I wrote about the power of “The Network” in Personal Learning Network Thoughts. I would say that Twitter and my blog are the most important tools to the puzzle that make up my PLN.
It takes time and effort to build, grow, maintain and nurture my PLN. I get out of it what I put in it. The PEOPLE who make up my network are “IT”.
People Make Up the Puzzle of my Network
Twitter, especially, illustrates this concept for me. The people who constitute my Twitter network are like pieces of a puzzle. I carefully select them. They have to “fit” just right to help complete the whole picture I am trying to create. They are contributing to my “big” picture. Each puzzle piece has a different “view”, that individually might be random and too detailed to see where it might belong.
The reason for writing this post, is to make one part of creating and growing my PLN transparent. Maybe it will be insightful to some, helpful or useless to others as they are trying to grow their own network or become part of someone else’s. There are many different strategies regarding the Twitter following/not following issue (Always remember the “personal” part in PLN) For a different approach, check out Alan Levine’s “My (backwards) Twitter Follow Strategy“.
Under my Twitter settings, I checked off the “E-mail when someone starts following me” box.
Twitter Settings
I do check every new Twitter follower notification I receive!
On one hand, I want to weed out any “weird” followers, like p*rn stars/sites or the one who only followed women with the same first name as mine and on the other hand, I want to take the opportunity to check my new follower out to determine if they could be a new addition to my learning network.
My Personal Learning Network, well, is personal. I get to determine who I want to be part of it and who will only add “chatter” that does not interest me. My Twitter network is made up of people who are the puzzle pieces that contribute to my area of passions, interests in teaching & learning in a multilingual, multicultural, technology rich, practical, theoretical, world of connected educators. I especially look to have puzzle pieces that are diverse (languages, countries of residence, subject areas, positions, primary/secondary/terciary) yet pretty homogeneous (educators, third culture kids, globally oriented)
One of three things will happen after I check their Twitter page out:
- I will follow them back
- I will not follow them back
- I will block them to follow my updates
Here are some of the criteria I use to determine if which of the above action I will follow. I will use examples from some of the new follower- notifications I received in the last few days.
Looking at Profile Information, Tweets and Followers
Here are some of the first things, I check as soon as I am on a new follower’s Twitter page:
- Name, profile and bio description
- How many people are already following him?
- The last ~10 tweets they posted
This new follower gives me NO information who they are and how they would contribute to my learning. Since there is no link to a blog or other site for further information, nor do I know if he/she is part of the educational world, marketing group or dating service , I go ahead and block him from my updates.
Profile, Tweets, Name
The above new follower also neglected to add his name and a profile description. It just happened to make a connection with his username and remembered that he had taken the time to comment on a blog post of mine the day earlier, where he did leave the URL to his teaching blog. Because I liked what I saw there, IÂ started following Keith on Twitter, although he neglected to add much information about him that would have enticed me otherwise to add him.
Other people they follow
Again, another new follower who did not add any bio description or a link to a blog or site for further information. I am looking at the people he/she is following and am recognizing various edu-tweeters who are already in my network too. I am also glancing over to the last few tweets and am seeing that he/she mentions that “Twitter is blocked at school”. So, it is a pretty safe guess that he/she is somehow education – related. Yet, not enough information… I don’t add his/her to my network, but do not block either.
Link to Blog or Website
There is no bio description of this new Twitter follower,but there is a link to a website. The domain already gives it away…. something with marketing… I also see that they are following ISTE and K12Online Conference, so he must have some interest in education, but am not following back.
Bio Description
This new follower did a nice job with their name, location, site link and bio definition. I learn that they live in Portugal, he is a German and English teacher and interested in ICT. He writes in English and Portuguese. Great! That decision was easy and I am following him back.
Last 10 Tweets
Again, am very happy with the profile information left by this new follower. Am also checking out the last few tweets and like what I see: there are RT (re-tweets), directly addressing someone else (@username) and also other contributions that are interesting to me. She is from Brazil, which contributes to my global network, so I start following her as well.
