I always start these entries with the disclaimer: “I am NOT a social media guru.” There are plenty of people out there making that claim and I do not want my name added to the list. I am however, attempting to make social media “pay off” for me just like everyone else is – however they might define payoff. I’m just hanging on for the wild ride I call ‘learning curve!”

Whether your tweeting something of importance or not is a matter of finding tweeters that share your agenda in some way or another. If you have a strategy, good followers and people to follow are really not that hard to find. And if you’re tweetin’ good stuff, a lot of them will find you.

But even if your tweets aren’t worth a crap, the twitter spammers, mass marketers and other people who only want to extract your wallet for their next get rich quick scheme will find you. You’ll recognize them because they have 49,165 followers and will be following 52,304 other people – or some other equally ridiculous number! (No, the numbers have not been changed to protect the innocent) I see a lot of these, they can follow me all they want but I REFUSE to become a member of their gullible herd.

Having 49,165 people following you is great if you’re looking for a mass market to peddle your goods to… I just won’t be one of them. You CAN’T have anything personal to say to me and THEY tell me Twitter is supposed to be about making personal connections. The chances of getting a “Hey Rick, I can tell you what to do about that pimple on your butt,” from any of these people with mass followers is slim to none – unless they happen to be my butt-pimple doctor. And even then, she has 49,164 butt-pimple sufferers to respond to… and she’ll do it with a MASS MARKET message. No thanks, I think I’ll keep my butt pimple to myself!

That same person was following 52,303 people BESIDES ME. I’m still a rookie in the Twitter game so I’m following less than 100 people and finding it hard to imagine following more than that. Even following 100 people is a lot of chatter! I can’t imagine being able to filter out and follow a conversation with one of 52,304!

The bottom line: Anyone following 52,304 people on Twitter is not listening to a word I say… and I won’t be listening to them either!

PEACE.
Rick