As it is in life, people on Twitter do what they do on Twitter for a number of reasons. The most aggravating thing people do is blindly follow people on Twitter.
Those who follow any and everyone do so for a reason. And the ones who follow hardly anyone do so for other reasons. Then you have all kinds of reasons in between for following as many as you can in hopes the same number will follow you back or following but not really caring if you get followed (which is one of the more weirder ones).
So the questions I have are simple. Why do people follow me and why do I need to follow more people that I can possibly communicate with in any kind of manor? How do you get the answers to these questions?
Well, for me that is simple. Since I ask a lot of questions that is what have done..asked people on Twitter my two questions. I do do in hopes their answers would help me understand what goes on in the minds of the hundreds of people I see each day using twitter.
Why Do Tweeps Follow Me?
Out of the nearly one hundred people who answered this question here are a few of the answers I received.
Naturally I got the majority of the responses saying something to the effect that they liked me or liked what I say or how I say it as being the reason they follow me..thank you for that..but here are the ones that concern me.
- “I don’t know why. I ran an auto-follow program and you were picked up”
- “I was told by my SEO I would get more followers if I only followed people who had photos of themselves. You have a good photo.”
- “I am in a contest with my buddy on who can get the most followers and I understand most ppl on Twitter use auto follow programs so I follow everyone”
- “I have a product that can only be sold online so to generate sales I follow everyone in hopes they will follow me back”
- “My advertisers on my site require I have a min of followers on Twitter. I could care less who I follow as long as the number of following shows up on my stats”
- “I am unemployed and have nothing else to do but follow people to see if they will follow me”
- “ I don’t know who you are or care, I just want you to follow me so I can keep my paid advertisers on my site”
- “I am getting paid to follow as many people as I can, so are you going to follow me or not?”
- “Anyone with less that 15k followers really is not someone anyone wants to follow.”
- “I just carried this popularity contest over from FB..its fun..doesn’t hurt anyone..just a number game”
So as you can see from this sampling of responses, which in many case took a lot of my time to pull out of them, that there are a lot of misguided individuals online. True, Twitter can be used for many things and that is cool with me, but it just seems there are just too many people who purposefully find ways to disrupt a logical flow or process. This large volume of people who blindly follow people in hopes it leads to them being followed seems to be a waste of time and resources. Yaw, I get it…what is there not to get? The drive people have to be popular is evident here, but at what cost to the others who Get that twitter is also a very good tool to build a solid community. Following someone for the sake of gathering numbers does not build a community…nor dos id validate popularity. So what is there Not to Get?
My next question really got things stirred up. Seems there are a very large number of people who see Twitter as a Game Board or an extension of their High School popularity contest. You would think that there must be a Twitter Student Body vote coming up with how a large number of people seem to be using Twitter like DIGG to see who can get the most votes..which in this case the vote is in getting Followers.
I originally thought that there might be some logical reasoning for getting as many followers as you can and that it was associated with getting the word out on products to a large number of people. However, after spending time in several online traffic mastermind groups all agreed that having tens of thousands of followers does not breakdown to being an effective use of time if gathering followers is used to get the word out on something like many of the A List Social Media people feel it does. Statistically, the number of followers does not result in a significant level of exposure. This is due to NOW, with the high volumes of crap being pumped out by everyone on Twitter, a very small percentage of Tweeps read the stuff anyone send out. In all cases the ROI on Followers following something was found to be microscopic. So why do people still want to get their Twitter Stats up?
Nonetheless, the game continues which some of the following responses pretty well telling me not only why people want as many followers they can get, but also WHO the types of people are who wants all of these followers.
Why Do I Have To Follow Thousands of Tweeps?
- “Dude, you R wading into how business is done online and you may need to get off Twitter if you are not wanting to play the game.”
- “When someone decides who to follow they look to their F/F rating (Following/Followers). IF they do not have several thousand each that person is a LOSER and they have nothing to do with them.”
- “I have to have at least 20k following me to get paid”
- “You R Kidding, Right??”
- “If you have to ask then you may want to get off Twitter..your taking up bandwidth for people who know what Twitter is all about”
- “I could give a crap about what the person I am following as long as they are following me, I just need the number so more people will follow me”
- “You REALLY don’t get it..do you?”
- “I makes me feel good to have that many people listening to what I have to say..my parents will not listen”
- “Hey, I am starting my own city..I need a population of 75k to get Federal ad”
- “Man, just play along or get the f*&k off Twitter”
- “Does it really matter. I am just doing what my IM told me I need to do to make $4k a month”
- “You are really cute to ask that question. I just like to think I have that many people listening to me. It is a powerful feeling”
- “I paid this chick to tell me how to make money online. She said that I need to get on Twitter and get at least 20k followers are I was a Loser”
- “Thanks for following us. Sorry this is automated, but we are busy making upgrade to the site.”
I could go on with this but I think you can see that most people who responded are out to push themselves or something and misguidedly feel that the people following them are all listening to them. It is mind boggling how anyone could believe that this works.
So, my questions are still not actually answers. I am again, like everything else out here, having to assume many things.
I am comforted to know there are a number of people on Twitter who do get it and understand the power of True Social Media which means you make an honest attempt to know about the person you are going to follow and control who follows you so there is a list of people who are out there who REALLY want to get to know you.
Yes, how I use Twitter is my way and everyone out there has their way of using Twitter, but when there are people out here using Twitter in ways that reflects badly on those who have a true plan, then that has to be looked into. Thank goodness for apps like TweetDeck and seemics desktop that sorts out the noise. And Thanks to all my Followers who I would like to hear more from… It does not always have to be …All About Me… Make it about balancing it to be a little more ..All About You..
Let me know how I can help
