Editor’s note: This article was first published in January 2011. The platform is now called X and Tuenti no longer operates as a social network; the figures for paid retweets, such as $10,000 for one retweet from an account with over a million followers, reflect that time.
Every social network has a different effect on people. While there has been talk of an «obsession» on Facebook and Tuenti (a Spanish social network popular with young people) with being the first to post the photos from a night out, on Twitter we find an obsession that many people already suffer from: gaining followers at any cost. Why do we hunt for those followers so desperately? What doesn’t the person chasing followers at any cost know?
Some people are aware that money is already being made with Twitter. In fact, advertising companies already pay certain people with large numbers of followers to retweet their brand or an offer. We’re talking about people with more than 70,000 followers, who in many cases are celebrities.
The highest amount ever paid for a retweet, unless there’s one I don’t know about, was $10,000, and the person in question had more than a million followers.
Now, if hearing these stories makes you think that by getting followers any way you can, companies will one day pay you these outrageous sums, you may be mistaken.
Advertising companies aren’t stupid, so as part of their viral marketing they analyse the type of user and the type of followers that user has. Obviously, the moment you take part in «follow me and I’ll follow you» schemes, you lose value as a user for that purpose, since it’s assumed that everyone who joins such schemes is after exactly the same thing you are.
On Twitter, 2,000 isn’t always better than 20. Let me explain. What good are 2,000 passive followers? It’s much better to have 20 active followers: people who are interested in what you have to say and aren’t just looking for followers themselves.
Twitter is no different from the basic law of life: in a negotiation, in love, in any area of life, you can devise strategies, but you should never force a situation. If you force it, you pull the rope too tight and it ends up snapping, or you simply don’t get the result you hoped for.
If you want to know the quality of your followers, throw an open question out on Twitter. When you see that out of 2,000 followers only one or two reply, you’ll realise those are the real followers you have. Everything else is chaff, and advertising agencies know it.
Think about it: if Sara Carbonero (a well-known Spanish TV sports journalist) asked openly on Twitter who wanted to have dinner with her tonight because she was feeling lonely, her account would be flooded with offers. That’s what you call active followers, genuinely interested in the person they follow.
So before chasing followers at any cost, ask yourself whether it’s worth doing it that way.
Further reading
- A new Twitter service: Twitter mentions on your mobile
- How to upload videos to Twitter and watch them
- Social networks for professionals and specific markets
Featured image: Medill DC, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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