John Reese is a well known internet marketing ‘guru’ and like everyone else, learns from his mistakes. He joined Twitter and decided that auto-following everyone who followed him was the way to go.

For anyone who has been using Twitter any length of time and started following any number of followers can tell you – the more you follow, the louder your tweetstream and the more difficult it is to actually ‘hear’ anything and engage people without some serious tweet organization and effort. Then of course, there’s all the spam, and tweets that just simply don’t interest you.

Apparently John Reese had an epiphany and realized that following everyone who follows you is not the best use of Twitter.  He gives 5 Reasons Why on his blog, but I can give you my two reasons why I have never auto-followed anyone:

1. information control
2. improved social networking

Information Control

I want to have some measure of control over what I’m viewing in my tweetstream. I don’t care to see porn – period;  and tweets about topics that I have no interest in – there’s nothing wrong with underwater basket weaving, but it’s just not my thing.

Improved Social Networking

If I have selectively chosen those whom I’m following, it’s because we have a common area of interest, either via a recommendation, same field of interest, or possibly a similar hobby – something. Since you can have as many Twitter accounts as you want, it’s good, perhaps even advisable, to keep those you chose to follow for each account specific to the purpose for that account and your Twitter bio clearly detailed to that to help folks find you in that niche, hobby or field of interest. It makes tweeting more interesting, enjoyable and yes – profitable for everyone.

So why did John Reese only ’sort of ‘ have an ephiphany on Twitter, as my post title indicated? Because he’s now only following 50 people. He’s gone the other extreme and following practically no one, in comparison to how many follow him. While true, one can not reasonably follow and keep up with 10K peeps; if you use the organizations features in some of the Twitter apps like the TweetDeck Group Function or Seesmic Desktop Userlists, you can sort people easily so you don’t miss certain tweets from those you definitely want to keep up with and can catch tweets from others as you see them. You can follow more than 50. I mean come on – he still has 23k people who have followed him, even though he says nearly 10k unfollowed immediately (although most likely due those folks using auto-unfollowing) and he has chosen just 50? That’s going to the opposite extreme in my opinion.

Everyone has to find their own way to use Twitter, and clearly Twitter is not for everyone. However, if the sole purpose is to connect with other people in two-way conversations, if seems only logical to connect with a greater number and organize and sort them to make it easier.

But hey – I’m not the ‘Twitter Police’, nor a guru, so take my words with a grain of salt. I just prefer to actively network with as many peeps as I can daily. I’m following a lot of smart and innovative people and am always looking to not only help people with their blogging and/or social media questions or issues, but also to encourage them as people in their daily lives;  I’m also a business woman and on the look out for potential joint venture partners.

Sound off….

So what do you think of John Reese’s move to stop auto-following?

Do you think John went too far and has unfollowed too many?

What do you think of gurus who have thousands of followers, yet only follow very few?

Do you now, or have you ever, used auto-follow on Twitter?

If you are one who is still saying, “I don’t get Twitter”, then you may want to get up to speed quickly, especially if you’re looking for a job because some employers are looking for employees who not only get Twitter, but also have a minimum Twitter following.

Why are these employers seeking people with an established Twitter following? Target market sphere of influence. Assuming that the employer knows anything about marketing and target markets, and specifically about social media, they are going to want to find people who have found and followed people with similar interests in their business field or target market or niche.  They recognize the power of Twitter and the reach that a tweet has; and if that tweet is sent to a specific targeted group of people, it can provide a very positive response to a marketing campaign – all at little to no cost.

4 Tips on How to Use Twitter Effectively

While having an established Twitter following is perhaps not the norm in job descriptions (yet),  it could be to your advantage to follow these four tips when using Twitter to possibly improve your chances of getting a job.

1. Target Who You Follow
2. Share Quality (Relevant) Content
3. Be Social & Network
4. Be Professional

Target Who You Follow

Employers aren’t seeking out new hires with a minimum number of followers if that following includes merely your parents, siblings, best friends and old high school buddies. They are seeking a new sphere of influence in their target market- to expand their reach potential through social media marketing.

Maximize your networking appeal to a potential employer by ensuring that your followers are within your target market. If your current Twitter account is mainly personal, set up a new account just for business, then find and follow others within your same business field or that have an interest in your  field of business.

Share Quality (Relevant) Content

Communicating in 140 characters is a learned art form. Even though it technically says up at the status box ‘What are you doing?”, that is not a question meant to be answered literally. Twitter is micro-blogging, due to the limited characters, but it’s still a form of blogging expression. So just as quality content is king on a regular blog, so is it in a Twitter tweet.

If you provide tweets of value, then others will want to retweet (RT), or forward your tweet to those whom they follow and your tweet then becomes ‘viral’ as it spreads rapidly around the web. This is the key reason why employers are seeking to hire people with established targeted Twitter followers.

• Share a link to an online article you discovered that is relevant to your business or niche.
• Post a tweet asking a question having to do with your business, to get feedback.
• Have a tweet sent to announce your newly published blog post
• Monitor keyword phrases relevant to your business/niche and help answer people’s questions via Twitter and/or via blog posts

Be Social & Network

The second reason why having a Twitter account with followers is important is the social networking aspect of Twitter. It’s all about being social and connecting with people. Twitter isn’t a one-way communication device for you to broadcast out your sales messages with a bullhorn; it’s a networking community of people with which to connect.

Is it ever appropriate to share a promotional link on Twitter? Of course! But if you are at a business party, do you stand up on the table, in the middle of the room, and start yelling out your sales pitch to everyone? No, of course not. You mix and mingle, chatting with everyone; getting to know them. You socialize. There’s room for both in ‘Twitterville’, but if you show up looking at everyone in your followers list as a sales prospect and not a person; and you’ve never talked with them, said hello, good morning or even what is it you do for a living? Then you’re not likely to get a very favorable response when you send out a promo link.

People tend to respond to people they Know, Like and Trust. Take time to interact and be social with those you’re following; reply to tweets and learn a little about the people you’ve chosen to follow and allow them to get to know you too. That’s what networking is all about.

Be Professional

It is certainly acceptable that while networking and being social you share some about your family or personal life, but you must always remain professional in your manner and speech.

Remember, whatever you tweet is forever archived on the web and can be found. Do not say or upload anything online that you would be embarrassed by if found on Google, as it could very well come back to haunt you.

Final Thoughts

Twitter is best learned by doing. You can read and watch conversations from the sidelines, but it’s best if you just jump in the tweetstream and start participating in the conversations and meeting people. Soon you will find your follower numbers growing organically; meaning – you did not have to seek and find new people, they found you either by something you tweeted with someone else, something you tweeted that was retweeted or by searching for specific keyword phrases.

Make sure that your Twitter bio includes keyword phrases relevant to your business field or niche so that others can find you,  put a link to your business related blog or web site, and your location. Make it easy for others within your business field, niche, target market and/or specific location to find you.

Following the above tips  should make your Twitter profile hire-worthy.

Does your employer use social media marketing such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

What do you think about an employer requiring an established Twitter following before hiring ?

Share your comments below.

Without any fanfare, Twitter raised it’s API limit from 100 to 150. This means that you can now get more calls per hour …. i.e, more tweets, replies & DMs.

So if you’re using an application like TweetDeck, you may notice in the upper right corner it will now say, for example:

Remaining API for account TraciKnoppe: 130/150 …

This is great news! Hopefully this is a sign of better things to come and the limit will be greatly increased in the near future, or lifted altogether…but we’ll take what we can get. Thanks Twitter!

Have you noticed the increase in API limits? Post your comments below.