Is Twitter in Jeopardy?

Is it bye bye birdy?

Can you really keep up with 3000 people, or more?

I’m a huge Twitter fan…but that fan-dom was threatened when I realized I was increasingly “selling” myself and not having an authentic conversation with people. And that they weren’t having one with me. People I had promoted heavily and believed in, who had responded with a retweet or direct message here or there had never returned my follow.

That means they’ll never see this post. They’ll never get involved in a conversation with me. They can’t…

Companies I’ve called out to on Twitter repeatedly with questions have never responded. Even when they are Twitter apps! They aren’t having a conversation with me…they can’t.

Why? Because of the simple numbers of people we follow on Twitter. Mine is la little more than 1000 (and I review my followers and who I follow about monthly). But try to “listen” even casually to 1,000 people.

Sure you can look for @YOURNAME HERE but this is like being at a dinner party just waiting for someone to holler your name!

Hollah!

I don’t think that’s what all us authentic engaged folks intended to do when we started getting excited about Twitter.

But I’ll be honest. That’s where I go first. Who has mentioned me? Partly vanity, yes, but partly to see if someone is shouting out for me at the party. But what about that great conversation that two of my best friends are having off to the side…I can’t see it. There are two many people at my party.

I can’t genuinely follow 1,000 people. I’ve been trying to shrink the number via “lists” and groups on Hootsuite, but even then it feels too hard and too clique-ish to keep track of.

Facebook’s newsfeed is becoming more attractive (there. I said it).

Then, of course, there is the hard cold reality that Twitter still doesn’t seem to have a plan to monetize and they’ve flatlined in signing up new members.

What will YOU do if Twitter goes bye bye birdie?