Robert, good post here. My head hurts a bit too from my clients asking me over and over again how to get more followers on twitter and facebook. My standard refrain is that I would rather you have 500 amazing and engaged followers than 10k non active ones...it takes a while but as soon as i stopped worrying about my follower numbers, and just started doing what I like to do, conversing, curating the web for stuff my followers and I like, and just being more natural with it, the follower count started a steady climb again. Nevertheless, I am happy with the followers I have but the best way for me to get more, is to keep doing what I am doing...
Scobleizer
· 1 month ago
I'm putting YOU on a list! :-)
therealfracas
· 1 month ago
For some, twitter is about the amazing and engaged followers, but for others, well, they want more followers, because they want to get more than $1.30 for a sponsored tweet. It's that simple. When word gets out that shoemoney is making unheard of amounts of cash for a single tweet, people will equate more followers with more money and go looking for ways to get more followers.
Of course there are those others, who believe the more followers they have, the more popular they are. I think those folks are all former myspace users who had 16, 289 'friends' though. I wouldn't know. I can't keep up with my own blogroll, so 16, 289 friends would be a nightmare for me. They'd all just hate me for not paying enough attention to them anyway.
Vince Kuraitis
· 1 month ago
Agreed, # followers as a measure is increasingly irrelevant. My dog @WorldsCutestDog has more followers than I do, but she'll follow anybody.
Eric Andersen
· 1 month ago
If someone is asking how to get more followers, shouldn't the response be, "Why do you want more followers"? Chances are they won't have a good answer to this, unless they just want popularity in and of itself. So the issue is not there isn't a good answer; the issue is that it's not the right question to ask.
But then is the question instead "How do I write better"? I think it's more than that for social media - it's also "How do I engage better", "How can I help others", "How can I differentiate myself", and "How can I make a difference" - and many other similar questions.
Anthony Farrior
· 1 month ago
That's like the sound of one hand clapping...Who cares as long as YOU clap and congratulate and participate. Approaching this from a logic angle is all wrong and it's why the anti-social techie is being overshadowed by the conversational blogger of today (Robert Scoble, Louis Gray and Brian Solis). Have fun and let everyone else see you having fun, that's how you get followers imho...
Scobleizer
· 1 month ago
Bing! Fun is what it's all about. Well, until you start thinking about how to make money with all of this. Then the question turns less fun. Or does it?
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
never understood why making money and having fun were deemed mutually exclusive...i dont think they are...
Scobleizer
· 1 month ago
There are some jobs that simply aren't fun. I don't think anyone ever wants to clean toilets, for instance, but someone does. I'm very fortunate to have a job I absolutely love but there are plenty who don't. Usually when someone hands you a buck it isn't because they care whether or not you are having fun.
Paul Blasman
· 1 month ago
One of the jobs I had while working my way through college involved cleaning toilets at a department store. One of the funnest jobs I've ever had...
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
that is true of course, we are lucky to have the educations and opportunities we do have, to have won the lottery in some respects...
WeaponII
· 1 month ago
That reminds me of my question to you a couple days ago, "When do you work?"
Paul Blasman
· 1 month ago
I'm just an average guy who enjoys following tech. I've been a geek all my live. I follow people on Twitter because I enjoy reading what they post. I'll post a comment when I have an opinion on something that I've read or an experience that I think others would like to read.
Just confirming that its the content you write not the number of followers.
Besides with Twitter lists, does the number of followers really matter anymore.
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
paul
exactly right. with twitter lists, follower numbers has taken one more major step towards basic irrevelance.
I've been revisiting Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody and the chapter on fame is telling in regards to this discussion. At a certain level of fame, you simply cannot keep up with x amount of people. I recently unfollowed over 1500 people after listening to Robert's experience mass unfollowing. I now have less than 2000 people I follow and I hope it stays that way.
Back to Shirky though, would any person (not brand) really want more than 30 or 40k followers. You couldn't even keep up with thanking people for Retweeting or answering questions addressed to you...and then people start to resent you a little bit...
Uh Oh! I smell a twitter prediction coming on...that a buck and a quarter will get me to Brooklyn, but I do declare that Twitter will further segment. As growth has stalled in the past couple of months I've felt a familiarity and closeness growing with myself and those I follow and who follows me. Deeper conversations, more willingness to meetup outside of twitter and IRL, and my knowledge engine has been revved up even more.
