Month: February 2012

Did you know that how many people you follow versus how many people follow you is an important metric on Twitter? In fact it is so important that if you don’t follow enough people someone may not follow you back.

I’ve seen a few client accounts that we only post tweets to that have several hundred followers but the account only follows one or two other profiles. This wild imbalance may keep others from choosing to follow you.

Personally, I use an automated service to vet my own followers. Due to the size of my own business accounts onTwitter I now don’t follow every one who chooses to follows me. I have become more selective over time due to the size of my accounts and my Twitter klout.

Here’s what I check out via automated settings before I follow someone back on Twitter:

• Was there a tweet done in the last seven days? If you aren’t using Twitter frequently I won’t follow you back
• What is the percentage of followers versus followed. If you have a big difference, I won’t follow you back.
• If you don’t have a real profile photo and are using a generic image or no image at all, I won’t follow you back.
• Is your profile photo showing an image in a bikini? I won’t follow you back.

These are just a few things that I look for before adding an auto-follow on Twitter. Additionally, I will periodically purge my accounts of people who I follow but who do not follow me back. Although I can’t perform an unfollow as an automated action as I did before, I do purge my account periodically.

All these actions help to keep a Twitter account in balance and fairly spam and porn free. I consider these actions just a part of good Twitter account management. There are a number of free and paid tools to use for these actions, but that’s another blog post and one I’ll save for next week!

Who uses Twitter is changing rapidly. It’s no longer marketing people between the ages of 35 and 55, rather now a group of potential consumers for your products and services with money to spend.

Here are a few nuggets to consider from all Internet users:

15% of Twitter users have household incomes of over $75,000.

18% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 to 29 years old

14% of Twitter users are between 30 to 49 years old.

15% of Twitter users have a college degree or higher.

13% of all online adults report that they have used Twitter

You can read all the demographics and review trends in this very interesting report.

The bottom-line is that Twitter is a great way to reach a very important buying market. It’s a place where your business needs to be and can connect with potential customers. If you’re not sure how to get started with Twitter please make sure to check out our Twitter Management services.

I’ve been using Twitter since it became available, but until just this last month, my kids were not interested in trying out Twitter. About three months ago my 22 year old son opened a Twitter account and then just this past week two of my teens opened accounts. What I find interesting is that Twitter is expanding its popularity into a wider demographic.

I asked my kids why Twitter? All three responded that they were tired of Facebook and tired of large follower bases. They wanted to connect with a smaller group of people who meant more to them. Interesting! I am not sure how long this trend will continue, but for kids on Twitter I recommend that parents make sure that they do not set their profiles up as public.

By default a Twitter profile will be open. That means that anyone can follow your child and that anything your kid tweets is public. Shutting down a public profile to a protected profile simply requires one click action, but many kids simply don’t think of this on set up.

If you’re not sure if your kid is tweeting, make sure to ask. In fact, my teens tell me that many of their friends are not allowed to be on Twitter or for that matter Facebook and most of these kids do have accounts, but under assumed names; hiding usage from parents. I prefer the opposite approach: allowing interaction on social networks but with private settings and my confirmation of such. For my teens, my other rule is that I have to be allowed to be a fan or follower. This allows me to monitor my teens activity and who follows and corresponds with them.

I routinely chat with my kids about not sharing school names and locations except to people they really know online. That means a student in their school, not just someone they met online or play a game with online. As a parent I feel that it is important to help my kids have fun online, but within secure limits. Why don’t you take a moment and let me know what you do with your teens online.