It’s incredibly ironic for me to say this, but I believe it’s true: Twitter follower count is pointless.
Gaining followers isn’t difficult, but can be time-consuming as I explain in my post How I Got 50,000+ Twitter Followers (which is also why it is ironic for me to say that follower count is pointless). Sure, there are many advantages to having lots of followers, but I think people overvalue Twitter followers as a whole.
Here’s a few assumptions people have about Twitter Followers:
- All or most of your followers see your tweets
- All or most of your followers read tweets
- Many people follow you because they want to read your tweets
In reality, the following is closer to the truth:
- Probably 1 out of every 3 of your followers is not even “active” on Twitter (haven’t tweeted in 5 or more days)
- Some of your followers who are active only read tweets that are found in their lists…and even then they likely do not see a large majority of the tweets in that list. My Minnesota list probably averages 30-50 tweets an hour. Do you really think me (or anyone else following that list) sees all the tweets that are posted every hour of every day?
- Some of your followers, for the most part, don’t even read other people’s tweets :0
- Many people follow you only because you followed them first
- Many Twitter accounts are spam
Don’t get me wrong, I think Twitter is a great tool and resource. I think if you don’t have an account, you should get one. At the same time, I think people need a reality check when it comes to their followers.
Everyone wants more followers, but people should instead focus on interacting. If you aren’t interacting with your followers, they likely will not interact with you. Conversely, if you read your followers tweets and react and respond to them from time-to-time, they are much more likely to pay attention to your tweets.
A few goals that I think people should have when using Twitter include:
- Getting listed – see why this is important here
- Having people read your tweets (which is different than being followed)
- Interacting with others
- Tweeting consistently (ideally with interesting tweets)
Twitter is still a relatively new tool. People have different opinions about how it should be effectively used. Many will disagree with me and say that Twitter follower count is the only indicator that matters. Unless you are famous, it’s a relatively pointless indicator that people should stop weighing so heavily when assigning worth to their own account as well as others.
How much weight do you put on Twitter follower count?
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Totally agree. I would say that most of our followers never read our tweets and vice versa.
I only exchange with a few people, and sometimes I get a surprise from someone who RTs me and I have not heard of. Maybe a dozen per week., out of thousands of followers, so the count doesn’t matter much, although it is good for advertisers that you have some reach.
I completely agree. Interacting does tend to encourage others to read your tweets, but I interact with so few on Twitter that I do not think it makes a huge difference. I think it might be good from an advertiser it might be looked at as good because of your perceived reach, but the benefit starts to wane from there.
I actually find that twitter isn’t too bad at getting people to hit my links (at least when I compare it to FB) .
Still, I understand where you are coming from. Sometimes it is hard to see the value in investing such a large amount of time into something that has so little return.
@MonsterPiggyBank Keep in mind I wasn’t saying that people will not click your links (trust me, I get a lot of traffic through Twitter!) but that follower counts in general are misleading.
I don’t put a whole ton of weight on my Twitter follower count. Most people probably don’t even realize that they’re following me haha
@SenseofCents Haha I make it sound worse than it is, it’s just that a decent number of your tweets will be “missed” even by people who are actually following your tweets. I honestly probably see only 10-20% of yours, mainly because I’m not reading my PF blogger list constantly.
Ha! This is ace! Quite refreshing for someone to say this. These people are completely missing the point of Twitter and social media when they go for big numbers rather than a solid foundation of followers.
I have been trying to raise my twitter count slowly but steadily. I know that many people follow me because of the giveaways that I am a part of, so I don’t think they are following me for my content. I do know that advertisers love to see high counts because they count that as total reach. You might be engaged with only 1000 people, but if an advertiser sees that you have 10k followers, they will pay you more for the reach.
@DebtRoundUp I most certainly agree with you on that! I think advertisers weigh followers too much, though, because it may not be increased reach, but the illusion or increased reach.
@DC @ Young Adult Money Spot on DC. It’s the illusion that gets you more money!
@DebtRoundUp Haha I don’t know if advertising revenue being based on an illusion is a good thing ;)
I don’t put too much weight into it. My eyes pretty much scan tweets from people I interact with most often, and I pretty much ignore the rest. I can’t get too obsessed with numbers. It will consume you and drive you crazy.
I like to see the numbers going, up but I certainly don’t dwell on it. I can never think of anything to tweet either unless I am watching a sporting event of some sort. Although if you want to give me half your followers, I’ll take them.
@Eyesonthedollar Haha on my personal account well over 10k are what I would call “inactive.” It is bound to happen over time, though.
I like having the bigger megaphone that more followers imply, but I’m with you: quality contacts far outweigh a big number. When I gain a new follower, I rarely think that’ll translate to a ton more content being broadcast, unless I know the person.
