One Tweep At A Time…

by Todd Schnick on July 13, 2009

in-a-circleWow, I actually had someone criticize me the other day regarding my twitter strategy. He said I was a fool for not using automated tools to add followers to my Twitter page at a much quicker pace.

It’s true, my following is growing slowly. But steadily. And I am quite happy with my “tortoise” strategy, thank you very much. And I love the fact that it doesn’t bother me that people who joined Twitter long after me have doubled or tripled the amount of followers that I have.

I am always preaching that size doesn’t matter, well, at least when it comes to social media. I believe very strongly that the quality of your following is FAR more important than the quantity. And this is where I fall personally.

But, I also understand that everyone will use social media – and all its tools – differently. So, if using automated tools to build followers works for you, go for it.

But I just believe it is about building a real following, a real community. And you aren’t served well by artificially following hundreds or thousands of people who you don’t really know. To me, it sounds an awful lot like spam…

What do you think?

Be Intrepid.

  • http://www.myspellingsucks.comandhttp://www.metzgerbusiness.com(redesigninprogress) Kevin

    Todd,

    I couldn’t agree more that automated tools = SPAM. I am relatively new to Twitter but I love the tool. I had signed up for an automation service where I follow anyone who chooses to follow me. This was mistake! I get unwanted txt msg through the twitter Direct Message because of other people’s automated systems when my system automatically follows them back. I also end up with a time line full of junk instead of the useful tweets I can get from the people I want to follow. Thanks for this post.

    Kevin

  • http://www.chadrothschild.com Chad Rothschild

    Todd,

    Great point. I was looking at some things this past weekend and there are so many applications that can generate a large following for you. I do want to grow, but really would rather do it more orgainically as well.

    1. What is the point if someone follows you or not, IF they never read your tweets and never engages with you.
    2. The quality vs quantity… that is something to debate. I actually agree as I would rather have 100 raving fans than 1000 would be’s. Most of the scale is fake anyway. Nobody has any idea if scale truly means better results.

    I dont follow people just to follow people. I look to see what there bio says, what the value of there tweets look like. If I follow someone, I do not do it just for them to follow me back. I try to find interesting people that I would really like to engage with and see what transpires.

    Since I know you & met you through social media, I can tell you that you are genuine and on the right track.

    Stay on the Road, yellow brick or paved.

    Chad Rothschild
    http://www.chadrothschild.com

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