Is he seeing Twitter as a numbers game or assuming that this person doesn’t know what they’re doing out there?
It’s definitely not a numbers game, but a matter of how you choose to manage your account. Couple of options:
• Following back most everyone: Your public timeline will be messy though, however, you can control the quality of what you see through lists.
• Being targeted towards only those in your industry and/or those tweeps who would be genuinely interested in your product or service. This works, but do remember that you’ll have less reach overall; fewer replies, fewer retweets.
Don’t assume that they don’t know what they’re doing. Granted, that could be the case, however, keep in mind that people are joining Twitter every day and getting their feet wet. They may only have a few hundred followers, but do check them out. Some things to look for:
• A profile photo, not an egg.
• A full bio of who they are and what they do.
• Intelligent and engaging tweets. Okay to have some humorous ones too!
• A URL to a website that is professional and well organized.
• Lack of spammy tweets. Sharing the URL to your Facebook page is not spammy, but touting teeth whiteners is.
• They’re not a bot.
• Their tweets are interesting to you.
• They’re tweeting on a regular basis; in other words, they’re active and not simply just gathering followers.
Now, about giving them the benefit of the doubt, if they’re newbies, they may not be using Twitter protocol as they should be. I made two incredible blunders when I first joined Twitter. One gent firmly but politely corrected me on one of them; it may have been not using @ when replying. I remember feeling very small, but grateful that he took the time to tell me.
I recommend correcting someone via a DM. Save them a little embarrassment. Unfortunately a lot of people just dive into Twitter and try to swim without gaining the knowledge of what it’s about or formulating any strategy first. And many will drop off quickly; others will paddle ahead and some may even start doing the butterfly stroke.
So, what did I say to my friend after he made that statement?
"Give them a break; remember, you were once just starting out too and I'm sure you wouldn't have appreciated that kind of attitude while you were getting your feet wet"
‘Nuff said.
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6 comments:
Yes, for sure. I have seen so many twitter members who have few followers and their tweets and blogs are awesome. If I used the numbers game I would have missed them completely. Great points Gerry! Lisa
Great info Gerry!
Good article to a point. There are also those of us who don't have an agenda. I tweet because I love to. I have been on Twitter since March 2009 and my friends have seen me through a lot of illness and were always there praying for me, giving hope when I felt hopeless. I am not selling anything other than encouragement, joy,, and God, not necessarily in that order. I use Tweepi to delete people who are essentially gone from Twitter.
Barbara...yes, there are people on Twitter for pure enjoyment. And I enjoy it as well, however, since I'm self-employed in the marketing arena, it's also a matter of "have to". I have met some incredible people on Twitter (and then went on to meet many in person)...and several have become life-long friends.
Twitter is most definitely a numbers game. Don't believe anybody that tells you it is about quality not quantity. This is assuming of course that you are in it for business. Sales, Marketing and building community is about generating the largest amount of awareness possible for your message and motive. If you think that Twitter is not about numbers ask anybody that has over 5000 followers if they'd be willing to dump all of them and start from scratch :) @patrickallmond
Patrick, you hit the point on the head. Marketing IS about creating an awareness. Even if that person who you followed back today will NEVER hire you, at the very least, they'll know something about you and may forward your information to someone else that does need it.
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