First and foremost, I love Twitter, it helps me so much in my life, both on a personal and business level and it's fair to say it has played a huge part in my career development. But something has bugged me for a while and it has to do with the Tweet volume of users. There are people out there who send in excess of 300 tweets per day, even though they are clearly employed either by a business or on the behalf of clients. How can any serious work really take place inbetween the creation and sending of said tweets?
Of course, it's important to share information, give opinion and join in with discussions, but the level that some people operate at must have negative effects on their productivity and in-turn their value as a business asset. Before anyone jumps on me, I am aware that I have racked up a fairly high number of tweets (13,352 in 17 months - approx 26 per day) but not at a level that I feel interupts my working day (a lot of my Tweeting is carried out pre/post working hours or during breaks).
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential buyer of your service, lets say you are a consultant. They will research you online, it's a given in this day and age. What might Google (other search engines are available) spit back at them? A LinkedIn profile? Your blog? Sure as heck your Twitter profile. So they dig a little deeper and find that you are sending a tweet every 5-10 minutes, some of them they may find valuable, but there is only so much value to be had from sharing information. That potential client will want real value for money, they will not want to pay you to tweet (from your own account anyway!).
In this social web world we operate in, the impression you put across on any channel you use counts for so so much. Don't lose focus on the fact that you have a job to do, a job that provides you with the lifestyle you choose to lead. Twitter is a beautiful thing, don't let it turn ugly by overdoing it. I know someone who lost their job due to the employer being rather miffed at their Twitter use during working hours. Everything you do Twitter is out there for all to see, so you can have no excuse when the soup hits the fan.
What do you think? Are you a high volume tweeter that maintains a strong work output? Are you a 'buyer' that would be put off by a consultant's level of tweets? Are you guilty as charged?
This post originally appeared on my Posterous site.
