The name of the game is Quality vs. Quantity.

Once we get that junk out of the domain portfolio we finally get down to the quality gems.

I have quickly noticed that this same principal needs to be applied to Twitter.

Make no mistake about it; Twitter is a powerful tool. It is an exceptional tool for making new contacts, learning, and news.

I have seen sites on the internet and people touting their method of success to get 15,000, 25,000, 40,000 followers on twitter. The process usually involves following someone and they reciprocate back by following you.

That is the quantity side of things.

To prove the point of how popular this tool is, late night TV host Jimmy Fallon had an audience member reveal his Twitter user name on air and the number of followers (7). Jimmy requested every one in the studio and TV audience follow this guy.

This kid went from 7 followers to almost 43,000 in less than 2 hours.

What about doing business on Twitter? What would it be like to follow 42,000 people? What if all the people you were following were posting on Twitter? Or even half or a quarter were to post? What if you had to scroll though 42,000, 21,000, 10,000, 5,000 or even 500 tweets to find an answer to a question you posed an hour ago.

If you want to use Twitter as a popularity ranking tool that is perfectly fine and perhaps enjoyable for many people.

Honestly, I have no intention of using twitter as a Mr. Popular barometer. I perceive my time on twitter as an opportunity to create and educate. That works both ways for me. I can either learn new creative skills and tips as I learn WordPress. Or I can offer my creative skills or knowledge of advertising. I want to be able to offer relevant content (quality) over simply tweeting every blessed thing I do (quantity). I am convinced that there is not a living soul out there in twitterverse that really cares about all the nuances of my day or a minute-by-minute play of what I am doing. This may come as a shock to many, but I really do not care about you standing at the gas pump filling up your car.

As a courtesy, I have responded to the notice of someone following me by following them back. Oh, brother…what some mistakes those have been. I hate to do it but I am going to have to unfollow (remove) myself from some of my own followers. To illustrate this point, I am on a couple other twitter accounts involving other interests and professions. Honestly, one girl posted 28 tweets in an hour. None were directed at anyone, none were of any import, and all were seemingly space filler. It was as if she enjoyed seeing her own words. And if that was not harmless enough, she DM’d me to ask a question. I honestly thought I was inside the mind of a bi-polar person and it was evident.

I do not want twitter to be like many of the forums that have lost the focus of what the forum was for. Nor do I want my Twitter account to end up being someone’s personal chat room. I want my Twitter time to be quality Twitter time. I want quality in who I follow for their content. It is not important if they follow me back. I want to seek out those that are leaders in their field, specialty, occupation, and opinions. That is what following is all about. I want read and post tweets that are enjoyable to read.

I appreciate every individual person or entity that follows me.

Honestly, there are not 42,000 people alive that I am interested in following.

And I am not going to follow 42,000 twits so I can brag about having 39,000 followers.

I read somewhere about these bragging rights and this was a popularity contest. The answer about having to deal with thousands of tweets on their page was to ignore them.

If I have to ignore my followers and those I follow, then I’ll just ignore Twitter.