Follow Me … Pretty Please, With A Cherry On Top?
I work for a company that provides social marketing consulting for companies of all sizes. It’s awesome because I get to see what companies are thinking in terms of how they plan on approaching this “social media stuff.” Whether they have large budgets, small budgets, or no budget at all … they’re all connected by one common concern.
We all are.
We’re all in the same boat … however, we’re all looking in different directions.
One of the most common things I hear from companies is something along the lines of the following:
“How do we get more followers on Twitter?”
Sound familiar? Chances are you’ve asked yourself this question before. It’s something we’re all wondering because more is better, right?
Not necessarily.
Instead of providing a few possible solutions, I usually answer with a question:
“Why do you want more followers?”
They usually chuckle uncomfortably and answer with an uncertain tone to their voice:
“The more followers we have, the larger our reach and in turn the higher our conversion rate.”
At this point I usually start talking about push vs pull marketing, because what the company is saying is that they only want more followers so they have more people to direct their advertising toward.
Push marketing.
Forget About the Numbers
Those obsessed with growing the number of their Twitter followers are missing the point of pull marketing, and trying to implement push marketing into a platform with no tolerance.
I wanted to share this here at FUEL because I think it’s something we all need to consider. Admittedly, I sometimes slip and get excited by the numbers … it’s actually pretty funny when you think about it. One day you’re strolling along, then you notice you have two more followers on Twitter — YES! The number grew a little! And then an hour later, you lose six followers — NO! The number shrunk a little!
Don’t take it personally — be thankful that your following is more honed than it was before. Whether someone decided, meh, your updates just aren’t for me at this point, or several spammers were just following you with a hit-and-run follow scheme to build their own followers, it’s nothing personal.
The numbers aren’t what matter (try convincing that to a company); it’s your influence that matters. Do your followers listen to you? Do they pass along your content? Do they promote it like crazy?
The followers that RT everything, constantly reply to your questions, and recommend you to anyone they meet are called super-followers.
10 super-followers are more valuable to a brand than 1000 passive followers.
Focus on Interaction
Instead of concentrating on your numbers, consider how often your followers interact with your tweets.
Connect with people and treasure that connection … it’s something that wasn’t possible just a few years ago. It’s something older generations can’t understand because they’ve never seen anything like it before.
Stop Begging People to Follow You
Focus on providing them a reason to follow you by creating exceptional content and your following will grow. It might not grow as fast in numbers as it might were you to penetrate your competitors following and follow everyone with the hope they all follow you back (please don’t do this … it’s just as bad as spam), but it will grow and you’ll probably attract a few super-followers … who eat passive followers for brunch.
What Is Your Approach?
Again, we’re all in the same boat here, but we’re looking in different directions. Share how you’re approaching Twitter and your following. What’s working for you? What’s not working for you?
Photo Credit: Zemlinki!
Christopher Rice is a publisher, entrepreneur, and abstract artist in Santa Monica. He’s a founder of Wearabl, editor of CreativeBlogger, and creator of Gumball. Friend him up at Twitter | Google+ | Facebook | Pinterest |
Christopher,
You hit the nail on the head with this post. I can’t stand push marketing on twitter. The first thing I do is stop following them as soon as I notice it happening.
On the other side the companies I enjoy following or communicating with are the ones that take an interest in what I say.
If I complain about them do they respond by being interested in my issue or the inverse with success or praise?
I think any company can increase the value of their products/services by being personal. I would be willing to pay more for something if I knew the company was going to treat me as a person.
Great Post
Thanks Ethan!
Yeah, it’s really annoying to see all this brands getting involved with the social web, yet falling short … I kinda want someone to tell them “you’re doing it wrong!”
It’d not enough to be on Twitter or Facebook — you gotta interact and the best way to interact is to listen to your people. If you can’t even do that, then what’s the point?
Thanks for the comment, man.
I think that when businesses and people get caught up with the ‘profit’ thing they are just showing their brainwashed colors.
What happened to issues of social justice? Passion for plight of the world’s exploited? Speaking out against injustice? Speaking out?
I see rehashes: lists (’cause supposedly they get picked up better); rewording or previous how to articles; hard sell of product; inanities.
Then there are those blogs that come from the heart.
Whether someone cares, or not, yes – THAT is the question!
I am so grateful for the blog. Really Great.