- Karma, Sharon, Kathy, & Debbie
People who are connected on Twitter.com are termed “followers” and “following” each other. Inexperienced marketers often use the number of “followers” as a key performance indicator (KPI), but I disagree that this metric should be a measure of social media success. Social media success should be based on the engagement of your network. The following quote by Albert Camus, French author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, describes the way I try to develop my relationships on social media:
“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
Somehow, in less than four months I’ve managed to gather more than 700 Twitter followers. In a bit more time than that I’ve also got more than 200 Facebook friends and almost 300 LinkedIn contacts. I’m grateful, but I’d rather have 7 Tweeps that I can have an actual conversation with than 700 people who never respond to my Tweets. Maybe it’s the term that Twitter uses for connections – “followers” implies to me that they are going to go where I lead, but in the new world of social media we’re all starting out on the same footing so I’m looking for someone to share ideas with not to follow my lead. Karma, Debbie, Kathy, and I have been friends since elementary school. I know I can pick up the phone, send an email or instant message, or see them in person and they will join me in conversation. No one leads, no one follows, everyone contributes. That’s what I want from social media.
Do you want to gather followers in a race to see who can get the highest quantity without worrying about quality? How do you determine social media success? I like to use the KPI’s presented in Eric T. Peterson’s Twitalyzer – influence, signal, generosity, velocity, and clout. What tools do you use for social media measurement? Please leave a comment below to let me know and join the conversation!
6 Comments
I agree with you 100%, the amount of followers is not a way to measure the success of twitter. For me the greatest measure is the amount of retweets I get. Some may argue, that it is not a good measure, because the content also matters. Truthly the thing is that if you do not have any connetions, then you will not get any retweets. Friends and connections matter.
Blogging Handbook – Retweets (and comments) matter. You bring up a great point – retweets let you know that your subject matter and/or opinions resonate with your connections. Thank you for yours!
There is probably a useful correlation to be made by someone more mathematically inclined than I am between a person’s followers, following and the number of tweets they’ve made. I rarely even look at a new followers people if I see hundreds (or thousands) of followers and fewer than 10 tweets. To me that’s an almost certain sign of a spammer.
Marc, thanks for your comment. Please keep me updated if you determine the “perfect” correlation between followers, following and number of Tweets. I’m sure there’s an algorithm used by Twitalizer, Klout and others to determine the most influential mix, but I think you’re right in your formula of hundred of followers + just a handful of Tweets = Twitter spammer.
I would rather have a community of engaged followers than a super huge following that never finds my tweets or conversation interesting enough to talk about. I do have a fairly large following on Twitter which grew very fast. It’s not always easy to keep up with everyone, but I like to use TweetDeck to sort into groups and lists that are easier to monitor and communicate with in “chunks” of time.
Some of my favorite tools are TwitterGrader and Klout, but recently I have been checking PostRank which measures how involved your community is. It’s really got me working harder on finding ways to increase comments.
Thanks for this excellent post. I totally agree it’s not about the numbers, but influence, signal, generosity, velocity, and clout all combined.
Coree, congrats on your 22K+ Twitter followers – I’m in awe because I know that you actually communicate with them! Thanks for taking the time from keeping up with everyone to comment on my post. I’ve also tried TwitterGrader and Klout, but PostRank was a new tool for me. Thanks for sharing!
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