Emma Cooper

Over the last couple of days, I have gained a lot of new followers on Twitter. Judging by who they are and the things they tweet, this is not because I was asking questions about the (culinary) differences between hemp and marijuana after reading an interesting blog post with a recipe for a Moroccan love potion with pot. It seems to be almost entirely due to the fact that the lovely Alys Fowler retweeted one of my tweets (and, of course, our respective followers have similar interests).

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t have that many Twitter followers – around 1,100 this morning. That’s because I don’t follow the ‘rules’ for Twitter popularity:

1. Follow everyone who follows you, regardless of whether they’re real people, companies promoting their products or spammers.


2. Search out, and tweet on, trending topics.


3. Mention your (or other people’s) genitalia or sex life.


4. Tweet about drugs (although a response is not guaranteed, see above).


5. Follow more people, as they may feel obliged to follow you back.


6. Take part in hashtag events, such as #FF Follow Friday, where you suggest people you follow that other people might enjoy.

My own approach is somewhat different, and I fully expect to lose a high proportion of new followers shortly after they discover me. I opt for a far more rational use of Twitter, which is very well explained in this blog post by food blogger BraveTart. Stella has lots of tips on the combination of blogging and tweeting.

I tweet, almost exclusively, about gardening, food and the environment – the stuff I write about. I occasionally indulge in friendly banter with the people I know on twitter. I follow, almost exclusively, people who do the same thing. I have good friends on twitter that I don’t follow because our virtual interests barely intersect; I have good friends on twitter that I only follow because they barely tweet at all; there’s a well-known garden writer that I don’t follow – simply because he tweets about sporting events more than I can stand.

I add new followers, and I delete people sometimes. It’s not a judgement on them as a person – I don’t like them any less than I did when I first followed them, but for some reason I no longer want to clutter my day with their tweets.

I know that my chosen Twitter strategy offends some people – one in particular springs to mind, who simply can’t understand why I wouldn’t want to follow him back. If you feel this way, then feel free not to follow me – I certainly won’t be offended. I do not get notified when I lose followers, nor do I often check who is on the list.

I view my Twitter stream as an endless source of contact with people who share my interests, and the inspiration they provide. It’s the most immediate way of being part of (a small section of!) the online gardening community.

There are days when I can write with my Twitter client running in the background, and there are days when I can’t. There are days when I can fully function as a human being with my Twitter client running in the background, and days when I can’t. The solution in both cases is the same – turn it off!

But even if I don’t follow you, don’t be afraid to engage me in conversation; I don’t bite and usually have time for a chat :)