Why are people so caught up in the numbers?
If you think that everybody is following your social media accounts because they’re hanging off your every word, worshiping the ground you walk on, and well, because you’re just so….swell. You need to pull your head out of your ass.
While there may be some followers that fall into that category, the vast majority follow you because they want to be followed back. Unless you have some degree of celebrity that is…even then, people still crave the follow back, but generally don’t expect it.
Don’t believe me?…watch your follower list and see how many people disappear if you don’t follow them back within the week. Not to mention the ones that unfollow you, once you do follow them.
Assuming your not playing the whole numbers game, look at why you follow people.
Generally they will fall into these categories.
- Friends – well it would be rude not to follow your friends wouldn’t it.
- Industry related – you follow to keep on top of your game.
- Interesting people – these might relate to outside interests, hobbies, motivational, inspiring. You follow because you like what they have to say.
- Peers/Colleague’s – maybe industry related, maybe not, but you have an appreciation for their work and are happy to share and promote their value.
- Famous…if only in your eyes – go on admit it you have to be a fan boy/girl of somebody. Even if they are protected in their ivory tower from your attempts at stalking them. Robbie Williams…are you listening?
In all cases you follow because your interested.
Look at the top pages from facebook and twitter and you will see that they are predominantly celebrities. People follow them because they are well known and recognised or have a genuine interest in what they do.
Who are you following?
I challenge you to go through your social media accounts today. If you have people in there that you have no clue who they are, then you are playing the numbers game. You can’t justify it any other way.
Being nice and saying “I follow everybody that follows me back” is just lame.
How is that adding value to their life? When was the last time you shared something they did, when did you last converse with them?
A number on a screen means nothing….to you or to them.
I mean, think about it logically, where else in real life are you focused so heavily on the numbers?
Would you go out and buy 200 sofas? Of course not…you only have one ass.
The volume game achieves nothing. Social media in particular seems to have presented a drive for volume with no clear objective but to hope a percentage will convert to buyers.
Stop following and start playing by your own rules.
Choose who you want to follow and stop following back for the sake of it.
The next time you are cursing all the crap in your facebook feed or twitter stream think about this:
If those number chasers weren’t getting all those follow backs…
they would simply stop playing the game.
Thoughts, comments, observations, over to you.
Thanks for sharing this post.
Totally agree with you Jackie. I wait about a week to see if new followers who I don’t know unfollow me. Quite a few do so it is obvious they are only in it for the numbers. Dumb.
To me it is also like people just paying attention to traffic and not even thinking about conversion. All this stuff is not rocket science.
Susan Oakes recently posted..Give It The Chop
Your right Susan it’s not rocket science, but social media seems to have its own gravitational field, that sends people off the planet.
Thanks for stopping by to comment
Jackie recently posted..Cashflow Ignorance Will It Be Your Demise?
Hello Jackie I LOVED those categories you started out the article with. And it’s SO true. Don’t we worship some online personalities sometimes?
I personally try following either people I have some kind of peer relationship with, those related to my niche and then potential customers. I trust on reciprocity to work and gain followers that way.
I have found in testing a number of accounts that after 4000 followers and ‘little’ automation the account pretty much get’s a life of it’s own.
Patricia recently posted..Is Social Proof Really Any Proof At All?
Hi Patricia
There’s always a degree of “fan” behaviour on any platform. Its pretty interesting to watch and gives you insights into human behavior.
So glad you enjoyed the post, thanks for stopping by.
Jackie recently posted..Cashflow Ignorance Will It Be Your Demise?
Fabulous post!
Keeping up with the Joneses has always been in fashion. I often wonder, when I see that someone has tens of thousands of followers – obviously random people they will never even know existed for as long as Twitter or Facebook is alive – what they really get out of it. I often hack my Twitter and Facebook “friends” list to only keep the ones I know in real life. Okay, some of the virtual ones are cool too
especially if there’s a conversation going. Otherwise, social media desperation is a waste of time. I mean – great to be followed and loved and adored and all that – but only if it means something.
Vidya Sury, Freelance Writer and Professional Blogger recently posted..Setting Goals – What is on your list?
Hi Vidya
It makes me wonder how many hours people are giving away to social media. All this following, watching and admiring can suck time away in a heartbeat.
We seem to exist in this more is better sphere. Unfortunately more is not better, it is just more and there’s a limit to what you can physically interact with.
Having said that…I do know how easy it is to get sucked down this path.
Thanks Vidya
Jackie recently posted..Have You Lost Faith In Your Business?
Everything in this post is true. I absolutely agree Jackie. Those time that you were thinking that they were actually following but everything is just a fake just for them to be followed back But anyway I enjoyed reading. Hope to hear more from you.
Veronica recently posted..Managing Multiple Social Media Accounts
Wait I wanted to ask on how to keep this people out with their schemes and thing like this that you mentioned? I just can’t stop thinking about it that there really a lot of fakes out there.
Veronica recently posted..Managing Multiple Social Media Accounts
Hi Veronica
Thanks for both your comments. Its a good question. If you’re not following them obviously you will not see them in your stream, unless of course the @ reply you of direct message. In which case if you always have the option to block or report them.
If you are using twitter through their website, you click on the user name which will bring up a window with their profile, beside the follow button there is a arrow for a drop down menu, click this and you will see there are both options to block or report for spam. Simply block the people that you don’t want to hear from and if you feel that it should be reported to twitter then you can do so too.
Hope that helps you. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.