Declaring Twitter Bankruptcy
I’m about to declare Twitter bankruptcy.
Here’s why I’m doing it, and why you may want to consider the same.
I am very well aware that in the online world perception is a huge part of success. Social proof plays a big part in people’s decisions.
All other things being equal, someone with a high Twitter follower count or Feedburner / RSS / EMail subscriber count is perceived to be more successful than someone with low numbers.
Having said that, it is so easy to generate a high Twitter follower number today that the whole concept is meaningless.
Want a high Twitter following? Just do this:
- Visit any high-profile twitter profile with a lot of followers.
- Follow a bunch of their followers. Just click away clicking “Follow” on everyone.
- A certain % of those people (pretty high % actually) will follow you back automatically because they are using auto-follow-back tools.
- Wait a few days. Then use a tool to “scrub” those people who didn’t follow you back out of your list.
- Rinse and repeat.
This strategy may not work forever, it may already be outdated as you read this, but there will always be someone out there teaching the latest strategy for getting mass followers.
But so what!
What’s the point?
Having 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 people following you on Twitter doesn’t mean anything – especially if 99.9999% of those people are simply marketers/spammer who are only following you because you followed them.
I’ll take one REAL follower over 10,000 “I only follow you because you followed me” any day.
Real Twitter Power
Over the last week or so I have begun to really dive into using Twitter. Not as a marketing tool to blast out my RSS feed to the 1,500 or so “Followers” I have as I write this, but as a communication tool.
I have connected with a few people and a couple of companies, engaging them in meaningful conversations via Twitter.
The power of Twitter is f&#$ing amazing if used properly.
Yesterday I engaged in a conversation with someone that resulted in a +$1,000 sale for their company because of Twitter. This is with a company I had previously “written off” due to a challenge in getting through to their sales team via email or phone.
I have also learned a lot just by listening to the “chatter” in my Twitter channel.
The realizations I have come to is as follows:
- Twitter as a direct marketing tool for blasting out your RSS feed, YouTube video links etc. is WEAK at best. If this is all you’re doing with Twitter, you’re missing 99.9% of its value.
- Twitter as a listening tool is amazing
- Twitter as a way of communicating with like-minded people is amazing
- Really listening/engaging with just 5 people on Twitter is a million times more useful than having thousands of followers and following thousands of people back
As such, I have decided to declare Twitter Bankruptcy – wiping my follower list down to zero and starting all over, this time with a new plan.
Going Bankrupt on Twitter
I will be unfollowing everyone on Twitter, and then following people back according to my new Twitter Follower Policy (see below).
I have tried cleaning up my list by selectively unfollowing people, but it’s just way too time intensive to do it that way. The only way I can do this properly is to unfollow everyone and build my way back up.
That is the only way I can wipe out all the spammers I had auto-followed back in the past.
I apologize to anyone who is not a spammer that gets unfollowed in the near future as I make this move.
It is nothing personal, you did nothing wrong. Unless you’re a spammer, then you did do something wrong – shame on you. 
I simply need to start with a clean slate and work my way back up.
I am willing to bet that when I unfollow everyone, a big chunk of people will unfollow me as well and that’s OK. It simply means they were just following me because I followed them – most likely with some sort of automated auto-follow tool.
My Twitter Follower Policy
To make things more clear for those of you who want to connect with me on Twitter I have created this Twitter policy:
If you are a regular reader of Paulymath.com I would like to connect with you on Twitter. If you’d like to connect, please use the policy above as a guideline.
Search
Lijit SearchSubscribe to the Newsletter:
Services
Fitness
My Book
Your Wish is Your Command
Categories
- Announcements (46)
- Blog (33)
- Contests and Competitions (44)
- Featured (115)
- Fitness Articles (45)
- Fun & Relaxation (28)
- Health & Fitness (88)
- Make Money Online (255)
- MLM (7)
- Network Marketing (8)
- p90x (55)
- Personal Development (305)
- Progress Reports (77)
- Reviews (37)
- Spirituality (36)
- Videos (36)
- Warhammer 40k (10)
I hate to say this but I do NOT get Twitter. I know I am a relic, but I was in college pre-personal computers and in grad school just in time to spend $1,400 at Best Buy on a computer to get me to dial up and AOL when it was You’ve Got Mail.
