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.

Have a different opinion? Leave it in the comments.