The other day, I was reading another person boast about how many followers they had on Twitter, and I wondered:
Would you choose to have 80 followers who are completely engaged with what you do online, or 800 followers who are only partially engaged?
I'd go with the 80 people who are fully engaged. These are the people who will come back for more content and who will share your content that kicks ass. They're the people who will write a comment or send you a nice e-mail. Sure, they may not be as big or diverse of a crowd, but with them you're guaranteed they are paying attention to the stuff you're publishing, rather than praying that a pair of those 800 eyeballs will stop and click that one time.
Unfortunately, you can't guarantee any fan or follower will ever pay attention to your content all the time. There is too much information, and you'll never know which of them actually logged in that day to see the content. You can improve your chances though:
- Make Awesome Content - If you don't have this, you'll never really engage your audience. I have blogs that I wait all day until I see them update. Make your blog the next blog that does that.
- Make the Audience feel special - Take a moment and thank someone for a retweet. Offer to help with a problem. Do something awesome just for them. Treat people awesome, and they will remember.
I'll take the 80 followers for now. I build my empire one meaningful connection at a time.
Still, would you rather have those 800 partially engaged followers or 80 fully-engaged followers?