Z
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
most fun?
Paul Blasman
· 1 month ago
Most fun, no. But it was a fun time 25 years ago. No pressure, could walk away at any time and find another minimum wage job fairly easy. Life in college was simple.
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
Man u r old!! Ha. Jk. Appreciate the dialogue.
Ari Herzog
· 1 month ago
Didn't someone close to you once confide that size doesn't matter?
Forget followers. I wish those numbers weren't shown.
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
That's actually a great idea. What would Twitter be like if no one knew anyones follower count. I'm sure this question has come up before. Prolly raised by scoble somewhere. I fear, to be honest, that knowin follower accounts has effected who I follow and group into classes. I won't lie. But I also get a lot of pleasure out of welcoming and championing new people w less than a few hundred ollowers. I like to give them a chance.
It's been interesting to watch as Twitter evolves from a "What the hell is the point?" amusement into a real Broadcast Yourself (sorry, YouTube) platform. @replies and retweets so we can let people know what we're doing with their info. Lists to show people how we categorize those we follow, what kinds of groupings matter to us.
I spent about two weeks using Buzzom, back in August, and just about gave up on Twitter. Three hundred follows, brought my followers list to just under 50 in a week from ten... But I couldn't read anything! It sucked! Now, lists come out, and for a second I thought "great, now I can follow a bunch of people, get the numbers up, AND manage to keep reading the people I give a crap about." Then I actually looked at the feature and how it was used and - I agree with you - follow numbers don't mean a thing any more. If I follow your lists, I don't turn up in the followers number for any of those people on the list - but I get their stuff anyway. It's awesome.
The entire question of followers, RSS subscriber numbers - just got obsolete, didn't it? Syndication may still be important, but I think this will change how it's viewed.
Ari Herzog
· 1 month ago
Better question, Robert: Why should anyone follow you on Twitter when they can subscribe to your blog and read logical (and longer) statements like the ones above?
Then again, you're preaching to the choir about changing things up with big F and small f strategies; for I deleted my 1000+ Facebook friends 24 hours ago and am now going about wastebook entirely differently.
Oscar
· 1 month ago
Your crutch words are "see," and "oh,".
ShyamKapur
· 1 month ago
I enjoyed this write-up greatly. I have been saying something similar for quite some time now. I believe smart search is the solution. And, we are almost there. Check out the world's first semantic, real-time, social search engine TipTop at http://FeelTipTop.com and perhaps you will also feel confident that a very good solution to the problem is on the horizon.
Ahad Bokhari
· 1 month ago
Indeed, who needs so many followers in the first place. End of the day you really need 1000 true core fans to have success on twitter or elsewhere with your product or service. Much better to concentrate on people and content - for one I learned that the hard way.
Zachary Adam Cohen
· 1 month ago
thats a bold number, but can't disagree that 1000 truly engaged fans and evangelists of your work is pretty powerful...
Tony
· 1 month ago
Great story. The race for twitter followers has never made sense to me. This does. Tony
Jason McElweenie
· 1 month ago
The obvious answer is to get you to link his Tweet while using his question in a post. At first I thought was extremely wrong to single this guy out but you are actually helping him. So that leads me to a few questions
'How can I make a million dollars by Monday?'
'How can I become the first human to achieve unassisted flight'
'Hoe can I win a knife fight against a monkey?'
'How can I be a better linkbaiter?'
brucedstewart
· 1 month ago
I only have 2 friends in real life (and that's not family). I have lots of twitter follows. I Wouldn't follow me if I was them. I just follow people who I want, not just anyone.
dj adelaide
· 1 month ago
so true, the number of followers you have is totally meaningless especially if you have a publicly viewable twitter account, it's probably more effective to figure out which keywords your target market is monitoring and hit those keywords in your tweets as often as possible
Carl Griffith
· 1 month ago
Great post... one might as well ask 'how do I get invited to parties or to the pub more often'?... bottom line is be interesting and be interestED or funny or whatever but just don't look at it as a numbers game. I thought people were beginning to get this now? Strange that people are still asking you this question...
