I have noticed, and perhaps you have as well, that in order to be one of the “most influential” Twitter users, it requires that you take your days and nights to tweet every last piece of social media “news” that you can get your hopeful little retweeting paws on. It really helps if it is about the latest geeky Twitter application by some big named company promising that it will be their huge social media savior and make them squillions of dollars by knowing this “secret” tidbit of wisdom you have to share with them. Even better … maybe being one of the first to retweet something by Mashable.com or TechCrunch.com. Heck yes, anything by Cashmore or Arrington must be worth dollars in the bank!
Is anybody else out there using Twitter sick to the top of their throat with this phenomenon? I am! In fact, I think I need to go gargle to get that vomit taste out of my mouth. I mean, what is this all about? The people who are purportedly at the top of their Twitter game seem to have nothing but a bunch of journalistic crap about social media to preach, sell, and warn you about. What in the heck is it all about if not for the geeky crowd telling you what to do with it? Do you really not know how to communicate? Do you really not understand that it is important that people like you? Do you really not already know that if you retweet something about Twitter that it makes you a part of the “popular crowd”? What are you really after?
This whole thing has me about sick to the top of my throat, and that is coming from a guy who wrote a book to actually help people understand Twitter and the best use of it. The insane thing about all of this is that if everybody is such an expert, who the hell is actually saying anything useful. I mean, if it is all so damn useful, why do people keep tweeting all of this crap to tell people how it really “works” this week? Ask them if they really get paid for this or if they are just doing it to be the one waving the biggest shiny object to lure the next big sucker.
That is my piece for today. Maybe, since it is a Friday, you may like to learn why in the heck people keep sending all of those damn usernames along with a #ff or #followfriday. Yeah, they are usually waving a shiny object to attract suckers. I am sorry if you don’t like it … unfollow me if it hurts too much.
If you wonder what I have to say about it, I have a couple options. Either take the time to get familiar with my blog, or go buy my book, “Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends” and find out that there are others who care more about the people than the game of looking popular. Otherwise, maybe a few more thousand tweets about the next jQuery plugin, Twitter application, or other social media advice from the person starving for attention will somehow be useful to you. In that case, good luck!
It used to be that the big fad was to go “follow” a bunch of people on Twitter with an expectation that a majority of them will “follow” in return. I watched it and cringed, because I saw that there is a point when it totally comes undone and all of Twitter becomes deaf. It is still a pretty strong fad, but a newer fad is to go and unfollow everybody and start over.
Bulk Unfollow: A New Fad
Let’s face it my friend, you can only follow so many people before it becomes no more than a courtesy to show that you are “following” them, while the truth is that you only see .0001 percent of their messages. I mean, really, how many hundreds of Twitter updates per minute do you think any person can read?
Now a bunch of Twitter users are up-in-arms about this latest trend of people with massive numbers of followers who decided they wanted to hear Twitter again. You know, the way it used to be.
A lot of the people taking this route brought it on themselves by trying to play the game of following massive numbers of people just to be re-followed. Then there are people like me, who just thought it was courteous to re-follow people who followed my Twitter feed, just in case they ever wanted to address me with a direct message (which, by the way, is where 90 percent of my tweets are sent).
The message that I hear over and over regarding people bulk un-following sounds something like this:
“Oh, this stinks … you mean you are going to unfollow me? That would be like taking away a birthday gift. Are you saying that we cannot be friends anymore? Boo hoo, pout, sob, sniff … I am going back to bed and pull the blankets over my head.”
I have not done this, but I can certainly see why some people would. First, let’s get these couple of things clear:
A “follow” is not a promise!
A “follow” will not make you a better person.
If I do not follow you, I can still hear you, and we can still chat.
An Alternative: The “Real” Follow
I use Seesmic Desktop to manage my Twitter, which allows me to put my closest friends into groups so I never miss their tweets. This is the true “follow” that we should all be seeking … somebody who actually pays attention and wants to hear what you have to say. So I guess you would call this the second-layer-follow. Just because Twitter says that I am following you, it does not mean that I see your tweets. In fact, I spend a relatively very small amount of time looking at my main public Twitter stream. I spend a lot more time reading messages that I have filtered out with advanced searches, groups, and @ messages. This way, I have tidy little columns of information that is sorted nicely for my reading pleasure. Are you in one of my advanced searches, friend groups, or sending me an @ message? If so, that is a real follow.
