And if you are not wanting to get marketed to? - Cristo

You need to than unfollow those users...:)) Twitter is a lot more about broadcasting and getting followers is like a drug.. the more you broadcast the more followers you get :) - Bindu Reddy

Are you getting high right now? :) - Cristo

Getting followers doesn't really mean anything: 390 of the 400 followers I have on Twitter never act or do anything with what I say on it. Getting them to convert is the meaningful part of the marketing proposition, and conversations, I've found, are far more effective at that. - Mark Trapp

Mark is right. - Robert Scoble

So, what's the FAQ for interaction on Twitter? I had a post that got 100+ comments the other day here on Friendfeed but no response on Twitter. I must be doing something wrong over there. - Eric @ CSTechcast.com

twitter seems to be great for people who are lazy and not really savvy about marketing. it's sort of like shouting into the void, and you might get a few people to respond, but do you really get people to act? - Bren, Not Grinchy

@Mark, I agree with you.. However to a lot of people having a follower number like 10K/20K, which seems like a relatively easily thing to do on Twitter, is not only just a high but it is also a good way to keep in touch with your audience without spending too much time... Here keeping in touch with your audience is way more time consuming - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, but keeping in touch doesn't mean anything if they're not listening. You can have a million followers, but if you're not getting any of them to act on what you're saying, it doesn't mean much. Getting conversations going with people, who may or may not be followers, which Twitter is pretty bad at, are more effective at getting people to convert. I just had a relatively popular blog post the other day: 99% of the people who went to my website, advertised the post, and/or took the time to respond weren't following me on Twitter (or FriendFeed). - Mark Trapp

Bindu, I'm following you (FF) and I just commented too :) - Micah Wittman

@Mark, Curious how did you get them to go to your website? - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, if I knew that I'd have it made. Near as I can tell, people were doing Twitter and Google searches for "twitter list," and then started retweeting it and sharing it from there. - Mark Trapp

Following is such a low-risk endeavor that people don't put thought into it: they'll follow anyone and everyone. You even have people thinking it's common decency to automatically follow people if they follow you without even thinking about if their content is interesting. Following is the 21st century equivalent of receiving a phone book or the yellow pages: you do it just in case you need to contact or get ahold of someone in the future, but nobody ever realistically does. - Mark Trapp

Yep, it's like collecting business cards that get neatly filed into a big binder. It's about the self-satisfaction of the collection - you feel more connected / networked / important and avoid doing the hard work of cold calling or meeting with people and building something or whatever. - Micah Wittman

I agree with following being a low-risk effort... However I have also heard of ppl gaining value from Twitter without much effort. Take for example this coffeshop I am a big fan of - sightglass coffee. They get a lot of customers from Twitter. It takes them relatively little time to tweet and they get customers. It would be very hard to achieve the same on FF. - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, I get lots of conversation on Twitter, too. One of the reasons I am there more than here is because people with common interest in my political obsessions are there, but not here. - Karoli

Karoli - Yes, the Twitterverse is way more diverse than the FFverse. Curious do you get more comments/conversations per post on Twitter as compared to FF or is it that you you post more stuff because time spent per post is lower on Twitter - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, I get very little response to political conversations/comments on FF - a couple of folks follow here but a very small percentage compared to twitter. I tried to pull people over here, but they didn't understand why they should leave tweetdeck and their twitter setup for new territory. - Karoli

Geeks (+ early adopters, influential folks, the elite ...) are on FriendFeed and the proletariat on Twitter? Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat? Calls for action work best when the audience actually cares, so prolly that's all about choosing the right medium for the targeted punters? - Sebastian

Sebastian... yes agree the geeks and tech bloggers are on FF... However if you are marketing say a fashion or beauty blog. You won't get much interest here. twitter is the place for you :) - Bindu Reddy

I disagree with that statement, Bindu. There's a LOT of non-tech getting traction on FriendFeed. So much so that it's the number one reason Scoble no longer enjoys being here: he says he doesn't see enough tech for his liking. - FFing Enigma (aka Tina)

Just butting in here to mention that there are tons of uses for both twitter and friendfeed that have nothing whatsoever to do with marketing. In fact, once could make the argument that social networks such as these were designed to get away from marketing. Unlike radio, TV, or even a web search, you choose who you'll be receiving information from. If you're looking to exchange information, that's great. If you're instead trying to market a product or spin an idea, you'll find that the only people listening are the people who already agree with you. - Mr. Gunn

Marketing, schmarketing. - Christopher A Carr

Bindu, what I'm sick of is marketers broadcasting their sales pitches to all social media outlets out there, regardless whether the audience might fit or not. Anyways, i'ts possible to attract a few somewhat intelligent responses to geeky topics at Twitter, at least when xmas and independence day share the same date. Most probably I wouldn't try to sell wonder bras at FF, though. - Sebastian

