Twitter 4 Nitwits: The Dreaded Twit2K

While it seems like our first Twitter 4 Nitwits lesson should start with how to use twitter, it just doesn’t. There are plenty of places where you can learn how to get started, beginning with twitter itself.

On Friday, the Action Flick Chick (known as @actionchick on twitter and a few other sites that don’t allow 16-character usernames like actionflickchick) noticed that someone whose tweets (twitter posts) we enjoy had about 1,000 followers and was following some 1900 people. You can follow up to 2000 people before twitter follow limits kick in. They created the limit to curtail spammers and bots that at the very least tie up bandwidth without contributing any real content themselves.

Once you’re following 2000 people’s twitter posts, the number you can follow cannot exceed 110% of the number who follow you. So if user @twit_nitwit had, say, 1100 followers at the time he reached the point of following 2000, that means he would not be able to follow anybody new until more than 1800 people started following him. You can’t sit there hoping to pick up 700 followers when you’re not following anybody in return.

You’re not a celebrity. Don’t presume that the things you say are so awesome that you can talk at the masses when it’s all one-sided and you can’t easily see what they’re talking about in return. You see, twitter growth depends on interaction.

Here are some tips @actionchick dispensed this past week to help people learn how to deal with this. Remember, each tweet is limited to 140 characters – hence the sometimes odd wording.

#followtip When you reach 2000 that you’re following, you won’t be able to follow more until you have 1800+ followers. Unfollow some.

#followtip I’ve seen ppl stuck at 2000 following beg ppl 2 follow them so they can follow more. Why would they follow? You can’t follow them

#followtip friendorfollow.com can make list of those not following you. You might unfollow those who don’t follow anybody.

#followtip People who know of 2000 following limit less likely to follow you as you approach 2000 unless you have plenty followers.

#followtip If stuck at 2000 following limit use something like huitter to unfollow many non-followers. Get fresh start. (UPDATE: huitter worked at the time of this original post but stopped working in 2010. We now use tweepi.com.)

Once you’re following 2000+, you can’t follow > 110% of your # followers. #followtip RT @kusasi: Oh, what’s 2000 follow limit? (Explanation for non-tweeters: @kusasi asked a good question,”Oh, what’s 2000 follow limit?” and @actionchick ReTweeted that in her reply. The reply means that you can follow as many people as you like until you reach the 2,000 limit. After that, you cannot follow more than 110% as many people as the number who follow you.)

Don’t use [@actionchick named a specific mass-follow site]. It will keep trying to give you a weird mix of people, including some who don’t follow anybody.

Wait 3 days, then use [tweepi] to un-follow those not following you and get yourself a fresh start. (This was advice to a specific person who’d gotten blocked for a day because of using an aggressive mass-follow program.)

Under 2000, don’t follow more than 200 over the number following you. Don’t use mass follow programs for now. (Continued advice to that specific person.)

twitter has rules against mass-follow and mass-unfollow. Mass follows & unfollows within same 24 hrs likely to get you pegged as spammer.

You can find 200 worth following by checking one at a time. It doesn’t take long. Consider suggestions made by those you follow.

You can find 200 worth following. For common interests, consider people who follow the same ones you follow.

#followtip If you follow 2K w much lower # followers, you’ll grow slowly bc ppl unfollow you while you can’t follow back.

Remember, your followers aren’t numbers on a scorecard! These are human beings (often enough anway). The number one rule for getting people to find you interesting is for you to show your interest in them. If you’re not interested in what anyone else has to say, why bother using a social network?

Tweet, retweet, rinse, and repeat….