You don’t need more Twitter followers

I’ve been thinking about this lately. I’ve come to the blinding conclusion: you really don’t need more Twitter followers.

Now before I get heckled from the stage, answer this question, “What do I use Twitter for?” If your answer is marketing, satisfying your own ego or finding your soapbox and preaching from it, feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

If your answer is:

• Communicating with your peers and professional colleagues and others with like interests
• Finding out what is happening in the world - both yours and the wider one
• Establishing a Personal Learning Network within twitter
• Dating and/or meeting new people
• Reaching outside of your experience
• Expanding your mind or learning

You don’t need more followers: point blank. How does having 50,000 followers help you achieve any of your goals? This comes back to knowing why your are using this tool to begin with. It’s about getting away from this strange ideal of following everyone to following the people that add value to life. The followers will come in time, but by focusing on value for you you are more likely to use Twitter effectively and more continually.

There are some distinct advantages to this approach.

Chaos be gone: Don’t be overloaded by data

I personally noticed the chaos in my TwitStream when I hit just over 250 followers, things went from useful to chaotic. I had to evolve and modify my browsing habits a little since to handle the influx of data. For a lot of people, this is just too hard and they walk away from a great tool. Aim at value for those you follow and what you see will still challenge you and surprise you. The trick is you don’t drown in a sea of information, but float in a pool of manageable proportions.

Less Spam: Be choosy about who you follow back

This is an amazing bonus. A lot of people who follow you, are interested in growing their own base of followers and a reasonable number of these are trying to sell you something. They are gurus, experts and masters of Web 2.0. Their posts can be uninspiring and irritating and completely out of your field of interest if you don’t want to “reach 15,000 followers in 23 days”. Save yourself some grief. If you are not in market or need to see 1k plus followers, follow people worth following

Intelligible intelligence: Twitter has meaning

When you have a real connection to your followers, you have a connection. When you understand those posting to you, you grow and your experience widens your world. You will derive a depth from the communication you have with others, that isn’t found in random blurts from strangers about cabbage showing on their partners teeth after lunch, unless that’s what you are interested in.

It’s okay to be a fan

There a number of very useful tools out there such as Refollow and Twitter Karma for ditching those who don’t follow you back. And when you are growing your followers (as per above) a ratio of no more than 2 following for every follower shouldn’t be ignored. These tools are fantastic, but I always find they want to delete the people I find interesting. I don’t need @moodler to follow me back, because I derive value from his insights. I’ve decided it’s okay to be a fan.

What works for you

Find what works for you and do it. If having a feed for you client base to know what is going on is what you need, have a feed for them and let them know you exist through other means. If finding people worth following is important or reaching a particular field of interest, look at http://twitterholic.com or participate in online conferences using a #hashtag stream. If you have 150 people that you follow and derive value from, follow the 150 people. Don’t get forced by hype to develop a following if it compromises your own goals or enjoyment.

Let me know what works for you I’m interested. @BradStokes and if you’re not a guru, I’ll likely follow you back for the conversation and not the number :).