Martijn Linssen
· 1 month ago
Catchy point Carl. It seems to be a strange goal in life for most people to be famous and rich and have many worshippers / followers
Give me a full week and a lot of clicks and I can get a few thousand followers who just follow me because I follow them Give me a few days and some interesting tweets, and I'll meet people who like my tweets and me
To me, it's a difference between spam and relationships
amyporterfield
· 4 weeks ago
Perfect post! I think it always comes back to KICK-BUTT CONTENT. . . and that is not an easy thing to get right each time. That is why the people that are really outstanding in this area rise to the top. And I love what you said about @replying to the best thinkers in the business--this is why Twitter is so great. You can "talk" to the big shots now. . . and maybe even get a response. Thanks for the great reminder that followers do not matter and content is still king.
All Comments
Of course there are those others, who believe the more followers they have, the more popular they are. I think those folks are all former myspace users who had 16, 289 'friends' though. I wouldn't know. I can't keep up with my own blogroll, so 16, 289 friends would be a nightmare for me. They'd all just hate me for not paying enough attention to them anyway.
But then is the question instead "How do I write better"? I think it's more than that for social media - it's also "How do I engage better", "How can I help others", "How can I differentiate myself", and "How can I make a difference" - and many other similar questions.
opportunities we do have, to have won the lottery in some respects...
Just confirming that its the content you write not the number of followers.
Besides with Twitter lists, does the number of followers really matter anymore.
exactly right. with twitter lists, follower numbers has taken one more major
step towards basic irrevelance.
I've been revisiting Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody and the chapter on
fame is telling in regards to this discussion. At a certain level of fame,
you simply cannot keep up with x amount of people. I recently unfollowed
over 1500 people after listening to Robert's experience mass unfollowing. I
now have less than 2000 people I follow and I hope it stays that way.
Back to Shirky though, would any person (not brand) really want more than 30
or 40k followers. You couldn't even keep up with thanking people for
Retweeting or answering questions addressed to you...and then people start
to resent you a little bit...
Uh Oh! I smell a twitter prediction coming on...that a buck and a quarter
will get me to Brooklyn, but I do declare that Twitter will further segment.
As growth has stalled in the past couple of months I've felt a familiarity
and closeness growing with myself and those I follow and who follows me.
Deeper conversations, more willingness to meetup outside of twitter and IRL,
and my knowledge engine has been revved up even more.
Z
Forget followers. I wish those numbers weren't shown.
knew anyones follower count. I'm sure this question has come up
before. Prolly raised by scoble somewhere. I fear, to be honest, that
knowin follower accounts has effected who I follow and group into
classes. I won't lie. But I also get a lot of pleasure out of
welcoming and championing new people w less than a few hundred
ollowers. I like to give them a chance.
The answer is, what ever space you occupy in cyberspace know what you are talking about.
Know matter what tool you use to communicate it would be (IE) writing, podcasting or video blogging.
Pick your tool of choice and then put out some kick butt content for that space!
The reason I follow Scobles is because I love Technology from an early adopter standpoint and Robert feeds me tons of great content about this space!
Because Robert is such a power user, he saves me a ton of time when I'm choosing what new tools I will use next.
So master your space, pick your deliver device and kill it!
If you do that people will follow you in packs!
Steven Barchetti
http://www.KingOfSocialMedia.com
I spent about two weeks using Buzzom, back in August, and just about gave up on Twitter. Three hundred follows, brought my followers list to just under 50 in a week from ten... But I couldn't read anything! It sucked! Now, lists come out, and for a second I thought "great, now I can follow a bunch of people, get the numbers up, AND manage to keep reading the people I give a crap about." Then I actually looked at the feature and how it was used and - I agree with you - follow numbers don't mean a thing any more. If I follow your lists, I don't turn up in the followers number for any of those people on the list - but I get their stuff anyway. It's awesome.
The entire question of followers, RSS subscriber numbers - just got obsolete, didn't it? Syndication may still be important, but I think this will change how it's viewed.
Then again, you're preaching to the choir about changing things up with big F and small f strategies; for I deleted my 1000+ Facebook friends 24 hours ago and am now going about wastebook entirely differently.
evangelists of your work is pretty powerful...
Tony
'How can I make a million dollars by Monday?'
'How can I become the first human to achieve unassisted flight'
'Hoe can I win a knife fight against a monkey?'
'How can I be a better linkbaiter?'
I have lots of twitter follows. I Wouldn't follow me if I was them.
I just follow people who I want, not just anyone.
Give me a full week and a lot of clicks and I can get a few thousand followers who just follow me because I follow them
Give me a few days and some interesting tweets, and I'll meet people who like my tweets and me
To me, it's a difference between spam and relationships
Amy