As a follow-up to yesterday’s blog, let me share a story.
I have been on registered on Twitter (@InfiniTom) for several months now. I originally signed up to gain insight on the phenomenon, and determine if there were business applications to this site.
All well and good. But then something funny happened: I started to obsess on “tweeting” several times a day about whatever was on my mind, and then slowly began to focus on planning my “tweet content” to make me appear overly clever, or supremely hip. Suddenly, my audience became more important, and I tried to solicit “Followers.” I quickly found that “followers” follow because they are interested in who you are and what you have to say. It has to happen organically.
After I wrote my blog yesterday, I was on Twitter and realized that I hadn’t checked my “followers” for some time. A few weeks ago, I had 4 registered followers: a friend, my daughter, an associate, and a former boss. But when I checked my “follower status” I found that I now had EIGHTEEN “followers”…only six of whom I even knew! This proved to me that it DOES happen organically: People notice you through others they are following, and if they like what they see (read), they will add you to their “following” list. I realized that this meant something to me. Who doesn’t want to be liked?
Seth Godin says that people chose to visit (and participate) in online social sites to determine:
1. Who likes me?
2. Is everything okay?
3. How can I become more popular?
4. What's new?
5. I'm bored, let's make some noise
That’s when it hit me that none of these are new, they are just re-arranged in the current digital world. Ironically, they are the same things that marketers think about in reaching out to their audience.
Now THIS is worthy of some thought. Discuss.
"LinkedIn is your business suit, Facebook is business casual, and Twitter is the 24/7 ongoing cocktail party." --- Erica Leep, blogger