Aug
29
Twitter, it’s not just a numbers game
Lots and lots of followers is what you want, right?
Kind of, but really this should not be the focus. When you begin to use twitter for your business you can be forgiven in thinking that there is a direct correlation between the number of people following you and it’s effectiveness. To a certain degree there is as you will achieve nothing it if no one connects with you. However, there is another factor that should be a considered and that is what I want to explore in this post.
It’s all too easy to lose focus
In Business Twitter is an application that is growing in popularity as more and more people get to hear about the potential it holds. The beauty of it is that it is fairly simple to get an account and begin to get involved. As you use the application you will begin to pick up followers. Of course you want people to follow you, the more followers you get the more people are able to see your content. This is what makes it attractive to business as a communication tool.
The problem is that for many users the process of picking up followers can become the primary focus and seemingly all the justification they need for their business to be involved. In Business you have to remember that activity needs to be justified, it has to pay for itself otherwise it removes valuable resources from where they could be put to more profitable use. Twitter is no different, the impact it creates on the business needs to be viable and just measuring the number of followers you pick up to determine this is a little short sighted. After all, you can’t pay your bills by cashing in your twitter followers, it would be great if you could but businesses really have to make sales to survive.
Where Twitter becomes a really powerful tool is when you use it to build a community. A community of advocates and users that connect and engage with you and draw in attention, credibility and ultimately by association more business. The number of followers you have managed to gain needs to be seen as more than just a statistic to bandy around in the vain attempt to impress, it is an online community and really it has to pay for itself, there has to be a return on your investment or ROI and this can be a little tricky to determine.
Quality over quantity
You have to consider your relationship with your community to be the focus and not the size of it. Quality over Quantity is the name of the game. It is much more effective to have a handful of followers that are interested in you over hundreds or thousands of loose connections that have just been out trophy hunting following you in the hope you will follow them back. Depth of connection is where the magic begins to happen and when Twitter comes into it’s own delivering that all important ROI.
Focus on the people, don’t just focus on the numbers you achieve as getting a thousand followers is the easiest thing in the world to do. All you have to do is go out and follow two thousand, but if they are not listening to you what the hell is the point.
Do consider numbers but consider which ones carefully, try to quantify and measure the impact of what you are up to on Twitter. Focus on it’s effectiveness not it’s size. Measure retweet’s, measure mentions, measure click throughs but most of all measure what impact your community has on your levels of business.
If you want to learn a little more about the basics of social media ROI then I suggest you have a look at this slide share presentation from Olivier Blanchard aka @thebrandbuilder as it explains it pretty damn well.
