Why “Follower” Models don’t work (Yes you Twitter!) and why your social media focus should not be sheer numbers
Developers have tried a variety of different methods to not only increase usage of their application but also to encourage other people to join. Facebook and others suggest friends, you can find who you went to school with, or search by emails. LinkedIn uses a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon approach to see who your friends’ friends are and Twitter uses the poison Kool-Aid approach by showing your cult followers. There’s a simple enough explanation as to why –ad revenues of course. But one can quickly see through this thin veil that it is. Now for most people social media isn’t really for making money. Instead it really is a way to stay in contact with friends or find friends you lost way back when. But for those of us trying to capitalize on the popularity of social media to increase traffic to our websites and blogs or just to increase our sphere of influence the number of followers or friends becomes important. Now don’t get me wrong, sheer numbers can be effective but probably not as effective as truly having a group of friends and acquaintances with whom you regularly engage in real conversation. But this is where so many get it wrong when it comes to social networking. They race to have the most friends and followers but quickly forget why these people were your friend to begin with. If you are not providing relevant information or at least something interesting to talk about then you are disengaging. You basically are weakening the structure of your SOI and you want a strong base not a weak one.
Look at two celebrity examples for a minute Ashton and Oprah. I could care less really about either of these people but there is a big difference in how they Twitter. Ashton really talks using Twitter. He talks about something relevant and it’s really him (or at least we think it’s him) talking. Oprah on the other hand just joined Twitter thanks to Ashton and she (or most likely her handlers) doesn’t get it. Look at this recent post over at Tech Crunch analyzing what Oprah has had to say since she joined Twitter. It’s not interesting. Its absolute junk. Sure she got a million people to follow her and probably got millions more to join Twitter but is she engaging her audience? Is she doing anything interesting? That’s a big fat no. If she actually joined in a conversation or even for a moment let people peek into her personal life she might be surprised at the number of followers who actually follow what she has to say!
This is all fine and dandy for celebrities but none of us are famous. We can’t have a one way conversation and make social networking work for us. It has to be a real conversation where we are talking to and engaging the people who follow us. If you dig through Facebook blindly each day trying to add hundreds of new people to be your friend they will never be your friend. They don’t even know you! They are just befriending you simply because it’s a mouse click. There is no energy expended. But you are wasting a lot of energy trying to make friends with people who could probably care less about you. Instead if you actually spent some time each day engaging in conversation you would be strengthening these relationships.
Still think it’s all about sheer numbers?
Ok enter from Twitter stage left Sockington the cat. Yes it’s a cat and it has more followers than any of us could imagine. It’s not a person. It’s probably not even a real cat and yet it has 500,000+ followers! Why? It just goes to show that following people on Twitter works exponentially. Once you break some imaginary barrier the numbers shoot through the roof. Now that’s great to have that many followers. I only have 60,000 people that even live in my city so that would be a big chunk of Wisconsin following me. But unless I could find some way of truly engaging all those people I might as well be a fake cat because it’s not going to get me more business and it’s not going to mean much other than maybe a story about me over at Tech Crunch.
If you can take anything away from the lesson of Sockington, Kutcher or Oprah it’s that of those 3 try to be like Ashton and at least provide something interesting to talk about. Don’t try to race to a million friends instead truly make some friends out there. You might find more meaning in one real friend versus a hundred so called friends.
As to why follower models don’t work? It’s simply plastic fantastic. (Fake)
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(In case you do not agree with something I said or feel that my blog or my beliefs could be construed as libelous I hereby declare that my entire blog is meant as a joke. I consider myself to be a comedian and everything I say or have said should be considered comedy. I want nothing I say to be taken seriously and if you do take it seriously take a break. If you do not think what I said is funny then that is your opinion. But for anyone who wants to sue me everything I said or say is meant purely as satire.The only thing that is not a joke is this disclaimer.)
