The other day a friend asked me if I could help him get 100,000 followers on Twitter. I was a bit taken aback. This guy isn’t a big brand or a celebrity. He’s a regular person that seemed intent on basing the value of Twitter based on how many followers he could acquire.
I guess my answer wasn’t satisfactory because he seemed annoyed that I attempted to dissuade him from this way of thinking. I was really just trying to get at the root of why he felt that he needed that many followers.
Perhaps, I’m just the wrong person to ask about this issue, since I have less than 800 followers and I’ve been on Twitter for more than two years. But I protect my updates and only accept a few of the people that ask to follow me. I’m not interested in playing the numbers game with Twitter, Facebook or any of the other social networking services – mostly because I don’t find personal value in quantity.
Instead, I’m intent on having a network or circle of people that provide me with meaningful interaction. For me, I have a manageable number of people to help me get what want from Twitter – a combination of news; the voices of leading exporters in a variety of fields I care about; updates from friends and family; humorous musings; and connections with people that I just find fascinating.
I’m ok with not being the most popular or the most retweeted or the most anything on these social networks, because I have defined what I want from each social network and set my expectations accordingly.
If I were attempting to do branding, or establish myself as an expert in a particular area, or if I were selling a product or service, I think I would definitely take a different approach. Obviously, casting a wider net of followers in those cases is much more powerful. It’s been proven over and over again.
That is why Twitter is so wonderful – everyone can use it as they like and hopefully get the results they desire. Just be sure to think about what it is you want to gain from Twitter and act accordingly.
What’s your Twitter strategy?
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent thoughts. I completely agree.
I don’t really care how many people follow me - that’s their problem keeping up with what I say (if they care). It’s hard trying to keep industry colleagues, family, and friends well-balanced with my tweets. I probably lose some followers because I don’t reveal secrets daily.
The problem I’ve had recently is deciding whether or not to follow someone back. I’m much more likely to follow someone off of a RT than simply if they follow me. Luckily, the replies lets me keep on top of who’s talking to (or about) me.
Although it may not seem like it by looking at my followers vs. following numbers, I believe Twitter was much more useful to me when I followed about 100-200 people and vice-versa. I am currently on the other end of the scale with about 2,000 followers/2,000 following. As a result, I’ve seen both ends of the spectrum and I’m about to swing the pendulum back. Even with TweetDeck breaking down groups, I still don’t find Twitter as useful as when I had a true social network that I could reasonably interact with on Twitter.
Lisa, you are absolutely correct. It’s not about the numbers for me either. I tend to gravitate towards the word “Discovery”. Does a particular person/service help me to discover interesting topics, concepts or innovative ways I can apply myself.
I find it amusing when someone recites how many followers they gained or lost based upon a particular action .. I have no idea where I am at, and never bother to look.
It is also why I am moving back towards using Friendfeed more. The nature of the service ensures that the quality topics continue to float back to the top of the stream, so I don’t miss anything. You don’t need to follow massive numbers to find good information there.
joe,
i think discovery is a also key for me. but the numbers game is a just a recipe for failure. it’s great to have specific attainable goals if you are doing branding or selling something but i prefer not to be a slave to rankings and stats. my measure of twitter success is how much it adds to my life on a personal, professional and emotional life. i know this sounds corny, but it’s made my life richer and when that stops, i’ll tweak things or decide to pursue other ways of participation.
I agree as well. I’ve never chased thousands of followers, after you start following more than a 100 people, Twitter just becomes noise. I’m interested in connecting with people in my industry as well as making friends all over the world. Twitter is great for that. It’s also great for many other things, such as getting freelance work, but that’s not it’s purpose.
you say the purpose is not to get freelance work…why not? can’t twitter be whatever you want it to be? if your goal is to get freelance work, twitter can be an amazing tool to connect with people. what i like about twitter is that there are no real rules.
I agree with you. I follow users who I find add value to my stream, I don’t return ‘follow favors because I don’t think it’s necessary. You can’t possibly keep up with 100,000 followers. It’s also not a numbers game, like you said. You can have 1 million followers, but if they’re not buying into your comments, product, or brand, is it worth your time to generate that many?
Well, in that sense you’re right, Twitter can be whatever you want it to be. It has a nebulous purpose - which makes it such a great tool to explore with.
I started auto following because I wanted to expand my circle & didn’t want to always monitor follows.
