Sayeed

Savvy marketers know that number of followers, no matter how impressive the value, means little. It’s whether your Followers are actually LISTENING (i.e. reading, caring, paying attention) to what you have to say that matters.

I’d rather have 100 Followers that actually want to hear from me than a 1000 who are simply there because they’re playing the “Follow me/Follow you” churn game.

Having a lot of Followers that you’ve gotten through these dubious techniques is like having a *very* untargeted email list. Sending out a message probably *will* attract some responses, but on the other hand, you’re risking alienating many others and being seen as a SPAMMER. Unfollows are sure to follow.

The whole point is (IMHO) to add value to people’s lives and make them *want* to follow you. These are the core principles of Attraction Marketing (which is increasingly where it’s at these days).

Particularly if you’re selling something, you need to be very, very careful about how you go about “using” the Followers you have or you run the risk of losing them altogether. Most Twitter marketing experts will tell you that you don’t start blatant marketing to your Followers until they’ve been with you a while… if ever.

It’s OK to have links to products and things (nearly everybody does it), but balance this with real content and real interactions with people. Twitter is *supposed* to be about making real connections with real people. When we see an account where somebody is Following 25,000 people, do we really believe those are his (or her) “close personal friends?” I think not.

Further, we live in an age where increasingly… your name and reputation are built in real time online.

Be very, very careful about what you do and how you go about doing it.