Everyday people join a social media website like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more! People new to social media networking give signs that communicate to friends, contacts or followers that their stay may be brief – for whatever reason. It might be either someone shy or introvert and just wading in; it may be lack of a plan; or may be someone is there because they were told to.
Using Twitter as an example, and with Twitterminolgy, draw your own comparisons from how those social networking for the long haul, the commitment, evaluate tell tale actions:
You are a twatcher. You’re a new tweeple who lurks, like people do in online forums. In person at networking or social events, you may hang around the edges for a while and observe. Many tweeple, including me, have a sense for the twatcher: a twatcher joins and may be at Twitter for a while. They add followers but instead of tweeting, they prefer to sit back and watch the tweetstream. They may not have a description, or a link to a website or blog and their photo is that ugly, default avatar.
You are a twistener. This could be a new twitterer or tweeple who could have joined anytime. They have followers and are following others. They contribute little of themselves to the conversation however since their conversation either includes a reply or a RT, it’s a tell tale sign they prefer to listen. And that’s okay.
You are a twurker. My Twitter friend, Kim Murphy, on Twitter, @Kmacopy defines twurkers as tweeple who just have a preference to lurk. There may not even be evidence of watching – minimal adding of followers and just the fewest tweets. Many people start at this level and either transform to a full fledge tweeple or become a tweakling.
You are a tweakling. There are been at least two research reports, one from a Harvard Business School professor, and another from the research firm Nielsen, with findings that many people join Twitter and are gone within a month or so. Twitter takes more time than a month, a plan and a thoughtful approach to find your place, get followers, be following the tweeples you want and begin real relationships.
If you are new to Twitter something to remember is that when you start following people are evaluating you in the first few seconds to make a decision about following you or not. If you find yourself on any social networking website you want to have a plan, put it into action and adjust if your intentions aren’t met.
There is a good deal out there but my friend Kathy and myself are pretty sure, our Twitterspeak is unique. What Twitterspeak have you come up with?
[…] Pat noted in a recent blog post, there were “Twisteners” and “Twatchers” – users who preferred to sit back, “hang […]