Techy? Sometimes. Funny? Often. Relevant? Always.

Do you ever get lost in your Twitter feed? Maybe it’s just me but sometimes when I leave Twitter for a while and then return to find that I have 3278 new tweets I become a bit overwhelmed. How in the world will I be able to read all those tweets much less respond and engage in conversation?

I find myself a Twitter Panner – you know someone who pans the streams / feeds of tweets looking for that golden nugget of information. In other words just like a gold panner searched for gold in the streams out West so I search for gold in the digital streams of Twitter. Sometimes I miss good tweets and sometimes I scoop them up. I just have to consistently skim through the endless stream of data in order to find those nuggets of truth.

Once you’ve been on twitter for a while you recognize who to look out for in the stream. So I simply skim through tweets (occasionally finding some good stuff) until I find those people I have identified as providing helpful information or fun tweets. I then read what they have to say and refer to anyone they might have mentioned.

Here are just a few (of the many) people I have found to provide golden nuggets in the stream of tweets:

@thebrandbuilder – helpful articles and thoughts on social media and branding
@BillCosby – always good for a laugh
@ChickfilA – only b/c I just ate lunch there and love their food
@ShellyKramer – all around fun and helpful articles on a variety of topics
@BrainTraffic – great for helpful web content

This in no way means the other people I follow are boring / irrelevant / unhelpful. Like I said these are a few of the many people I follow.

What can you walk away with? Know what you’re looking for in the stream of tweets. Identify where to find those golden nuggets of information. Retweet them. And as always make sure your tweets are “golden nuggets” and not “fools gold.”

Happy panning!
(Shameless plug: follow The Worthwhile Company on Twitter — @Worthwhile)