By Rich Baker
Your Twitter 'Influence'. We talk about it a fair bit. (we talk about measurement and ROI all the flaming time!) I predict it will be a bigger issue this year, when corporates are playing catch up and there is a world of Twitter 'experts' out there. People are going to need a single, definitive way of checking out their social media consultant; if they don't have influence how can they help you?
Despite Twitters best efforts, it is still a commonly held belief that the simple equation holds true;
Greater number of followers=Larger degree of influence
Originally, like Google SEO, the idea was that the more interesting/engaging you are, the more followers (or visitors) you get. Which is true in most cases. Even brands that have a high marketing spend offline don't necessarily have a huge twitter following.
Now, as was the same for SEO, 'black hat' techniques are sold to boost the number of followers people have. You can now buy a thousand followers for $89. Want to be viewed as an instant 'expert' on Twitter? Spend a few hundred quid and bingo; you are 'influential'.
What does that mean then for the rest of us? Well, it kind of muddies the water doesn't it. How do we know who is 'worth' listening to and who isn't?
Truth is, we don't. Until we follow them ourselves. We listen, converse and build relationships irrespective of how many followers people have don't we?
I mean, how many 'followers' IRL does your partner/best friend have? Does it stop you valuing what they say or the relationship you have with them? Of course not.
It's worth considering though, if Evan and Co. hadn't called them 'followers' and instead called them 'subscribers' that we might feel very different about paying for them. Maybe it's just a questions of semantics.
Over to you. Would you buy followers?
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