The first reaction a normal person has to someone with tens of thousands of Followers on Twitter is..nobody is humanly capable of Responding to that many people. What happens when you don’t respond to all of your Follower? From what the reaction is from the Peeps I talk to is it is.. Not a pretty picture.
I go to a lot of TweetUps and other gatherings of people where the subject of ‘how do people deal with so many Followers on Twitter’ lasts for at least a bucket of beers. I have been studying the reactions and remarks people make to the question I asked in the title to determine the reasoning people have for accumulating so many Followers. I thought my findings would help those coming online today to understand better this unusual phenomenon of social/business thinking by so many who use Twitter.
Gotta Be Popular
Seems the number one reason given on why so many people are out to gather tens of thousands of Followers has to do with a more Social thinking than a Business thinking. For most people, Twitter is a Game or bustard type online communication platform. Still there seems to be a large about of logical reasoning these people have for gathering up so many Followers.
For most of them the tens of thousands of Followers they have gathered is a gauge of their popularity online. How they gathered them usually deals with using a program or service that auto-Follows people on Twitter for them. This means, they don’t know hardly any of the people who are Following them.
The ‘ol One-upmanship’ mentality also plays a part in the game many of them play. ‘I have more Followers than you so I Have to be more popular than you’ is the kinda thinking many who get these large amount of Followers have. I get that this thinking must be from that ‘Vote for me for class president’ syndrome kids are exposed to in High School that hangs on until they get about 19 years old..then it hits them they are not in HS anymore..geez.
On the business side of the coin, this kind of social evaluation has deep roots in the self promotion monetization of someone’s site or whoever they work for. I am sure there are success stories on this working but so far none of the hundreds of people I have had this discussion with have gotten as successful with having the tens of thousands of Twitter Followers as the people who told them to gather up tens of thousands of Followers on Twitter say they are having.
Of course I have run into a few who over a couple of years grew their Followers organically, but these are few and far between now days. When I ask the question on how they respond to so many people the truth starts come out. Nearly everyone of the people I talk to who have generated tens of thousands of Followers will tell me they can’t response to all the Followers replying to them and this starts the talk I hear a lot about them, developing ‘A’ Lists’ of people in those Tens of Thousands they only respond to.
I then ask the question..what happens to the other tens of thousands you do not respond to? This is when the squirming starts.
Billboarders
The next group of Tweeters who gather tens of thousands of Followers are not really after popularity as much as they are using Twitter for nothing but a billboard. They do not care about who Followers them. They just want them to Follow. The reason has to do with either the people paying them to post their products requires they have a large number of Followers or they just need a large number of Followers to broadcast out their dribble. They are using OLD hard-line sales tactics of ‘if you send a message out to enough people someone is about to bite’. This didn’t work in the 80’s when it was developed for the Spam Industry and still doesn’t work today., but they have too much invested financially in programs and business plans to change. These are the people who usually support having large numbers of Followers.
I found it interesting that so many people fess up to this is how they use their Followers. I am sure it is one way to use Twitter, but how does that make you feel if you are one of these people’s Followers. Not good, I am sure.
Community Builders
Then there is the New and Very Rare breed of individual who uses Twitter as a community building tool. (And I thought I was alone..yea!). They build very large Followings of peeps over a longer period of time. The Community Builder build their Following from doing something that is a dying art in Twitterville..by having extended conversation with each responding Follower. Yes, if challenged, these ‘People Who Get It” will attempt to respond to tens of thousands if possible since they find it important to keep those who respond loyal.
In reality the likelihood of the Community Build getting tens of twenty of thousands Followers is remote. It is possible but not their motivation. The reason a Community Builder is on Twitter is usually to draw attention to the Community they are building. Their community holds much more value to them than Twitter due to it cuts out the noise and shenanigans the other type of Tweets feel Twitter is for.
Toll for Not Responding
So, from what I can see, it is impossible to respond to 34,568 Followers. What happens if over half of them respond to you and you do not respond back?
I asked this question to a few of the Tweets who are not interested in trying to respond to their Followers and the answers where not shocking, but concerning.
“Listen, all I want my Followers to do is buy. Other than that, I could care less.” How would you like to be following this person?
“I don’t intend to respond to anyone outside my ‘A List’ since most of the time they are ONLY responding to gain more popularity. I don’t support that since I worked hard to get my Followers..why shouldn’t they?” OK, so how long would you want to Follow this person if you knew that was what they were thinking?
“Really, I don’t see any value to responding to anyone on Twitter. I just selectively respond to a few people from time to time to keep Twitter from pegging me as a Linkster. All I want is people to check out the Links I post since they all lead to my site where I get paid Per View.” Again, another fine citizen of Twitterville that I am sure you all who are Following this person would enjoy knowing how they feel about YOU.
Becoming an UnFollower
What has come out of these questions I ask is a clear indication that Twitter has limited value to most people. None are saying anything about what they are getting out of having thousands of Followers. No success (believable and verifiable) stories have been offered.
The mystery is why do these mega popular people use Twitter if they don’t care about the image people develop of them as a person and/or business. When I ask people what their reaction would be to responding to someone who have tens of thousands of Followers and not get a response back the majority respond that they would eventually UNFollow them. Some of the Tweets I talked to sighted ‘Lack of Respect’ and others remarked on ‘Lack of Return Value’ as the core reason they would Unfollow someone who is obviously on Twitter for narcissistic reasons.
Twitter Will Change
There seems to be a crack forming in the mantel of Twitterville that probably will push more people Off Twitter. Unfortunately, there are many Newbies coming on Twitter at the suggestion of social mediaist as the place they need to be to ‘Become Someone’. These new Tweets will fill some of the holes of the people leaving. Eventually, the word will get out to the social media gurus that Twitter is not the ‘Radio’ of the internet. Once the realities set in then the questions would be….
What will Twitter Be Like if there were more conversations? I look forward to the day there are more people who care to ask that question. Let me know how I can help.
