Beware the Twitter ASBO

Just like the Anti Social Behaviour Orders of the late 1990s, there is ‘Badge of Honour’ emerging amongst some of the tweeps using the social media tool, Twitter ….

The Follower Count Badge of Honour

But just how meaningful is it to have a large followers count?

When I first made the decision to join and use the social networking tool, Twitter, is was for the very reason of networking. Albeit with a very large number of people – much larger than attending a physical network meeting.

For those of you who do follow me you will see that I do engage and interact with many of my followers.

Why do I engage?

The old marketing lesson of ‘people buy from people’ still rings in my ears. Twitter allows me to show my followers who the person is behind the Brand CheapAccounting.co.uk  ….

• what our values are

• our professionalism

• our credentials – Awards and all

• our knowledge and credibility

• our longevity

They get to know the people that they are buying from albeit via a 140 character message but the relationship is established over time.

A relationship that does take a while to form and is not built by just following a large number of people.

Quality not quantity

To check out if I should be concentrating on building up a huge list of followers or not, I recently took a moment to review the enormous list of followers for a very new entrant to the accountancy market.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that it was full of spammers and ladies with rather revealing photographs!

Easy followers (excuse the pun) to get but are they actually of any value whatsoever to your business?

So what should you be seeking to achieve with your follower count?

Five tops tips for your follower count

• A large follower count, especially if very new to twitter, sends out a message of being desperate to be liked or acquiring a Follower Badge of Honour – avoid and build a quality follower list

• Your follower count should be (a lot) more than the list of who you follow

• Don’t make the gap too big though else it looks like an ‘elite’ tweet feed that doesn’t engage or follow back

• If followers = following then it’s a giveaway that you adopt a follow me / follow you approach so unless the tweets show otherwise, there could be little in the way of actual social networking happening

• Assess your followers – - why are they following you (ask them?) and will you engage with them? If yes then follow back

Twitter is a great place for social networking without the need to flash your Follower Count Badge of Honour.