Does The Number Of Twitter Followers Matter?
When I took a trip to Las gas a couple of weeks ago. I realized that everyone wanted me to follow them on Twitter. Southwest Airlines, the Wynn Hotel and Casino and Ron White are all on Twitter.
Tweeting is not just for big businesses or celebrities. There are thousands of small business and individuals that tweet daily. I wonder how effective it really is for businesses, big or small, to tweet. How do you measure your success on Twitter?
The thing about Twitter is that you have numbers front and center. If you want to measure how well your twitter account is doing you can point to the number of followers you have. The higher the numbers of followers on a particular account the better. At least that is the conventional wisdom.
There are self-proclaimed social media experts that have identified strategies for getting followers. If you have an existing customer base then let them know that they can now follow you on Twitter. Offer them discounts or other incentives to get them to follow. If you don’t have an existing clientele then you can simply start following others on Twitter, who will in return follow you back. These experts have even identified the best times to follow others, the best time to tweet and the appropriate number of tweets to tweet, all designed to maximize the number of followers.
The end goal is to get followers. The more followers you have the more people you can reach. Is that really true? Are people really paying attention to all of those tweets? The other number on a Twitter account is following. There are people who follow thousands of people. So it is difficult to believe that they are paying attention to thousands of tweets a day.
Even if some followers are paying attention, are they the right followers? Are all of your followers equal? Are they able to take advantage of what is being said or offered? Does one follower have more influence than another follower? Can some followers influence others to take advantage of what you are offering? Are they re-tweeting you to increase your exposure?
If the measure of success on Twitter is the number of followers you have then you are missing the potential opportunity that seems to exist. You can offer discounts, prizes, and giveaways and you will get followers. That shouldn’t be the only goal. You have to consider your business objective and find a way to measure that.
I am not suggesting that getting followers is not important, but I am saying that you need to establish a measurable business objective. The objective will vary depending on your business. You could count the number of people opting in on your landing page, the number of clicks to a website or actual sign-ups. Determine your objective and find away to measure or track it don’t just rely on the number of followers you have.
Bruce Holmes is a consultant who has helped others obtain their income goals using the power of the internet. Working with top people in Network Marketing he has developed a free marketing system for new and struggling network marketers.
Tags: home business, internet, Internet marketing, media, network marketing, Social media, twitter, Twitter Marketing
