First of all, I was not too fond of sending #MUEthics tweets from my personal account. I have over 500 followers and a majority of them are sports fans or people that follow me for analysis in track and field. Since I started tweeting, the type of audience that I have tried to attract and build is one that a sports journalist would have.
Clogging the feed of one of those followers with tweets about social innovation would not be what they are looking for from me and could lead to them clicking the "unfollow" button. Before #MUEthics, I had 520 followers. As I was tweeting I lost two followers and gained three. Those followers could be expecting me to tweet about similar topics now and could unfollow me at another time.
I'm trying to brand myself as a sports journalist with a focus in baseball and running analysis. I have decided to warn my followers of what is coming up ahead and for what reason.
Heads up to my followers, I will be live tweeting a speaker for a journalism class. Bear with the tweets that may or may not interest you.
— Christopher Chavez (@Chris_J_Chavez) September 18, 2012
Followers beware. Going to be sending out tweets from the weasler auditorium from @dnbornstein's speech. #loweclass #muethics
— Patrick Leary (@PTLeary21) September 18, 2012
I'm looking forward to live tweeting at the PR Social Media Summit in October, because Olympic runner Nick Symmonds will be one of the speakers. I have a following of runners that would be interested to hear what he has to say about his social media use and topics like Rule 40 at the Olympics.
Don't get me wrong here, because I enjoy live tweeting. There are just some events that are not needed to be covered like someone coming into the class to talk about the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. It's a discussion aimed at a class of 13 people, who else will end up retweeting what we have to say about information being passed onto us.
Before an event I will think about my general following audience and try to work my tweets into their interest. For events about the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, I don't think there's much to relate to sports or running.
Once again, I'm sorry for everyone who follows me. I have to live tweet something.
— Eric Oliver (@ericoliver91) September 18, 2012