Now I’m seeing a lot of branders & marketers following me so I disabled the auto follow.
I’m using Twitter to connect but also to stream to FaceBook & my blog when I’m in a too busy for posts lull (like the past two months).
I’ve met a few Twitter friends in real life & there’s the real value for me, not the hundreds who follow but don’t read or interact with me.
@briefepisode
I was quite impressed with myself, (having been a very early adopter of LinkedIn) when I finally reached the 500 mark. lol. I got psyched because my network was of professional contacts was growing. I then became intent on creating diversity within my network. So quantity shifted to quality, but it was an “and,” not an “or” or an “instead.”
So Twitter comes along and I remember starting out with a similar mindset as I’d had with LinkedIn. Grow it. (But how?) Only… I immediately discovered that due to the velocity of information flow within Twitter, the quantity strategy had big flaws. LinkedIn is pretty static. Twitter is super dynamic. I needed quality or Twitter overwhelms.
It all comes back to the stream and whether or not it is an enjoyable read. I do a lot of surging and purging with who I follow. I like monitoring who is following me so that I can discover (or re-discover) new voices and perspectives.
Works for me.
All of this creates surges
I also don’t find personal value in quantity. Twitter is great because I can pick and choose who to connect and I have met so many great people through Twitter. It is getting a bid harder as I follow more people because I do not want to miss any valuable voice. I am trying not to use auto follow and will do my best to monitor who follow me /who inspire me to follow back.
Definitely quality over quantity wins. Great post, I can never read enough about social media opinions.
Twitter is Fun - So I am All Over The place.
I believe that in the spirit of being social if someone follows me I will follow them back. After a few hundred responses to the email request I decided to auto follow. I have met some great people being social. I have reinforced and nurtured friendships with twitter. Better yet I have made some good friends through twitter.
Do I use it for business? Yes when I have a TeleSeminar coming up I push it, knowing that people only see a small part of what is going on. It is hard to spam on twitter both for that reason and because people can unfollow in a click or two. I like numbers, but am not obsessed by them.
Like a personality test where the explanation of the results say, “Everyone is a blend of all the types,” I have many interests so I indulge them on Twitter. I love supporting colleagues so I retreat peoples fun, interesting, and promotional Tweets. I go to suggested links and websites often and sometimes come away with new knowledge or a new interest. I follow these interesting people and those they actively tweet with.
I use Twitter to support my groups, like the #LBCTweetUp or http://marketing.meetup.com/204 , or http://www.TwitCastRadio #TCR or the people in them.
An example of this support is http://www.Twitter.com/Torie007 who is a highly educated reading specialist who is looking for students to tutor in Long Beach this summer. Another is @WarrenWhitlock who took me under his wing when I came onto Twitter. His book with @CoachDeb is as good as you can get about Twitter. @DanSafkow founded the Internet Marketing MeetUp where I have met many of the movers and shakers of twitter like @JeanetteJoy . She is a sweet giving person who also helped me understand tweeting.
But enough about me.
What are you doing?
Warmest Regards,
Edward
aka http://www.Twitter.com/EdLovesSumo
The Power Of The Twitter Post Card
I’ve been using Twitter for 3 weeks now and spent hours and hours trying to master what I thought was a good twitter strategy (get as many followers as possible via profile keyword search using auto-bots) but I soon discovered that my stream was getting clogged by “Teeth Whitening” pitches and MLM/Affliate crap.
Plus when I auto unfollowed I discovered that the unfollow was reciprocated immediately by those I culled – Aye?
So I reasoned that they were following the same strategy I was. Pursuing what I thought were targeted followers ended up being a spam fest with little value exchanged either way.
Thank goodness I’ve STOPPED.
I’m of two minds:
Either I keep my following and follower ratios really low and build strong reciprocal relationships on a small scale…but do it organically
Or I build I really large following using both and automated (20% say) and an organic approach and set myself apart by providing really good content and using offline techniques to build strong relationships with my followers.
See how here http://bit.ly/2cetY
Nobody and I mean nobody on Twitter is doing this – Do you think if I had 20k followers and I sent out this stuff to my heavy hitters do you think they would look out for my tweets amongst the clutter – Not enough value is being exchanged.
Try it out and let me know how it goes.
Email salesonsteroids@gmail.com
Address 15i Queens Ave
Hamilton 3204
New Zealand
ph: 0064 7 838 1548