| SitePoint Sponsor |
Lets face it only Celebs have the luxury of having minimal following and large followers, you can't unfollow 1000 who are following and expect that they still follow you. Twitter has become a more of a social network site which brings unknown people together than just family and friends. Try using Twiends dot come for adding twitter followers most tend to follow you back in 1-2 days or even immediately
The question isn't how many left but rather how many actually paid attention / read / engaged / or acted. Social following is not a KPI, it's just a stat.Originally Posted by DanielUS
- Ted S
If you have a thousand of followers and you thinking of unfollow them, i suggest that unfollow only those who did not follow back to you.
So rather than looking at what they post you're saying look just at whether or not they follow you too? Doesn't seem like that would do much for you...
- Ted S
It depends why he is on Twitter. If he wants to interact with other people then I would agree with you, but if he intends to drive them to a website where he hopes to sell something then unfollowing unfollowers makes sense
Interesting... But if you're not on twitter to interact, you're simply going to miss the benefit social brings.
Assuming however that the goal is traffic [a silly goal if that's the extent of it] if one hopes to drive "followers" to a website they still need to interact with them first... The interaction proceeds the action and seeing as how twitter is a stream, consistency and value are paramount.
Unless I'm totally missing something else?
- Ted S
The point is , if someone doesn't follow you back they won't see postings you make that are trying to tempt them to visit your website, so you may as well unfollow them so that their posts don't keep appearing on your home page.
I thing what we're all missing here is that those who follow thousands of people are doing so in a "you pat my back, I'll pat yours" fashion. They have no real interest in the people they follow other than to promote their products or services to their followers. This is a perversion of social media in my opinion. Rather than worrying about numbers, they should be worrying about posting interesting content to their accounts and commenting, sharing, and replying to those who share their interests. Sincerity on the web speaks to credibility. If you don't have that, you have nothing.
Linda Jenkinson: Content Team Leader
Creative Web Content
"Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean." ~Unknown
March Photo Challenge. "Blue" Poll is open. Vote NOW!
April Photo Challenge - "A Piece of Paper"
Agree with you Shyflower.
From what I have seen, most people go on Twitter for the following reasons:
1)To promote goods/services/religion
2)To tell everyone how much they love Justin Beiber/1 Direction/Beyonce etc
Only a small number seem to genuinely want to interact on a social level, shame really but not that surprising
The general rule of web engagement is 1/9/90 - 1% create, 9% comment or repost, 90% just read. Twitter can skew these up and down depending on your focus but even the "best" posters don't see more than a few percent respond to their typical message, and usually it's well under 1%. Your win must be long term interaction.
Thus value is not in having access to a large number of random people's streams... it's in having an interaction with, as irishman
so eloquently put it, the small number who want to interact. These are your "adopters", and if done right, also your core audience... people who like your contributions to you and also interact, share, and pass along to others in their own right.
The mistake people make is to think they have to be connected to someone themselves to reach them. That's old marketing. Social is about a network effect -- you have 50 core followers, 5 of whom really like your message this morning and pass it along. The signal of those 5 people to their network is far stronger than anything you could have with those people if they were following you [I trust my friend more than I trust you]. Thus you go from 50 core reaches to 50 + 5x50. That scales quickly.
Most importantly you don't reach "good" people just because you hit follow. You have to earn it. That means following people who don't follow you back, interacting with what they post, and showing them that your contributions are something they'd care to follow.
To the point @Shyflower made... authenticity is the keyword here. That's what gets you to a conversation, a click, growth, or any practical objective.
When you study big follower counts that are built up on gimmicks [this includes most major brands who contest their way into fans] what you find is huge inactivity rates [not just with the person being followed but with twitter in general], and pass along rates of under 1 [i.e. no self-building effect]. It's a count, one that may seem impressive to the casual observer, your best friend, even your boss but as you get nothing from it, it means nothing.
- Ted S
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks