Comments on: Do You Care If @aektktibtfbd Follows Your Tweets?

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:11:58 +0000

This is similar to the question of what makes a successful blog, comments or traffic.

In the grand scheme of things it is always more beneficial to be able to say that you have an active and invested community, be that readers or followers on Twitter.
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By: Danny Brown

Danny Brown — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:59:50 +0000

I’ve never subscribed to the “it’s all about the numbers” mantra. Point in question – of these “60% of new users quitting Twitter in a month”, it doesn’t take into account how many simply left the web version and went third-party like Seesmic or Tweetdeck.

Additionally, when a client wants the most effective and beneficial bloggers for a PR or marketing push, it’s never about how many subscribers they have, or Alexa rank or Google Page Rank – it’s about fit and relevance.

There are many ways you can control who follows you and vice versa. You can separate the chaff from the wheat, dead accounts, inactive, or spam. All it takes is an oft-forgotten practice called “choosing friends”.

You can’t dictate who follows you but you sure as hell can dictate who you follow. That’s the number people should look at (if any).
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By: Wayne

Wayne — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:43:41 +0000

I wonder how he’s determining that number….

I’m working on something similar, but it will unfollow in bulk. It’s my belief that being able to bulk unfollow those with only API tweets will be of value.

At least, it would be for me and my purposes. I don’t care about the numbers at all. I would rather have a relationship of some type with the user on the other end.

Apparently, Kikolani’s client doesn’t get that, and will probably regret it later on. But, it’s all about those numbers right? Wrong. People are smart and will eventually understand by looking at who’s following a user whether they are a ‘numbers’ user, or a real, quality Twitter user.

In fact, I think there are apps out there that will give a quality score to a particular twitter account. Don’t think the client would like to be high on one of those lists….might be hard to shake any stigma that comes from it.

meh, just my two cents on the whole thing.

Ari, great site! I got a score of 0 somehow….although I tweet from about 4 different sources now… Good stuff!
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By: Ari Herzog

Ari Herzog — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:34:25 +0000

You can thank me by clicking over to David Bradley’s blog and browsing around. Smart Brit!

By: Tyler Hayes

Tyler Hayes — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:25:07 +0000

Sadly, Kikolani is right on the money. But it’s not necessarily our clients’ fault; they’ve been bred into a world that has long survived on numbers as the only sustainable proof of ROI (the only number that really matters, to most people anyway).

Thanks for the heads-up on TwitBlock, Ari. Hadn’t heard of it yet!
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By: Kikolani

Kikolani — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:30:35 +0000

Some people really just like the number. I have a client who just asked me the other day how some people get tens of thousands of followers. I told her that they are either celebrities, they put up quality tweets everyday that others are interested, or they do some other methods that entails just getting anyone to follow them, but those “followers” probably don’t actually pay attention to anything they said. My client just wanted me to inflate her numbers as opposed to find quality followers, which was kind of sad. But it’s a numbers world I guess, and the bigger your numbers are, the “better” you are, perception wise.

~ Kristi
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