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This needs to be said — LOUDLY. Each of my nearing 4,600 Twitter followers is organic; are yours?
Twitter sued five companies in April 2012 that sell followers on e-Bay and elsewhere for increasing exponentially and untruthfully the numbers of followers a peep has. If you’re at all interested, the defense is being represented by an Above The Law columnist. I follow this e-zine, and if the columnists are as adept writing editorial as they are in the courtroom, uhmm, Twitter needs to watch its back. (The companies responded within the last week; my, my, the judicial system takes forever.)
Oprah has 14.5 million; Barack Obama has 21 million; Justin Bieber has 29 million followers. Wasn’t Ashton Kutcher the first celebrity to get 1 million followers back in the day? Celebrity is the operative word; makes sense.
When I say my followers are organic it means this:
- I follow people who follow me first.
- I have never gone rogue to gain high numbers of followers, and many do this with Twitter apps like TweetAdder and TweetBuddy.
- Having oodles of followers is challenging to manage my stream; when I see content that makes no sense to my topics of preference (like sales junk), I clean out.
- After four years on Twitter 24/7, I ought to have 10,000 followers by now, right? Perhaps. It’s all in accordance with how you manage your brand in business and how huge you want to get with that extra attention.
Brands And Twitter
That’s a great point (if I say so myself)…should brands get the highest number of Twitter followers possible?
Think about what that looks like to a community, follower, prospect, or customer.
When a brand engages in higher numbers, the first impression is akin to a high Klout score. It’s all about influence. That brand seems to be influential and more followers will come on board.
It’s totally up to the brand how they use that opportunity, though. As I mentioned in my post here about my analysis about Harry and David’s Twitter stream — does your business engage in social media or is it a social business?
Think hard about how you, your brand, your company, and organization use Twitter. This channel is a force to be reckoned with as long as you know what you’re doing — posting, engaging, growing, and being fulfilled with success you measure buoyed by metrics you deem apropos.
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Organic is the way to go, Jayme, no doubt about it. Building an organic community takes a lot of time, but I’d rather have a tightly linked, engaged fans on a branded account, than a mass that could care less.
@Frank_Strong Thanks so much for agreeing! I love when I look at my stream and see peeps who have been there since I started, too. I can still find them.
Also, when I see a new RT of my stuff, I know whether I’ve already followed them or if they are new.
That’s part of managing the stream, I think.
BTW, do you use Zemanta on your blog? Would you consider it? I would like your content readily accessible so I can add it here with my articles. Your stuff is too strrong…Heh…Mr. Strong.
P.s. Did you see the news today of the $100 PR Firm that just launched? I’m agog. Will be writing on that; cheapening what we do; makes me mad and she’s been in for 20 years.
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing I don’t use Zemanta on my personal blog, and probably wouldn’t just because I want to be selective about links. Still, I’ve used in on corporate blogs and found it to be useful. It’s always worth experimenting. Zemanta is one of those under-recognized social tools, that’s quietly building a business.
Yes, I saw the $100 thing. Gawker ran it. That’s not a PR firm, IMHO.
@Frank_Strong Zemanta provides links and you can choose whether to use them or not. You don’t need to link back to anyone’s material if you don’t wish to.
I can’t believe that $100 thing. Gonna write on it; need to let my temperature drop first!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing Yeah, I know. PRWeb is actually integrated into Zemanta — a very smart move by Vocus and long before anyone else realized it. Still, I like to develop my own sources and links. Maybe I’m closing a door, but that’s my thinking.
@Frank_Strong Thanks for clarifying; hadn’t even thought of how that PRWEb story interspersed into Zemanta. I think those posts are called “sponsored or promoted.”
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing No, no, the releases are content that the Zemanta engine might present to a user like you to offer as relevant event links. Earned, not paid.
What serendipitous timing — I just spent my weekly 10 minutes with who.unfollowed.me.
I don’t mind if someone I’m not perfectly aligned with wants to follow me. But when they follow you, then unfollow you once you’ve followed back… UGH!
If I were managing a brand, I’d be a lot more active in seeking out large numbers of appropriate followers, but only by the organic means you outline. I’d also pay a lot more attention to lists that segment who I follow and why.
@barrettrossie I had no idea there was such an app. I like not to know better. If someone drops me like a hot potato, their loss, right? Why do you want to know? Does it hurt your feelings or make you mad? Not enough time in the day to manage that kind of puzzlement.
Were you also one who cleaned your stream of spammers, too? What app do you use for that? Gosh, how many more questions can I ask you? Heh.
Agreed, Jayme. Organic growth is best. I have often seen ads for “buying” followers, and have never been able to understand why those followers, if they were indeed real, would stay with you.
Much of my growth has been through chats. I have seen a few blogs recently about brands sponsoring chats. I am not sure that would bring them more business, but is probably something worth investigating if they are after more Twitter followers.
I don’t use any of the unfollow tools either. I am woefully behind in following back because I do it manually, but it gives me a chance to actually interact with some of my followers.
I saw further in this thread there was discussion about Zemanta. I have been using it for a few weeks. Recently, it has started pulling some of my blogs into the suggestion box. I always go out and check the link before I add it.
@Martina McGowan You’re still trying to keep it authentic; I like that, Martina. I also follow people manually. I need to visit Twitter.com (gasp!) and go into my followers and see who hasn’t been followed. Surprisingly, I seem to remember who is in my stream when I see someone show up who’s new.
Thanks for coming over here! Your blog posts and content you’ve been writing are so needed.
Zemanta helps me share many other links from outside my community; sadly, I do not look at much beyond the first graph. Guilty.