I became aware of the site a number of weeks ago when someone pointed out that 'clevercelt' was somehow 'Ranked' number two for followers in Dublin on said twittercounter site, behind one 'patphelan' of maxroam fame. Fair play to him he has a great product you know.
Then a couple of weeks ago, ego got the better of me, went looking and noticed the ever helpful and informative 'Krishna De' (award winning all round good gal) was at two and I was ranked 3. Fair's fair, Pat and Krishna do great work for customers, clients and followers. They deserve their top of the table status but hey.... I was still in there. I was so chuffed with meself I put a wee counter widget on this very blog, its not everyday you get to be the third/turd twittererer in Dublin.
photo found /copyrighted by factiva 2006Which, bearing in mind the number of interesting people living in Dublin currently using Twitter, genuinely surprised me. I didn't consider it a big deal of any description but obviously when I don't sell anything, neither services nor products nor advice nor indeed do I ever give anything other than my time and attention for free - it can all prove personally perplexing as to why my odd observation or 140 cahracter anecdotes continue to amuse, inform or entertain , anyhow... I'm grateful to the folks that do follow me for whatever their own personal reasons - keep it up.. tell your friends... send provisions.... LOL.
While I mentioned some initially surprising milestones on this blog, (like the 300 subscribers mark) I just don't subscribe to this idea of constantly broadcasting stats about followers, or our conversations and interactions on Twitter. If an individual decides to follow me and interact with me that's truly great, I'm humble enough to value human interaction, I'm a writer so I enjoy the act of writing in all its forms, I DM and reply time permitting, people wanting to connect in a positive way is obviously a very positive development for me. If they offer me some kind of genuine nugget to share in whatever area - Of course I'm going to share that with other followers who also decided to connect. Life should be about sharing.
If someone is connecting only because of some counter somewhere, then that's not great at all ! its actually quite disappointing and I came to understand why ranking might attract those newly self proclaimed social media experts into following me - generally until I blocked them or didn't follow them back. My policy on follow backs is simple - if the person seems genuine and/or their subject area is of interest to me, great then I'll reciprocate. I just changed my background to sort of support that and went onto a blog today to express that fact, something I don't usually do.
But now here's the rub, I live on the border, equidistant between Dublin and Belfast, it was random, almost a coin toss as to what city I initially listed in my profile using that drop down menu under Time Zone so I just said I lived in Ireland - not Dublin, not Belfast nor Cork nor anywhere else - Ireland in time Zone Dublin, where I am generally physically located - unless biz or other stuff takes me out and about.
The amusing thing is lots of others have now decided to live in Ireland and Dublin, including several marketing gurus and a blog connection. Boo Hoo I've suddenly been relegated to seventh place and I find the whole thing quite funny yet indicative of the clamor for attention that twitter has suddenly become.
For a while I thought it might be the Douglas Adams like spaceship of hairdressers scenario (substitute INTERNET marketers or even awkward Internet writers/wafflers like me) where everyone jabbers away incessantly about our collective common stuff of no importance to anyone else outside our bubble of insignificance. I'm too polite and open to not enjoy all this, while deep intellectual academic inquiry has its place, a funny cat picture can bring a smile to my face too, pop culture and net community is just as valid as any high art or elite pursuit.
There's a humanity versus celebrity issue going on here for me, ever since wossy and several other UK celebrities outed themselves as genuine twitter users, followers are acting more like fans and awe struck teenagers, some twitter users appear more like desperate wanna - bees. Not the Buzz I was contemplating when I hit 300 followers and actually just the sort of tripe I detest - idiotic fame chasing for the sake of it - vacuous I think is a good descriptor.
I'm going to sit back and review my use of twitter, I'm not sure I want to get mixed up in all that infantile hubris about how much of anything he or I have or she has or anyone else has for that matter.
Its an odd non material - materialistic attachment - which I can easily do without, Joy, happiness and contentment would be nice, I don't think any specific number of followers can provide those, and at my age with my life experience I've no desire to get mixed up with a bunch of rankers.
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