I have a lover affair with Twitter. But it has too end. So sorry, Twitter. I give you way too much time and attention. I have a business to build and can’t give you more time than you deserve.

Of course, Twitter isn’t the real problem. It’s not where I hang out that’s the issue. It’s all the people I meet there with their yummy conversations, insights and links.

I’ve learned a ton on Twitter, and I get most of my blog post ideas from Twitter too. But sometimes I feel like I’m looking through the dictionary for just the right word when what I really need is a thesaurus. In short, I think I’m using Twitter the wrong way.

The first step in my rehabilitation was to do something Chris Brogan did back in September: I unfollowed everyone on Twitter.

I have to admit I felt liberated as I unfollowed people. But then I felt anxious, and only felt better as I added people back. Phew.

I had a criteria in mind as I hit that follow button.

• I followed friends.
• I followed people that were leaders in cause marketing and social media.
• I followed people that I communicate with via direct message.
• I followed people that tweet awesome stuff – even if we never talk.
• I followed people that tweet a lot.
• I followed people that showed up in my “Mentions” column on Tweetdeck
• I followed people whose tweets I “favorite” for later reading.

I didn’t follow back people that

• I felt obligated to follow. Yep, few of them still left.
• I followed in another way – on Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS – that is a better way to communicate with them.
• Weren’t people. I try not to follow brand handles…or anyone with an animal for an avatar. If the best picture of you is your cat, I already know too much about you.
• Didn’t tweet a lot.The last factor has always been an important one for me. If you don’t tweet a lot you won’t show up in my stream and I won’t think to further investigate your tweets. I’ve noticed that the first thing I look at in someone’s Twitter profile is how many tweets they have.

You might be asking why I don’t use Twitter lists more. I never have. It doesn’t seem to make sense. You’re either following someone or you’re not. They either have the goods you want or they don’t. I don’t need another list to scroll through or to ignore because I don’t want to appear impolite.

I did create a couple more keyword columns to monitor topics of interest. I’ve always had columns for “cause marketing”, “#causemarketing”, and, since I started writing QR Codes for Dummies, “qr codes”. I also added “nonprofit mobile”, and for this week “#12ntc” and “innogive” so I can follow the Nonprofit Technology Conference in San Francisco.

The hazard of the latter two columns is I’m finding some great new Twitter followers. I’m trying to tread carefully.

One thing my experiment had in common with Brogan’s was the surprising reaction some people had to being unfollowed. It made me laugh!

Teh @joewaters called me a Stooge and unfollowed me. A lesser man would be offended!!!

— Joey Leslie (@jleslie) March 29, 2012

@nolandhoshino @JoeWaters has done gone and lost his mind, I do believe.

— Megan Strand (@meganstrand) March 29, 2012

@joewaters ummmmmm…yeah…what’s up w/ that? got an email that ur following me- twitter bug or on purpose?

— Ephraim Gopin (@fundraisinisfun) March 29, 2012

I even got a few emails from people asking if I was “Ok.”

Yeah, I’m okay. Now scram. I’m busy….Um, but tweet me later, OK?

There’s a certain magic to Twitter. So interesting. So fast. So current. So informative….So short, just 140 characters.

I’ve learned a lot about cause marketing on Twitter, and now I want to my fantastic teachers with you!

My criteria for picking them.

I chose real people as much as possible. For me, Twitter is all about talking to people, not logos or brands or billboards.

They tweet, a lot. There’s a big difference between being on twitter and being active on Twitter. The Twitter handles I chose, especially in my top ten list, are on Twitter every day. There are many, many other people I could recommend, but they’re just not active enough and you would be, well, disappointed. And I can’t have that.

Cause marketing is a focus. But not the only focus. Chris Noble talks about his other business in China. Noland Hoshino is always bragging about how much he goes to the Gym. In short, don’t expect talk about cause marketing 24/7. Two of my picks aren’t even cause marketers, but they represent the future of cause marketing both in social media and location-based services.

Follow them and multiply. The good thing about all these people is that when you follow them they will lead you to many, many more new followers.

If you’re not on the list. I have a pretty narrow understanding of what cause marketing is and I’m pretty active in the cause space and on Twitter. I like to think that if you’re in cause marketing and on Twitter I probably know about you. Maybe you don’t tweet enough. Tweeting too little is like knowing how to read but choosing not to: a terrible waste.

