The Friday File: Twitter and “The Numbers”

At the risk of sounding like Joan Rivers, “can we talk?”

I want you to raise your right hand, and promise to answer me honestly. No, I won’t know if you’re fibbing, and that really isn’t the point of this little exercise anyhow. I mean, you’ll know…and what’s the point in fibbing to yourself?

So I ask you — are you hung up on your “Twitter numbers?” It seems like everywhere you turn lately, there’s someone out there offering to help you quantify the Twitter experience.

Twitter maintains a count of your followers, for example. You hear lots of folks tweeting about wanting more followers, and hoping to reach certain high-water marks. Good grief — I haven’t seen this much attention given to numbers since the first season of Lost.

In the last two weeks, we’ve seen the emergence of new tools that offered to provide your Twitter ranking, as well as your Twitter Value.

So my question is this…are we getting too caught up in the numbers, and losing sight of what’s really important?

For what it’s worth, here’s my take on the situation. We all have heard of the Pareto principle, even if we haven’t heard of it by name. Essentially, it boils down to 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers.

Knowing this, why not focus on quality, rather than quantity?

Don’t judge a tweet by its number.

Instead, focus on making genuine connections. Twitter offers a venue where you can learn about new resources, share ideas, and establish relationships.

To lose sight of that defeats the entire point of social media.

Was this post helpful to you?