Change in Twitter strategy

I should probably stop saying "strategy" and start using approach. Strategy sounds too serious for my liking. Anyway, I have posted recently on Twitter that I am cutting down on the amount of people I am following. Some of my followers asked me for more borad explanation for the move, so here it is. I started using Twitter as an early adopter back in the first few months of its public activity as @sylwiapresley and experienced the limitation on 2000 people I could follow at the time. I used the service to learn, read, explore and sometimes to connect with industry (social media) leaders. Gradually, and partially due to the migration to my current @presleysylwia account (together with 300 followers who were ACTUALLY reading my tweets;)), I have changed the way I experienced Twitter. I have started to use it purely for networking and sharing of valuable insights, which worked for quite a few years but now I got to the points where I have not been using the service for at least a year AT ALL. So to get back to this still useful social media platform, I decided to revise people I am following and choose only a small amount to be able to connect and establish longer, stronger on-line relationships (something I am writing about in my book at the moment).

I still follow more than 700 people;)

I am not sure if I can establish strong relationships with the entire group, but I can most certainly have a focussed apporach to Twittersphere around me. Just looking at the stats from Klout and Twitter Grader I can see that this change has done me good, but really - it is not about the stats at all. It's all about the people, tool and content I am posting. I enjoy Twitter much more now, and I feel that with G+ around I might focuss my tweets even more!

It's interesting to see Klout developing well, as I can finally see it resembling my actual attitute to the service. With the 1 year old work account @nfpvoice I am still exploring the sectors, but with my private one, I am more focussed now. As for the rest of the stats I can see steady growth, which is amazing considering I have been fairly inactive for entire winter at least...

This one is very interesting - my actual network almost equals the amount of people I am following now!

And finally something interesting from Twitter Grader - after cutting down on amount of followed accounts I have noticed increase in my own followers! Does it mean that my content is more valuable now that I focus on what I say and how? That would prove my original point of using tools wisely;)

Why do I do this analysis? Why do I even bother posting about it? Well, first of all I am a social media marketer and first thing I do is the measurement of my own web shadow, which I think we should all do time to time. Secondly, and more importantly - it is exactly the stats and my own re-evaluation of approach to each social media network and tool that helps me to maintain the right balance. Someone asked me the other day: do you ever have enough? have you got any life left? Well, after this analysis I can easily say that I have plenty of time left for off-line evenings, days, weekends and quality time with friends and family though the experience is still richer if some of those relationships are born out of well targeted and useful on-line interactions.