Why Twitter really isn’t about the numbers

There’s still a big fuss about follower numbers on Twitter, still people tweeting out ‘Just need 5 more followers to hit 1000′ and ‘I gained 8k in followers quickly by using this simple technique’ type scam artists.

The Test Case
I set up a test account a few days back, partly to see if an affiliate account on twitter can make any money but also to see how large, and how quickly, it was possible to grow a following with something running on autopilot. I have some code that screen-scrapes data from a popular online store then uses the Tweetlater API to schedule announcement of newly arrived products or price drops. Less than 4 days in it has over 80 followers and has generated over 600 clicks on the links it is tweeting out. I didn’t follow any users when I set the account up, but it is set to auto-follow any new followers it gets – it does this up to 8 hours after the follow, and unfollow anyone who stops following it. Since the account has been tweeting out, I’ve also run some searches for keywords to find people who would benefit from following the account, to let them know. The majority of these organically found people become followers.

Most of the followers however aren’t interested in what’s being tweeted out, they’re just playing the ‘build my follower numbers’ game using the ‘if I follow you, you might follow me back’ logic. A fair number of them send auto-DMs when the account follows them back too.

What does this prove?
From this test it’s clear that anyone can build a following with almost zero quality or relevance (of tweets, or followers). Best Buy’s Emerging Media Marketing job with a requirement of 250+ followers on Twitter missed the point, as the discussion that stemmed from it illustrates.

The numbers alone mean nothing…
Tools such as Twitter Grader have more metrics besides follower numbers, including engagement. I would argue that if you’re going to stipulate Twitter usage as a requirement for a position then the benchmark needs to made more comprehensive.

It seems that there are two camps – those for whom it’s all about the numbers and those who strive for a relevant following – blocking the spammy/bot/my-twitter-system type of accounts and definitely never following them back. I know there are “no rules on Twitter” but remember you can be judged by the company you keep. I’d just rather have a following of people who are interested in what I’m saying, at least some of the time – that’s why I follow someone after all.

Image credit: Mararie

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