Why Your 1,000,000 Twitter Followers Don’t Mean Squat!

Since Twitter‘s inception in early 2006 Twitter has grown to become quite the web phenomenon. Ordinary people, businesses and celebrities have all started flocking to the micro blogging platform known as a Twitter stream. Users are only allowed 140 characters in their posts to each other, similar to how a text message functions. Some may even describe Twitter as a mass text messaging service.

But no matter how you look at Twitter there are many different ways to use it. Some for good and some for evil, when I say evil here I’m talking about using it to spam people. Twitter is a powerful weapon when used properly, and it’s a mighty distraction and waste of time when used improperly.

Many will have different perspective’s of how to put Twitter to best use but what I’m going to do here today is show you how I feel it is best used to create an online brand and business that people actually love and want to see Tweets from. But first we are going to look at exactly what NOT to do.

This Is Why 1,000,000 Followers Don’t Mean Squat

Most businesses that come on Twitter thinking it’s going to be a gold mine of new customers are DEAD wrong. They go out there and get Twitter software like TweetAdder and use services like SocialOomph.com to add thousands of people to their Twitter accounts every single day and then send them instant spam DMs telling their new “customer” that they should buy their stuff.

This is the biggest load of crap I have ever seen. People don’t want to be auto DM’ed with messages about how cool your product is. The thing businesses don’t realize about Social Media is if people are truly interested in your stuff, they will have the natural curiosity to check out your profile link. Which is where you link to your store and monetize your Twitter account. You could even track the amount of hits your profile link gets with sites like http://bit.ly.

So even if you have 1,000,000+ followers it won’t matter because none of them know who you are anyways and won’t pay any attention to your Tweets. Sure you’ll get the occasional click when a Tweet catches someones eye. But it’s far more powerful to have those 1,000,000+ people ALL watching your Tweets than just a measly 1% of that.

But there is a right way to do it. Especially if you are building a personal brand for your business. If you follow me @MatthewNeer you will see that I have a significant amount of followers. Close to 20,000 at the time of this post, and I’m not going to lie and say I got those organically when I used software to aid me. (even though a majority of them are organic) There is still a right and a wrong way to go about doing this. Here’s how ya do it.

When I get a new follower I DO greet them with an automated DM. But it’s not spam, it’s targeted. I know what kind of people are going to follow me on Twitter so I know how to structure my DM so that it appeals to them. But above all, I don’t link to any spammy websites, squeeze pages, or ask them to buy anything from me.

Instead, I create a sense of friendship. I come at them with open arms saying welcome, thanks for the follow and maybe a little tid bit about myself. Now if you absolutely MUST link to something here then I suggest using an auto DM to ask your new follow to join you on Facebook as well or maybe to your blog if you have one with great content.

You could also use it to link to other social media sites like Digg, Technorati, or Stumble Upon if you are trying to build followings there as well. But other than that, I can’t see any other quality uses for the link in your auto DM.

Here’s the bottom line, Social Media is a place to come and socialize online. It’s not meant to be saturated with business offers or links to capture pages and affiliate products. Come here to add value to people’s lives and you will profit in the long run because you will develop relationships with people, form partnerships and alliances, and so much more that can happen to you if you add value, not spam.

For those of you who still aren’t familiar with Twitter or haven’t really grasped the concept as a whole yet, I’ve included my favorite Twitter video. I think it should help you out or at least give you a few laughs.

Hope you enjoyed that, I know it made me laugh hysterically the first time I saw it.

I’m also going to include some great resources here that you can use to better your Twitter strategy if you chose to use them.

Twitter Automation Software: Tweet Adder

Twitter Management: Social Oomph

Speak soon,
Matthew Neer

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