Ideas for Twittering better

When it comes to Twitter, things can get out of hand fast. Setting aside the hostile environment some people face when they participate in Twitter (which is setting aside a doozy!), it helps to have a few defense mechanism for what is appearing in your stream.

Most importantly, I evaluate each potential follow by the rule of “smart and happy”. Which doesn’t mean smart, angry people are automatically off the list. But, they have to show a really unique intelligence to get past my emotional filter. I made a graphic to boil down my “should follow?” decision:

[caption id=“attachment_3566” align=“aligncenter” width=“235”]How to decide to follow someone on Twitter. How to decide to follow someone on Twitter.[/caption]

Non-brilliant and happy? Probably in! Brilliant and happy? Probably in! Smart with a little bit of edge? Maybe. Just angry? No thanks.

Information overload, confirmation bias, and overwhelming negativity are also handy things to manage. I do a few things to keep my head above water and a not-too-dismal outlook on life:

  • Don't worry about keeping up. It's impossible. That's OK!
  • When I have stuff that needs doing, shut it down. The tweets will go on without me.
  • Follow people with a perspective different from your own.
  • Keep a private list for high signal-to-noise follows. Good friends and people whose ideas I don't want to miss end up here.
  • But follow a lot more people as a firehose of interesting and diverse voices.
  • When on vacation: don't even care about Twitter. Disconnect as much as possible.

I hope one of these ideas can help you Twitter better!

Adam Keys @therealadam