Why Twitter Followers are Worthless
It’s not too often I get an email from Twitter telling me I have a new person with a high follower count following me. When they do, I tend to look into what they’re all about on their profile.
9/10 times it’s someone who follows twice as many people as they have following them. 10/10 times said person is a “social media power user”.
I’ve been experimenting for months with Twitter. As a proof of concept, I setup my personal account as my “garbage” account where I follow everyone who follows me back. Lo and behold, I amassed 2,700 followers of which I follow 2,685 back. I don’t read the news feed, I don’t respond to messages, I don’t care about anything that any one of my fellow “Twitter power users” have to say.
After three months with my two twitter accounts I have discovered two major points which I think will help shut everyone up who brags about their twitter follower count.
- If you can’t mobilize your followers for feedback, links, retweets, or an opinion: they’re worthless.
- Twitter is a vehicle for word of mouth, but offline word of mouth is always better than online word of mouth.
Stop worrying so much about how many, and think more in terms of quality. My meager 700 followers on the Assault Official Twitter account give me better feedback and more interaction than my 3,000 followers on my garbage account. Twitter “friends” or “fans” are way more valuable than a mass of zombie followers.
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About the Author
Tim is the co-owner of Assault, and tends to think he can party twice as hard as anyone. Follow him on twitter @assaultEmail this Author | All posts by tim
Great post and point. Focusing on numbers is a hacks attempt to prove value of their efforts (like counting how many media releases you sent – big deal, did you get a story and did the story lead the readers to your site, etc.)
Bottom line, determining objectives is critical in any effort and evaluating social media just like any other communication tool is imperative for success. If only following 20 and only having 20 follow helps you achieve your objectives and goals then your job is done.
Great insight and can be extended to other social media locations as well. For years this has been my rant regarding MySpace. Many bands are there to increase friend numbers but when asked how they are benefiting from these high numbers most cannot come up with an answer. Just having high friend/follower counts does not equate into more exposure or added benefit if you are not building an engaged, interactive fan base.
Good Discovery
Thanks Captain Obvious!
There are many twitter applications through which you can know your position as twitter followers in number of tweets received.
i follow twice as much people,but that’s because 95% of the artist i follow don’t give a shit about me,so don’t follow me,i may only have 37 followers,but 98% of them give me feedback and are fun to talk to
[...] the other day I was reading a post over at the Assault Blog titled Why Twitter Followers Are Worthless. The author argued that: 1. “If you can’t mobilize your followers for feedback, links, [...]