Recently, I gave a talk during a presentations class about Twitter. It was an attempt to eliminate misconceptions and demonstrate why Twitter is a powerful tool for learning if used properly. The following is a distillation of the presentation.
Why to Twitter
Most people know about Twitter along one dimension: The Donald. Although, this is a part of Twitter, it is not why you should Twitter. In fact, it is better to avoid this side of Twitter. The three great ways of learning on Twitter are:
- Observing conversations in real time out in the open. As a medical student with a diverse set of interests, I can peer into the conversations between prominent scientists and clinicians. Also, the articles and publications that they post allow for insight into what may be most important to read in specific fields.
2. Participating in conversations allows you to meet new people. Twitter is great for meeting others who you would have may not otherwise met in “real life” because of a variety of constraints. Thus, gradually, you can meet people who have interesting set of viewpoints and are willing to engage in conversation through this medium.
3. Asking for feedback and iterating on ideas in the open. One of the most notable tweets recently is Jeff Bezos asking for advice on how to engage in philanthropic efforts. This is a paradigm of how Twitter is used for feedback. Those who have built up a genuine Twitter presence are frequently positing ideas for feedback and iteration which, quite frequently, leads them to better conclusions.
How to Twitter
A great Twitter feed requires regular pruning and planting. Yes, it sounds like a garden but that is what immediately comes to mind when developing your Twitter. My Twitter presence began at the start of college in 2011. I connected to friends from high school and college, had some minimal interaction, but then it went by the wayside for several years as Facebook dominated college social life. At that point in life, Facebook was a better for connecting with peers and keeping up with the social events at college. When I graduated, I found that Facebook was not as great of a utility. Additionally, I had a different job to be done: learning from others. Although I had just finished college, my curiosity about the world around me had just started to take off.
Here are the steps I use to cultivate a great Twitter feed:
- Frequently add people who you find or discover through re-tweets or online posts (such as Medium!). This is the trial phase. You get to determine if their posts are worth your time or not. Be careful, though, to mindfully select the people you add so you dont overindex those who have your point of view and engage in confirmation bias.
- Observe how the new additions alter your feed. Over the next couple of days and weeks you will be able to determine if the account you follow posts too frequently. This is usually the main reason I unfollow people. Also, I will unfollow those I think are not being entirely forthcoming or too often engage in hype cycles. I want to make sure I always get a good mix of different people and viewpoints everytime I open the app.
- Review the list of people who you follow and prune your list. If you don’t remember what a particular account posted in the past month, then it likely means that the account does not post anything worthwhile (at least to you). I have found through this method that my optimal follow count is between 300 and 400 accounts when optimizing for signal/noise.
Final thoughts
When I gave the presentation, I made the message incredibly simple about what to do and not to do when starting a Twitter account. They were (1) Don’t immediately connect with friends, (2) Don’t follow formal organizations, (3) Don’t over-follow, gradually ramp-up, (4) Do run your account like a continuous experiment. These four heuristics really made my Twitter experience great and increased its usefulness to me. If you would like more on why and how to Twitter, I really recommend this slide deck by Nikhil. Happy Twittering!
