Comments on: From First Glance to Happily Ever After: My Approach to Relationship-Building Through Twitter

By: 30 Ways You Impress and Inspire Me (Yes You!) - Lori Deschene

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[...] You build real relationships online—like Glenn who recently shared his approach to relationship-building on [...]

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By: Glenn Hilton’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitter Welcome

Glenn Hilton’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitter Welcome — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:56:17 +0000

[...] From First Glance to Happily Ever After: My Approach to Relationship-Building Through Twitter [...]

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:37:08 +0000

Hi Luise, Thanks for contributing. Totally agree with your first point. As soon as someone starts to push things, walls naturally go up. Unfortunately as in real life, not everyone seems to get the social queues of how they come across and the more far removed we are from one another, (not being able to read body language, tone of voice, etc) the more challenging it can be to make good first impressions and start things on the right foot. So your advice to not push things is very applicable. I love the movie, "He's Just Not That Into You". I watched it with my daughters last week and had a good chat about what not to do in dating. The main character was attractive but kept chasing guys away because she was waaay to excited & pushy. Which is not what you want to do on Twitter either. In relation to your second point, "What's important to you?", I think that's an excellent reword, and I don't know the originator either, so I think it must be you. So you need to send that suggestion to Ev, Biz or Jack at Twitter ;-) Glenn

By: Luise

Luise — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:49:46 +0000

Two quick things (since you’re so active in reading and responding to comments, which is great!)

1) As in real life, good twitter relationships should be easy. Don’t push it.

2) Sorry I can’t attribute this to its original author (I forgot), but rather than saying “what are you doing,” try to answer “what is important to you.”

Thanks for this post – looking forward to more from your blog.

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:50:45 +0000

Hi Jamie, thanks for dropping by. Really glad you found it helpful. I’m hoping to have a new post out shortly for newbies who are getting started on Twitter so check back soon. Hope your experience with Twitter will be as fun as mine’s been so far and that it helps you tons with your recruiting work.

By: Jamie Morgan

Jamie Morgan — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:35:58 +0000

Hi Glenn,

I love this article. I often use the date analagy in my job as a recruiter, so I appreciate your humor and information.

I am new to Twitter and look up anyone that starts following me, which is how I found your blog. This helps me in getting started.

Best,
Jamie

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:41:32 +0000

Hi Richard, great thoughts. I agree with you that there’s many times you’ll come across someone who has valuable content that you’ll still want to follow even if they don’t follow you back. For example, I follow Pete Cashmore (@Mashable), Darren Rowse (@Problogger), and Brian Clark (@Copyblogger) and none of them have followed me back. However, if Twitter was just a broadcast tool (like a glorified RSS feed), then you’re right it wouldn’t be necessary to follow so many people back, but I see it as much more than that. For me Twitter is primarily a relationship tool, where I have the opportunity to begin a friendship with someone regardless of their accomplishments or whether they have brilliant things to say every time they tweet. By following someone, you’re letting them know that they are valuable and important and worth trying to get to know. I personally wish I didn’t have to unfollow anyone, but unfortunately Twitter doesn’t allow you to follow more than 10% beyond the amount of people who follow you so if you are hoping to get to know more people, you’re forced to unfollow those who don’t reciprocate. I view Twitter much differently than I do a tool like say Blip.fm. On Blip.fm I don’t follow people who have different music tastes than me as I don’t want my dashboard filled with songs I’m not interested in listening too, but maybe others see Blip differently and wish to listen to everyone’s music who follows them. Some people obviously view Twitter this way too and find it frustrating to have a bunch of noise from people they have nothing in common with and there’s nothing wrong with that. We all look at things differently.

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:36:52 +0000

This is a nice list, found it through a friend on twitter (or course).

In the early days of flickr lots of people got into quid pro quo contacts: I add you as a contact and expect you to add me, I comment on your images, you should be commenting on mine. This got to be a technique for some to game the system and get images onto explore and in reality, it becomes a full time job to keep up with hundreds of contacts like that.

I’m relatively new to active use of twitter but I feel the same way about it: quid pro quo connections (I follow you, you follow me, I dump you then you dump me) seems like an unnecessary popularity game added on top of a useful broadcast tool.

I say broadcast tool because like radio, I don’t think there has to be symmetry between say, The New York Times and me. I follow them but don’t expect them to follow me. To a lesser degree, it’s the same with individuals: If I find you a credible source of information and want to follow you but you don’t find my twitter feed useful then why would I stop following you and deprive myself of all the good stuff you’re broadcasting just because you haven’t helped boost my popularity by following me?

All of this stuff is fascinating to me, thanks for your post.

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:34:03 +0000

Hey Marla, really glad that you found it helpful. I checked out your website & you do some beautiful photography. I love SoCal and the Long Beach area! PS. This one is gorgeous!

By: Marla Davis

Marla Davis — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:46:13 +0000

This is the BEST explanation regarding Twitter for all especially the Newbies.
I really appreciate your time, information and wise words! Thank you!

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:16:47 +0000

Thanks for dropping by and I appreciate the props. Glad to hear you’re enjoying using Joomla. You’re Alaska Live social networking site looks great

By: AlaskaLive

AlaskaLive — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:17:45 +0000

Hello, I found you on twitter, and you added me.. so I always check out who I am tweeting.. and who is tweeting me… Love your website.
I do a lot of Joomla websites.. and also create sites from scratch with photoshop, dreamweaver, firworks.. flash..

We have some common interests… good to meet you.

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:19:48 +0000

I like your rule to auto follow all “Glenn’s” Glenn. I may have to adopt that one too.

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:59:25 +0000

Thanks for visiting and commenting Heidi. Really glad you found it helpful

By: Heidi

Heidi — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:54:50 +0000

Glenn, this is one of the best explanations of Twitter and why to follow or unfollow I have yet read. Even bookmarked it to read again later. I’m linking to it from Twitter now.

Heidi

By: 30 Ways You Impress and Inspire Me (Yes You!) | Seeing Good

30 Ways You Impress and Inspire Me (Yes You!) | Seeing Good — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 06:30:55 +0000

[...] You build real relationships online—like Glenn who recently shared his approach to relationship-building on [...]

By: Glenn Hilton

Glenn Hilton — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:37:38 +0000

Hey Tom, great to hear from you. I’m going to try and follow up and write a post for Twitter newbies as you’re right it can all be a bit daunting when you first try and get up and going. And you’re definitely right that there’s great potential for deepening relationships thru social media tools like Twitter. Looking forward to tweeting with you and seeing how it increases the exposure of Stride Shoes.

By: Glenn

Glenn — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:15:38 +0000

I agree with Lin. I do check each person’s profile and choose to follow only those who seem to be contributing to the discussion as opposed to delivering a (sales) monologue.

Of course, my other rule is to automatically follow anyone whose name is “Glenn”:-)