Do you suffer from Twitter envy? Are you considering buying Twitter followers or do you spend way too much time following other people just to boost your numbers? Relax; when it comes to Twitter followers, less can actually be more. Having a few top quality subscribers is far more important than subscribing to the faceless masses.
Sharing is Caring
Forget the numbers and focus instead on getting a few really great followers so that you can form a community of influencers who share valuable information and resources. Of course there is the perception that people with lots of followers must be contributing dynamic information and this has value too, but it’s better to have a few followers who engage with you than thousands who clog up your inbox.
Sharing really is caring, so it’s important to focus more on posting regularly, responding to other posts and retweeting things you find useful than it is to focus on acquiring new followers.
Different Companies, Different Needs
For large corporations, having thousands of followers actually is advantageous. Here you will see that their follower/following ratio is fairly similar. Companies like Starbucks have automated follow back functions because they aren’t as interested in interaction as they are in having more accounts to post information to.
But if you are a small business, having Starbucks as a follower holds no value as they are unlikely to retweet your product posts or your latest blogs. If you don’t have a chance of ranking as one of the top twitter accounts in your niche, than focus instead on building worthwhile relationships with a few people.
It’s Not All About You
While it may feel good to have a ton of followers (it’s just like being the most popular kid in high school), the quality of your interactions will be severely hampered. With so many followers, it’s not possible to keep up with the tweets of others, and you will find that your own items hardly ever get retweeted. All the good stuff that your quality followers are posting will get lost under piles of Justin Bieber memes and videos of cats.
Getting good quality followers means being a good quality follower and that entails putting in the time, engaging with your followers, participating in conversations and retweeting items of interest. About 50-60% of your tweets should be from your followers, after all, it’s better to give than to receive.
George Quinteros, social media guru, sums it up perfectly: “Quality followers are no doubt your most important followers. These are the ones who are actually following you to listen to what you have to say. The ones who will purchase the items you advertise. These are the followers that are asking questions, replying to your tweets and are not just filtering you out on TweetDeck. These followers are a bit harder to gain but worth the work.”
