Blog Talk: Why follow for follow is useless
One thing that I haven't gotten too caught up in around the blogesphere (luckily) is the "follow for follow" schtick. Anyone who has tried to promote anything has heard of it -- writers, reviewers, bloggers, etc. -- "If you follow my blog/author site and all of my social media, then I'll follow back."
The problem is that it doesn't get you very far. Usually. I can't speak for everyone's experience.
1. many will end up unfollowing in a week or month
2. you're lost in the crowd
Following people: I just purged my Twitter and I'm feeling great about it. While I didn't do the follow for a follow routine, I just naturally accumulated a bunch of twitter accounts. Hitting on 800 (which is no where near what some people have), I noticed that maybe 25% of those I was following were showing up in my feed. Others were buried, not tweeting, or tweeting spam. This goes for any social media site.
Of course, there are those annoying Twitter trackers that make you confirm as a follower and then track your every move until you unfollow. And then they shame you like a public spanking.
I guess that's one way to keep your follow for follow numbers.
But what good are numbers if the people aren't doing anything?
Being followed (in the less stalkerish way): We can all follow thousands of people on these sites in effort to gain followers, and pretend that we're doing some good for everyone involved. But what good are we doing if we're not interacting, retweeting, and resharing? And how do you do that for every one of the 4,852 people you follow and vice versa?
One answer is, you don't. Followers randomly retweet the most important ones to them and leave the others to be. But isn't that just the same as either not being followed or not following someone? Why not pick a select few people whose work you are actually interested in and spend more time sharing that particular person's work?
To me, the more focused plan of attack makes more sense. It seems to be more efficient and probably more effective. At least, what you would gain is a more personal relationship with quality people. A social media relationship that can help both of you more than what thousands of bribed followers with no interest in either of you can do. Atherton Bartelby said it best when he described follow for follow as the awkward friend showing up to a party and disrupting the conversation you were engrossed in with your friends.
That isn't to say that having 4,852 followers is useless. Obviously it's not -- as long they're not all just along for the ride. Of those followers, how many are you following back just to "follow back" and keep them following and how many are you following back because you like their work and are able to help them out every now and then with some retweets and shares?
Diversity is key. If you have followers that will share the hell out of your work - GREAT! If you have followers who are ignoring your posts, unfollowing your follow for a follow, or getting bombarded with their 4,852 follow for follow friends -- then it's all a bit useless.
What are your thoughts and experiences? Does following back thousands of people really help you gain more interactive and effective followers?
The problem is that it doesn't get you very far. Usually. I can't speak for everyone's experience.
1. many will end up unfollowing in a week or month
2. you're lost in the crowd
Following people: I just purged my Twitter and I'm feeling great about it. While I didn't do the follow for a follow routine, I just naturally accumulated a bunch of twitter accounts. Hitting on 800 (which is no where near what some people have), I noticed that maybe 25% of those I was following were showing up in my feed. Others were buried, not tweeting, or tweeting spam. This goes for any social media site.
Of course, there are those annoying Twitter trackers that make you confirm as a follower and then track your every move until you unfollow. And then they shame you like a public spanking.
I guess that's one way to keep your follow for follow numbers.
But what good are numbers if the people aren't doing anything?
Being followed (in the less stalkerish way): We can all follow thousands of people on these sites in effort to gain followers, and pretend that we're doing some good for everyone involved. But what good are we doing if we're not interacting, retweeting, and resharing? And how do you do that for every one of the 4,852 people you follow and vice versa?
One answer is, you don't. Followers randomly retweet the most important ones to them and leave the others to be. But isn't that just the same as either not being followed or not following someone? Why not pick a select few people whose work you are actually interested in and spend more time sharing that particular person's work?
To me, the more focused plan of attack makes more sense. It seems to be more efficient and probably more effective. At least, what you would gain is a more personal relationship with quality people. A social media relationship that can help both of you more than what thousands of bribed followers with no interest in either of you can do. Atherton Bartelby said it best when he described follow for follow as the awkward friend showing up to a party and disrupting the conversation you were engrossed in with your friends.
That isn't to say that having 4,852 followers is useless. Obviously it's not -- as long they're not all just along for the ride. Of those followers, how many are you following back just to "follow back" and keep them following and how many are you following back because you like their work and are able to help them out every now and then with some retweets and shares?
Diversity is key. If you have followers that will share the hell out of your work - GREAT! If you have followers who are ignoring your posts, unfollowing your follow for a follow, or getting bombarded with their 4,852 follow for follow friends -- then it's all a bit useless.
What are your thoughts and experiences? Does following back thousands of people really help you gain more interactive and effective followers?
Comments
Post a Comment