Mulligan. In Golf, it means if your very first swing is a bit off, you can ask your fellow golfers for a do-over.  The term has become synonymous with do-overs in all areas of life.  There are a number of times in my life where I wish I could have a Mulligan…

Oddly, if the second shot is worse than the first, the term for that is a Finnegan.  Why is there so much meaning behind Irish names?

We all built it, and they are coming (and asking some serious questions)

Twitter is still popular, because we made it so; but as more people step into social media, straighten themselves up after climbing the learning curve and look around, questions come up.  Newbies are beginning to ask why it is that some unknown guy in Pakistan who stopped tweeting 6 months ago has over 45,000 users, while they are fighting to come up with original multi-media content that connects them with their (average user follower base of) barely over 130 people?

Twitter’s errant first swing

Twitter’s been around for 4 years, and has proven to be one of the most successful social media networks in the World, with an estimated 10,000,000 users interacting with each other.  It’s incredible simplicity in design has allowed for its growth to be directed organically by its many users.

Because of the desire to keep things open, a number of abusive practices have occurred on Twitter over time, and we have simply grown used to them while we say “hello” and “how are you” and “I can lick my own elbow” with our friends…

The stranger behemoths - We’ve all seen these guys.  They stomp around on Twitter with their insanely huge followership, but don’t say anything of value.  They’ve developed and played systems designed to artificially inflate their numbers, rather than earn it through making comments people actually appreciate.  To them, it’s all about the big, shiny rodeo belt buckle…  We are not impressed.  Planning to cash in those followers for some cold, hard cash someday?

There are tens of thousands of Twitter accounts held by these otherwise unknowns that have for years driven up their numbers by auto-following a thousand people daily, and unfollowing those that did not automatically follow back.  The process is repeated daily, as Twitter allows for up to 1,000 follows a day.  How daunting it must be to a new Twitterer to see these large, lumbering beasts of false renown!  And how frustrating to see how hard it is to quickly connect far and wide.

The recommended list - Newbies upon account creation are provided a list of celebrities, authors, chefs, social media mavens, sports figures, former MTV spotlight-mongers and whatnot that Twitter has hand-picked as desirable to begin with, to simply get the conversation started.  Although I’m not sure how much @sockamillion the cat will actually listen to what’s happening in your life, and stop to chat with you.

There’s an issue with the Recommended List.  Many on its occupants don’t necessarily tend to follow or talk back to all the newbies coming in, so no conversations really get started by following them.  C’mon, someone with 450,000 followers and 147 follows simply isn’t going to talk with you, even if your avatar is completely naked and you’re smokin’ hot.  Okay, maybe he’ll follow you. Being on this list can also inflate one’s numbers in a fairly rapid manner, with no actual social work required.

The auto-bots – If you joined Twitter in the last year, you got your share of Britney porn-bots, and blocked dozens of them on an almost monthly basis.  Businesses began monitoring tweets using the search feature or creating monitoring systems.  If you so much as mentioned Starbucks, you got a follow from them.  If you talked about how much you loved chocolate, Ghirardelli showed up as a follow.  If you say you can lick your own elbow, there’s this woman in Milwaukee that will start coming on to you…  Sorry Sadie, but someone had to say something. It’s getting embarassing.  So please stop DMing me.

Anyway, the gist of what I’m saying is that if you are new, there are many who came long before you and have found ways to gain vast followerships, and they drive those Cadillac accounts around town proudly, tooting that horn and shouting “Orálé!”  I have no idea what that means.  They also try to sell you their SEO-Godlike “proven techniques” for gaining a following, despite knowing they used a below-the-counter method to gain theirs.

Twitter has done quite a bit lately to tone down this activity.  They’ve recently shut down open account access to applications that allow you to bulk auto-follow and auto-unfollow users, so you will never be able to game the system like that guy in Pakistan (and so many others) previously did.

But what to do about those people that already bulked up their accounts artificially? Hmmmm…..

Should Twitter get a Mulligan?

I’ve seen posts begin to emerge asking if Twitter should have a Mulligan of its own. Should @Ev and @Jack and the other folks who brought us this wonderful means of sharing rich multi-media simply hit the reset button?  How would things look if everybody, from the new guy with 28 followers to the social media moguls with over 4,000,000 lost all their connections, overnight?  What if all the follows and the followers disappeared, and we all had to start over from scratch?

