St. Louis Cardinals: What makes a good twitter follow?

There’s a contest going on at the Roo Court but what does exactly make a good St. Louis Cardinals twitter follow?

Our friends over at the Roo Court have a March Madness style bracket going and it’s the pursuit of the #1 St. Louis Cardinals twitter follow. Who should fans follow as the 2016 season approaches? What goes into a great Cards twitter follow. Here are a few things.

Interaction with followers

It’s important for every Cardinals twitter follow to interact with their followers. Anybody can write an article, drop it on the doorstep of readers and run and hide. The best ones stand up, trade healthy respectful shots with their readers and engage newcomers into the conversation. There is rarely one response I don’t fire a response to and that happens even if the writer says a few nasty things about me. It’s all about engaging the minds for better or worse. If you don’t, that makes you a bad follow.

Honesty

If you are dishonest about your thoughts on a player and just serve to feed the readers what they want, that makes you a bad follow. Be honest. After all, they came to you for this info and not one of the other 1000 people writing and tweeting about it. Twitter has millions of Cardinals fans. If you are approached, be honest.

Carve a Voice for Yourself

The worst thing is taking another person’s thoughts and making them your own. Agreeing is one thing. Being a thief is quite another. Craft your own voice and your twitter account will rise in followers and that doesn’t include bots, fakes, porn accounts and other stupid hollow areas of fake inflation.

Stop with the Stupid Account Names

If you have been something since the birth of your account (Art Lippo, STLCupofJoe, Cardinals Farm) then that is one thing. The people who use a team’s record or combine three different player names to make your account are tedious and can lose my interest quick. Be yourself. If you work for a company, put “Opinions are my own” at the end of your bio. If your company still doesn’t like it, then your company sucks. Come up with a cool name but please stick with it. Stop changing it out of fear of what others think.

There’s no fun, reason or conclusion in that. Be original. Your name is quite original. I’ve been attacked by 20 different accounts and that includes family abuse and what not. Guess what? I am still here and it still reads “Dan Buffa” on my desk.

Be consistent

This one can be hard. In the past offseason, I started off by telling my readers Chris Davis was equivalent to dynamite in a front office. After researching and thinking it over, I discovered the man had something the Cards didn’t have and he may be a good risk at the right price.

I was grilled for it and part of the kickback was warranted. Be careful with switching opinions. There are people out there who value your thoughts and if you jump train cars in the middle of a trip, integrity is lost. Step back, think about a player or game, and slowly put together a consistent thought.

It’s okay to be subjective

Guess what? Being subjective is commentary and people will go to your account if you are subjective and passionate about the Cards. As the great Frank Cusumano once said, every writer should start at objectivity (facts) and end at subjectivity (opinion). If you go on twitter and compile 140 character blasts, that makes you a writer. Be subjective. No one wants overloaded reporting. Some opinion always adds juice to the pot along with the quotes.

Next: Underrated Tuivailala

Be Accurate

If you tweet the wrong stat, you will be grilled about it. Get the stats right before you hit “tweet”. Trust me.

Head over to The Roo Court and check out the best St. Louis Cardinals twitter follows. The field started with 64 accounts this morning and will soon shrink. The Musial and Gibson areas have been fired up. Be on the lookout for their tweet polls to cast your vote.