When a Twit Speaks in the Twittersphere ... Does Anyone Hear?
Check out this great experiment chronicled on Boris Dinkevich's blog on technology and what's wrong with it. According to Boris,
- A friend used the Twitter APIs to create an account that automatically scanned twitter users and find users who were "most likely" to read his twits.
- The first pass returned a:
- 50+ Twit Count (user active)
- 100 Following Count (might read twits)
- 50 Follower Count (typical statistic for real users)
- Everyday it would delete accounts added the previous day that didn't re-follow and then run the algorithm again to add more users. In a few days, the account (which had not even twitted) had about 300 followers.
- Then, the friend published a post with a bit.ly link on the newly created account, and his own account which had about 30 followers.
The results? ZERO people from the newly created account clicked the link. In contrast, 13 people of the 30, who were likely his friends and colleagues, clicked the link.
In other words, a large Twitter base means nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Just that there are a bunch of twits out there who want to feel self-important by collecting followers and following people they think are more self-important than they are. And in the long run, the majority of them will abandon the platform as they figure out just how little usefulness it really has. (It's a fun toy. That's it. Nothing more). In fact, over 60% of Twitter users will abandon the platform within a month. That's why I'm Twitter Free. I'd rather spend my time writing real content you might actually want to read instead of writing down every half-formed thought that rambles through my head in 160 characters or less.
I love this. Shane Gibson and Steve Jagger wrote a book called Sociable! just out this week talking about how to turn your online relationships into something meaningful. A favourite story told during their launch at the Vancouver Board of Trade:
Two people are talking about Twitter and the dialogue goes like this:
1: Hey, how many Twitter followers do you have?
2: About 500, I guess.
1: That's it? You can really blow that up - I have 10,000.
2: That's interesting - what do they do for you?
1: What?
2: How many have written you a cheque?
1: Oh, none. It's pretty much distribution of information. How about you?
2: Two just last week.
It's about the strength of relationship, not the size of your megaphone.