Twitter Followers Debate – The Easy Answers

“Twitter is not a popularity contest” – There are millions of people, especially many of the early adopters of the platform, who follow 50, 100, even a few hundred other users. It doesn’t matter if 500 people follow them or 500,000 people follow them – they are interested in seeing what certain people are tweeting and that’s about it. They don’t want the noise. They don’t want the spam. They have their friends and/or accounts that they consider interesting and it doesn’t matter what else is happening outside of their hand-picked, privileged group.

They are Twitter purists. They are correct.

“What’s the point if nobody’s listening?” – The other side of the coin is interesting. Many look at Twitter as a tool to spread their wisdom, post their links, and see what the masses are saying at any given moment in time. They know that it is easy to grow on Twitter by following random or targeted individuals, unfollowing those who who don’t follow them back after a certain period of time, and then starting the process over. They want to be seen, heard, addressed, engaged, and clicked on by as many people as possible.

They are the Twitter profile builders. They, too, are correct.

How can this be? How can Quality and Quantity have equality in the debate?

It’s time for tough answers. At this point, the question changes from “Quality vs Quantity” to “What do you want Twitter to do for you?”

Twitter Followers Debate – The Tough Answers

Twitter is not a popularity contest, but for some it is. Twitter is not a private network to chat with friends, but for some it is. There is a ton of gray area in here, as many who follow tons of people in an effort to gain tons of followers can and do engage with everyone on their massive lists, while many who follow and get followed by a smaller amount of people can make claims of successful engagement by making certain that everyone who is on their list is actually listening to what they are saying.

There are dozens of “Twitter Personality Types” including the 14 Twitter Personalities listed at Media Caffeine. For this excercise and debate, we’ll first eliminate celebrities and “recommended” accounts who follow their 50 or so personal friends but get followed by thousands (even millions). Once they’re eliminated, let’s group the rest of us into those looking for quality (the qualtweeps) or those looking for quantity (the quantweeps).

QualTweeps

Greenerside is a qualtweep. This account posts links about the environment from several different environmental blogs. He follows those who do the same. Some may be personal friends. Some are simply like-minded people. Regardless, he isn’t following many of the other 4000 people who are following him. Looking at those who are following, it appears that there are many spammers and QuanTweeps in his mix. It doesn’t matter – he doesn’t hear a thing they’re saying.

He is able to:

• Engage those who are interested in the same things he is interested in, namely environmental issues
• Follow his stream easily and potentially read everything his friends have tweeted since the last time he logged on
• Get a decent amount of responses to his tweets and links
• Pick up real followers who may believe he is interesting because much more people follow him than those that he is following
• Develop personal friendships because he can engage with a tighter group of people
• Show people his Twitter account without having to answer the question “How do you read everyone’s tweets?”

He is not able to:

• Generate a viral buzz on his own without exceptional breaking news or retweets from users with a lot more followers
• Achieve “Twitter Fame” by getting on this list of top users or that list of most retweeted regularly
• Use Twitter as a resource to get dozens of responses to questions, whether mundane or imperative

QuanTweeps

Guy Kawasaki (and the girls who help him manage his account) is one of the most outspoken quantweeps out there. He is exceptionally active with tens of thousands of updates and over a hundred thousand followers. If you aren’t trying to get him into Forex, porn, or MLM, he’s very likely going to follow you back. The fastest reader on the fastest computer in the world couldn’t read everything that people are saying in his stream.

He is able to:

• Generate interest, visits, responses, and retweets regarding just about anything he says whether it’s a link to a new Alltop section or another link that sparked his interest
• Ask a question and get dozens of responses – he could ask “What’s the best Social Media blog out there?” and receive plenty or responses (FYI, the correct answer to that question is soshable.com if you were curious)
• Be known for Twitter, speak about Twitter at conferences and seminars, and achieve “Twitter Fame” even if he doesn’t need it
• Interact directly with hundreds of people every day who send him DMs and @replies
• “Be courteous” by returning the follow to anyone who makes the effort to follow him

He is not able to:

• Keep up with the hundreds of tweets that hit his stream every minute
• Stick with a niche or segment – he follows Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Spam Bots, interesting people, boring people, actives, inactives, and everyone in between
• Develop personal friendships as easily because there is so much noise, chatter, and spam that isolating a potential good friend is challenging
• Avoid the question, “How do you keep up with everyone you follow?” I’m sure he’s asked that several times a month.

Pick a Side

Regardless of what you want to do with Twitter, pick one side or the other. Those who fall in the middle by following a few thousand people without attempting to grow will have a difficult time achieving success regardless of their goal. They get the noise without truly gaining the benefits of steady growth. Twitter can be a wonderful experience regardless of what you want to accomplish with it (even if you don’t want to “accomplish” anything with it). Decide what you want to do with (and for) Twitter and stick to it.

Trying to stay on the fence will hamper the whole wonderful Twitter experience.

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Learn more about Social Media Strategy on this blog.

Let’s make something absolutely clear from the beginning. This is not a suggestion that businesses who are not involved with social networks should blindly rush in. As you will learn, the clock is ticking and it is important for businesses both local and global to get involved and make an impact through social networks.

