I joined Tech Twitter on July 8th. I just started to go back again into programming and I felt, doing things all on my own is not super motivational. Sometimes having a group of people around me that do the same thing and excite me with their own excitement is the right amount of hype, that I need to get stuff going. Short: People love to surround themselves with people with the same interests!
The first few messages I saw were about working too long, drinking too much coffee, complaining about JavaScript and contemplating life choices and I thought:
Those are my people!
So me being all excited and then also meeting Shaun, who is probably the funniest person I met through Tech Twitter so far, got me even more excited. I mean he likes dinos, I like dinos. We already had a good foundation. Also his "Programming Languages but as Dinosaurs" is kinda hilarious. Not to forget Erik, whose sarcasm and irony-filled tweets are always spot on. He manages to point things out without stepping on people's toes. I couldn't do that 🤣.
When I then asked Mike if he has some Python-Twitter suggestions, he pointed me to Raza Zaidi who had been on my timeline anyway with telling me to go to code at 3 am.
To his defense. Twitter suggested those tweets into my timeline at 3 am. It's not that he wrote them at 3 am. But it was always pretty funny when I just finished my lessons and then quickly checked Twitter just to see him telling me indirectly to go back. Raza! Gimme a break!
Funny enough, now his little Python-Quizzes are used by me and the person mentoring me, to check if I understood my courses.
The Worth Of Meaningful Connections
Why am I telling you this? Because these are the connections I made through Tech Twitter, that were meaningful. I met real people, who were not afraid to connect with each other, talk to each other and be of value to other people without asking for something. People who did not ask questions for engagement, but people who were interested in the people they talked to.
80% of Tech Twitter is engagement bait and self promotion
Tech Twitter has either changed a lot since July or I didn't get the people suggested before, but my timeline turned more and more into a clickbaity, engagement-baity, and "Thank you for xxxx Followers" Timeline.
Especially coming from a job where Social Media was my bread and butter, knowing Followers mean nothing without the meaningful connections you make. Why do you think all these brand accounts are meme'ing with each other. They want that people have an emotional connection to them. Feeling like they talk to each other on the same level.
Funny enough: Even Twitter doesn't really look at follower numbers anymore but looks at how much impact a person has on the outside world of Twitter before considering them as important. That's why some accounts can have 200k followers and don't deserve a blue checkmark in Twitter's eyes, because their importance is only inside their own curated bubble.
I got annoyed and tired really quickly, because to me it felt like spam and that certain topics were written in the most dramatic way to make me feel pressured to look into their topics. Tech Twitter was trying to sell me books, online courses, Crypto-Currency and tried to trigger my "Fear of missing out" with every
"If you don't do $this now, you will never have a chance to keep up with the others."
Everyone knows, if it's that important, it wouldn't be a user with an egg-profile-picture on Twitter telling me, right?
Also coming from doing almost full-time YouTube for 2 years now, I know a lot of those entrepreneurs telling you that THEY have the solution for success, but they actually have not reached the goal they want to sell you - maybe they do not have the secret crabby burger recipe after all.
To find those gems that are the people I mentioned above, you have to do a lot of filtering (or hope they find you 😅). If you see stuff that annoys you, don't wait as long as I did and start muting those accounts. If you feel like watching a teleshopping channel, mute.
If you feel like someone wants to push you into THEIR topic, mute. A community that is just people who offer stuff, is not a community. It's a market without customers. Communities like that, never exist for very long, because people who look for connections will leave.
If it wasn't for Twitter bundling those tweets because they talk about the same topic, it would be considered spam. Interestingly enough, Twitter started sorting out those accounts, by asking users if that tweet fits into the topic they are thrown in by Twitter.
If you try to trick the algorithm for gains, the algorithm will change and your gains will be meaningless. That's how it always goes. The algorithm is not there to push your content, it's there to make a better experience for those who read the content. And the thing that's never out of style is making meaningful connections. Because that's what this whole social media is about, that's what people look for.
I saw so many people joining Tech Twitter, posting about how they want to be everyone's friend and have those connections and then left as soon as they got their job, their interview their contracts. And I am only following this stuff since July.
Be Honest About Why You Are Doing This
Authenticity is important. And that doesn't mean to get better at making people think you are honest with them when you try to sell them something but just BE honest with them and tell them you are here to sell your stuff. I think many accounts get this wrong and that's why it all feels so fake and played. Don't be that person.
I know a lot of people have been feeling drained and exhausted about being in that community. Me too. Filtering skills are more important than ever these days because everyone can enter our small bubble without us even having to follow them. Especially because of that: Be brave, click mute!
TLDR: Be honest with yourself and with others about what your intentions are. We are all here for the long game and not some short-term thing. Also, go and follow the people mentioned above.
AND: Be braver to mute the people that annoy you. It's all about keeping your sanity up while being in this space.
Title-Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
