Why I Stopped Using Twitter and Why I’m Coming Back

I stopped posting to Twitter a few months back and it felt really good. Today I’m making my first post in 142 days.

Before I get into why, I’ll quickly explain my history on Twitter.

I joined Twitter in August of 2007. I got on pretty early, but I couldn’t get any of my friends to join. I tried to explain the site, but I couldn’t figure out why it was better than Facebook (or why it should be used in conjunction). One friend joined and made one post.

Since none of my friends joined, I followed bloggers who I respected. They mostly tweeted about people I didn’t know and places I’ve never been. I didn’t have much to add to the conversation.

I got bored.

After this I let my account go dormant.

Around a year ago, I picked back up. I don’t remember what the catalyst was, but I came back and used it pretty hard. I started using it during marketing webinars and then I finally learned how to effectively use Twitter Search and Hashtags and everything changed.

Now I was finally earning followers and interacting with people. I was really getting into the network and meeting new people and I was enjoying it.

Over time this changed and I couldn’t put my finger on why. It dawned on me what the issue was; I was following too many people and way too many marketers.

Too many marketers. You know the type. They don’t want to interact. They want to promote themselves and retweet whatever Hubspot posts. Because of this, I stopped posting about marketing or myself and started posting about UFOs, Mega Man, and Kevin Costner instead and my followers started dropping.

I got bored again.

Fast-forward to now – I’m coming back to Twitter.

I was writing in my journal about why I left Twitter (everything you just read) and I realized why I really left Twitter: I wasn’t using it right.

It wasn’t everyone else. I know most people suck and only care about themselves, but I was doing the same thing. To make it worse I changed the purpose of my account, so it’s no wonder I lost followers. I guess marketers don’t like Kevin Costner posts.

I am going to come back into Twitter with a new plan and use it the way it was supposed to be used. I don’t know why I didn’t make this connection earlier; I was just as bad as the other “Gurus” I’m criticizing.

If I’m not going to connect with them and they aren’t going to connect with me, why am I following them?

Has anyone else had any realizations about how to use Twitter like I did?

Photo Credit: playerx