Oh, it sounds enticing, doesn’t it?  Or downright scary.  Some reading this have already peed a little in their undies.  Sorry. As you can see, @socksamillion is not happy with this concept. The stranger behemoths would lose all of their fine work, and may even have to resort to tweeting again.  The celebrities to be sure would see their following return again, fans being what they are.  You might see the auto-bots more readily if all you had were 200 followers for awhile…  And it would be difficult to pretend I was a social media powerhouse if all had were 137 followers, and those “proven” techniques I previously bragged over and over about to “connect” and “gain a following” seemed to be missing the mark…

Those that honestly worked hard to obtain their following would see all of their fine work lost overnight, and to me that seems to be such a waste, a great hardship to bear for them.  I’m sure they deserve their following, and to reap the benefit of these relationships built over time.  So how does Twitter allow for a more even playing field, while allowing those legitimate hard Tweeters to keep their social media structures?  I’ll explain a possible method in a moment…

My Personal Twitter Mulligan

Last Friday, I broke a big Twitter rule.  I jumped off the online cliff.  I did a crazy thing.  I thumbed my nose and flew in the face of 4-year-old Twitter conventions.  Just what terrible catastrophe did I willingly wreak upon my social media existence?

I announced to my followers that I’m going to drop my old Twitter account.  That’s right, I am starting over, and have informed my 3,400 followers. Yes, a whopping 3,400.  LOL. Those of you who are social media heavyweights with 200,000+ followers, you can stop your snickering now. I created a whole new Twitter username.  And avatar.  And background image.  As the social media pundits call it, I am de-”brand”-ing.  Woot.  Can you hear the crickets in the background? Skreek, skreek, skreek…

To be sure, I am not starting over completely from scratch.  I’ve invited everyone who wants to follow me over in this transition to please do so.  A handful did so almost immediately.  Because I took the advice of Twitter heavyweights, I previously used an auto-follow feature with my old account, and had to meticulously pour through my reciprocated 3,500 follows.  I chose 500 to follow with my new account, and sent out a general invite.  It’s a joy to see what these amazing people have to say without the distractions of others selling me something, asking me if my teeth are white enough, or trying to show off their thong.  Okay, I think I saved her, but she is really nice, and is a Democrat…

The process has been humbling, to say the least.  By doing this, I have found out who is actually listening to me, appreciates what I have to say, and wishes to continue interacting with me.  I’m giving a full week for the process, and plan to continue the invitations between now and then.  When i formally close down my old account this coming Friday, I will be dumping almost 3,000 businesses, porn accounts, SEO “Gods,” serial RTers, stranger behemoths, recommended favorites, auto-bots and more generally people who continued following me only because I auto-followed them back.  To me, it’s the equivalent of leaving the huge ballroom, drink in hand, and inviting the pretty girl to step outside on the balcony, into the fresh night air…

Twitter 2.0

I believe the discussion about a Twitter reset has a lot of merit, and wish there were an environment where we can take all of our lessons learned and begin anew, all from scratch.  I also understand the need to reward those that worked hard for their current following.

Here’s how to keep both intact…  Twitter could:

• Purchase another URL, like http://www.twittertoo.com
• Load Twitter’s code on this new place.
• Usernames in Twitter.com are automatically reserved in Twittertoo.com, so people won’t have to worry about losing their cool Twitter name suddenly, and people won’t be able to pretend they are @aplusk in the new environment just ’cause they got there first.
• Twitter.com will stay up, and people can continue to stay there if they please, glaring at the lumbering giants or blocking the spambots.
• In Twittertoo.com, everyone begins with zero follows and followers from the start.  Develop your connections as you normally would.
• People may go to Twitter.com and invite their followers to follow them to Twittertoo.com
• Bulk transferring of follows and followers from Twitter to Twittertoo will not be provided for or allowed in the coding process.
• There will be no recommended lists.  Find people on your own, dude, or provide everyone 20 randomly chosen people from a survey of what their interests are.
• The new partnerships with desktop apps like Tweetdeck will be controlled through closer partnerships and monitoring.  No open authorization for reciprocal follower websites.
• No bulk-following or auto-following, to remove the incentive for stranger behemoths, auto-bots and spammers.
• We must approve our followers by manually clicking an approval button.

I believe that by Twitter asking us for a Mulligan, and using careful new controls, those who make the move to this new and improved Twitter environment will find many people there working hard to develop relationships, same as in the old Twitter.  And they will enjoy the new quiet as the spammers and behemoths stay in the old environment, working their dark, evil magic.

Those that worked hard to achieve their merited following will be able to invite their following to successfully follow them over.   If they don’t all move over, then they weren’t listening anyway, right?  C’mon, how about a reality check?  Prove your cinnamoney sweet SEO magic works.

I believe celebrities, legitimate news providers, wonderful personalities and individuals of renown will see the same large tide of followers vying to interact with them, sharing their tweets with others and enjoying the social media realm.  People with little to say will still not “get it” and have a limited following.  Social media flowers will blossom, just as they did in Twitter, version 1.0

Until then, I will send my invites out to my new account, and enjoy all of the wonderful people who have joined me in the cool, night air…  Let’s hope that I didn’t pull a Finnegan…

You can humor and follow me at @TheSteveWoods on Twitter.  I’ll find you pretty easily, trust me…