Twitter is such an interesting beast. Even though we don’t want to keep track of our “followers”, we do. Each time a new followe signs up you get the email, so you invariably are aware whether what you are saying is reaching more and more people. However, you were not really able to tell when people unfollowed your Tweets. Oh sure you could go check out your Twitter Karma and try and parse it all together, but honestly, who as the time? That of course changed with the onset of Qwitter.
Qwitter is the simplest of tools: when someone unfollows you, you are alerted through email. Plus it tells you when they unfollowed you, repeating that final, fatal tweet. I signed up immediately, thinking this would be a great way to watch how people unfollow me when I talk about the Red Sox or occassionaly when I stick my foot into the politweetcal cesspool. It’s now been about a month, and here are my three reactions:
- Qwitter is NOT exclusive: Do you know that you can find out when people unfollow me, or Barack Obama? Basically you just input any Twitter username into Qwitter to find out when people unfollow them…which seems intrusive and a bit wrong. Particularly when we start talking about corproate Twitter accounts. Dear Qwitter, please add email validation linked to Twitter username, thank you.
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right: I’ll admit it, I’ve altered the timing of unfollowing someone so that they don’t know exactly why I unfollowed them. This may be wrong in the scope of ‘transparency’ and doesn’t give the person the right information, blah, blah, blah. But when I wanted to unfollow someone because they are using Twitter as their personal branding platform I waited until I saw a mundane tweet and hit ‘unfollow’, because I know that they too are using Qwitter.
- Feedback can be Fun: One person unfollowed me last week that I’ve known for several years and had been mutually following on Twitter for two years. He unfollowed me. I was dismayed and sent him an email to find out why in an effort to see if I could improve in my communications. The feedback was very positive and helped me understand how he was using Twitter, but it also made me think how helpful this can be for our corporate Twitter feed.
Are you using Qwitter? Has it changed the way you Tweet?
5 Responses
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I just signed up for Qwitter the other day, so it hasn’t really sunk in (no #redsox tweets in there). Not sure if it will change my behavior, although I agree it gives you fascinating insight into follower behavior. Also agree on the ability to receive the Qwitter updates for another username - that’s a problem.
I can’t wait to unfollow you on April 1st. ;-)
I heard of it recently, but have not had a chance to dig in. Coming to your post got me there … now i’ve signed up to see who’s qwittin on me :)
Even though i’ve not used it yet, i can definitely see the draw.
My issue is that i’ve seen my self enjoy Twitter because of the people i meet - especially the ones who actually converse - even if it’s only in 140 chars here and there. The people that don’t talk to me are people that i don’t have a real connection with … so if they leave … then they leave.
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http://twitter.com/franswaa
Frank, great point and you are right. At the end of the day if someone ‘quits’ you they probably weren’t someoene you had a connection with in the first place. It gets a bit more interesting when you run a corporate Twitter feed, but overall I think the same applies.
Jim, I can’t wait for April 1st ;)
I’ve been using Qwitter. I hadn’t really thought about it before now but I do see some ways that it’s changing my usage.
I still prefer Twitter as a communication medium. And I won’t be changing how I interact with people. When I’m Replying to someone, or Retweeting, I’m still going to have fun and make it personal.
But, I have taken a second to think about some of the tweets that I just send out into the ether. Do I really need to tweet about taking off my socks? (Not that I ever really would.) And I have decided not to publish a few tweets that on a second read don’t really seem to be useful.
Continuing the Discussion