The Truth About “Followers”
The majority of users subscribed to your Twitter feed are not following what you have to say. They are just giving you the nice warm feeling of another “friend”, and extending you the awesome gift of their return-follow. Do not take it to mean that each of those people following you will show up at your next tweetup, or that they would ever even hear about it.
I remember back when it seemed that people would respond and start a conversation with every other “tweet” and you knew they were paying attention. Today, that is rare, and you must actually make an effort to reach others and build your communications. Yes, that means paying attention, which is so hard for most people who sit at a computer all day to “tweet” crap to all of their oh-so-treasured fans.
“Twitter can you hear me?” This is a question that many Twitter users are asking. At first, I was concerned that it was just me. Maybe people just didn’t hear me … maybe I didn’t bathe enough and stunk up the place. That would have been a great scenario for Twitter, but I have found without doubt that this is not limited to me, and that it is a widespread issue. There are some specific reasons for this, and I want to share my thoughts and I want to hear yours. I hope that we can get this all sorted out before the famous Twitter question of “What are you doing?” becomes “Are you there?”
Do You Hear Me?
I may not be the best example to pull from, but I have used Twitter, a lot. In fact, I used it so much that I tweeted my answer to “What are you doing?” over 20,000 times and found so many interesting facets of Twitter that I wrote a book about it. Yeah, a book! I have met some amazing friends, and learned a lot along the way. I have encountered some of the very best things Twitter has to offer, and I am a huge fan. My list of reasons for loving Twitter is long.
Most people would perhaps never even imagine a book’s worth of useful insight about Twitter, and much less publishing it to share with the world. I did, and it was done to preemptively meet the challenges of Twitter growth to the point of deafness. Deafness from people who tried it and did not understand Twitter and left. Deafness from those who saw little value because they are just out to look popular with a lot of followers. Deafness from many other ailments due to an explosive growth curve.
It has been my attempt to help new and existing users to find the greatest value of Twitter and help them to make it more useful. Am I too late? I do not think so, but we will all determine the outcome.
Measuring Twitter Engagement
You may wonder how I measure whether Twitter is listening. There are many ways, but I will show you a couple which cannot be denied. I ask questions of people, and I watch statistics … I am a marketing guy, after all. Some people even tease that I may be leaning toward autism in my watchful eye on trends and numbers. It is easy to see when somebody reads a message, and I will show you how. First, I want to start with a very social question that I asked, and it was really just because I wanted to know. I was trying to connect and start a conversation with people. I recently asked a question as follows:
I received a lot of replies. After all, it was a good question. I loved reading the replies and it started some fun conversations. So does this message really answer a question of deafness? Yes! It was an engaging question that encouraged a response. I was delighted with the response. All the same, as a studier of numbers, I would bet dollars for tweets that I would have had ten times the response rate in May.
Another measurable way to see the deafness cloud hovering over Twitter is to look at any Bit.ly link. Bit.ly is a massively used URL shortening service that will allow any user to see how many people have actually clicked on a given link. I will give you a fantastic example. Here is a tweet sent by the number one most followed user of Twitter, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). His tweet was about The White House wanting people’s input on health care reform. It encompassed topics of government, health care, and small business, all at once. These are wildly hot topics, so one could assume it would have a lot of clicks. Go see for yourself … you can click here to see how many people actually clicked on the link. It died on the vine, and gives a view of how people are busier sending tweets than actually paying attention. This is coming from a guy with nearly 3,000,000 followers! What do your followers do?
When Did Twitter Go Deaf?
This all begs the questions of “When did Twitter go deaf?” and “What can we do about it?” I hope to have an answer, but I do not have the only answer. We can decide the right answers collectively. My answer is to help people understand the best assets of Twitter (relationships) and how to be sure they are seeing what they want to see. This may be a long way around, but the idea is that if you, and you, and you and the rest of you are able to manage your use of Twitter more efficiently, the whole service is improved.
