Rant: So You Have 10,000+ Twitter Followers, F’ing Great
August 26, 2009
OK, I promise that before typing this I have counted to 10. And I am not blogging angry. Yes someone in perceived “authority” tweaked me today while selling their training materials.
For anyone new to the social media craze, are impressed by numbers or are doing reference checks on a speaker/consultant/guru/expert the number of followers one has does, the number itself, does not mean anything.
Here is my suggestion, look through their 10,000+ Twitter followers. Who are they? How many of them are Spammers? How many are “real” people/companies?
Now look to the account itself. What are they talking about? Who are they talking to? Are they engaging a community or shouting to an audience?
Now do this:
Go to Advanced Twitter Search
Scroll down to “People”
Enter the account name in “To this person”
Search
If someone has 10,000+ followers I expect there are a lot of results. I mean, 10,000+ followers should show lots of activity, Right?
Now enter their name in “Referencing this person”. Again there should be a significant number.
If not question their guru/expert/speaker/consultant status.
Classic. I would also add the 10K followers with 100 or so Tweets. I can't tell how many times I've been followed lately by gurus with many thousands of followers/following that never really use the service at all, much less engage with anyone.
Posted by: Steve Boese | August 26, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Beautiful and I couldn't agree more. Additionally, many of these "guru/expert/speakers" seem to follow and unfollow on a whim which is an instant red flag. I wonder how much business is lost, for the company/product they represent, due to these people?
Posted by: justacoolcat | August 26, 2009 at 01:07 PM
Paul, let's take the research/analysis further. Not only should there be a lot of results as you mention, but if you compute out their Follow/Follower/Tweet Count, you should see at least a 1:1 relationship to even think about following. If they've got 10,000 followers, they should have interacted with everyone at least once you would think. So if they only have 1,000 (or less) tweets, that's only a 1% tweet per follower ratio.
Do you want to take advice from someone who only interacts with 1% of their community?
Cheers for a great post!
Rick
Posted by: Rick Mahn | August 26, 2009 at 07:56 PM
I blame Oprah for this Twitteravesty.
Just sayin'.
Posted by: RecruiterGuy | August 27, 2009 at 09:21 AM