Hello,
I'm Mervi Eskelinen!
An artist, nerd and sorcerer, dedicated to make world softer and better for everyone, and to get you to make more art. Make art, change the world!
Twitter Tuesday: The number of followers doesn't equal authority
One of the common misconceptions of Twitter is seeing the number of followers as a proof of influence and status. It's not that easy.
The follower count tends to be more or less funky. First of all there's a huge spammer, bot and other troll population on Twitter. They follow anyone in order to spam and scam those who fall into their honey traps.
These followers are obviously dead weight. Not a sign of influence, but a sign of the amount of spammers on Twitter. (If you abuse hashtags you gain more and more spam followers. They love hashtags.)
Unless they are celebrities of some sort, many of those who have lots of followers also follow a lot. They follow pretty much everyone back and they follow other's in hopes of gaining followers.
Doesn't this mean they have made lots of connections then? No, not really. They have gained followers by following a lot themselves. Which means many Twitter users are following them out of courtesy or to gain followers themselves. Thus they aren't actual followers, those who pay attention to what the person has to say.
It's arguable that the courtesy following is a sort of a sign of influence: The person getting those sort of followers is influential, interesting or some other way "cool" enough. Perhaps.
The truth is the number of followers doesn't equal authority. It only shows part of the potential.
This is a reader supported blog without paywalls and advertisement. If you appreciate my work and want to help me rewild the internet, please consider becoming a free or paid patron today. I can't do this without the support of readers like you. So if you can to contribute financially, I would really appreciate your help.
