TWITTER REALITY

Have you seen some of the people on Twitter who have tens of thousands of followers? Very impressive, huh? I know I was impressed- and envious when I saw those numbers. I imagined those folks sending out a Tweet that would be read by tens of thousands of Twitterers. Boy, if I had that many followers I could promote my stuff. I remember looking at my 30 followers and thinking, "I've got to get going here. I'd better figure something out quick!"

Then I got a Tweet that included a link to a video. I watched the video and decided to invest in my Twitter account by purchasing access to training videos that would show me how to automate my acquisition of followers. It didn't cost much and it came with a money-back guarantee.

Whenever I'm faced with a decision like that I always remember something my dad told me when I was young. He'd say, "If it can't hurt and might help- do it!"

So with a small investment in this Twitter system, I got going.

I watched the first video with a very skeptical eye. Then I saw something huge that I didn’t know. Then came another gold nugget- and another. It was really a very well done program. Not only did I get my Twitter automated system going, I learned a bunch of stuff I can use all over!

I started building my followers. I Tweeted too. I sent out cool quotes. I sent out links to some generic training videos I’d filmed. I sent out re-Tweets. I hit the 1850 barrier, but fought my way through past 2000. I knew I was on my way!

So now I have thousands of followers- and I follow thousands too.

Here’s the point. You were hoping for a point, weren’t you? Okay- when I open my Twitter account I see 21 Tweets. I’m guessing you see 21 Tweets when you open yours, right? At the end of each Tweet is small print it says how long ago that Tweet was Tweeted. The first one usually says, “less than 5 seconds ago”. If I scroll down to the last of the 21 showing it usually says, “less than 30 seconds ago”. In other words, the thousands of people I’m following have a microscopic window of time to get their message to me. Even if I do discover a great Tweet and re-Tweet, how many of my thousands of followers see that?

Don’t get me wrong. I think Twitter is a valuable piece of my social networking campaign. I know from experimenting that I can influence a good number of people when I add a URL to a Tweet. Some people click on the link and look. That's huge. But once I took a close look at the numbers though, I radically lowered my expectations. It takes a lot of tweets and a lot of followers to make a real statement. Would I do it all over again? Absolutely! But with knowledge of Twitter reality.