It’s never a bad thing to analyze and reach for quantative goals, but I agree that follower count is one of the most overrated numbers out there. But there are some Twitter stats that I use a measuring sticks from time to time: retweets, favorites, @ responses. For the most part, each of those stats demonstrate interaction, which is what every blogger should be aiming for IMHO.
As much as I agree with all of this, I’m still looking to increase my numbers in my overall goal of growing my blog. It’s great to have this perspective from someone who has the number of followers you do though!
@The Happy Homeowner I am not opposed to gaining followers, and I actively pursue followers, but what I do is see who follows me back and sometimes thank them, put them in a list (and let them know I listed them, and then ACTUALLY read their tweets and interact with them. It’s a lot of work but it’s worth it in most cases.
I have found twitter to be a pretty good place to network. I will admit that we follow an annoying amount of people! I do occasionally read the feed for a minute or two, but you’re right–if it’s not being tweeted the minute I’m sitting there, it goes unseen.
@seedebtrun Oh trust me, I’m the biggest proponent of Twitter you will find :) I haven’t looked at my main feed in over 3 years. You should check out my post about Twitter lists and start building some (or following some). Much better than using your main feed!
David,
I like the blog! Love the look as well. And I saw that you were recently listed as #1 in this article… http://blog.brazencareerist.com/2013/01/22/14-must-read-personal-finance-blogs-for-young-professionals/ Very cool! Keep up the good work!
@caralynerickson Thanks Cara! I was at your blog recently and enjoyed your writing (in particular the play-by-play of you and Jake watching the show with Howie Mandel). I’m looking forward to Jake’s guest post in a few weeks!
Many followers are spam, but if you pick out the ones that aren’t and start supporting them they will support you and you will make new friends.
The biggest benefit I have found for using Twitter is exactly what you said, interacting with people. I love doing that each and everyday. I’ve made some awesome new connections that way, including my interview guest on my post today.
And saying thank you on Twitter goes a long way as well. People who ignore people that re-tweet and share their posts are doing themselves a disservice, and it is just plain bad manners in my opinion.
I personally only follow real people and don’t follow people back unless I think they’re ‘real’ or active on twitter. If I get spam followers I block them. I don’t care about the numbers but love what twitter can do in terms of interactions and sharing of information be it blog posts, breaking news, whatever. I actually read a majority of my posts through twitter links…like this one :)
I have yet to see Twitter beat out my Facebook when it comes to views on my blog. Even when I was just building my network Facebook always wins. Some days Pinterest beats out Twitter so I can certainly see where the reach is. It’s one thing to have numbers it’s another to have numbers with followers that actually are engaged or want to be engaged. Having a dead fan base with numbers isn’t worth the time that some put in to gain them. It takes continuous work to keep the fans interested, learning and sharing. If someone gets tweets my stuff they get a giant big thanks in a blog post now as I don’t always have time like I used to thank each and every person. It’s nice on FB where you can simply like a post and they know you were there and read it.
Should read: If someone tweets my stuff they get a giant big thanks in a blog post now …….
The sad thing is that most PR agencies look at those numbers when deciding whether to work with you or not. They also look at Klout scores, and follow to follower ratios.
The list feature that I learned about (here) has actually really changed the way I think about twitter. I’ve only been using twitter a few months, but the number of people I was following got out of control really fast and then I couldn’t really get to the tweets I wanted (from real people I actually want to interact with). I don’t put much weigh in follower count, other than I think a high count gives you some sort of credibility that other people also wanted to follow up (and of course it’s important to advertisers).
I don’t put much weight on twitter count, but how can you measure how much your tweets are read? I guess I could monitor clicks into my site that come through twitter, but doesn’t twitter offer something on its own?
I agree that a percentage of the users will really not absorb many or any of your tweets. However, I have had more success with my blog with twitter followers than without. In today’s world. you need to be available to people wherever they are.
freemoneyminuteI certainly am not advocating NOT using Twitter, just that follower count is looked at in too high a regard. The true number of people who see a tweet you make is far less than the follower count you have.
ThirtysixmonthsYeah it’s interesting in that sense. I suppose they have no other basis to go off of.
Valid discussion for sure.
I’ve always found Twitter followers to be very hard to engage as a whole in comparison to say… Facebook; on a good Facebook page, users comment, like and interact quite a fair bit, Facebook users, when they truly care about your page – seem to be very responsive and it’s a genuine list / group to build up…
Twitter on the other hand… I’ve known of big marketers with gigantic lists and yet such little response from their followers. I think Twitter is pretty much only hugely useful for celebrities or organic discussion and tending which comes about with very little forced influence…
Twitter is an interesting sphere and space to watch or analyze as a psychologist; from the depths of stupidity to the heights of intellect, from the grassroots political yearns from the masses, to the outcries of mass affection… there’s so many elements to its nature that are interesting to dissect. But, as a business tool? It seems very very hard to utilize for truly productive purposes.