So, now you have seen a little insight into my thoughts who I add or block in my PLN.
If you are trying to grow your Twitter follower base, you might want to keep these criteria in mind if you want to be followed back.
- Fill out your profile information
- Name
- Location
- Link to your blog, website or linked in page
- Bio description with your areas of interests
- Have some interesting tweets posted yourself BEFORE your start following hundreds of people.
- RT interesting tweets from others.
- Directly address someone’s tweet by replying with @username
- Share what you are learning or working on
- Make sure that you don’t have “p*rn” stars or sites that appear in YOUR “following” list.
- Leave comments on blogs and sign with your Twitter username
What are some of your criteria to decide if you are following back or blocking a new follower? Can you contribute tips and advice to Twitter newbies who want to grow their follower list? Please share.
Good points Silvia. I had not cared too much about controlling who followed me until recently as spammers have really began exploiting the twitterverse. Now, I also have notices emailed to me citing my new followers. And even though I do not follow them, I do block many for the reasons that you cite above: mostly porn (or suspiciously adult-related), and those with underdeveloped twitter accounts (profiles, etc.).
The old saying that “birds of a feather flock together” may be of some importance here. I don’t want to be associated with these nefarious types even though I don’t participate with them actively. On the other hand, I try to give the benefit of the doubt wherever I can, since I also know from experience that some of the best contributions within my PLN are from outside of my “personal” election. The fringe networkers and loosely connected disciplines are where some of the most creative and fresh ideas come from. So there is a balancing act when determining my PLN. I’d rather error on the side of ambiguity at first (if undecided) and then block later if necessary. This ensures that I don’t live inside of a closed echo chamber of networkers bouncing the same ideas and agreeing with each other due to popularity, status, etc.
Thanks for sharing this post … I am sure it will help many newbies and seasoned by frustrated twits.
Frank, The Divergent Learner
An additional point … with Twitter’s new “Lists” feature you can create list called “watchlist” or something similar and add those that are newly following you to easily monitor and determine at a later date if you want to follow them too, or block them for eternity. There is a common misunderstanding that one must follow someone to add them to a list. Not true, you can list any user without also following them. So try this tip to let a little bit of “controlled” ambiguity and risk taking grow (diverge) your PLN and free oneself from the limitations of the echo chamber and converging too early (old school mentality).
Frank, The Divergent Learner
@divergentlearner
Frank, I like your idea of creating a new list for new additions to Twitterers you follow. That seems to organize it a little.
Great post. Thank you for taking the time to write it and share. I am new to twitter myself, but I learned early on to take a “strategic” approach–though I haven’t analyzed it in as much detail as you. I can see already, though, how valuable this PLN I’m building can be.
Every time I log in to Twitter of my Tweetdeck, I’m almost overwhelmed with all the great links and new learning and discussions going on. I can only imagine what I’m missing when I’m not taking part. The next thing I have to figure out is how to manage this new stream of information flowing past (or through) me.
Thanks for this post. Using PLN is really exciting, but it’s hard to explain to my colleagues. This post will help.
Chris
@Chris
It is overwhelming! Check out Jeff Utecht’s post about the Stages of PLN Adoption. He outlines different stages including the feeling of having to “get it all” and the perspective and balance, that you can’t be on 24/7 and that it is ok to not be on all the time and “miss” the great conversation and resources that are going on when you are not. That is just the nature of the beast.
Thanks for the great post! As a relative Twitter newbie, your examples are extremely helpful, especially with the added graphics. I agree with the value of a personal network and see you do a lot of work to protect yours! Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Twitter @piersoncci
Very sound advice!!! I’m a newbie myself and I’ve been following similar principles since starting to use twitter more and have started to build up a network of education professionals with similar interests, different ideas, useful links and discussions. It’s really important to have some ideas about being selective or you could easily end up with information overload! I already have loads of new ideas to try out with my class, have received support with an essay and a policy-writing session, have shared discussions with people from UK, US, Germany, Argentina… people who I have checked out their credentials to some extent – though it is often their tweets that prove their credibility. I’d thoroughly recommend a book by Alan November “Web Literacy for Educators” for anyone who is feeling swamped by all this stuff.