@Tina ... umm I have not been an avid user of FF lately so maybe it has become pretty diverse. Are you saying there are a lot of people on here with specific interests such as politics, beauty etc? - Bindu Reddy

Sebastian - LOL.. agree :) - Bindu Reddy

Bindu: Ning is a better place to go if you have very specific topics you want to talk about. They are growing a FriendFeed every 12 days (they are getting a million new users that often and have just passed 38 million registered). FriendFeed is fun if you aren't sure what you want to chat about and you're cool with seeing lots of family pictures and goofy stuff. Tina is right that the hard-core geeks are mostly on Twitter or Facebook now, I keep watching here, though. - Robert Scoble

Karoli I get all kinds of action here on political topics. I have more followers on Twitter but rarely get a response there. Here I got 80+ comments yesterday. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

MVB, Karoli is a prolific voice on twitter. Twitter seems quite effective for political advocacy/activism even though longer form convos have to break out somewhere else. Also, just like friendfeed, volume / steady presence can make all the difference. Your tweet count is ~2K; Karoli's over 63K. - Micah Wittman

My presence here is similar to Kaoli's on Twitter, then. So, presence is a mitigating factor. But, Micah, as you so deftly point out, for a long conversation there needs to be a move to another venue. That's where here works better, since it can stay right here. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

We agree, and can agreed at length right here, folks :) - Micah Wittman

So link your twitter to your friendfeed. Get followers and comments. The best of both worlds. - Hareesh Nagarajan

Does it make any difference here whether the original post was to Twitter and reposted here automatically or the original post was directly here? In other words, does the FF community prefer to comment on direct posts rather than Twitter reposts? - Jimmy Walker

Jimmy: it honestly depends on who you interact with on FriendFeed. There are people who get irate about people only posting to Twitter and openly advocate using FriendFeed directly, and yet, there are interesting people who always get a conversation going around their tweets. One thing that sometimes helps is coming back to FriendFeed and elaborating on your tweet, or to do more than just use Twitter: use the FriendFeed bookmarklet to share interesting things every one in a while, try to respond to people commenting on your stuff in Friendfeed (ideally in realtime), and comment on other people's stuff often. - Mark Trapp

Mark, that sounds like good advice. Thanks. - Jimmy Walker

B.Reddy is right.I complately agree with her.A good view,and a good advice for us.Thank you Bindu... - Dedegi

Following only happens after several good comments. Consistency is the key. - Jeremy (cropmarks)

Jeremy, I am not sure... Someone body or the other seems to come and follow you based on pretty much anything you twitter. Of course most of these ppl prob. do that expecting a follow back? - Bindu Reddy

Bindu: I meant on FF. Twitter...they're pretty loose. - Jeremy (cropmarks)

I don't get followers from posting on Twitter; the only people who see what I post there are my followers. - Glen Mistletoe

I post both places and get almost nothing... so where's your hypothesis now, huh!? ;-)) - Jim Hearts FF

Post more pics of Johnny in a dress. - Jeremy (cropmarks)

If I was marketing something, I would do both... - Johnny Worthington

Bindu: As you had said earlier, most of the followers at twitter don't read what you are tweeting. So it is actually better to get comments as you know those who comment read whatever you post. - Amit

Amit, I completely agree with you about the comments and how no one reads your tweets. As an example I posted a tweet about "anchors" On FF there are 7 likes and 14 comments.. None on twitter. However at the end of the day for every 20 new followers I get 1-2 new friends. On FF much less of that happens. So from a marketing point of view Twitter is better. - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, how many people are subbed to you on FF and on Twitter? What are the total number of subs to each? What is the ratio of your subs to the total subs of each? I bet a crisp dollar bill that you are subbed to a higher percentage of subs on FF than on Twitter. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from fftogo

MVB interesting point of subs. # of subs on Twitter and FF are about the same but the quality of subs is much better on FF. As far as ration goes... yes FF is much better than Twitter and that does have an impact. However I am going to contend that even for people who have many more subs on Twitter (e.g. scoble?) there is much more engagement on FF than twitter. he probably adds more followers though on twitter - Bindu Reddy

Bindu, exactly. Unlike you, I, and most others, are not here to market a product or service so we see a different function of Social Media. - MVB (Curmudgeon of FF) from iPod

Social Media 101: It's a two-way street - relationships are formed via interactions, not uni-directional broadcast. :) - See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

This, btw, is true for all forms of marketing / business function - consider a customer support hotline that never get answered by anyone but just sits there as a 1-800 number. - See-ming Lee 李思明 SML

I'd like to think getting sales is even better than followers, come to think of it, getting leads are better than followers too. Followers are overrated. - Justin Hitt

@Justin... completely agree.. - Bindu Reddy