Here are my top ten tweeps.

Causeaholic

Steve Drake is an expert in cause marketing for associations. His signature program Trees for Troops has delivered thousands of trees to U. S. troops around the country and around the world. Steve shares his insights on his blog Causeaholic and 501 Connect.

Noland Hoshino

Noland is a passionate cause marketer who is CEO and Co-Founder of [B]Cause Social Media Communications in Portland. He’s on the cutting edge of cause marketing and social media–when he isn’t volunteering and dressing up like a cow for his favorite charity Heifer International!

Chris Noble

Chris is what every cause marketer wants to be when he or she grow up. He’s talented. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in business. He’s raised millions for causes. (Yeah, I admire the guy). The four brands of his company Kompolt, WhatGives!, StudioGood and Patron are cause leaders. And you can learn about them all by following Chris!

John Haydon

John is not a cause marketer, but he’s an excellent cause marketing follow on Twitter. Here’s why. John is an expert in social media for nonprofits–especially Facebook–which is becoming increasingly important for cause marketers. When John does come across a topic that’s relevant to cause marketers, he connects the dots. Like a few months ago when he wrote about Facebook Places for nonprofits.

Megan Strand

Megan is the blogger at Incouraged. She’s also Director of Communications for Cause Marketing Forum, the leading organization for cause marketers. She’s the leading woman behind its website, blog, newsletter and twitter handle.

Realized Worth

Chris Jarvis works on the employee engagement side of cause marketing helping companies connect with communities through volunteering & social media.

Geoff Livingston

Geoff isn’t a practicing cause marketer, but he has excellent insights on cause marketing, its contribution to society and how it intersects with social media. He also is connected with some very smart people like Beth Kanter.

Scott Henderson

Scott blogs at Rallythecause.com and has been involved in several high profile campaigns, including Pledge to End Hunger which helped Tyson Foods deliver 560,000 meals to four different cities for children in need and raised $28,000 for Share Our Strength. Last year, he and his team at CauseShift launched We Can End This, a yearlong initiative to spark innovation and create real, tangible solutions to end hunger in America. Scott also enjoys cheese.

Mike Schneider

Mike helps battle cancer each year by growing a mustache and raising money during “Movember”. The rest of the year, Mike is one of the smartest guys I know on location-based services and marketing. That might be why Wiley Publishing chose him and another location-based pro Aaron Strout to write the dummies book on LBM. From reading my blog you know that LBM will be a key area of focus for cause marketers in the years ahead.

Cone LLC

Think of this one as me recommending a bunch of great people, instead of just one. Cone is a leading cause marketing agency based in Boston that was founded by the “mother of cause marketing” Carol Cone. Cone tweets insights and research on cause marketing. Combine their tweets with their weekly newsletter and blog and you can brag to people that you’re wicked smart about cause mareketing.

Okay, here are 20 more cause marketing twitter handles to follow.

Jocelyne Daw. The author of a couple great books on cause marketing. She doesn’t tweet a lot, but when she does she’s got some great things to say. She also understands what a lot of people misunderstand about Twitter. It’s for talking, not broadcasting.

Carol Cone. What can I say, she’s the “Mother of Cause Marketing.”

Doug Weinbrenner. Doug is a Kansas City based cause marketer with ad agency Premier Studios, where he works with nonprofit, public health and CSR. He’s also a delusional Kansas City Chiefs fan. Could be worse: at least he’s not a Royals fan.

TweetCMF. The cause marketing handle for Cause Marketing Forum, the leading organization for cause marketers.

3BLmedia. 3BL tweets the latest in Cause Marketing News.

GoodConcepts. Brian Powell is a Dallas-based cause marketer who is the managing director of cause marketing agency Patron.

BrighterCause. Led by two talented strategists, Mindy and Megan, Brighter World Cause Marketing is a cause marketing and copywriting consultancy.

Paul Jones. The blogger behind CauseMarketing.biz. I wish Paul would tweet more. But if you follow him you’ll be sure never to miss one of his excellent posts!

Sponsorpitch. Not cause marketing, but a close relative: sponsorship. A worthy follow.

MCCaliber. Maureen Carlson is a very talented cause marketer who started the cause marketing program at City of Hope Hospital and now works with hospitals nationwide to build successful cause marketing programs.

