Twitter (& Facebook): Tweetin' You Right?

I'm a little less Twitterpated than I used to be.

I've now been on Twitter for about a year. I currently have 6175 followers. This list grows daily of its own accord. I haven't gone after new followers on Twitter for a long time.

I've been on Facebook for around thirteen months. My friends on Facebook equal 2836 as I write this post. But this list also grows regularly. I see a minimum of ten new friends a day. I also have my Fans of Brandilyn Collins group page with a current 975 members.

So much for the stats. My thoughts on these two social media sites:

1. Twitter is becoming business-heavy. Most of my direct messages (which are private) these days are from business accounts wanting me to buy this or go to some site. I'm now even seeing @Brandilyn messages from people I'm not following and are not following me, but who want me to see their spam tweet.

2. I auto-follow and auto-unfollow on Twitter because I can't keep up with it manually. Once you hit some magic number, 5000 for certain, it all just gets too much to manage. Problem is, auto-following lets in all the riffraff. I could manually unfollow as I see them pop up. But I'd be doing that all day long. I could also go through my entire account, delete the junk, then turn off auto-follow. I would need a clone to do this.

3. Interaction with my real-people tweeps is way down. Perhaps everyone's account is becoming so large, they can't see individual tweets, and so do little responding. I know that's the case with me. And when I send out a tweet, sure I'll see retweets and some responses, but nothing like I used to. Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking into a shouting crowd.

4. #3 notwithstanding, I still post tweets on Twitter, which will then feed to Facebook as updates. I use Tweetdeck, by the way. And for regularly scheduled posts, such as Today's Word, I use Tweetlater. (Now called SocialOomph.) Dumb new name, but very helpful app.

5. My Facebook page, in contrast, is seeing more and more action. Here the friends are real people--that's the difference. They're responsive to my updates. It's a great place to keep in contact with my readers and find new ones. Yesterday for example I put out an update about having 48 copies of mass market Eyes of Elisha to give away. I asked for ideas as to how I should structure the giveaway to attract new readers. (This one didn't go through Twitter--too long.) I received thirty or so responses with some good ideas. I'll be deciding how to proceed on that giveaway in the next few days. A number of weeks ago I asked my friends for ideas for the third Rayne Tour book title--and got the perfect one: Final Touch. Numerous people respond to my Today's Word every day, and we discuss all sorts of things. I'm finding Facebook a very effective site. And I'm going to think of ways to use it--and my fan group there--more.

So how about you? How are Twitter and Facebook treating you? Got any advice for managing my cumbersome Twitter account?

By the way, if you don't like the new way Facebook is feeding you updates, you can change it back to the original. (I know this thanks to one of my very helpful friends.) On your home page look to the top left menu and click on MORE. Then drag STATUS UPDATES to the top. After dragging to top, click on it. Your default will return to the way it was before.