During a recent recording of a podcast with the Mad Hatter (more on that later) we got onto the topic of Twitter and Social Media networking with blogs. It as an incredibly brief exchange, but I found myself reflecting on his basic reasoning for not taking part in twitter: To much talking, not enough listening, and even less honest reading. It's an interesting component of twitter that so many of us use them as mediums through which we extend our blog, and yet so few of us (and even less of the general reader) ever bother to click on the links of others.
For example, I have roughly 360 (on any given day) twitter followers (crap word, but for consistency's sake we'll go with it). You can go ahead and assume right off the bat 35 - 70 of those are bots, 25 to 50 are likely dead accounts, which leaves you with, lets say, 250ish actually followers. So, when I do a blog post, the twitter link goes up, and the links come.... how many do I get? On a good day, four of five clicks and maybe a @ reply mentioning they read it. Now, if I get that link retweeted by a couple other people, or maybe an actual proper website, that number can skyrocket up to 10 or 14. Yeah... that's right ladies and gents, I rock a good, solid, 2 to 7 % reader trackbacking.
Now I wouldn't dare try and expand this to being an exemplification of all members of twitter, but I will say there seems to be a disconnect. I've noticed that celebrities and writers for major online film and news networks seem to do rather well, if not overtly boisterously so, when it comes to having their links clicked on. A while back I remember Stephen Fry talking about crashing the network of a website he had linked too on twitter for an interview.
Though I would say this is a byproduct of an ever increasing flaw in the way we view ourselves on the internet. There is far too much "READ ME! LISTEN TO ME! WHAT ABOUT ME!?" in our blogging world. I know I can be that way at times, obsessing over whether or not I get comments. But I don't just want people to listen to me, I do enjoy reading others. I try my best to comment, but as of late that's been a bit of a tough one.
But I regress. The point is, if we want people to listen, we should be inclined to do so ourselves. And I don't mean the occasional @ reply, or responding to someone's two sentence Facebook wall post. That's the kind of listening you do at 10:00 at a bar on Friday night with a someone whose attractiveness is relative to your alcohol intake. "Oh yeah, I totally agree with all those words you just said, now will you come back to my place for a quickie?" Just replace 'place' with the online method of your choosing and you've got yourself the reign of social networking.
Now, I recognize the counter-productivity in ranting about lack of readership when exceeding two sentences not on a social networking site, by doing the very antithesis of all those. Yet, I can't help but feel that a bit of venting is always useful in these circumstances. Besides, you've probably checked your twitter, facebook, and email five times before reaching this sentence.
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