Philips McCarty. Phil started the Thanks and Giving program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He’s the managing director of Cause Innovation, a cause consultancy, and works with some of the biggest causes in the country.

OKL. Olivia Khalili writes the blog Cause Capitalism, which teaches businesses how to incorporate a social mission.

Mike Swenson. Of all the cause marketing agencies out there, I think Mike is probably the most senior cause marketer that’s active on Twitter. His Kansas City company, Barkley, has executed some major cause marketing campaigns, including Lee National Denim Day.

Holt Murray. My cause marketing colleague at the hospital. A great cause marketer who also knows a great deal about the Boston sports scene and clip art.

Sarah Kerkian. Sarah is Insights Supervisor for Cone. This means she researches, writes and analyzes all things cause marketing. A great resource.

DaveCause. David Hessekiel is President of Cause Marketing Forum.

Katya Anderson. Katya is author of Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes.

IEG. All things sponsorship with some tweets on cause marketing.

Sharna Fulton. Hyper-local cause marketing at its best. No one does it better than Sharna!

Join Red. Product Red is pure-play cause marketing. If you’re in to cause marketing you gotta see red.

Who else would you add to my list?

That’s because I really want to get to know the people I follow and to learn from them. I never understood how you could do this following 1,000, 5,000 or 10,000 people. A couple hundred seems just about right.

But that doesn’t mean I follow people forever. I add and drop people every day. But the ones that stick around share certain qualities.

They have something to teach. Whether it is cause marketing, social media, philanthropy, public speaking or SEO, they are all experts in their respective areas. They are original thinkers–not just rehashing other people’s stuff–and are the ones others retweet.

They tweet, a lot. The first thing I check when I get a new follower is how many tweets they have. If they don’t tweet a lot I conclude two things. Either they don’t have a lot to say or what they do have to say I’ll miss because their lone tweet will get lost in my stream. Either way, I won’t follow them back.

They talk to me. I know this should be expected on Twitter, but I’m always amazed how many people happily spend their days tweeting away but don’t even try to talk to most of their followers–even when they’re asked a question. The people I follow talk to me and I talk to them. We encourage each other, argue, help each other out and, thankfully, they put up with my jokes and sarcasm.

So, it’s really quite simple to find a spot for yourself in The 200. Be an expert in a field I want to learn more about, be an original thinker and be a prolific and engaging tweeter.

The good news is that even if you’re not all these things you’re probably showing up in my Twitter stream in one way or another. First, use Twitter search a lot and have an ongoing search on “Cause Marketing.” If you mention those two words in your tweet, I’ll definitely see it. Second, I also have a lot of faith in the wisdom and power of crowds to drive great content to the top of my Twitter stream. In short, if you’re tweeting good stuff, I’ll see it. If you’re doing it consistently, it won’t be long before I’m following your tweets.

Of course, we all have hesitations and turn-offs that incline us to follow one person and not another. Here are mine.

Geography is important. I’m very provincial. I tend to follow New Englanders over New Yorkers, easterners more than westerners and Americans instead of foreigners. So if you’re Yankee’s fan living in Japan who grew up in California, I hope you understand.

I don’t follow animals. I will not follow a cat, a dog, a pot-belly pig, a unicorn or Scooby Doo avatar. I want to talk to a human being and I prefer to see your smiling face as your avatar.

Auto DM’s suck. It just screams “amateur” to me and someone who doesn’t get the purpose of social media. I unfollow usually, but not always.

Twitter is by my far my favorite social media tool. I’ve met some great people. And I look forward to meeting more. My policy helps me meet the right people. Do you have a policy when it comes to Twitter? I’d love to hear about it. You never know, I just might follow you back.

On average I’ve posted 100+ times a year. (Although for a time a good many of those were “Cause Marketing Links” (short news stories) from my Delicious account–something I don’t do anymore).

This year blogging took a back seat to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Mid-year I added Foursquare and Posterous.

Twitter is the best of the bunch. On Twitter I finally found a community that talked back to me and followed my tweets back to my blog where the conversation continued. It was great to finally be sharing posts that you knew people were actually reading and enjoying.

But even with my success on Twitter, not to mention all the fun I have on it, I’ve grudgingly accepted that Twitter is a great complement to blogging but not a replacement.

A great servant but a poor master, if you will.

