In a neurotic, self-aggrandizing experiment, I quietly took a week away from my PERSONAL Twitter account to see if anybody noticed.To the best of my knowledge, nobody did. HMMPH!
No, this wasn't (completely) to see if anybody was hanging on the edge of the keyboard pining for my next post. It was more to quantify why exactly I'm using Twitter for a personal account.
Originally, I opened my personal Twitter account simply to feed into my personal home page (another form of self-aggrandizing to be examined at a later date). It was just a simple update that was added to my webpage (woodysworldtv.com). From there, I started hob-knobbing with some of the who's who of social media, including Geoff Livingston, Lizz Strauss, Paul Chaney, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis.
Networking with that crowd was a great learning experience. They were great source of what's happening and what's coming in social media (and still are). But, by interacting with that crew, I was losing the personal contacts that I was simply updating about my life (and lunch). Then the "tweetup" aspect came about where you start interacting with people locally. Pittsburgh has quite an active Twitter scene. But, with each evolution, my Twitter account drug along more baggage.
Basically, my personal Twitter account became a catch-all for social media activity that fell beyond the scope of my Twitter professional brand accounts. As my personal Twitter personal account continued to evolve (or devolve), it became part chat, part learning, part networking, and part fishing for comments and followers--leading up to a lot of noise and time with little-to-no purpose.
Once you hit that level of crowd (1000+ followers), how much SOCIAL interaction is it? If you're chatting with one, it's noise to 999 others. If you're posting on public relations, it's noise to the "chatters." If you're chatting, it's noise to the social media crowd.
And, if you're playing by the rules, being social and following those people in return, how much noise do you have to sort through to find useful information to you? With the help of tools like TweetDeck, I was able to compartmentalize "groups" into categories, but the root problem remained.
If you are trying to do to much with a single account, you run the risk of loosing or boring people across the board that lie beyond the scope of a given topic.
What's the answer? Do you split your account into several accounts to represent every aspect of your personality or interest? My single-purpose, on-scope professional Twitter accounts are quite successful. But, wow, I've seen people that split their social identities between professional and personal interests. Ultimately one (or more) of those accounts end up being neglected or ignored. Not to mention, that's a whole heck of a lot of effort for what return?
I've networked. I've made contacts. But, I now interact with most of those people on Facebook or Friendfeed (in the case of social media types)--away from the noise. So, do you keep going? Do you keep shouting out in the crowded malls and streets simply fishing for a RT or response? Or, do you focus on your core, stick to your guns, quit pandering to a crowd hoping for an audience?
The short story is that I was putting a heck of a lot of time into having an untargeted, catch-all, personal presence. Stepping away, is it worth the investment of time? I'm not sure. I'm an information junkie. I love all the information that pours in. And, the reporter in me loves to share information. But, when the account is scatterd all over the place like my mind, is it serving any value? Are you reaching anybody? Is there any value? I'm not sure there is. But, the experiment continues...