WHAT does Twitter have that facebook, say, doesn’t? All I see is one liners. Surely I must be missing something so obvious, so basic? I guess what I’m asking is, can you comment on what “use properly” means to you?
Julie´s last post was… Signs From The Universe- Or Just Ghosts
Firstly I am far from using Twitter “properly” so it’d be a bit premature for me to explain what it means to me. I’m still learning.
However, here’s just one thing that I can do on Twitter that I can’t do on Facebook. I can go on Twitter and search for “Warhammer 40k” and see a list of people who are talking about that topic. Then I can “listen in” and see if any of those people resonate with me. I can then follow some of those people and listen / engage them in a conversation. I can’t really do that on Facebook as what people say within their walls stays private so I can’t search by that. At best I can join a group of people who are interested in Warhammer 40k and then “Friend” some of them I guess??
It’s funny because I’m the same way with Facebook as you are with Twitter. I just don’t get Facebook. I suppose it makes sense for people who don’t have Blogs to post stuff up, but why not just start a blog and post your pictures on a Blog where you own the content and the content doesn’t disappear after a while?
OK thanks, that makes sense. FB is really a place for just family and friends. It is somewhat private if you want to do things like post pics of your kids, but it’s not necessarily a great place for finding new people who generally share your interests or are interested in your business.
Julie´s last post was… Signs From The Universe- Or Just Ghosts
LOL. I wiped my Twitter slate clean over a year ago. No longer do I do auto follows.
Blessings,
Flora
Great post man. I don’t even see this as a strategy. I see this as a genuine way to make sure you’re engaging with the right people on Twitter. Good stuff.
Chris Craft
@ChrisQueso
My dear Paul,
Thank you so much for this blog. Just today I was trying to figure out, ‘how do I , or should I be using twitter, and why do I need to use it?’ I mean, the internet , my blog, website, all of this is to connect with people who have something in common with me, or for work related or industry related causes. So, I really hadn’t decided how to embark on the Twitter thing.
Now I have a template to use before I even start.
I’d like to know if I can use your Rules, just change my name and contact stuff, of course. It makes perfect sense to me.
I think it will make people really think about why they are tweeting, and maybe get back to what ‘connection’ really means in this virtual world.
Thanks once again for your genius!
DebbyK!
Debby Kaplan´s last post was… What Is Your Fitness Fortune
Yes you may use my rules, that’s fine… just alter/change whatever fits for you.
Hey Paul,
Great post! I like the way you roll… =)
I think this is a really great idea, Paul. I have often looked at these people with such massive follower counts and wondered how they did it. I didn’t realize the racket that was going on behind the scenes.
I very rarely follow people on Twitter, I can’t even keep up with the number of tweets I see daily, so I never considered the “mass follow to be followed” method. I try, like you, to only follow people I am truly interested in.
I also un-follow people a lot. I un-follow people who tweet five times in a row about totally separate topics. If it takes five tweets to get out a particular though, then that’s okay, but if it’s all scattered I know you are just dumping every tweet you had planned for that day all at once to meet some imagined “quota” in your head.
Jonathan´s last post was… The Limelight Theme Released to the Public
Or worse they’re using an automated Twittering…err…Tweeting… errr… Tweetering? tool to send out those BLOBS of junk.
I guess whatever can be abused, *will* be abused.
Jonathan´s last post was… The Sylvia Hotel at Dusk
Yea I am not a big fan of twitter. I have one (eastcoastbost) but I really just post quotes that i like or come across. Very seldom do I a. pay attention to it b. post to it other than quotes c. i think i am to ADHD to even try to add one more thing into the mix.
Hillary Bost´s last post was… Rescue 911 – 2nd Pilot-Episode 113 – “Dog Rescue”