I picked up a bunch of followers on Twitter yesterday thanks to a mention by Ryan Stephens on Lewis Howes’ Sports Networker Blog.
It’s hard to know what to expect when you follow someone. On the one hand, a reccommendation from someone whose opinion you trust is enough to sign up to the wisdom or otherwise of someone you otherwise might not have come across or followed.
For better or worse, Twitter, or at least the vast majority of the people I interact with on Twitter are in the USA. While I have spent a lot of time working with American sporting brands (some well known and some niche), I spend most of my time these days based in London, UK. It’s a shame that the core sports marketing and business conversation that thrives in the US is not visable here. It’s easy to forget that Twitter is NOT a mass market tool, though it may one day get there.
The point I am making is that if you have followed me and expect content around an ‘N’ sport (NBA, NHL, NFL…) then I’m not going to be able to provide a lot of insight. Hopefully though, the ‘mash-up’ element of Twitter that allows innovative and creative ideas to cross-pollenate across sports irrespective of size or geography will mean that the opinions from where I sit – an Australian living in London have value.
Yesterday, 150 people began to follow my musings. Normally I would get a few a day. A few a day allows you to look at who is along for the ride, look at their recent tweets, visit their blog or company page if available and make a decision about a reciprocal follow. With 150 in the space of several hours, that task is made harder.
Here then are a couple of tips based on how I decide to follow someone. It’s certainly not based on the number of followers someone has. This is not new, there are thousands of twitter tips sites out there – its just my opinion. It’s not a prescription either, just some stuff that came out of yesterday’s experience.
- Put up a photo of yourself. The year is 2009. If you are cool enough to be on twitter, you are tech-savvy enough to be able to upload a picture.
- Fill out your 140 character profile. Being able to get a quick feel of who you are by hovering over your thumbnail speeds up the introduction process by a huge factor.
- Think about your mix of Tweets. What do your last 10 tweets say about you? What do the last 25 say about you?
- Be a person. If the last 10 tweets are submitted by Twitter Tools then I get no personality coming through.
- On a related note. Personal tweets are ok! I don’t do business with companies, I do business with people.
- Add Value. A link without commentary is pretty useless. Are you pro or against? If neither – why post it?
Welcome to those who have followed me over the last 12 hours or so. Hopefully underrated doesn’t become overrated to quickly.
Hi,
Very interesting post.
I would just add that people shouldn’t be forced to follow someone who decides to follow them.
Each one of us has different interest domains and objectives while using twitter. I decided to follow you as I’m involved with sponsoring in motor sports but I never posted anything about it on tweeter so it would be useless for you to follow me (I personnaly avoid overspamming my tweeter account).
Cheers,
RR
All great points, and I seem to have a relatively similar approach though admittedly getting over 100+ a day it’s tough so synthesize just what you’ll be getting. a lot of times I’ll take a quick glance and make the decision. I’m lean on lenient at first and then if I get bombarded by a bad grouping of tweets I might unfollow later.
I think the main thing is that everyone uses the tool differently, and we should do what works best for us. Sharing that makes sense, b/c what we do might work for those who have a similar disposition, but there’s not right or wrong way.
Follow back everyone who follows you? Follow only the people who provide you immense value? I don’t know what the answer is. I probably follow a few more than I would like, but it just seems like the courteous thing to do. I certainly don’t gauge social capital on the # of Twitter followers, but part of my job is often getting out messaging for a client. Having more followers means potentially having more reach. That’s something I have to keep in mind every time I think about pruning my followers down to < 500.
Thought this was a good post that provides your new followers potentially landing here good insight into your approach and who you are.
All the best!
Ryan