So Twitter and I have a very interesting relationship. I, just like many others, started out being a follow and follower magnet.

• If we crossed paths in some way shape or form I followed you.
• If we had mutual friends/follower/followers I was following you.
• If you or the company you represent existed on Twitter and I crossed your path I followed you and your company.
• If you or anything to your liking was mentioned in the social media social circles albeit Twitter or elsewhere, I followed you.

It’s been about a year now of Twitter activity for myself. Twitter has grown with quite the number of advancements, and I too have grown as a user. Everything out there in the ‘web 2.0’ world is becoming or already has become ‘Twitterized’. Whatever you want and or desire out there in the social media can be ‘published’ and ‘tweeted’ on Twitter.

Twitter really is an amazing entity, but during it’s growth spurt the ‘Signal to Noise’ ratio got a little out of balance. OK. A LOT out of balance.

Lately there is just noise. Lots of noise. Everyone is eager to share a link, sell you something, recruit you for their business, remind you of there latest blog post, and share with you everything else they have published or created out there amongst the ‘internets’.

A whole lot of noise.

And very little conversation.

I guess no one should really be surprised. Twitter’s original shtick and main theme was to share: ‘What are you doing”. ‘What are you doing’ never implied conversation. In the early stages of Twitter that’s all there was. Conversation that is. We could only share ‘what we were doing’ through striking up and contributing to a conversation. No matter how fragmented that conversation was, that’s how we utilized Twitter (in the beginning).

Then we ‘twitterized’ the web. We started by simply sharing an RSS feed. Soon other forms of media were being shared, on a variety of platforms. Then we were cross-linking other published material via other web 2.0 services. Twitter has metamorphosized from a simple ‘What are you doing?” to ‘What AREN’T you doing?’.

Lately if you haven’t published or ‘tweeted’ your activity.. the activity itself is missing out on the greater social media plan.

And that’s where my ‘trimming’ comes in.

I myself am guilty as charged. I do all the previous mentioned bane activities. I share a link, remind you of my latest blog post, and share with you everything else I have published or created out there amongst the ‘internets’. BUT (and this is a big but) that is not my sole purpose on Twitter. It is also not the only thing I do on Twitter.

I still want conversation, no matter how minimal and fragmented  it may be. I still like some sort of ‘human-like’ interaction.

How can you have human-like conversation with a person who has 16,543 followers and follows three times that amount??? How can you maintain some sort of human connection with a Twitter user that ONLY sends you ‘news cast’ reports, or sends you ‘here is my latest blog post’? Or how about the user who has more than 10,000 followers but only follows less than 10???

I think my friend Ken Stewart over at Change Forge sums it up best in an old blog post, “Meaning or Masses: Do You Seek to Extend Conversations or Amass Followers?”

Thanks Ken.

I’m slow on the uptake sometimes, but I got the message now. And now , I’m doing something about it.

Twitter Trimming ladies and gentlemen.

Twitter Trimming

Carpe Diem