The last few weeks I’ve seen an increase of twitter followers to an account I own but has been dead for almost two years. Three of the new followers were Oklahoma businesses which caught my attention – that and the huge number of followers for what I would consider to be a relatively small business with a small clientele.
I’ve reviewed their accounts and found the following:
- They’ve since un-followed me likely because I didn’t follow them back.
- They are adding about 250 – 500 followers per week.
- Each account has almost identical stats of following and followers.
- Tweet streams of their followers bear similarities which would make sense if the businesses were in the same industry, but they aren’t.
- Most of the accounts’ tweets are promotional in nature (hey, buy from us! with a link back to the main pages) with little engagement of their followers.
- One account with 19,000 followers hasn’t tweeted since Dec. 1, 2010.
My assumption is these businesses have hired a company to handle their social efforts and the client (and perhaps servicing company) has little understanding of the platforms and how they can be used to benefit their organization. I don’t know the objectives so I can’t comment on whether they are being met.
The stats look impressive – 20,000 followers and growing by the day. Their followers’ tweet stream, a new feature offered by twitter, paints a possible different picture and reminds us that size of followers has little to do with value. It’s all about targeting, engaging, and providing value (a few other elements could be tossed in but you get the point). For this Tulsa Doctor, these new followers will likely have little value when you consider they can only have clients who can make it to their office or place an order to be shipped within the U.S.
The bigger issue
The client has likely been sold on an idea which has no real value and is well documented – the number of followers alone has little value to a business. In the PR/Advertising industry, we have a code of ethics which prohibits us from engaging in this type of practice so I can only assume it is someone outside the industry. However that doesn’t stop it from hurting our industry in the long term. In the end, when the client realizes they have received no return on their investment, those of us who abide by ethical standards will be lumped into the same category of shysters.
The value of buying Twitter followers:
To the client – little to nothing. Yes, the followers are impressive. But for the money spent, it is doubtful you will ever see a return.
To the firm providing the service – The immediate value of payment but long term they will lose the client and possibly gain a bad reputation.
To the PR/Advertising industry - Nothing and such practices actually hurt us all.
My conundrum - what to do? I suppose I could call out the company or contact the client and tell them to beware. I wonder if I could get a hat and sidekick to ride along with me on this quest. It wouldn’t be the first time I have battled windmills. I suppose sharing my thoughts here, in the hopes small business owners will trip across this post when they Google “How to increase twitter followers”, will be the end of my quest.
Thoughts?
p.s. I’ve deliberately blurred defining elements of the above twitter account. If something was missed please let me know and I will re-edit. If you are the owner of this account and would like for me to remove it please send me a note and I will be more than happy to replace it with one of the other accounts mentioned above.
Updated – 6:39 p.m. to correct typos and grammatical errors. Really need to proof read a bit more before hitting update.
Bill handy always provides very well information. I always read his information carefully.
Great point.
I think people misunderstand the difference between followers and valuable followers.
You totally nailed it. I, too, have thought “oooo, followers… I must be making progress.” People like Peter Shankman make headlines for tweeting and getting a free steak delivered to him, or the guy who tweets his elderly dad’s sarcastic comments, or the like. Then, people think, “oh, if I have a lot of followers, I’ll make headlines and people will read my tweets and give me business/jobs/headlines.” Yeah, no. Buying fake followers isn’t going to yield you the results that Peter or others with valuable followers get. It’s not the medium (Twitter), or the audience (follower count), but the combination of reputation (Peter’s) and a tuned in audience (Peter’s) that yields results. It’s the human networking aspect that brings the results, not some arbitrary follower count. I really should send your article to my co-workers. Definitely makes me want to remind myself not to try to play the numbers game.
Oh, and please follow me. I’m 1 follower away from… 10. Oh, the power! Ha!
[...] engagement by purchasing faux-followers is a no-no, and some PR professionals have suggested that any payment for following is unethical. Moreover, event if not strictly unethical, the Gingrich campaign has shown that getting found out [...]
I don’t know why but I just now saw this excellent response. Thanks Bill.
I don’t know why but I just now saw this excellent response. Thanks Bill.
It’s funny, I wish I had read this post before I went and bought Twitter followers. I did an experiment where I had two Twitter accounts and bought followers for one of them.
There are a lot of “non tweeting” followers that you get when you buy followers. And a TON of people who follow just to get followers. Nobody seems to be listening to each other, so the value of those followers is nothing more than a number. The number may have some suggested value, but it’s probably just a perception.
Anyway, thank you for posting this. I actually mentioned this post in my blog too because I think people should check it out.
