Freedom of Tweets

UPDATE:  I HAVE DEACTIVATED MY MAGPIE ACCOUNT AND USED THE MONEY EARNED TO SERVE A FEW CHARITABLE ADS OF MY OWN…including the following link:

http://tinyurl.com/jessicaknowsmagpie

However, I will still continue to try new platforms and tools on the interwebs on my terms.

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When people are scared of something they do either one of two things.  They try to control it or they educate themselves and learn as much as they can to mitigate the true risk.

My observations over the past week have been that people are getting scared on Twitter.  I can only speak from my own personal experience so I’m going to share that with you today.  At the end of June, I think I only had 600 followers.  Now, I have over 4,000.  Is that number overwhelming sometimes?  Yes.  But at the same time, as my number of followers grows along with the number of people I follow, I have engaged with people I might not have never met otherwise that have enriched my life and helped me learn.

Having a large number of people I’m following and followers on Twitter has also opened me up to scrutiny in a big way.  I’ve been criticized for setting a bad example for not following the quality vs. quantity rule and for not being “real” on Twitter anymore.  I can’t blame people for thinking that especially since I think that if that is what they’re feeling then those feelings are valid.  What I do have a problem with is telling me I should change how I use Twitter.  Umm, excuse me?  Let’s face it, the majority of us are on Twitter for the conversation, the learning experience, and the connections with like-minded people.  Bonus?  It’s fun.  But when you start telling people how to use a tool or devising what number of followers is good vs. bad then that’s setting a bad example for those new to Twitter.

Look, I get the whole, “How could you possibly have enough time to connect with all those followers on Twitter?  It’s impossible!”.  Well, it’s the same reason some people choose a large university over a small, intimate college setting.  I went to University of Maryland and at the time, they had an enrollment of 30,000 students.  Obviously, I didn’t know each and every one of my fellow students, but by the time I graduated, the campus that once seemed large and overwhelming, seemed very small.  Some will argue that it took four years to get that way (and actually I was on the five year plan), but everything in the digital world moves much faster, especially when we’re comparing it to the late 1990’s.

As for monetizing Twitter, I’m starting to become more open-minded about it.  A month ago I was in the camp of “we should never allow ads”.  But now I’m rethinking it.  We monetize our blogs and for some of us, we write on those blogs every day just like we avidly tweet everyday.  I agree, ads on Twitter sound a little scary.  But rather than trying to control it, let’s learn more about it, share best practices, and make our own decisions.  For people to unfollow other people based on the admission and transparency that a person is giving Twitter monetization a try is, in my opinion, scarier than the ads themselves.  When people say they’re “scared” to try something because of backlash or major unfollowing on Twitter, concerns that were expressed to me in both Direct Messages and in the comments here, that’s when Twitter gets really scary.  Yesterday, I had several people unfollow immediately after I tweeted that I had signed up for Magpie.  Not one ad had been tweeted and the rampant magpie ads people were talking about had not been witnessed yet.  These actions were based on mere speculation, on “what-if”s…has fear mongering really already reared it’s ugly head on Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concerns.  But right now, they are just concerns.  Instead of scaring people with the intent of preventing them from even trying something, why don’t we put a little trust in our fellow twitter friends that if they’ve showed good judgement and good intentions in the past, that they will do the same when it comes to advertising on Twitter or building their followers base?  Because when people start using Twitter as a tool to ostracize or scrutinize people’s methods of using it, that’s when it gets scary.

Last I checked, the folks at Twitter weren’t handing out Sheriff’s badges.

Oh, and I’m checking out Twittad, too

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