Social content is only as good as the company you keep
On Twitter, 2012 started with the not-so-unusual whinging and moaning from a few people I follow complaining that Twitter was boring.
I find that quite an odd observation, given that most people were still on holiday so there should have been a lessened expectation of good consumable content being posted and shared, but raised two wider annoyances I have with these sort of complaints:
Social media/networks are only as good as the company you keep – if you find content in a network dull or interesting, it’s not the product’s fault; it’s because you’re following or are connected to the wrong people. I have fallen into the trap of calling Facebook boring. Inherently, it isn’t, and is actually a terrific product. It’s just that the people I’m connected to on there don’t necessarily post content that interests me, whereas on Twitter I’m careful to follow those who post and share compelling content that appeals to me.
If you’re bored of a network, lead by example and contribute – start creating or sharing content that you’d like to see being posted, rather than sit back and hope it will come to you. You’ll quickly discover users that post suitable content, and gradually change the way you use networks.
I can also recommend using News.me and Summify – both services monitor your Twitter connections for the most shared content (i.e. the most interesting) without you having to follow Twitter constantly. And then if the results from those apps aren’t still to your liking, you’ve definitely made the wrong connections.
Comments — 2
This is a very good point and not one a lot of people realise!
Sometimes I think there are “automatic” tendencies with some social networks, people who you just seem to automatically follow on twitter for example. Ultimately you are right, it’s up to the individual using the service to lead by example.
Great post!
Good points Daniel. I always have to explain / defend myself why I’m not on Facebook, while I’m using Twitter very actively.
As you mentioned, it’s a completley different group of people you follow on FB vs Twitter. FB feels like a forced must to follow people you went to school with 20 years ago, but honestly don’t give a damn about what they’ve eaten to lunch or how their babies are doing.
I also try to be selective on Twitter, to not pollute my stream or have boring people. I’m also a big fan of lists. For instance, I’m crazy about football, but I only want to read about it when it suits me or during games. Therefore I’m not following all the players, journalists etc, I’ve just added them to my football-lists. That way I don’t have to be as selective as I would be if I would follow them, and I choose whenever I want to read the lists.
The same goes for design agencies. I don’t follow them, I just put them all in the agencies-list. That way it’s like a RSS-feed / news from the companies, and I read the list maybe once a week.
Helps to keep my stream more clear and defined.