Twitter has been getting so much attention lately, and for good reason. A lot of people have been using it to try to get attention, while others are using it to make connections (not that these are mutually exclusive). For example, I was in Whistler, BC a few weeks ago, and I sent a few tweets about my experience skiing there, and withing a day I had three new followers, all of them marketers in the Whistler area.
For me, twitter is a good tool both for gaining attention and making connections, but what I find is that as my followers grow, it demands more and more of my attention. I have been thinking in terms of "attention bandwidth" lately, and how much to let in. I really do care about my personal friends and I don't mind hearing that they are "waiting in line at Starbucks" (as rob says) from time to time, but I can't afford to be inundated with this minutiae, especially when it extends to not just friends but acquaintances and business people. This is also true in other social networking realms like facebook, and in real life. How often to we avoid that person who talk on and on about every little thing she has been thinking about since we last saw her, with no attention to our time constraints or interest levels?
How do you manage your attention bandwidth, whether online or in person?
follow attention economy at twitter.com/attentionecon
follow me at twitter.com/emarsh
Friday, March 06, 2009
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