When I look around at the avatars on my Tweetdeck the smart people are blogging first. Chris Brogan posts every day on his blog. Jay Baer and John Haydon post three days a week. Problogger Darren Rowse publishes three blogs with loads of content.

Some of these people also spend a good deal of time on Twitter and other outposts. But social media is their full-time job!

So in 2010 these are my social media goals for Selfishgiving.com:

Post three days a week. I like Jay Baer’s idea of publishing on consecutive days (he likes T, W, TH), but I can’t make any promises in the beginning. But posts on three days I will do.

Posts will be around 300 words. John Haydon has been encouraging me to write shorter posts all year. I’m going to give them a try. Every week or two, I’ll probably write a feature post that will be 500 to 1000 words, which is my normal length.

Posts will revolve around three themes. Sponsorship, cause marketing and social media. Sponsorship should be a more common topic on my blog as nonprofits are more often grappling with sponsorship issues when it comes to corporate partnerships. They view cause marketing more as an advanced strategy; one they may not be ready for. Social media is a great complement to both sponsorship and cause marketing and a hot topic a lot of people are interested in these days.

Publish my email newsletter twice a month. Right now my newsletter is geared toward readers who aren’t on social media and don’t subscribe to my blog via RSS. Sadly, this is probably most of the nonprofit thought leaders I want to reach! I’d like to offer something *special* in my newsletter for email subscribers who already read my blog, but this means creating new content. And right now, I just don’t have the time for this. I would love your suggestions on this front.

Update my Facebook fan page as needed. I recently created a fan page for Selfishgiving.com with two goals. First, to give people in general yet another reminder of new content on my site. Second, for those folks within the Facebook cocoon , an easy way to follow and read my blog that is familiar and comfortable.

Continue tweeting, just not as much. No worries, or cause for celebration. I’m never giving up Twitter. But I don’t think I need to be on it every twenty minutes, do you? I plan to check my Twitter stream each morning to my heart’s content (not too onerous as I only follow 200 people) and then shut it down for two hours. Repeat. I will no longer sip for pleasure. I’ll gulp for effect.

Personal blogging on Posterous will play a role. I’m just not sure how much at this point. But one thing is for sure. I. Love. Posterous. It’s so easy to use (even wrote a post on it). And when it comes to pictures and video it really is a snap to email media right to the site. I might just use Posterous for cause marketing videos or sets of pictures, and everything else non-text related. I recently read a suggestion to create a subdomain for your Posterous blog and post your pictures and video there. I just might do that.

Give Selfish Giving a major overhaul. During first quarter 2010, I’ll be moving Selfishgiving.com from WordPress to Headway with the help of @GrantGriffiths, @JohnHaydon and @mikhaelacraig. The overhaul will include a new landing page for SixFigureCauseMarketing.com and a custom design for my email newsletter and Twitter page. In addition to giving the Selfish Giving brand a more professional, consistent look, I want optimize my blog for SEO and to fully integrate it with my other social media outposts.

Market my teleconference cause marketing program. I think SixFigureCauseMarketing.com and teaching other nonprofits how to build successful partnerships with businesses is a great idea. The people I’ve talked to about it think it’s a great idea too. But I have yet to actively market the program to nonprofits. That’s will change this year.

[Added 12/30] Spend more time building community. For Christmas I got Gary V’s Crush It and it’s a good read. When I read this I felt like Gary was talking to me:

A lot of people get wrapped up in designing their blogs and writing or taping their content. But creating your content is the easy part. [!!!] Of course your product should be as good as it can be, but it should also be the least time-consuming element of your whole endeavor. What you do after you tape a show or write or record is the whole game. Creating community–that’s where the bulk of your hustle is going to go and where the bulk of your success will be determined.

I felt almost guilty when I read this because I knew outside of Twitter, this is an area with which I’ve been remiss. But like Scrooge at knees of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, I repent and will honor community in my heart and try to keep it all the year.

But enough about my goals. What do YOU think of my goals? Or just tell me about yours. Maybe we can learn together.

I took some advice from Rich Brooks at Flyte several months back and focused my efforts on three social media sites: Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.  I’m active on all three now, but the one I got on to last is the one I’m spending the most time on these days: Twitter.  (You can check my most recent ”tweet” in the red box on the sidebar.  Click on the arrows to see previous tweets.)

I like Twitter for two reasons:

It’s a natural “shortening” of blogging.  I like to blog, and I like it even more when I’m limited to 140 characters.  Not all topics need a long post.  Twitter is perfect for a quote, brief snippet, factoid or update.