Finally, I knew I’d been teaching my own kids well about e-safety when my 14 yr old wanted to check what I knew about all my new contacts in the same way I check out her facebook/msn contacts! I would add the advice to make sure we stay safe by not sharing too much private stuff
@janwebb21
I have had to explain (and defend) to my own teenager children the reasoning behind my PLN. I even traveled around the world to meet some of them f2f. It is important to model to them that we do take care and are still selective who we choose to share certain information with.
Veri interessant.
@jvtorres
I saw a link to your blog post from someone in my PLN. This pretty much exactly how I decide whether or not to follow someone back on twitter. Great post! By the way, I added you after seeing this! @janellewilson
Very useful post specially to the new people like me in twitter. I must say that I acted like you said most unconsciously at first. In a second stage I started to realize the power of this tool and I started being selective but it doesn’t mean that I ignore people because they may like different topics than mine but it means that nowadays with all this strong facility to connect to everyone and everywhere I really need to be selective. I am having a great experience in using twitter and I have a great PNL there and I’m trying strongly to keep in touch with them. Why? Because I do follow them and I’m really interested in what they are talking about. I’m not there to waste time or to try to be famous but to share, to learn, to discuss different points of view. So it doesn’t matter – in my case – the number of followers that I have or the number of people that I follow – but the quality, the interests, the activities of these people. I keep in the internet the same rule as a face-to-face interaction. I mean, I will interact, keep in touch and “connect†with people I really like and appreciate because my PLN is really important to me. I do believe that everybody has something to learn from each other and the process of learning is continuous, a process that is never finished… and the best way to learn is to teach someone else and in twitter we have this opportunity/possibility. We sometimes are/act like the “big squirrels” and sometimes the “little ones” as in this video. This video shows exactly what my PLN means to me.
@Giselda Thank you for sharing the Squirrel video clip. Very cute and a great illustration for the “help” a PLN can provide and the role we play in somebody else’s PLN. I agree to a certain degree that it does not matter the number of followers one has, at least not for fame reasons… but I am learning that I would not be able to do certain things if I did not have a larger follower group. I am deeply grateful for the willingness to be part of it.
Thank you for the insight into Twitter! I am a new user and have found the amount of new information that must be learned to utilize Twitter overwhelming at the beginning. Finding the lists feature helped me to broaden my network and find interesting content from other like-minded individuals. I am looking forward to your tweets, and thank you for following in return! @StarrMatica
@StarrMatica @jvtorres @Janellewilson @piersoncci
Welcome to Twitter and to my network.
Interesting article. I think bios are the most important part of Twitter accounts. It needs to be interesting and to the point. I’m not very keen on comedy bios as they don’t tell me anything!
Thanks
Stuart
@stuart
I agree with you the bio is one of the most important parts. I have run across several of the “comedy” bios too. I would encourage everyone to at least do a hybrid bio, if they feel the need to show their humor 🙂
I began following you today after following a link from someone in my PLN. I was a little taken aback when I followed your Twitter link to this blog a few hours later and found a screenshot of my Twitter page included as a bad example. Your comments assume that I WANT to be followed and that I’ve done a poor job of attracting followers. At the risk of sounding rude, I really don’t care if anyone follows me. To be honest, I rarely Tweet comments on ANY topic (25 total in 6 months). This may or may not change in the future. I began following people in education who can enlighten me or otherwise benefit me professionally. I have soaked up their advice, their blogs, their links, and have been excited about all I have learned. They have made me think in new ways and have given me an enormous amount of knowledge and information. I have occasionally responded to their questions or commented on their Tweets. At the present, I choose not to chatter about insignificant subjects. If I have something to offer, I won’t hesitate to share. However, in all honesty, following me would be a waste of your time because I rarely say anything. Some may wear their number of followers as a badge of honor or prestige, but others of us have no interests along those lines. I deliberately limit the amount of personal or biographical information I choose to publish. I have reasons for this that I will not explain. However, I would have been happy to answer questions if you had asked before posting this.
