There is a debate raging across the Twitternet. At stake is the future concept of the Follow list. Entire conversations hang in the balance.
After the first article, Dave Trott replied:
@headfirst_dom I didn’t quite understand why I should follow lots of people v selective perception, maybe you could flesh it out.
Damn. Trott and his insistence upon persuasive strategy.
Well OK, let’s take a shot at that.
I had argued that Twitter was Social Networking, not Social Friendship. My approach was to attack Dunbar’s number as applied to Twitter Follows. I was right to do so. Dave’s comment regarding selective perception is something else entirely.
It concerns the very start of the debate and the comment about Dave’s small number of followers.
Having lots of followers has clear advantages, foremost of which (for me) is that you get your message out to more people.
Working in advertising that’s important.
So what about the other way around?
There are two questions here: the first one of why should Dave follow more than 30 people and the second of why he should follow lots of people v selective perception.
The second question is easy.
He shouldn’t.
Selective perception is absolutely the way to go.
I don’t follow Stephen Fry. Nor do I follow Philip Scofield, Ashton Kutcher, John Cleese, Derren Brown… the list goes on.
To varying degrees I enjoy the work they do. It’s just on Twitter I have found that they don’t enrich my life. I don’t really care who is on GMTV and I don’t really care whether Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift. As for Demi Moore’s bottom… well, what’s the point?
I chose to switch them off. Selective perception wins out.
There are millions of Twitter users. Surely it is possible to be both selective and follow lots of people. Given the numbers and the demographics involved it is likely that of these many millions, an individual will find more than 30 people who could enrich their lives and provide stimulating insight and accounts of their daily lunch habits.
This isn’t Sodom and Gomorrah here. Finding more than 30 people to follow shouldn’t be hard.
Of course that means making a judgement call on why we follow people.
I know why I do.
I follow people who are active in my field in my community.
Because their views are often exciting and stimulate my own.
I follow writers who offer insights into the way they work.
Because their insights can help me in my work.
I follow damn funny people.
Because I’m learning to smile.
I follow followers of followers.
Because I’ve come to trust some followers and believe in recomendations on #followfriday
I follow competitors.
Because SOMEONE has to keep an eye on those pesky kids.
I follow Demi Moore.
No, I don’t.
I follow because I can find a few statements amongst the daily chatter that interest me or excite me or provoke me. I follow because I look for debate. I follow in the same way I read more than one newspaper each day, flick through more than one website a day and talk to more than one person a day.
Because ideas can be found in the most unusual, most unexpected of places.
And these unexpected places are everywhere on Twitter. So that must make them expected… OK, let’s move on.
Twitter gives us a chance to connect. To connect to people. To exciting, stimulating, surprising, inspiring, sweary people.
And it’s an ad-man’s dream to be able to connect, in some way, however briefly, however superficially, to these people.
Here’s an example courtesy of the man who started this:
Twitter is free, completely live, market research. Doing an ad for running shoes? Follow some runners. Put them into a group called “Runners” and watch what they talk about. Maybe dip in and reply, ask a question or two, prod and poke them (gently) for responses.
Of course you don’t have to Follow to get this sort of research. You could run searches and pick out the comments. But that’s not selective. And you have no hand in guiding the debate. You are passive, not active.
So, 30 people? Are they likely to provide (given that most people don’t Tweet on a regular basis) all the stimulation, all the insight, all the debate, all the surprise you could need?
Why should you follow more than 30?
Why not?
