15 emails a day. Tweets? Send one an hour!
I believe that we are getting closer to a time when the random, “I’m contemplating my navel” Tweet will go away. We’re seeing alot of emphasis on business standards for social media and I believe many of them are going to help to reign in the quality and the quantity. I have begun unfollowing anyone who sends me too many unprofessional tweets. This has focused my sea of tweets to a quality level that I like.
Here’s a business Twitter policy I can get behind:
Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent your company and your personal brand well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit “update.”
Simple, to the point and effective.
Now, if you want to sort your Tweets, download the free TweetDeck. I recommend a great source for online video TweetDeck training by Traci Knoppe. She shows you through a demo how to organize your Tweets. I like Traci’s down to earth approach and easy to follow instruction.