In the past couple months, as I was staring into my monitor for days on end seeking inspiration and working on my LCD tan, I seem to have lost Twitter. Somehow, as I was writing until my fingers hurt, the deafness of “The Twitter broadcast” has grown like that little bump under your arm that gets bigger and bigger, until it is time for a biopsy to check for cancer.
Maybe you can say that I am manstruating and I just need to change my manpon, but I know that many others have noticed the same issues. I think it would be really nice if we could all listen again, and perhaps that way maybe we can be heard, too.
What is the value of a Twitter follower to you? Is it going to make you the star of your high school football team? Will it make you prettier so you have a better shot in the cheerleader tryouts? Will you use that incredible popularity to turn it all into millions of dollars? What is it, really, that makes Twitter users so fascinated by gaining followers?
Why Do You Seek Twitter Followers?
It seems that having enough followers to fill a stadium provides some great sense of value, but unless you know what it is, or why you try so hard at increasing your fan base, perhaps it is best to slow the pace a bit and determine what you are after. This answer will be different for different people, but it is something I believe you should put your finger on before you try to game me for a follow and un-follow me as soon as I return-follow you. As one popular comedic act put it, “Homey don’t play dat!”
We all know that giving even the slightest glimpse of what you do to earn a living is totally taboo in social media. After all, this is social media folks … nobody here actually has a job or works for a living. If you have not already learned this lesson, you must not be following enough self-proclaimed social media experts or jealous antagonists who will try to sneak in their ads under the radar in hopes that people will swarm their Website and place orders without knowing that they are actually buying from somebody they follow on Twitter. O.K., you’ve got a whiff of my sarcasm, right?
The long and the short of it is that without either a desperate need for validation or a legitimate and useful business purpose, there should be no need to have a squillion followers!
The Nerdy Kid From Math Class
It is clear enough that many people using Twitter are doing so with the simple intent of having fun, meeting people, and enjoying learning the many wonders this smaller world offers. These are the ones so many of us like, because they pose little threat, and they are never trying to sell us something or teaching us how to get thousands of Twitter followers. They are also often the people without a massive base of followers, and not because they are not just as valued, but because they do not choose to participate in the popularity contest. Perhaps, in following my earlier comments regarding the star of the football team or cheerleader, this is the dork with the thick glasses and high-water pants. In this case, I feel right at home, because those are the kids I defended in school. Those are the kids I still talk to today. Those are the kids who somehow seemed real to me. Later, I found that they were also often the ones who avoided drug overdoses, divorce, jail, and many of the other things I watched the popular kids enjoy as their circle of friends crumbled and their popularity dwindled.
This nerdy kid from math class with only an itty-bitty follower count can be your best friend. I certainly find myself having meaningful chats with this nerd. The nerd knows me, and they know that I know them. They have earned my attention as I have theirs. They care what I have to say, and I care what they have to say. We may not always agree, but then, I disagreed with my wife once (but only once)!
This nerdy kid I write about may have only heard me because there was nobody else talking to them, or because they were only listening to people who cared enough to reach out and be their friend. What may shock you is that the same nerdy kid may also decide that once they know you and your intentions, they want to hire you, buy from you, tell others about you, or leave their estate in Hawaii to you.
This nerdy kid is the majority. This nerdy kid has my respect and my loyalty.
How “Cool People” Have Many Twitter Followers
We all see the “cool” people with their amazing number of Twitter followers, but don’t you sometimes wonder why so many people are following them? I can tell you the top four ways it happens:
They repeatedly follow as many people as Twitter will allow, because the vast majority of people will return the follow.
They promptly unfollow anybody not following them, so Twitter will allow them to follow more.
They represent a value to other Twitter users, and people want to hear what they have to say.
They have a television, radio, print, Internet, or other history that draws people to follow them on Twitter.
With regard to number one, this is something I personally do not find to be of great value. However, some people that I actually kind of like to follow are engaging in this on a regular basis. This is their way, and I do not hold a grudge, but I also know that there is a very miniscule number of people doing this who will ever deliver the value which their popularity would seemingly represent. This is a tactic used by millions of Twitter users … perhaps even you. It also yields the lowest probability of users reading what you tweet, responding to it, or having any interaction with you whatsoever.
