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FOLLOW PEOPLE

on March 18 in Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Marketing, brand-marketing, microblog tagged ,

Normally we reserve the blog for positive, thoughtful rhetoric about using Twitter for business. We’ve been excited watching Twitter’s explosive growth over the last year. Recent figures have 12 month growth at over 1000% - which is amazing by anyone’s standards. But with massive adoption comes users that may not be as accustomed to “interacting” with people directly - something that Twitter is designed for.

Recently Charlie Villanueva of the NBA received notoriety for tweeting during halftime of the Bucks vs. Celtics game. For Twitter geeks like us, that was a huge moment. Seriously - HE TWEETED AT HALFTIME. I immediately followed Mr. Villanueva and noticed something about his account: 5000+ followers, and he only follows 78 in return. So I did some more research:

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) 388,300 followers, he follows 56.
Jimmy Fallon (@jimmyfallon) 359,449 followers, follows 63.
John Mayer (@johncmayer) 253,987 followers, follows 20
Julia Allison (@juliaallison) 8,534 followers, follows 39.
Shaq (@the_real_shaq) 337,000 followers, he follows 470. (Which is actually pretty good, nice job Shaq.)

I mean, Julia Allison is really only web famous (no offense Ms. Allison, I think you’re awesome) and she can’t bring herself to follow more people.

This is the issue - Twitter is not going to work if it’s used as just another broadcast media. John Mayer is hilarious and down to earth (and geeky at times) so I enjoy reading his blog and following him on Twitter. But I like Twitter because I can have numerous ongoing conversations with people all over the world. Twitter works when I reply to someone’s tweet, then they follow me, and then a connection is formed. It’s not realistic to think someone can manage 300K followers and respond to everyone, but a 20 to 300K ration is not going to give anyone a breakthrough experience.

For Twitter to work for everyone long term, and not be relegated to some short term PR fad, it has to provide reciprocal benefit. Following John Mayer’s tweets, while occasionally enjoyable, does not offer me any benefit as a John Mayer fan. However, the occasion may come where I reply to John and he replies back and I will turn into a mush pile of gooey faced man crush. (*Note, I don’t have a man crush on John Mayer, just using it for the sake of example.)

If you want to get more out of Twitter - give more back. FOLLOW PEOPLE, and you will see the incredible viral capability of Twitter unleashed. You will earn fans for life. You will embolden relationships with people who buy your cds, watch your shows, go to your basketball games.

I hope to see some positive changes folks. We’re all in this together. As Twitter grows, we grow with it.

(*Note, I actually do have a man crush on John Mayer.)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Social Networking, Twitter, Twitter Marketing, brand-marketing, microblog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 5 Comments

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    Well said!

    Excellent!

    Thank you!
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    I completely disagree. Just because you find someone interesting and want to follow THEM doesn't in any way imply they'd necessarily be interested in YOU.

    I am sure Ashton, John, and LeVar, etc. follow the people THEY know or find interesting, and perhaps more importantly, the people THEY want to receive direct messages from.

    I think you have the misconception that participating in Twitter somehow implies a two way communication. Most celebs, like most people, don't want to DON'T want to follow people they don't know and have never heard of anymore than they want to give them their cell number... they just want to share with their fans who are interested.
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    First, the dialogue is healthy so thank you for disagreeing and taking the time to post. We think that the benefits of Twitter are magnified by using it for 2 way communication - otherwise it's just a microblog. If anyone with 10K followers or more can't find 10% of them interesting, then use Facebook. Twitter is awesome because it's open, or transparent, which Facebook is not.

    We suggest if someone takes the time to tweet to you, at least follow them (unless it's completely worthless.) If they are really funny or insightful, tweet back. Otherwise, it's not really a participatory medium and then...why Twitter and not Myspace or blog.
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    Great post. You got me curious about the other celebs I follow and how many people they follow. The big winner is MC Hammer, with 242,116 followers and following 25,561. Go Hammer, Go Hammer...Will Wheaton is 253,546 to 97, Soliel Moom Frye is 29,754 to 23, ABCDude (cant remember his real name) is 3,070 to 62, but I give him a break cause he is kinda new and I like his video clips. Brent Spiner is the biggest slacker with 71,914 followers and he follows back, ready for this.. 4 people. Yep 4!! Oh Data, I am dissapointed. Levar Burton has 149,471 and follows 78. The best ratio I can find is my favorite funny lady, Paula Poundstone has a following of 6,382 and follows 5,954. So it seems that with few exceptions the poor celebs of the world are missing out on all the fun us normal people get to have. I also enjoy their postings and try to keep up with them. If any of my celeb crushes ever show up on Twitter at all, much less write back to me, I too will be a puddle of mush, so enjoy your man crush and drop sexy John a note. :)
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    Thanks Missy, and I don't want to sound like I'm railing on celebs - I couldn't respond to 300 thousand @replies. I just believe now that there is this huge rush of people to Twitter, they need to be thinking about it as a 2 way medium. Just think, using Twitter we could go from 6 degrees of separation to 3 or 4. :)
 
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