6,000 tweets and counting

Hey there,

So this blog is kinda meta. This is about my 6,000th tweet.

This one here:

6,000 tweets and counting, a blog post highlighting some appearances of #6000tweets in the news. awayoflife0.blogspot.com/2012/05/6000-t…
— JR Russ (@AWayofLife0) May 25, 2012

Not saying it's a big deal, but curiosity and google got the best of me, so I here are 6 links that have something to do with 6,000 tweets.

• 6.24.09 - Microsoft, Outlook Is Broken, Says 6,000 Tweets (And Growing). Fix It.
• 10.25.10 - Drew Brees Names His Baby 6,000 Tweets Later
• 5.5.11 - Bin Laden news reinforces Twitter's strength, limitations

"So what holds that record? What great news event could be so important as to put the decade's biggest story in the shadows? Answer: New Year's Eve in Japan, which clocked in at more than 6,000 tweets per second."

• 10.19.11 - The World's 10 Most Tweeted Moments

"So what makes a moment worth tweeting about? The most tweeted moment in recent memory occurred earlier this month, when Apple Chairman and cultural icon Steve Jobs passed away. The site experienced traffic of more than 6,000 tweets per second, causing many users to notice system delays and slowness."

• 1.25.12 - How Twitter helped the White House

"By 5 p.m., #40dollars was trending worldwide, Schulman said, and the hashtag was generating about 6,000 tweets per hour."

• 5.25.12 - #6000tweets and counting (this is where it gets meta)

Anyway, that's it. Anyone else notice significant milestones in the Twittersphere, whether it's this or another?

Also, hope everyone has a happy, safe holiday weekend,

JR

5 selections on NAACP's endorsement of same-sex marriage

Hey,

So checking my Facebook feed, there were multiple friends and others I subscribe to who had posted about the NAACP, specifically their recent endorsement of same-sex marriage.

As a person of color (my father's black, my mom is Filipino) and a member of the LGBT community, this is obviously an issue that is of relevance to me. That being said, I wanted to pay it forward, and share these pieces from the past several days which showed up on my wall:

• NAACP Endorses Gay Marriage, Huffington Post Politics
• NAACP President Hopes Group's Support for Marriage Equality "Will Be a Game-Changer", Metro Weekly (DC)
• NAACP Supports Same-Sex Marriage As Civil Right, NPR
• NAACP president chokes up over support for marriage equality, The Raw Story
• Obama leads on marriage equality, the NAACP and others follow, Post Partisan

Again, just wanted to share, and curious to see how this will continue to play out. What makes me hopeful is that more and more communities are coming together over what they have in common, and working together. Seems like a win-win situation, when we realize that what affects some of us, in the end affects us all.

Please share any thoughts, as well as other articles from the past several days, worth checking out,

JR

The Bacchae keep runnn' runnin' and...

Hey there,

Occupy Thebes begins tonight, thanks to our sponsor, WSC Avant Bard. While it's day 13 of being in the Artisphere, we finally share our message with the public tonight.

And we thought this song was appropriate:

We're ready to get it started, and hope you can join us.

If you're on Twitter, you can follow the conversation on #RockOutWithYourBacchout as well as #OccupyThebes.

JR

Seven Social Sources Saturday

Hey,

Just a blog which might become a regular thing. Skimmed through sources I've shared on Social Media over the past week (in terms of the content but also the means of sharing), and picked seven I wanted to highlight.  Most of them are recent, but sometimes you come across neat tidbit in someone's archive, for the first time.

That's why I included dates in the listings below. Just short and sweet, but wanted to do this for those that might've missed the original post.  These are articles I thought best to continue to push through the noise.

And I made it a point to include seven pieces all from different sources. While I certainly have my own preferences, I wanted to try to minimize in what I'm sharing here. And in terms of what is addressed, while most of the following are tips and hints, one is health related, another gives some historical perspective, but as long as it has something to do with social media, that's all that matters to me.

3 Unforgettable Reasons Arts & Cultural Organizations Need Pinterest, from NetWitsThinkTank.com, 5/9/12

4 Ways Your Business Can Avoid Being a Menace on Twitter, from Mashable, 5/7/12

5 Tools to Help Battle Social Media Content Overload, from HubSpot Blog, 1/4/12

9 Tips for Handling a Crisis on Twitter, from PR News, 4/30/12

12 Habits of Successful Social Media Pros, from Ragan, 5/10/12

Find out if you're addicted to Twitter or Facebook, from TweetSmarter, 5/8/12

The Timeline of Facebook backlashes, from BuzzFeed, 5/7/12

Let me know what you think, whether the above is new information or common knowledge for you, whether something was particularly more helpful or insightful than another, as well as if there are any other particular topics or tools that strike your fancy that I can help you keep an eye out for :-)

JR

I've reached my Twitter limit

Okay, I should clarify...I've reached my Following limit on Twitter and backed off from it.  Twitter actually provides some great advice about what to do when one reaches the Follow Limit, to which I would only add some more tidbits.

First, key things they mention:

• You have to wait and gain more followers before you can follow additional people
• You can unfollow some to follow others
• Don't unfollow and follow too many people aggressively as that behavior can be a violation of the rules

The final bit is sometimes referred to as Twitter Churn, and TweetSmarter has a great blog post about it.

So, all that being said, here are two additional tips I would add.

The first would be to use Friend or Follow, particularly to see whom you are following but are not following you back, and vice versa.  I say take note of this because if you want to be able to follow more than your limit, I and others believe Twitter truly becomes about reciprocity and you are at a point where you need to actively engage the Twittersphere in conversation and content, if you are not already.

Granted, there is no limit to the number of people that follow you and celebrities certainly don't have to reciprocate. However, for me, there's a chance that if someone is interested enough to follow me, then that sentiment is shared.

So using Friend or Follow, you can do with that info as you like, and here are just a couple of suggestions from me, some of which are covered in this post on the Top 10 Reasons You Need to Use Twitter Lists Now on Business 2 Community. One is that a list allows you to still curate and track content by an account that you might be interested in at times, but not all the time in your main feed and it won't add to your follow limit.

One list I've created is one for DMV (DC, MD, VA) Tweeps. While I follow some of them, others (like some government related ones), I don't, but would still be interested in keeping track of.  Again, it's just another way to curate and follow tweets indirectly, without adding to your follow number.

Another way to use FoF would be to see tweeps you're following who aren't following you, but you want to keep following (whether or not they're also on a list). I would recommend trying to either engage them in conversation, RT their content, or mention them in a #FF tweet, as well as anything else you can think of.

Anyway, that's all I really have for now.

Also, some argue that there's really no need to follow more than 2,000 tweeps, and that's certainly true. The question is do you want to, and if so, why?

Personally, I'm not looking to follow as many people as I can, but do want to follow those who seem to share interests I do and whose lives are relevant to my own. And I'm pretty sure there's more than 2,000 people like that. But that's just me.

Would be interested in seeing what's worked for others. Have you not reached the limit? Are you well beyond yours? How do you curate tweeps you follow? How do you use lists?

And do you have any other tips, or thoughts on the ones I've given?

Looking forward to seeing what y'all have to say,

JR