Number two is a sad after-effect of number one. I have wanted to be the guy who follows all of the people who were so “interested” that they would follow my tweets. I still test this on occasion, but it has become just about as useless as number one. I recently tested this by blindly re-following roughly 1,000 people who were following my tweets. To put it mildly, I will say that I found many opportunities to get thousands of Twitter followers, buy more real estate, read more SEO blogs, and join in more games. Yet, I still cannot determine a single user from this test group with which I have held a useful conversation, read an interesting message from, or grown my business. The amazing and wonderful result was that it did grow my follower count! So what gives? Well, number one and number two are closely joined. It seems that when I return-follow each user following my Twitter feed, my following grows massively. This is largely why at this moment, there are 15,682 users following my Twitter feed. If I did not follow them, many would not stick around long enough to find whether I hold any value or not. They simply use a combination of steps one and two above. I have commonly re-followed most people who follow my Twitter feed, which I believe is useful so that they may direct message me if they should choose. However, even when I follow them, they should know that I do not see everything they send publicly … nobody following a massive number of people will. If they want me to see everything they say, they will engage in conversation, become my friend, be added to one of my Seesmic Desktop groups, grow their way to my “Follow Close” group, and then I will read every last word they ever tweet. Short of that, just having me follow them is less useful than putting an @murnahan in the tweet, because I read 100% of those!
On to number three from the list, I really hope and believe that I am one of these people. I share what I think, I tweet some funny, entertaining, and useful stuff. I engage with anybody who will talk to me, and I am available outside Twitter at any time of night or day. I am the guy who really does care to hear from you … try me!
Number four … well, I know some. One that comes to mind is Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk). I do follow Ashton, but that all started when Ashton followed my Twitter feed, and I wanted to be sure he could return message me directly after I sent him a direct message. Since that time, he has been pretty downright respectful toward me. We are not close buddies, but we do direct message back and forth once in a while. I sometimes suspect that he is actually seeing a lot more than people think he is. I have also heard through the grapevine that M. C. Hammer (@mchammer) is also a bit more saavy than one may anticipate. However, we can generally expect that this group will not show up for your next family reunion or holiday party.
Why Does Twitter Need Another Book?
After responding to a blog post criticizing this very topic of the hunt for huge numbers of followers, I read a response to my reply on that blog that said “If you need to read a book about Twitter, you’re doing it wrong“. Of course, to this, I found a great deal of inaccuracy. I would contend that the very greatest value of social media is to gain a greater understanding of those around us, and this applies to all of us, whether we are making friends or selling weight loss products and Viagra, like everybody else. To this point, I would suggest that I have a lot to share on the topic, and it seems that a good number of people have learned about Twitter from me.
Buy This or I Strangle The Nerdy Kid From Math Class!
Back to my high school bit from above: I try to joke, but I am also selling something here. I hope that you will buy it, read it, and learn a lot from it. Don’t worry … you are not alone. I will try my best to sell my upcoming book to millions of others who may need some help figuring out how to use Twitter better, what Twitter applications work the best, how to filter information better, and much more. I strongly believe and hope very much that my soon-to-be-released book will help people to realize a greater value from Twitter, relate to others better, respect the community of Twitter, and find it as more than an update service or spam venue.
I will not bug you about this, send you a ton of junk, or stoop to a level beneath me, but I would like to ask you to help me spread the word. If you have read this far, you clearly had some interest in what I have to say. If you are even in the slightest way inclined to help me get the word out, please enter a comment to this blog post. Tell me that you are interested in helping me to spread the word about my book, read my book, or that you are sick and tired of watching Twitter friends fade away because they are too flooded with new friends and don’t know how to add you to a group where they will still be reminded of you from time to time.
Ramble, ramble, ramble … note that I have recently been accustomed to writing lengthier topics. My book, Twitter for Business: Twitter for Friends” will be completed later this week, and in print in just a couple weeks. It took longer than expected to finalize, but mostly because I keep adding useful stuff to help the Twitter community. I hope that you will join me in this effort. If so, I humbly thank you, and assure you that I will do my best to not let you down.
When you need more Web traffic and a better customer focus with stronger relationships, you need my services. Call me to sell more online and develop happier customers who will talk about you to all of their friends.
