Is Bigger Really Better?

Posted on June 24th, 2010 by Sandy in DFWSMM, Networking, Social Media, Twitter

Does Size Really Matter?

Is Bigger Really Better?

Bigger or Better (Are They Mutually Exclusive?)

Is it better to have more regardless of quality or is smaller better if it is higher quality? Wow, even I had a hard time following that. That’s my question. Been thinking about this lots lately. (I know, it would seem I have too much time on my hands)

Of course, I’m taking about Twitter. What else? (Shame on you!) There are different philosophies regarding this subject. Some feel that the more people you follow the better because get your word out to more people. Of course anticipate that they will follow you back. You get your message in front of more faces that way. But do you? Are these followers listening or collecting numbers? Are you listening to them?

How Many Can You Follow and Be Truly Successful?

Can you really “follow” 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 or more and really know them? Do you even bother to read the tweets? Isn’t the Twitter stream just a little overwhelming from that many people? Do you really look at your full Twitter stream? To me these are legitimate questions. Are you building relationships or talking at them? Do you even care what they say?

When I receive a DM that informs that they can help me with my social media or maybe even build me a nice WordPress™ site, it’s telling me that they didn’t care enough to even see what I do. If they had, that would certainly not have been the DM tweet they would send me. Well, I would hope not anyway. For me, after a quick peek at who they really are, I will likely unfollow. Doesn’t seem like they are really engaged.

I follow many people who do what I do. I can learn from them and hopefully some can learn from me. But they care enough to check me out somewhere along the line or at least they don’t have some generic automated tweet that gets sent out.

Ricardo Guerrero of Stwittergy

This past Monday I had the pleasure of hearing Ricardo Guerrero of Stwittergy and the former architect of Dell’s social media strategy speak at the DFW Social Media Marketing Meetup. His presentation really resonated with me. It’s all about building relationships and synergy and how Twitter fits into that. Who are the influencers? How do you find them?I like the influencer term in this use. Thanks Ricardo. Watch soon for the new “tool” from Stwittegry that will help find those key people. Follow him on @stwitt3rgy to learn when this will happen.

For me it isn’t only what someone can do for me but what can I do for them? And not just sales. I love the building of relationships. Knowing just who I can refer someone to when a need arises. I may not always get to meet that person in real life (depends on their location) but after a while you watch their interactions with others, you interact with them and you begin to feel like you really know them. If they recommend someone to me, I’m likely to accept it because a relationship has been formed. Ricard calls in an “international cocktail party”. Very appropriate!

To be able to say “I have 25,000 followers” or “I follow 25,000 people” just doesn’t do much for me. How can I possibly develop many meaningful contacts that way? Even with the 1200 or so that I do follow, it’s really hard if not impossible. I’ve now started actually taking time to follow my entire Twitter stream for a while each day. It’s interesting to see what people tweet. Are you tweeting just a bunch of links? Do you just do a “me, me me” type tweet? (over and over?). I’m making a concentrated effort to clean out my Twitter base. Those who haven’t tweeted in at least 30 days, those who tweet only quotes and if it is only a me, me, me strategy, I will unfollow. Sure, I’m likely to get unfollowed also but that’s ok. I also follow people who will never follow me but I’m still interested in what they have to say.

So..for me it is the quality is more important than quantity, but there has to be a balance also. How about you?