Twitter’s incredible growth has caused incredible follower populations and corporate/personal marketing activity (image: fan base by notsogoodphotography). It’s also causing a backlash. Perhaps you’ve seen the posts:
Kami Huyse – Many people are trying to make a fast buck off of misguided people who see the following number as critical part of the Twitter experience. … Twitter might be considering selling pre-loaded packs of people/businesses to follow on Twitter for its new users. The problem with these is that there is no relationship, so the content had better be spectacular.
Elliot Kosmicki on Mashable – Admit you have a problem: If you can’t pay attention to the amount of people you’re following in a manner you would want someone to pay attention to you, you’re a followholic. Admit it, realize that it’s killing your productivity and value, then take steps to overcome it.
Greg Verdino – I kinda wonder how expending resources (if not money) to have someone on your team deliver priority customer support to a mere 10,000 or so Twitter followers without first fixing the traditional customer support infrastructure that frustrates your millions and millions of other customers makes business sense.
It’s a growing discontent with quest to become popular, the contrived personal brand, the gamesmanship of looking big/great/vauable without necessarily having anything to offer your stakeholders. And people are noticing, they’re fed up with it.
Using follower packs, Mr. Tweet, etc. or however you game Twitter is the equivalent of taking steroids for your social network. Fake community = fake muscles, and you are basically cheating to look bigger in front of your legitimate community. I find that to be antisocial. The truth is that participation – real participation is required.
Social media is about communities, being part of something better, and yes, saying good bye to contrived crap a la Cluetrain style. Regardless of whether it came from a company, or these days, micro-famous personalities with lots of followers, friends, or what ever contacts are called on the network du jour. Want to be well liked or valued, then do something valuable.
It’s time to embrace the anti-fan movement. The era were we say, no more garbage, instead give me a real person who wants to have real conversations. That’s the heart of social media, and I believe there’s a real need, a discontented groundswell of social media-ites who want to get back to the fundamentals.
To create a real conversation and to make fun of this whole fake personal image/follower schtick, I’ve created the Geoff Livingston Anti-Fan Page on Facebook. If you are tired of fan packs, following the fake, receiving contrived social media, personal brands, etc. join the anti-fan page and let it out on the wall.
I promise, the Anti Fan page embraces real conversations, negative or positive, looking bad or good, and our first event will include chicken wire. More importantly, it’s about being social instead of personal brand manicures.
Seems like nothing more than an ego-stroking wank-fest to me. Telling people what not to do without knowing them personally? You’re the BS expert.
Thank you, Sheila, can I have another?
Well said, Geoff. Joined the anti Fan Page. You may enjoy my new Twitter follow policy along the same lines :-)
http://www.jer979.com/igniting-the-revolution/new-twitter-following-policy-hellip/
I love movements, revolutions, and counter revolutions – cheers! I’ve not caught onto to twitter yet but I have always been skeptical of those that have thousands of friends. Not that some people don’t have extremely active social lives – but it does trigger the skeptic. I’ve seen other people complain about this in social media. It’s frankly somewhat insulting that somebody would pretend to take an interest in me. But as Rich Becker pointed out somebody with over a thousand followers may have a fraction of the influence over somebody with a few real friends.
Does having such massive followers really equate to less credibility? That would be an irony of aspirations.
Thanks. This was really helpful to the conversation I’ve been having with myself. Following people to enhance the conversation in my head vs. following people in order to gain a following. You helped me make up my mind.
You make some interesting points. Your argument is provacative except one thing. An Anti Fan Page is a fan page. Having no image or style is an image and style. One either creates their own brand or someone else will do it for you. You have a brand whether you intend to or not. Your picture, your layout, the color you use the the fonts the subject matter you choose to discuss and the way you choose to discuss it is a brand.
If you want people to really get your message. Remove your pictures and design a bland black and white page with just print but that would still be a brand wouldn’t it? You probably would not have as many hits on your site but you may get the audience that you say you may want or maybe not: )
Regardless, You are part of the very thing that you speak about. It is not a bad thing it is unavoidable. We live in a world where people draw perceptions from visual images and various communication. We live in a material and visual world and there is so much information out there that people are going to chose to read or see what you have to say based on the packaging they will continue reading based on the quality of the content and if your messge speaks to them. : )
I have a particular subject that I am passionate about. It is Soccer and the Seattle Sounders. I want to build followers not to feed my ego but because there are others like me that enjoy the game and support the team as much as I do. The fact is numbers do talk we live in a metric based society. If I have large numbers that does make a statement. With Twitter, I use it to communicate, answer questions, provide news, written and visual content.
I also use FB and Twitter it to evangelize the work of people that I admire. I have a large following. It is not about me it is about others that want to share the same passion that I have for the topics and subjects that I write about or report on. I consider myself a pretty credible source when it comes to communicating information. I have something to say and I have information and content that others are interested in. If it is not about quality and interesting content, I will lose followers by the day. If I am gaining followers that is an indicator that what I am communicating is interesting or adding value in some way the opposite is also true. : )
Your topic is intersting and makes one think so well done! : )
I really, really hate when people exalt others. Even if I do meet people that others make a big deal about, and even if I otherwise would have liked that person, it’s instantly a turnoff.
Not long ago I made a wish list of features I’d like to see on my favorite social networks, and one of them was “Not A Fan” pages on Facebook.