How to Lose 10 Followers in 5 Days

Last week I set out on a challenge to reach five thousand followers in five days, the 5in5 project.  I was of two minds in terms of the outcome of the project.  In one way, I had high hopes for dramatic growth and to see if there was any truth in the hype perpetuated by a number of people on Twitter when they talk about growing their followers by the thousands in hopes of monetizing them.  In the other, and possibly more realistic case, I hoped to validate some suspicions about Twitter and learn in the process.

How did it go?  Well, the answer is either:

1. it was a colossal disappointment if you look solely at what happened to the number of people following me
2. it was a tremendous success if you see it as an experiment intended to dispel the myths about monetizing followers and teach people where and how to properly use Twitter in the process 

To be completely truthful, I didn’t even come close to gaining anywhere near the number of followers I had targeted. 

In fact, I actually lost ten followers, which means that I ended up worse off then when I began the 5in5 project. Now, the decline could be attributed to natural attrition, Twitter stepping in and purging spammers, I didn’t tweet enough, I tweeted too much, I ticked some people off with the idea, or some combination thereof.

I choose to see it as a success because it validates what I already believe and espouse which is Twitter is not a platform for pushing an idea.  Pushing anything on Twitter is, for the most part, unwelcome.  Furthermore, Twitter should not be used as the predominant or sole platform to market an idea.

Twitter’s value lies in its ability to provide real-time feedback about what your are trying to do as well as market intelligence before, during and after you execute your strategy.  Twitter used to answer the question, “What are you doing right now?” and now it answers the question, “What are people talking about right now?”  This dramatic change is reflected in Twitter’s new home page, which gives prominence to its search capabilities.

Marketing an idea via social media should follow the same steps as any other medium.  Start with a plan and map out an integrated, multi-pronged, yet consistent, strategy to reach your marketing objectives.  Social Media can help the strategy but you should not rest the outcome of your efforts entirely on its shoulders.    

Comments

[Ken Ross]

Interesting stuff: We're all experimenting with twitter as we go but one of the most basic problems ties in with your point that "Twitter is not a platform for pushing an idea".

Certainly from the investigation we've done for client projects, marketing experts seem to be using twitter as little more than a glorified RSS feed to broadcast information. Really the value may well be in mining information that is already input from potential prospects (see the Bestbuy.com experiment we talked about here http://nowcomms.com/newsbank/twitterstrategy.htm).

So far we've seen a bank of tools coming on line that allegedly make the business of tweeting simpler: Some say, more effective. But almost all of these simplify the process of "pushing an idea". What's really needed is something that helps marketing people monitor the "tweetosphere", ID tweets of genuine interest then respond to them in a personal and compelling way. Some of this can be automated but some cannot.
Currently we're busy compiling a hot list of most useful twitter add-ons at http://nowcomms.com/newsbank/twitterstrategy.htm. While it's stoked with tools to make twittering info out easier, it's sadly wanting in terms of tools designed to monitor and alert marketing experts when opportunities organically bubble to the surface of the tweetosphere. Are there any tools that even start to do this I wonder?

[Julie Tyios]

Andrew - Interesting experiment. You should try it again now that the great Twitter purge has passed. I'd be curious to see what would happen. Can you share a bit more about your 5in5 strategy?

I agree with you on the point that Twitter shouldn't be your only marketing channel. Social media marketing is about pushing an integrated strategy to create the strongest online presence possible. And no, people generally don't like it if all you do is try to market something to them. Twitter does provide great monitoring and feedback opportunities, though, which is why it's one of many excellent tools for online marketing. I test various things on a regular basis and find it's easy to measure results.