Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Followers

Every now and then, I will get a new follower on one of the various social media sites that I frequent. When I go to check out the profile of my new follower, I notice that they are following around 3,000 people, and that they have somewhere around 20 followers of their own. It looks fishy, so I don't follow them back. Three days later? They stopped following me, probably because I didn't follow them back. Probably because nobody followed them back. I don't want to follow someone who is a complete stranger, who doesn't even share the same interests as me. I refuse to participate in inflating a person's follower count, but I am left wondering:

Why?

Why would someone think that generating a large increase in their number of followers was the best social media strategy? If you want to interact with fans or other people via social media, it pays to understand one simple thing:

Your interactions will be more valuable if you connect with someone on a personal level.