discobeta

Of all the social networks that I participate in, I actually KNOW the fewest on twitter.  And I'm guessing if you follow/are followed by more than a few hundred people, you are in the same situation. twitter is one of the few social networks where it is completely acceptable to follow people you don't know, and want them to follow you back.  It is one of the things that makes twitter unique.

I am following marketers, technologists, designers, news services and a slew of early adopters, and I am followed by many of the same.  As twitter has grown over the last few months, the one group I have now added is friends.  As in, people I know personally -- relationships were constructed offline and are now seeping onto twitter.

I joined twitter as a digital marketer wanting to learn more about a tool that has now become essential to maintaining a social media presence, and ended up talking to people doing the same.  My real friends weren't there, so the people I talked to the most we like me: early adopters, marketers, people interested in new media.  Now that my friends have rolled into twittertown, my twitter personality is changing.  The people listening and talking back to me on twitter are no longer early adopters and marketers -- they are people I grew up with and had beers with long before twitter existed.

It is unusual for a social media service to become more social, but that's what twitter has become for me.  I'd rather tweet to and for friends I know than hope for a retweet from early adopters.  That doesn't mean it's one or the other, but the presence of my friends has changed the way I converse on twitter.

If I really want to maintain a certain personality on twitter, the obvious answer is to have a couple different twitter handles, but that defeats the purpose of social media.  Social media is about relationships - the new ones and the old - and one of the things that makes social media interesting to me is the fusing of the those relationships and the information/interactions that result.  As more of my friends join twitter, it becomes better (and more social) for me.  And to be honest, I think it makes the conversation on twitter better as well.  So I'll be sticking with my current twitter handle and look forward to more friends rolling into town.