Number of Twitter followers no sign of expertise or influence

There’s a growing number of people on Twitter who are seeking large numbers of followers, apparently as a showing of their importance.

Look no further than the people who start following you on Twitter. People with 20, 40, or 60,000 followers. People that you have no idea who they are.

Why the chase the for followers?

• Ego?
• Insecurity?
• Need to feel important?
• Trying to sell services and products by spamming others?
• Whoring themselves out to other spammers?
• Trying to increase their measure of influence?

I don’t know. But just because someone has a lot of followers on Twitter does not mean they are offering anything of value on Twitter or that they have any expertise in anything, let alone social media and social networking.

Don’t believe for a second that it takes influence, expertise, or the desire to foster meaningful relationships to get followers on Twitter.

Some people seek lots of followers by following thousands and then un-following those who do not follow them back. Heck some folks do this repeatedly in an effort to get you to follow them. I can’t count the number of email notices I get from Twitter that the same person is following me again.

And now for the lazy you can buy software that’ll get you thousands of followers on Twitter. Do a Google search for ‘software to get twitter followers.’ Here’s the type of crap you’ll see promoted:

• Huge-Sized Twitter© – Explode Your Twitter Followers – Just $27, Money Back Guaranteed
• Buy Quality Twitter™ Followers Now – Buy Followers Packages For As Low As $37
• Endless Twitter Followers – Get 1000 Followers Per Profile In A Day. On Autopilot! Free Trial
• Twitter Adder – Professional Twitter Marketing Tools – Automatic
• Get Rich Using Twitter – Totally Automated Easy To Use Follow By Keywords – Make Money
• Hummingbird Auto-Friend Follower (for people looking for friends automatically)

Geez. Makes me think of Rodney Dangerfield’s one liner “I was so ugly as a kid, my mother used to tie a pork chop around my neck so the dogs would play with me.”

I’m sorry if LexBlog promoted some of this follower chase by LexTweet displaying legal professionals using Twitter in the order of how many people were following someone. We’re working on ways to change that.

If you’re looking for followers on Twitter, do it the old fashioned way. Share news and information of value to your target audience. Word gets around and more people will follow you. Follow others you’d like to get to know and learn from. Share things of personal interest outside the law. You’ll find that others with similar interests will begin to follow you.

But don’t fall into the trap of chasing followers or feel the need to follow everyone following you. They may just be seeking ‘Auto-Friends.’