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Have you seen Twitter Me Fun?

December 16, 2008 by John Dilbeck
Filed under: Social Networking, Twitter 

A few days ago, Tim Linden, owner of the StartXchange traffic exchange, created a fun script to see if he could help us reach new followers on Twitter.

I had a few spare minutes, so I gave it a try. As a result, I’ve gotten nearly 100 new followers on Twitter and I’m in the process of meeting and getting to know some new people – hopefully, some of them will become friends over time.

As part of the process, I also ran across several people who have been friends for years and now we’re Twitter friends, too.

Late yesterday, I added a couple of items in the right column of this blog. Right below the form for subscribing to new postings, you’ll see an image that shows the number of people following me on Twitter. Right below that is another graphic showing how many fans I have on Squidoo.

Since working through Tim’s script, I’ve picked up nearly 100 new followers, but not all of them came from there.

I make it a point to follow everyone who follows me, and it took maybe an hour or so to follow the folks who followed me the last couple of days. That’s not much of an investment in time, especially if I meet some new friends, reconnect with old friends, and learn something here and there.

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to continue following them. If someone posts too much drivel, does nothing but advertise, or is rude, I’ll stop following them in a heartbeat. However, I don’t mind if someone posts links to their blogs or websites, as long as they also post more general tweets that help me learn something about them.

I’ll also drop someone if they tweet dozens of times every day. I may have time to enjoy Twitter while I’m waiting on other things, but I’m not that interested in anyone.

All in all, it was an easy thing to do and produced excellent results.

Are you looking for more people to follow you on Twitter?

Learn more about it. Go to Tim Linden’s blog and read: Twitter Me Fun

Let me know what you think.

Act on your dream!

JD

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11 Comments on Have you seen Twitter Me Fun?

  1. Posts about Affiliate Marketing as of December 16, 2008 | The Lessnau Lounge on Tue, 16th Dec 2008 10:27 am

    2. [...] December 16th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under Filed Under: Making Money Online Have you seen Twitter Me Fun? – 21stcenturyaffiliatemarketing.com 12/16/2008 A few days ago, Tim Linden, owner of the [...]

  2. Mitch on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 1:34 am

    3. Hi John,

    It’s interesting that’s worked for you. I have to admit that I haven’t subscribed to every person who decides to follow me on Twitter, but I do check everyone out and then make my decisions afterwards. I haven’t thought about adding the Twitter counter either, but yours is interesting. Can you tell me if it’s another javascript thing?

    Mitchs last blog post..Number 301, A Year To Remember

  3. John Dilbeck on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 6:31 am

    4. Good morning, Mitch.

    I’m pleased with the results I’ve gotten.

    However, as the list of people on Tim’s script’s list grows, I think we’ll see it taper off as new people become less willing to follow everyone in the list. He may have to tweak it, then, to improve the results. We’ll just have to wait and see.

    I have not subscribed to everyone who subscribes to me, either.

    If it looks like an account has all bot responses, I’ll pass.

    Yesterday, I had a dog with a Twitter account follow me and I decided I just didn’t care what that dog was going to tweet about. I did follow the dog’s owner.

    As I’ve said before, I tend to cast a big net first and then toss out what I don’t want. I have enough time to approach Twitter this way, and I know a lot of people don’t.

    Others prefer to take a more focused approach, such as you describe, and follow only the people (and possibly dogs) that interest them.

    I think either way works okay, depending upon the individual.

    The TwitterCounter graphic is plain HTML – no javascript. It looks like they do all the updates to the counters on their server and just generate new graphics periodically for each person with an account. I’m sure this is a part of their daily updates.

    I’m trying to be careful about adding more javascript here. I think the page loads slowly enough, as it is. Hopefully, it loads much faster on broadband.

    I noticed that about 30 more people are following me on Twitter since the last time I looked at the TwitterCounter graphic, yesterday.

    Now, I need to check my email and follow (most of) them back.

    Did you get any of that snow in Reno?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  4. Dennis Edell on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 11:03 am

    5. Dude, I would have followed the dog, but that’s just me. :)

    Where did you get the counters, off the sites?

    Dennis Edells last blog post..$100 First Prize! The *Best Blog Review Contest* Is In Full Effect!

  5. Andrei on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 1:58 pm

    6. Twitter is alright, but has anyone heard about the new deal twitter has tie up with bloomberg

  6. Mitch on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 3:33 pm

    7. Man, did we get snow! It was heavy at times, and Monday I had to drive to and from work in it. Not so bad, though; we have it worse at home. But we also have way more plows.

    Mitchs last blog post..Odiogo

  7. John Dilbeck on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 4:57 pm

    8. Good afternoon, Dennis.

    When I have time to follow a dog on Twitter, it’s time to cancel my Internet connection. ;)

    You bring up a good point about those graphics. I neglected to say how to get them. Let’s rectify that right now.

    Get the TwitterCounter button

    To get the TwitterCounter graphic, go to TwitterCounter.com. Actually, that links to the page that shows my followers according to TwitterCounter.

    Below the bar graph that shows the count of my followers for the last week, enter your Twitter username and click Show.

    When it loads your data, look towards the bottom-right corner of the page and click “Add TwitterCounter to your site.”

    That will give you several choices for adding the button wherever you want.

    Get the Squidoo fans button

    This one is a little harder to find.

    First, go to SquidUtils.com and sign in using your Squidoo username. After doing that, make sure the top of the left column says Hi (Squidoo username).

    Click the Lensmaster RSS Feeds link.

    Towards the middle of the resulting page, you’ll see a section called “Show off your fanclub” with the HTML code you’ll need to show the button on your site(s).

    I hope that helps.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  8. John Dilbeck on Wed, 17th Dec 2008 5:02 pm

    9. Good afternoon, Andrei.

    I don’t know anything about a deal between Twitter and Bloomberg. Can you give us some more information about it? What do you think of it?

    Act on your dream!

    JD

  9. Dennis Edell on Thu, 18th Dec 2008 12:37 pm

    10. It helps a lot, thanks!

    Dennis Edells last blog post..$100 First Prize! The *Best Blog Review Contest* Is In Full Effect!

  10. Stacey on Tue, 22nd Sep 2009 10:56 pm

    11. I was wondering the success of all of you who tried this back in Dec. 08. I am relatively new to twitter and my friends/family don’t get it, so I am in the process of building my twitter network.

    I’m gonna try this out to see how it works ;)

    JD – Great links – thanks!
    Stacey´s last blog ..Zelda Dog Halloween Costumes My ComLuv Profile

  11. John Dilbeck on Wed, 23rd Sep 2009 5:12 am

    12. Good morning, Stacey.

    I’ve had good results from this.

    I’m not one to use all the gadgets and scripts to get lots of followers, but Tim’s script helped get the ball rolling when I started to get serious about Twitter.

    Most of my family and friends have no interest in Twitter and I think that’s understandable. Unless you’re promoting something on the Internet, it’s doubtful that there would be much value in tweeting. You’d probably do better posting updates on Facebook.

    However, for anyone who promotes or markets something, I believe Twitter to be one of the essential tools.

    As far as the size of my Twitter network is concerned, I’d rather have 100 people who know me and are responsive to what I tweet than to have thousands who ignore me or never see my tweets in the first place.

    That’s why I think it’s important to “keep it real” when building our network.

    I hope that link helps you.

    Act on your dream!

    JD

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