Social Media Consultants - Bullshit Advice For A Bullshit Price
Something funny happened today. I saw something on twitter (by which I mean Hootsuite, I'm a professional after all), which for about ten seconds had me worried. This was a post by a 'Social Media Consultant' which made me worried as it could make my life more difficult by giving a few idiots ideas, which would make them a lot of idiots I would have to deal with. So I had a little look at his website, and the first thing I see was a tip about how to attach a photo to a tweet on the twitter main site.
Really? You charge for advice like that?
This made me smile, but what I then read made me laugh, he gave one of the worst pieces of advice I've ever read. As I'm sure you know, twitter puts caps on how many you can follow, so as soon as you have 2000 followers, you can follow more than 2000 people. You can have as many followers as you like, and only follow zero. Seems fair.
2000 Is Just A Number
Now if you are following 2000 and have 2000 followers, what is the value of your reach? (Reach is how far your tweets and content can go) These 'followers' are people that follow back, who will follow you if the only content you post is nothing, no postings, no content, not even retweets, as all they want is to be able to say "I've got 2000 followers, how many do you have?" What value is that for building an audience for your business, or even worse, for a charity as he offered his 'Skills and experience' to them. This is a scary thought as for my job and my trade, these are the cowboys, trying to jump on a staitonary 'runaway' wagon, when the horses have broken loose and are nowhere to be seen.
Quality Not Quantity
It easy to think in the world of twitter that the only thing that matters is how many followers you have, but it's the quality of them that matters. I would rather have ten followers who are journalists than a thousand who hope that I will become their follower in return. "But you're not trying to sell anything!" I can hear you say. Wrong. I am trying to sell something, it's just that what I'm selling is advice; be safe, it's your life, help us to help you when you need us. You don't have to spend money, you just have to listen. Try selling that message!
Have good content, share it, see what happens, what they like, monitor, assess, learn and repeat. It's simple really. kinda.