With that said, it’s better to not get involved than to try social networks and do them incorrectly.  On to the story…

Social Networks Start Tightening Up Growth to Fight Spammers

The predictable cycle is starting to materialize. For this post, we’ll look at Twitter as the primary example.  Since its birth, Twitter has been the most “spammer friendly” social networking site (mostly because it’s not a true social network, but that’s not important).  They allowed multiple accounts, few limits or restrictions on what could be posted, and an ability to grow an account quickly. While these attributes contributed greatly to its growth, they also opened the doors wide open to spammers.

Once the site drew the attention of celebrities, politicians, and businesses around the world, it became necessary to slow down the growth of those accounts that started taking advantage of the “Twitter Wild West”. First, they limited the amount of people an account could follow in the beginning to 2000. Once that number was achieved, an account could only follow 110% of the number of followers it had.

Accounts still grew rapidly and follower “churn” (the technique off following a lot of users, waiting for a certain period of time, and then removing those who didn’t follow back) became more of an issue, so Twitter implemented a 1000-follow-per-day rule. This slowed account growth tremendously, but it was still possible to grow fast.

Recently, they dropped the number down to 500. Mission accomplished. The days of churn as a valid growth method are pretty much over. At the current rate, a manually managed account can grow by 200 followers a day if it’s done right (and doing it right is very time consuming).  It takes 2 months to get 10,000 followers now (a feat that used to take a few days).

In short, businesses and individuals need to be creative when building accounts. So many accounts are simply spam now that gaining 200 a day might only yield a few dozen quality friends. Of those friends, half of them may be gone or uninvolved in a month.

There are ways to build strong accounts without spamming or relying on slow churn. This is where proper social media strategy comes into play. While there are companies that will charge thousands to build a relatively worthless batch of social media profiles, they don’t take it to the next level of helping to build the accounts, train those who will be managing them, or helping to promote them with innovative ideas.

What Does This Mean for Businesses

The immense popularity of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace has generated a tremendous upspike in the number of companies who are offering social media marketing services.  You do not need a social media marketing service.

Let me repeat that.

You do not need a social media marketing service.

There are choices to be made and made soon. The clock is ticking. The longer that a company waits to start or improve their social media strategy, the harder it will become to truly get in the game.  Here is what companies need to do:

1. Decide whether to hire, outsource, or use DIY social media. Be careful of the cheap or free techniques such as using temporary interns.
2. Commit. Whatever you choose to do, stick to it and put the time, money, and/or effort into doing it right.
3. Read social news blogs, Twitter tip sites, and advice on how to use other social networks.

Once you’ve made your decision, hire a social media strategy firm (such as Hasai).  Promoting your company through social media is more than a marketing campaign. It’s more than having a presence. It’s about looking at what your company is doing, what your competitors are doing, and most importantly looking at what your customers are doing. Making your social media strategy fit with your market is the key to doing exceptional things in Web 2.0. Just look at Dell.

Regardless of the size of your company, chances are strong that you can make a difference with social media. It’s all about impact. Your company needs a heavy hitter on its side for the most impact.

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Read more about Social Media Strategy on this site.

]]> http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-networks-the-clock-is-ticking-for-businesses/feed/ 0 http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-media-strategy-at-its-finest/ http://hasai.com/blog/featured-articles/social-media-strategy-at-its-finest/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:12:23 +0000 admin http://hasai.com/blog/?p=24 With the increased popularity of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Digg, it seems that “gurus” are popping up left and right. They are appearing at every level from Twitter spammers claiming to get your message in front of 2.5 million people for a few hundred dollars all the way to Corporate Master Marketers who sculpt pageviews out of thin social media air.

Over the last several months, we’ve worked with some, interviewed others, and came to the conclusion that there are some out there that are real. Some. The rest, probably 95 out of 100, know very little about how to truly design social media campaigns and manage a proper social media strategy.  This is a huge problem as several corporations and small businesses we have talked to lately are skeptical of anything relating to social media.

They tried it with this company or that company and they didn’t see the results.

Before we join the chorus of “we’re the best” that makes it seem like we’re just like everyone else, let me state something very clearly. Our results are predefined. Our methods are discussed openly and honestly. We do not collect a penny until AFTER the results are rendered.

Do I have your attention?

For the first year of existence, Hasai chose to stay hidden. Social media and its many components are sensitive topics. Companies do not necessarily want their customers or competitors knowing that they have hired a social media firm, so we decided to “not exist” except through referrals and word-of-mouth.  As the company expanded over the months, it became clear – there are ways to protect our clients without staying in the shadows.

Too many companies are popping up that offer the same thing that we offer. Then again, a Daewoo and a Bentley both drive down the street. They both have 4 wheels, doors, windows, and an engine.  The difference is that one does it right and one did it wrong.

Read through the site. We are carefully crafting what we can and cannot say in a way that will protect everyone involved while still offering the opportunity for companies to find us.

You’ve found us. You’re already ahead of your competition.

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Read more about Social Media Strategy.