Buddy Scalera
http://wordspicturesweb.com/2011/07/04/buying-vs-earning-twitter/
Buddy, thanks so much for your comment. I saw the inbound link and read your article. Good stuff and a great experience to share with others. I love that you aren’t afraid to share the good and bad (also loved How to Break WordPress – I’ve been there too).
Good luck in all your efforts.
-Bill
[...] The Value of Buying Twitter Followers [...]
Not to be combative, but I’ve recently come to doubt the standard social media catchphrases of “It’s not the numbers that matter” and “engage, don’t sell”. Here’s why:
1. “Social Media” was not invented for marketing or advertising: It was invented for fun and then the marketers showed up ( I believe it wasn’t invented at all. It’s a new word for something that already existed) . There are no rules and there is no governing body. It works well that way. Most of the people that say “It’s not about the numbers” have very large numbers. I’ve never heard anybody in business with 20 followers say “It’s not about the numbers”. And I’d hazard to guess that if you took away all but 20 of the followers of someone who had 100,0000 they would lose their mind.
2. Since when should social media be restricted by rules that other advertising platforms don’t have? In television it is all about the numbers. The same goes with print and radio. This idea of “we must engage a small tight knit group of people” may seem all warm and cozy. But that is not the reality of marketing. The reality of marketing is that you want to reach as many people as inexpensively as possible. I’d rather pitch my latest book to 100,000 barely engaged people (10,000 of which may be spam accounts) than to 1,000 “highly engaged people”.
3. I have dabbled in the dark arts and experimented with SM automation. I did this because I’ve never believed what the SM expert has told me – especially the ones who don’t have to worry about numbers and would not ever give them up. More followers of any type leads to more clicks back to my content and more clicks back to my content lead to more pageviews and more time spent on my site. And as those numbers increase so do the number of people that sign up for my wares, which in turn gives me more people to market to for the future. Social Media is a numbers game just like everything else in marketing. And none of this has ever kept me from being engaged with my peers.
Patrick, thanks for your comments. I don’t find them combative at all and hope you will find my response the same. It is in the debate that true value is found in social networks. I love the topic of follower count for many reasons and you bring up a variety of other interesting points.
I want to be clear about my blog post above – it is doubtful @info_owari, who apparently doesn’t live in the US or speak/write English has much value to the small business, which paid someone to get her to follow the account. I would think we could both agree on this?
The pitch to 100,000 unengaged vs. 1,000 highly engaged has already been addressed in theory and scientific studies (including click through rates of online banner ads which average about .1% and would include at least semi-engaged). You are better off with the 1,000 highly engaged any day of the week.
There have been lots of antidotal studies/articles on the topic but the two most significant studies on influence and the number of followers can be found here:
http://an.kaist.ac.kr/~mycha/docs/icwsm2010_cha.pdf
http://an.kaist.ac.kr/~haewoon/papers/2010-www-twitter.pdf
Your final point sums up nicely your overarching theme – with enough followers you will likely get someone to buy. This is a common strategy and probably the crux of where we disagree. My preferred approach and practice has always been to identify, target and execute. Social media never enters the equation until just prior to the final step. With this approach followers don’t matter and don’t have to be rebuilt with each new platform.
Not germane to the debate on followers but I thought I would respond to some of your other comments.
Agreed, sm wasn’t invented for marketing/adv. Nor was it invented – it is simply an evolution, but of electronic communications in general. By definition telegraphs could be considered some of the first electronic social media platforms.
I would add that the Internet and social media platforms weren’t originally created for fun though. They were created to connect and if you read some of the initial papers on the creation of what we now call the Internet the purpose was very highbrow. As to when marketers showed up, it was shortly after the masses trivialized the real value. I get your point though, no argument there.
I do agree that there are no rules and no governing body but only to some extent. It was built on egalitarian principles with thousands working to make it better every day. I wonder if they sometimes look at how it is used and shake their heads admiring some of the great efforts and disgusted by the trivial. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a little downtime and entertainment but…
You bring up an interesting point regarding giving up followers and I agree… but again, to some extent. The reason we don’t want to loose our “followers” (friends, fans, etc.) is psychological and well documented. But we have lost them before and we will loose them again. Remember all those friends you had on AOL or Yahoo Groups? That being said some do scrap their friends and start over and have found the experience enlightening simply because those followers who again seek them out are truly engaged and active. @spikejones is one who comes to mind.
Finally, comparing social media platforms to advertising is an apples to oranges comparison. Yes, in TV, papers and radio you count and hope for high numbers because this is how rates are determined. You may use social platforms to increase those numbers but the social platforms and those followers don’t enter the equation.
Again, great conversation/debate. Thanks you for posting your thoughts. If you have any research, which shows that buying twitter followers or simply the number of followers do matter, I would love to see it.