Quality vs Quantity – How Many Twitter Followers Do You Need or Want?  There is an ongoing debate about the right twitter strategy. Do you want lots of followers who retweeet your messages or fewer followers who actually talk with you.

Turns out there is no one right answer. Sarah Kessler writting for Mashable profiled two social media celebrities recently Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble who have dramatically different approaches.  Kawasaki will friend everyone, in contrast Scoble is much more selective about who he follows.

  • Kawasaki puts his bluntly: “My strategy is that Twitter is a marketing broadcast platform,
  • Scoble, on the other hand, is more of a quality over quantity kind of guy: “Caring about number of followers is going to take you down a path that’s not very satisfying
Whichever strategy you choose there are some rules which seem to apply to both
  • Aim for a Reasonable Goal – If you currently have 500 followers, you will not be at 5,000 overnight.
  • Put in Some Quality Time – Attracting attention is about sharing good content, and that takes time.
  • Pick a Niche – Be really interesting and informative on a specific topic, and you will become the go to person. You may not necessarily attract everyone, but the people you connect with, will share your interests.
  • Keep Your Tweets Relevant to Your Niche – This is one I think you have to take less literally.  While I write about blogging, social media, web design and marketing, I also talk about the local Indianapolis art and cultural community.  Don’t be afraid to have  more than one niche.
  • Respond in Order to Engage – If you want others to talk to you, take the time to pay attention to them.

So what do you choose?  Quality of  Quantity?  On LinkedIn, I accept every request.  Making a connection is like handing out a business card at a networking event. There is no expectation of a follow up conversation. That is not twitter.  And because everyone is talking all the time, I don’t necessarily want to clutter my stream with updates from people I don’t care about.  I filter some of the content through lists, but I routinely block or unfollow people who never share anything of value.   That works best for me.  What is your social media strategy?

Roundpeg, is an Indianapolis Social media firm offering graphic and web design services for small businesses.