It’s all very well getting the big numbers of followers on Twitter but we all know full well that unless that translates into something useful and interesting it is about as interesting as staring at a concrete wall painted grey. Much of the activity that you think that you see is merely imaginary and a vivid projection of some sort of unfulfilled wish or fantasy. If you dare be honest with yourself then you will take enough steps back from that grey wall and look at the bigger picture to see exactly what is going on.
So the questions that I want to ask you now are …… when was the last time you asked your twitter followers what they wanted? What do you actually know about your followers? How many of them are bots, prostitutes and spammers?
With all this talk about Klout and PeerIndex, (and now BackType) we know full well that SOME people are going to be seduced by the league tables and there are some whose primary focus is going to be as good as the Joneses next door. If the Joneses are not making any headway at all on Twitter then no doubt their competitors can secretly (or openly) jump up and down punching the air in celebration. But the triumphant glee that they jubilantly express is completely meaningless ……. unless ……they are getting real and tangible results.
I actually don’t care about what results anyone gets that just as long as it fits in with the bigger picture of what their life and business ambitions are. Quite frankly it doesn’t matter whether people are looking for big time contracts, more newsletter subscribers, visitors to their website, homes for their rabbits, ticket sales or attendees to their next swingers party – a result is only a result when it really means something.
The great thing about tools like Klout and PeerIndex is that they help to reflect back to us what we are tweeting about. In my article “Why is your Klout Score so important?” I did some direct comparisons of a few famous Dragons’ Den accounts and they are, quite frankly rubbish. Celebratory status is all very well but having a great deal of influence in a massive network, in my view just pure vanity. What a shame that it is not put to good use – I mean REALLY good use!
So are you any different? How interactive is your network? How many replies do you get when you ask any questions? How often do those followers ask you for advice? How many seek you out for your expertise? How many people actually retweet your stuff? How many stalkers do you have? Got any avid fans, weirdos and freaks following you who religiously retweet anything you send out? No – then you haven’t made it yet then!!
In my book, followers means that there must be a leader. Having a valuable Twitter account is about being a good leader. And any good leader will know how to capitalise on the assets of his/her followers but will absolutely understand that the role of a leader is to lead their followers where they WANT to go. So are your followers actually wanting to go in the same direction as you? If not, then you are doing it wrong and you had better change course pretty sharpish. So perhaps it is about time you take a closer look at Klout and PeerIndex and have a think about what they think you are about but ask yourself this at the same time ……. what is it that you actually want to be known for? If you want to save the world then you had better make sure that you talk about how you are going to do it.