Trying to get a message to be read by someone who follows “2 to -3 to 20k people” IS nearly impossible, but how much worth would you give that person when they themselves saturate their list of following. There is absolutely no way that someone who follows that many people could read everything that streams past their eyes and for that reason, I discredit them immediately. They’re the type of person that wants to be involved in everything and as a result, misses out on, well, everything.

All in all, if someone likes what they read and want to retweet it, they will. Asking for it comes off as a little pushy, but if done every once in a while and to people you know and trust, you may be forgiven.

When you cross that “every once in a while” boundary and start asking on a daily basis, you’ll end up with frustrated people like me. I’ve started getting emails (yes, emails!) of people asking me to retweet things for them. Want to know what I did? I blocked them and have ALL emails coming from those people sent directly to my junk folder. Unfortunately, if those people ever have something valuable to email me about, I’ll never get it and at this point, I don’t care to read anything they send. They broke my trust by invading my space.

Word of advice: If you do request that people retweet you every once in a while, make sure you do things for them, too. It doesn’t have to be after they’ve helped you. It could be before you ever ask for a retweet. A helping hand goes a long way and people won’t forget how you’ve helped them. You’ll have a much better chance of people being willing to help you if they know you’ve helped them.

Some keep their social media to chatting about various things, not necessarily “media” related, but more social. Others are very singular in purpose, always tweeting about the same topic, often their own content. Others are like paint splatter on the wall, covering a host of topics and tweeting about everything, their own content and others. I think for anyone to say one style is best and another is wrong would be them trying to wear the Guru hat.

The same goes for tweets and retweets, asking about tweets, and using DMs. I”ve been called to the carpet for using DMs to chat about things. No transparency there. Hey, sorry, not everything I have to say is meant for everyone to read. Twitter is near instant communication. People check it more often than Email. Few people use IM anymore. And lord knows no one is going to pick up the phone. Likewise, with ever growing lists of followers, people often miss things that normally they would be interested in, or retweet for someone. Therefore, the occasional “hey, can you RT this” isn’t the worlds worst request. Granted, some people still keep their lists nice and manicured, and therefore they are deluged with not just requests for RTs, but also the original content. However, when 90% of your followers have 2 to -3 to 20k people streaming past their eyes, you will make every attempt to ensure they see your work, which includes repeating yourself more than once a day, or asking for an assist.

Twitter is social media. Yes, we are here to be social, but the media is not to be lost. It’s a great way for people to communicate their projects, business ideas, etc. Without that, and with people limiting that, it’s just another AOL chatroom.

Tonya, i semi agree with you. Twitter has definitely reached a saturation point, and a lot of things get lost. However, how is posting “huge blog post coming tomorrow” any different than “omg i got the cutest shoes” or “I just got home from a date with Joe” or any of the other things that MANY of us chatter back and forth about on twitter daily. Setting the stage for a post is no more useless than anything others have to say. And the cool thing is, if someone is doing nothing but blathering on about things we find useless, we can unfollow them. Lord knows enough people have unfollowed me

On that note, it’s time for a glass of wine! CHEERS!

Yes, the tweet to announce the impending tweet. What a waste of all of our time.