In December of 2012, Twitter announced it had surpassed 200 million users. As TechCrunch noted, it was a 42% increase in their user base in under a year. Wow.
Of course it was CEO Dick Costolo who let us know in the summer of 2012 that 400 million tweets were being sent each day. With the increase in users since that time, one can easily surmise we’re well past this number in early 2013.
These data points got me thinking.
How am I ever going to read 400 million tweets a day?
No, not really. I’ll save that for a trip to the Library of Congress where they have already collected 170 billion tweets and are still going strong.
What I’m referring to is our (or perhaps my) approach to Twitter.
Upon reflection, I think I’m missing out. When I’m on Twitter, I’m scanning streams, hashtags and searches that I make. That part is ok and I’m learning a lot as a result of my usage habit. But what I’m not doing enough of is spending time reviewing the streams of individuals. I’m not putting time in my personal time management system to review what individuals have ‘tweeted’ over a period of time.
Because I may check Twitter infrequently, I may be missing out on potentially golden tweets of individuals. Because I may be searching or scanning hashtags for certain topics, I may be missing out on sage advice, links or thoughts because I don’t pick it up during my normal Twitter habits. Those tweets are buried on the profile of a Twitter user.
That’s going to change. I’m going to start checking out past tweets of individuals, in case I’ve missed something.
I’m not simply going to follow on Twitter anymore, I’m going to spend time reviewing.