@Jo
I did not intend to offend you by including you as an example. It was also NOT intended to be a “bad” example. It was simply an example of MY criteria of deciding if I follow or don’t follow someone. You clearly state in your comment that
The title of my post was “So, you want to be followed” The post was directed towards people who are trying to grow their PLN.
Your approach to Twitter by favoring the “following others” instead of “being followed” is a perfectly fine and valid one. You said:
You will get out of your PLN what you put in…and that is personal… different for everyone.
Please accept my apologies again, If I have offended you with my approach.
Thanks for the informative post. I’m the NO information Twitter guy in your post and have since updated my profile @k_ferrell – thanks for the push. I’m not new to Twitter, but I’m one of those reluctant ones – joined a few years ago, but didn’t make the time to build my PLN and dropped. I’m on winter break now and I’m catching up on my reading and am amazed at how about 85% of posts I read mention Twitter and how it’s really been a cornerstone in their PLNs. So, now I’m renewing my Tweffort and jumping in once again.
@Keith
I am glad that you are giving Twitter another try. I can only join in with the others about Twitter playing a major role (cornerstone) in the development of a PLN. Building, nurturing and growing a PLN takes time, effort and perseverance. Looking forward to your contributions.
I really appreciated your criteria at the bottom of the article. I certainly need to start retweeting articles. It is something I haven’t started doing yet.
@studymentor
@studymentor
Retweeting fulfills several roles in my opinion:
Awesome visuals. I wrote about something similar lately as I’ve been bringing educators into Twitter and helping them build their PLNs.
7 Steps To A Twitter Makeover http://thumannresources.com/2009/11/14/7-steps-to-a-twitter-makeover/ outlines much of what you are suggesting folks look at to decide if they are going to follow someone. What many people new to Twitter don’t know is why this info is relevant.
I’m adding this post to my list of Twitter resources!
Thanks!
Thank you @Lisa for the link to your Twitter Makeover.
The reason of writing the post was to describe my thinking behind wanting some of that info before I started following and help out newbies who are interested in growing the list of people who follow them. You are right when you say:
Yes, Silvia… I completely understand what you mean
” I am learning that I would not be able to do certain things if I did not have a larger follower group”.
We can reach a gr8 number of people and bring them to the discussions. I agree 🙂
Silvia,
Splendid post! Helped, and helping, me out quite a bit.
Not to sound obtuse here, but, do you check the “Protect My Tweets” button as well on the settings page of Twitter? I know that this may seem obvious, but I could use the advice.
Thanks in advance,
@tabascotim
.-= Tim Madden´s last blog ..P-bits =-.
@Tim
I personally do not have my Tweets protected. If someone is starting to follow me and I click my way through to their page and encounter that THEIR tweets are protected, I immediately check if they have a link to a blog or somewhere that tells me about their thoughts and what their work is about. If they don’t I will not follow them back. IF they do and I am interested in more, I will send a request to follow them.
This is a fabulous resource. I’m sharing it with a colleague who just signed up for Twitter last week. I spent months “lurking” when I first joined, trying to learn the ins and outs, and see how things were done. I wish I had known this back then.
check out topify…the service replaces the email from twitter when you have a new follower with one that offers considerably more information, including their last several tweets. most times, it saves me a trip to their twitter page
Starting new to twitter may be intimidating but when you truly use it as the compelling marketing tool it can be it will certainly pay off in the long run. I believe twitter is a essential way to drive traffic to your website.
I must admit…I am not a Twitter user because its seem like a reactive rather than introspective medium. However, you may have changed my opinion after reading how you implement it in your PLN.
.-= Richard´s last blog ..How To Copy A DVD =-.