The never-ending issue of quality vs. quantity of followers on Twitter is similar to the argument over how many people to connect with on LinkedIn or “friend” on any other social networking site. Yesterday I wrote that without enough connections on LinkedIn, you won’t show up in as many search results. With Twitter, your follower to follower ratio is an important one that will also speak volumes for your brand on Twitter.
My thoughts on how to strategize what you do on social media are the same regardless of the social network. It all depends on your objective, your brand and their implementation through the unique functionalities and environments of different sites. When I see people who only want to connect with a limited amount of people on LinkedIn but want thousands of followers on Twitter, I see a contradiction. Windmill Networking clears up this contradiction with a rational philosophy that transcends social media differences.
Why count Twitter followers? Because the more people who follow you, the higher the chance that more people will read your message. And if your message is good, the more likely someone will re-Tweet it, generating the viral marketing that Twitter is famous for. Also, people with more followers seem to have more credibility with some people. Wouldn’t you rather have 2000 followers versus 200 followers?
So with that in mind, as well as the fact that your Twitter follower and follower ratio will affect your Twitter brand, let’s see what the various ratios below have to say about people:
1) 10 followers 100 followers = 10.0 Ratio
This person has a 10.0 follower to follower ratio. This seems to be an ideal relationship to achieve, as this person apparently has something to say that many people they don’t know will find interesting. Thus the number of large report. However, if you are looking for people to follow in hopes that they will follow you, you may not want to follow this person unless they have something really important to say. Therefore, due to this fact, it is very difficult to achieve this status. If you post good content on Twitter, your follower count WILL grows organically over time, but what about the potential opportunity cost of delaying your message to market? So your Twitter Brand here is either Rockstar or someone trying to do things the old fashioned way without maximizing what they can do with Twitter. I’ll also add that this brand on Twitter can be negative: Why wouldn’t this person respect their followers by following them back? Or are all their followers spammers?
2) 100 Followers 100 Followers = 1.0 Ratio
Some people say, “Yeah, sure, they’re just following everyone who follows them, so a 1.0 ratio is an easy number to hit.” Well, if you’ve ever tried it, you’ll realize that even if you follow 100 people, chances are on average that only 10 to 20 of them will follow you back. Add in the fact that many spammers who automatically follow you will unfollow you after sending you a Direct Message, and you can see how this is no easy task to accomplish. I believe this is a healthy relationship which also shows new people that if they follow you, chances are you will follow them back. It features a brand on Twitter that says “We’re in this together, so let’s get to know each other.”
3) 100 followers 10 followers = 0.1 report
This is an obvious red flag. Apparently, this person thinks that following lots and lots of people will lead to more followers, but with this kind of report, not only will spammers follow this person, but Twitter may soon shut down this account! Suffice it to say, this is one biased report you never want to show unless you want to limit your Twitter account!
So what is the ideal ratio? It will vary depending on how many followers you have, but it should be in a range of roughly 1.0 (0.75 to 1.25?) if you want to grow Twitter followers. Anything above that indicates you might not have anything interesting to say, and below that range might indicate you don’t care who follows you and might not follow them anyway (of course, if you’re a celebrity, you might leave without following anyone).
To those who scoff at what I say, I ask “You’re on Twitter hoping to grow your followers, right?” And there are so many great people to follow on Twitter! Just like LinkedIn has 45 million people in its network, Twitter also has tens of millions you can follow. A Twitter Rockstar, Chris Brogan, who I would consider a Windmill Networker, has some great ideas on who to follow on Twitter if you don’t have one.
When someone doesn’t grow their LinkedIn connections outside of their physical network, I let them know they’re wasting their time on LinkedIn. I think the same can be said about your following and follower ratio on Twitter. If your ratio is heavily skewed from the 1.0 standard, it could be sending the wrong message that will negatively impact your brand on Twitter. You can waste your time on Twitter by following too few and be seen as someone who has nothing worthwhile to say if you follow too much. It’s healthy to follow people you don’t know if they’re talking about a topic that interests you. So why not feature this brand in your follower to follower ratio and attract them?
What are Twitter Follower and Follower Ratios of Twitter Influencers?
If you were curious, here is the actual follower/follower ratio for some of the Twitter influencers in marketing who have huge followings, so you can understand the actual range for inspiration!
- Mary Smith: 50.1% (293.2 thousand followers, 585.6 thousand followers)
- Jeff Bullas: 39.8% (226.5 thousand followers, 569.2 thousand followers)
- Ann Handley: 27.7% (124.9 thousand followers, 451.7 thousand followers)
- Juan Carlos Mejia Llano: 22.6% (6.7 thousand followers, 384.4 thousand followers)
- Chris Brogan: 1.4% (488 followers, 339.7 thousand followers)
- Jay Baer: 10.7% (29.8 thousand followers, 277.8 thousand followers)
- Neal Schaffer: 38.8% (85.8 thousand followers, 221.1 thousand followers)
- John Lincoln: 96.0% (189.4 thousand followers, 197.2 thousand followers)
- Mark Schaefer: 15.7% (27.7 thousand followers, 176.4 thousand followers)
- Jeremiah Owyang: 12.2% (20.4 thousand followers, 167.7 thousand followers)
If we remove the two extremes (the highest and the lowest), we can see that there is a range from 10.7% to 50.1% with an average of 27.2% of those 8 tweets. Hopefully this serves as a guide to what ratio you might want to aim for.
I’d love to hear about your Twitter follower vs follower policies! Please tell!
Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash
Twitter Following and Followers FAQ
An ideal follower to follower ratio is 1.0 and anything close to (0.75 to 1.25) the 1.0 ratio. This means that for every 100 people you are following, you should have at least 100 followers as well. A 1.0 indicates a balance between the number of followers you have vs. those who follow. It is critical to maintain a positive rapport as it affects the success of your brand/business.
Deciding whether to follow someone depends on your purpose for using Twitter. You are not obligated to follow everyone who follows you on Twitter. If following a person will not create an engagement or interaction between the two of you, it would be best not to add them to your following list.
Following someone on Twitter means you are subscribing to the user’s account. Once you follow him or her, you’ll be able to see their tweets on your timeline, the tweets they reply to, and you can even reply to their tweets. Additionally, you will be able to send them a direct private message as well.
In an effort to limit abuse of Twitter usage, they have set a limit of 400 technical follow-ups one day. They closely monitor all aggressive activities such as bulk direct messages, tweets and account changes. If you reach the limit, Twitter will place a time limit on your account. Doing this frequently may also lead to account suspension.
The number of your followers means how big your audience is. Depending on the purpose and goal of your Twitter account, having more followers is better. Being able to reach a larger audience creates more opportunities and success for your business/brand.
