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Good Bye Twitter Followers!

I was prepared to begin this story with a weepy farewell to my fellow Twitter followers, whom I’ve become attached to over the past 6 years, since I created my Twitter account in August 2008.

Articles like Twitter Exec Hints That Your Timeline May Soon Be Filtered, Just Like on Facebook by Matthew Ingram and The New Twitter Could Be Curated By Twitter, by Ellis Hamburger, suggest that Twitter is going the way of Facebook.

What a sad, sad day.

And it all happened around the time Joan Rivers passed away. She was one of my favorite comediennes, always so honest and unfiltered. . . like my Twitter feed.

For those of us who use Twitter regularly, we understand that Twitter offers a way of finding almost any type of conversation going on at any time of day or night based on keyword, location, people with certain qualities, hobbies, etc.

 

How My Twitter Addiction Helped My Business

When Napa Valley experienced an earthquake a few weeks ago, my husband and I were jolted awake in the middle of the night.

I immediately grabbed my phone and visited Twitter to see what happened – and immediately found the answer!

When I first found Twitter, I became instantly addicted.

The people that would connect with me was unreal. At the time, I was President of Melanie’s Fine Foods, a gourmet food company that produced the Big Acres Brand Gourmet Sauces & Rubs.

I quickly learned that Twitter would help me get the word out about our brands.

Editors, bloggers, even customers, connected and requested samples, order forms, etc.

Business rose to a whole new level.

The best part about all this activity was that it was FUN!

I could sit and tweet about ingredients, recipes, my favorite kitchen gadgets (a personal addiction), the gourmet food industry, the food show I was watching at the time . . . and people would immediately engage.

One of my biggest coups was the rogue customer who would never return my phone calls.

We talked on Twitter; he asked for an updated price list and BOOM! A new order arrived in my Inbox. Months of frustrating unreturned phone calls were suddenly reconciled in a single order.

 

What My Twitter Addiction Led To Next

Funny thing. . . one day, my husband caught me sitting in our living room, entrenched in full-on Twitter banter and he said, “If you’re going to do all that tweeting all the time, perhaps you should find a way to make money doing it.”

He’s a brilliant guy. . . My Twitter addiction eventually led me to sell the food business and to start Roaring Pajamas where I would help businesses grow their online presence via social media and search engine optimization.

Anyway, imagine my disappointment and dismay at hearing the news that Twitter may filter feeds so people will no longer see messages from everything they follow.

 

Or Is Twitter Not Changing?

Fortunately, another article arrived on the scene that may – or may not – have set my mind at ease.

Read No, a ‘Facebook-style filter’ isn’t coming to Twitter — yet.

In this article, Eric Geller of The Daily Dot, says that Twitter CTO Anthony Noto pointed to the problem of important content disappearing quickly.

And because of this problem, Noto said that Twitter might resurface tweets from people who the user already follows, if the company deems those tweets important.

How that would work is anybody’s guess.

But Geller says that Noto did not suggest that Twitter would start filtering or curating timelines.

So, for now, perhaps my favorite social media profile of choice is safe – or not. Who knows.

What do you think?

 

Related article

• The Number One Mistake Everybody Makes On Twitter (SLIDESHOW) (baybusinesshelp.com)