A preacher, a porn star and a business man were all at a bar talking:
Matthew (preacher): “I’ve got 2123 followers on twitter. That’s half of my congregation!”
Omigosh (pornstar): “I’ve got 58,987 followers on twitter. Most of your congregation is following me!”
Marcus (businessman): I only have 10 followers.
Who has the best following? The business man (but the porn star is still the most popular). Why? Like so many things in life life, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality. Social media is about relationships and conversations. If you have no connection with the people on twitter and Facebook, then it’s just a popularity contest.
Size doesn’t matter.
The porn star in our example had the most followers, but who are they? Teenage boys and men living in their parent’s basement? Does she have any dialogue with them?
The preacher has a lot of people following him, but how many of them does he spiritually connect with?
Marcus has a paltry number of followers: 10. But they are professionals. Rainmakers. Entrepreneurs. Captains in industry. They exchange information and network the way they should. Each of the followers shares technology and professional information as they find it. The host monthly webinars. Marcus is connected to all of their followers and vice versa. In this way, Marcus has access to information that he would not normally have.
The average Facebook member has 130 friends. How many do you have and what are you doing about it? Connect with your followers / friends / connections. Don’t reduce these tools to a popularity contest. This isn’t high school anymore.