I feel like I’m among my people, or my Tweeples.  It’s hard for me to get on Facebook and not hear the faint giggling of a teenage girl in my ears.  I just feel old and out of my element.  Not that Facebook doesn’t have its merits, mind you.  Linkedin is interesting too, but a bit static.  A bit like watching paint dry.  But Twitter is full of mostly interesting, curious, ambitious, smart, passionate and talkative people.  Hell, that’s where I want to be!

But I didn’t just join Twitter to blog more and to make new friends, I want to use it as a tool to drive my cause marketing success within and without my nonprofit.  Here’s how I’m using Twitter to develop more relationships, to promote my expertise in the field and to raise more money for causes.

To follow more business people.  There are a fair number of company men and women on Twitter that I think in the long run will lead to key players and to better relationships.  Even more plentiful on Twitter is the number of agencies and firms that work with businesses where potential synergies might exist.  While I haven’t inked any pacts yet because of Twitter, and don’t expect to soon, I can see how it can be a powerful tool that evaporates barriers and bypasses gatekeepers.

To connect with other cause marketers. I’ve found a bunch of new people to learn from on Twitter.  @cfnoble and @jleslie from Kompolt, @lotay from Blackcardcircle.com, Cone alum @brianreich and @michael_hoffman of See3 Communications, @nedra (social and cause marketing) to name a few.  Of course, I’ve also found old rivals friends like @paulrjones.  I’ve learned something from each of these people and they’ve been a resource to me in their own way.

To learn more about social media.  Social media will be an important part of a lot industries in years ahead, including cause marketing.  I know it has and will play an important role in cause marketing events like Halloween Town.  The great news is that all the social media experts are on Twitter.  In the nonprofit world, there’s @johnhaydon, @engagejoe, @bbravo, and @kanter.  On the for-profit side I follow @chrisbrogan, @problogger, @johncass, @chrisgarrett, @steverubel @therichbrooks and am learning how to use Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Delicious and a lot of other tools more productively to achieve my cause marketing goals.

The question I often get about Twitter from newbies is how do you use it well.  After a short time on Twitter I’m following 250 people and at this very moment have 689 unread “tweets” to sort through.  (Poor @chrisbrogan is following 22,029.  How many unread tweets do you think he has?)

Twitter can be a bit overwhelming, and you need a system for organizing your tweets so they don’t take over your life.  The key is to accept that not every tweet is equal or a must-read or a read-now.  Here’s how I manage the deluge of tweets I get every day.

Tweetdeck.  I began by just reading tweets at Twitter, but didn’t stick with that too long.  I upgraded to Twhirl, which is a simple, useful Twitter application, especially if you’re a casual user and/or don’t follow a lot of people.  But for the serious user, you can’t beat Tweetdeck, and for one important reason: Groups.  Tweetdeck allows you to segment your incoming  “tweets” by groups for easier reading. 

Groups. My groups are pretty simple.  ”A Tweets” are must reads and include many of the people mentioned above.  I read them first.  If I have more time, I move to my second group, “B Tweets.”  Next is a group just for my  ”Subscriptions” (e.g. NYT, Ad Age, WSJ, Bostonist, etc.).  Interestingly, following publications on Twitter has also allowed me to clear out most of my Bloglinesaccount so I can do most of my reading from Tweetdeck (Having these two services also gave me the courage to cancel my subscriptions to the Boston Globe, NYT and WSJ).  The final group is “All Tweets.”  This is where the great unwashed go.  If I get to this group, great.  If I don’t, I’m probably not missing much.  Of course, Tweeples are constantly being promoted or demoted based on the quality of their tweets! (Hint: if you have a cat, don’t tweet about it).

Favorites.  Tweetdeck gives you a “Favorites” folder where you can keep tweets you want to read later.  If I do come across an interesting tweet I just “favorite” it until I have the time to read it.  This allows me to keep on moving and not get bogged down.

My own tweet output is pretty modest.  I probably average about ten a day.  Most of my tweets have to do with cause marketing and philanthropy, but I like to have fun, mainly with @nedra, and tweet something that’s just interesting, unusual or makes me laugh.  My best advice for Twitter is try to be useful.  People on Twitter are just like you: busy, smart people who are trying to get things done.  Show them the way.