Influence: The Holy Grail of Twitter
March 13, 2009 by Ryan
Wife: Have you got anything without spam?
Waitress: Well, there’s spam egg sausage and spam, that’s not got much spam in it.
Wife: I don’t want ANY spam!
Man: Why can’t she have egg bacon spam and sausage?
Wife: THAT’S got spam in it!
Man: Hasn’t got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?
Vikings: Spam spam spam spam…
Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?
Waitress: Urgghh!
Wife: What do you mean ‘Urgghh’? I don’t like spam!
-Monty Python’s Spam Skit
I have read, listened to, and watched at least a dozen people talk about “how to game Twitter” to get large numbers of followers. What flabbergasts me is they walk you through the steps to explode your followers, while in the same breath talk about how disingenuous and spammy the strategy is!
The Holy Grail of Twitter
Marketers are drooling over Twitter and other social media sites because of the potential they have to drive sales! They see Twitter accounts with massive follower numbers and their eyes turn into dollar signs. It makes sense why they see things that way. On TV, you pay the most for advertising when there are the most viewers. In print, you pay the most for the publication with this highest circulation numbers. Same with the internet! You pay the most to advertise on the site with the highest traffic. These people bring their previous experience and assume that it’s only about eyeballs.
I’m pretty sure Kami Huyse was in one of these discussions with me on BlogTalkRadio. She makes a great point:
You can have thousands of followers and be completely unable to drive the traffic or interest that someone with only a few thousand followers can.
So why bother getting a bunch followers that could care less about who you are or what you do? Followers who in fact are only following you so that you will follow them.
What is the real Holy Grail of Twitter? It’s influence! Companies, entrepreneurs and marketers search far and wide trying to figure out how to obtain influence to grow their business. The problem is, with Twitter, having followers does not equal having influence! Kami agrees:
If your goal is to be truly influential, or to drive sales, interest and attention, then gaming is pointless. Having thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of followers will not ensure success on Twitter.
The Great Twitter Debate
Purists argue it’s not about the numbers, it’s about relationships. Meanwhile, everyone else still pursues building their numbers! I can see both sides. Rob McNealy puts it best in his Twitter Policy and Philosophy:
There is a debate in social networking about quality versus quantity of connections, followers and friends. I think there is quality in quantity and therefore like to grow my online networks. The more people I can connect with, the greater the content will be and more varied the prospective I learn from.
I generally follow everyone that follows me. I agree with Rob that having more followers adds to the richness of the community and the discussion. Another personal reason I think people should follow back is the ability to Direct Message (DM) and make asides to individuals. Why pollute the Twitter-stream with comments or questions that would be better as DM’s?
I also genuinely want to connect with people! I review their profile. I click on their link. I read their tweets. I also make notes to myself of why I added them, and what I want to connect with them about with DM Notes.
My Twitter Influence Formula
Relationships matter. Numbers matter. But there is more that goes into the influence you have on Twitter. Here’s my attempt at a formula:
Followers ? Influence
Followers = Reach
Influence = Engagement x Followers
Your follower number is the reach that your message has and a multiplier for influence. If you only have 50 followers, it is harder to get your message out than if you have 5,000 followers. But where I think influence is really measured is in engagement: How engaged are you with your followers? How do you quantify that? I may have gotten too into this but hopefully this makes sense:
Engagement = Interaction + Compliance
Interaction = Replies + DMs
Compliance = Clickthroughs + Retweets + Followfridays
Interaction is pretty easy: how much are you chatting with people? It’s a common criticism of Guy Kawasaki. Critics say he never interacts with his followers, he just pushes his Alltop content (even though I’ve seen him respond to friends of mine). I think it’s important to respond to every reply.
Next in my equation is “compliance.” Simply put, how often are you able to get people to do something! This is harder to track, but I have boiled it down to how often do people click on your links and how often do you get retweeted. I added how often are you mentioned in #followfriday. I definitely think #followfriday can get gimmicky, “I’ll mention you if you mention me,” but there is value there. When done sincerely, what is that really saying? It’s saying this person influences me! I try to limit my mentions and add comments as to why I am mentioning the people. Here’s an example (and a little shameless self-promotion):
@robert_brady: #followfriday @ryansmiller for doing social media right (ie learning, sharing and engaging)
Is there anything I am missing that contributes to a tweep’s influence?
UPDATE: Here are some great posts from others that I think go well with what I’ve written:
Twitter & the Law of Reciprocity
Person, Functional or Social: 3 Ways to Play on Twitter
Is “Twitter for business” ruining it for the rest of us?
Photo by andyrob
Comments
3 Responses to “Influence: The Holy Grail of Twitter”
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Great post Ryan. There’s a lot of discussion on this subject. The purists often say it’s all about engagement, while the spammers think it’s all about the numbers. I think you got it right with “influence = engagement + followers”.
Andrews last blog post..Entrepreneurship is an Addiction, Not a Choice
Well stated! If anything, business today has become more personal… and personal means engagement and connection. The more you care and show you care about those who choose to follow you, the more likely they are to want to help you. We all want our friends to be successful and we like to think we’ve helped in some way…
@Suikagirl1 I agree that business has become more personal. I think there are companies out there that understand that and have adjusted to it very well. But there are still many that don’t see that change and implement their same strategies in this new arena of social media.