Subtitle: To catch many fish you need a big net
Because people approach Social Media in a temperamental fashion, I feel the need to post this. On Twitter, the amount of followers one has is a sensitive area. Social media is such a fickle area that there are not many things concrete. Social media is situational.
I hover around 10,000 followers and I follow about the same. Some people accept that, some people don't. I've always approached social media as a means to an end, and not as a means to itself. If you think that I've inflated my numbers just to appear like a gran jefe (big shot) you are dead wrong.
Below are both a long story and short story...
Here's the skinny: On Twitter, I currently follow roughly 10,000 people and they follow me because I have my account set on auto-follow. I auto-follow people based on key words and I follow back anyone who follows me.
If we were in a court room, any good lawyer would try to corner me in stating the above without the explaining my position. "Is it true that you auto-follow people, yes or no Mr Pagan?!? Yes or no?" Thankfully the democratic properties of social media keeps us unbound.
Here's the long story...
When I started on Twitter, I wanted to hit the ground running and my approach was to throw a very large net to find as many relevant conversations about Latinos and Hispanics (two of the many key words I used) that I could find. Thankfully, the same principles for networking applies to Twitter and I used what I learned in the blogosphere in order to grow very fast. Same game, different tools.
When building a community you do not want to miss an opportunity to connect with others...thus the auto following and key words. (I am aware that some artificially inflate their numbers just to showcase they have a large following. Be careful not to believe the hype on some of these individuals as they only seek to deceive and wield their influence, which has never been my intention. By the way, I have a track record for building something and then leaving it once it is self-sustaining or are in capable hands of others. This has nothing to do with leaving things undone or incomplete follow through, but are rungs on the ladder until I reach my goal - it's all part of growth and a destination. This has kept me very honest when dealing with social media.) Any organization or company who does social media right monitors it for relevant key words. They have the resources - I'd hope - to evaluate the validity of such leads and choose the best way to engage them, or not. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to evaluate each connection. This is the other half of the main reason on why the auto-settings stuck - lack of time.
Another reason that I auto-follow back is because some people get very personal when you don't follow them back and unfollow you later. Again, it's about the big net and not missing out on opportunities to connect with others.
There are a couple of approaches on networking when you are an organization or a company. My approach to building a Latino community on Twitter took on a personal signature, meaning I used my own personal account for what I believed in. This approach was the one that I felt would work best.
There's a quality vs quantity issue here and this is where some BIG divisions on what is the right way to use Twitter or not. Many people have their opinions on what is the right way and what is the wrong way. I'd say show me the results of what you've done and that should be enough to make a decision on what works or not.
Going Forward
After re-evaluating the auto-settings on my account (you should always re-evaluate your social media approach every 3-6 months b/c attitudes and perceptions change over time), I am going to clean up my account and do a mass un-following over a period of time and removing the auto-follow and key word settings. It served it's purpose and that's that. The fruits of it's labor are it's validation.