Was it something I said? You sexy things? Jesus likes boobs.

I was really pleased at the weekend that my 'followers' on Twitter were steadily increasing after the round of #Followfriday recommendations without a lot of effort from myself.

I thought maybe it was the positive influence of this blog - well I hoped. Or I had reached some kind of exponential growth level.

But over the last two days I seem to have lost almost all the followers I gained.

I know you're not supposed to care about numbers of followers - I still feel dirty from the time I went to a 'followback' pimp and picked up a load of followers who I didn't really understand and who only ever tweeted about following.

I also feel guilty from the early days when I would say thinigs like 'follow me - I am funny', 'please follow me'. Well I couldn't get started - more of which later.

I was reading an article about how the average number of tweets by each Twitter user is - one! That means those of us who stay on and use it are dwarfed by those who register and can't get off the ground with followers, Tweet once, and give up.

Perhaps these single tweet users never go back or perhaps these users are content to watch the Tweets of famous comedians, or watch the timelines scrolling by on various trending topics.

When I first signed up, I couldn't get going and I nearly gave up. I had a handful of random opportunist followers (waiting for me to follow back) that I was too timid to talk to. I thought they must have followed me by accident.

The reason I first signed up was because I saw Michelle G Mone OBE talk at a conference and I thought she was great. She said she had recently signed up to Twitter and I wanted to follow her.
As it turned out @MichelleMone hasn't really got into Twitter too much yet, seeming to favour facebook. But Michelle's activity has picked up recently and four days ago Tweeted:

"I just discovered what LOL meant, next time I won't ask as my face is bright RED!! Thanks all from a very embarrassed Michelle x "

So not a big social networker but Michelle is a very impressive and inspiring individual - and she makes boulder holders. Check it out http://www.ultimo.co.uk/ and http://www.michellemone.com/

What you wouldn't get from these sites is Michelle's incredible life story - but that's another, er story.

So there I was with no followers. I remember Tweeting that, since no-one was following me, I was showing my arse. I didn't realise there was such a thing as the public timeline.

The only chance thing that boosted my interactions and increased my followers enough to hold my interest was the http://www.fifa.com/ world cup sticker album. I was following the brilliant @EmmaK67 (Author, Actor and Comedian Emma Kennedy http://www.emmakennedy.net/ ) who I had been listening to on Richard Herring's podcast 'as it occurs to me'.

One day @EmmaK67 was going crazy about this virtual sticker album with such enthusiasm I had to get involved. It was fun and through what came to be known as #worldcupswapsies I got my first bunch of great followers and most are still with me.
Here are some of them:
@davidshawmcr
@lottedh
@quackwriter
@TheShaw2009
@wombat37
@statts247
@KingRichard76
@WillJTudor
@captain_doodle

Thanks you all - you changed everything, just when I was going to walk away.

It seems (TEAMFOLLOW please note) that Twitter works better when it has a purpose.

Tonight I've been exploring these anaytical tools that tell you various things about the way people use Twitter.

Before I start I want to say to everyone I know none of this really matters, you can use Twitter how you like, it's what you say not how many hear it, and so on...

but this is what I've learned about myself:-

followcost.com
I am potentially quite 'annoying' - updating on average 20 times per day lately - so taking up a lot of my followers time lines.

I checked this once before and it had me as 'Gold' - which sounds good but is bad - then again I discovered what it means which is that 10% or more of your Tweets are GOLD i.e. have exactly 140 chars I was 20% - so since then I go for 139 and now 0% of my recent Tweets are GOLD.

tweetstats.com I tweet more between 8pm and 1am (when I'm not at work - shock!) least on a wednesday and most on a friday. 40% of tweets are @ replies and these have been mostly to:

@Elle_LeRenard, @janeprinsep, @AngryWillie, @waichingliu81, @Starchildcoop, @oliverphillips, @CD70, @MsMeanor, @Ita99, @Mooley, @shaunsayers, @wombat37, @captain_doodle

Twitalyzer.com Impact score is 1.9% - doesn't that sound good, but is 70.8th Percentile (reflecting the many inactive accounts I suppose).


I am a 'spider' - meaning I "have mid-sized networks and are socially connected "











Tweetanalyzer.com There's tons of analysis in this one. But interesting to see that my unique reader reach was steady at 573 (my number of followers) until I launched this blog.

Then the post "accountants have sex" boosted this to 746

The post "The day I signed a uni student's boobs" pushed it up to 808

and yesterday's post "what really happened before Jesus was done over by the Romans." took my reach up to 1252, reaching double my own followers.

www.tweeteffect.com was really interesting - this tells you when people followed and unfollowed you and what you were tweeting at the time - so was it something you said?

It seems that the reason I increased followers was because I tweeted five people who mentioned coco-pops in their Tweets in the preceding hour. I might have to do more irrelevant random acts like that.


I was thinking of coco-pops because I was remembering one of my Tweets that I was most disappointed did not receive any re-tweets. It went: "Coco-pops and Rice Krispies, live together in perfect harmony, side by side in my breakfast bowl look, oh fook, why can't we?".

Then I waited.....

come on.....

gimmie some feedback Twitter...

... I know that was funny - oh maybe people think it's racist or something, maybe everyone's too young to get the reference, maybe no-ones looking, should I send it again....

Yeah, I know - all this doesn't matter, but it sort of does, as a secondary consideration.
I suppose I sort of take it as feedback that people won't give you directly.

I will watch with interest the reaction to this post - but one thing I have learned is to put sex, boobs or Jesus in the title. Hope you weren't too disappointed.