Twitter Follower Ratio
Many people (especially if they're new to Twitter) quickly become obssesed with the number of people they have following them. Now it's sensible enough to try to focus on a metric to measure your Twitter success (or the success of others) but we have to be careful about making false assumptions. This is why it's important to consider not only the "number of followers" but to also factor in the number of people you are following as well. E.g. Let's consider some ficticious Twitter users "Kevin"
If you viewed Kevin's twitter profile and saw he had in excess of 70,000+ twitter followers you might be excused for thinking "wow! This person is one Twitter hot rod!". However, if you then cast an eye on the number of people that THEY are following then you may well find a figure in excess of 70K. This is a sure fire indicator that Kevin has an "auto follow back" policy where if ANYBODY follows him he will automatically follow them back. Many Twitter folks exploit this behaviour to artificially swell their numbers. Therefoe you would be wise to consider the "quality" of the followers which Kevin has (a quick scan down the list of people Kevin is following would probably reveal a lot of spam). Note: it COULD be that Kevin has vetted all 70K followers (ie manually decided whether to follow back, block or report as spam) and he has done so to open up the DM channel. Possible...but unlikely. Dealing with such large numbers means you have to use more powerful Twitter tools to manage it all (eg Tweetdeck, Twitter lists). There is no way Kevin will read all your tweets! "Mary"
Next let's consider Mary. Mary has 25K followers but is herself only following 100. This is a totally different scenario and is a stronger indicator of popularity. Mary is obviously NOT using an auto follow technique to inflate her numbers (such schemes are clever enough to auto unfollow as well if you try to follow, wait a few days and then unfollow!). For whatever reason Mary has decided NOT to follow back everyone - so she does not receive their updates and they cannot DM her. They can reply/mention though and, if they pique her interest, perhaps they'll make it into the lucky 100! "Susan"
Susan follows 50 people and is followed by 250 people. The numbers appear small but perhaps Susan's followers contain people who are VERY important in her sector. And perhaps Susan's followers DO pay attention to her when she tweets. What we see here then is that, despite not having the 70K follower numbers, Susan's quality of followers means that her account is very powerful. There is no right & wrong with the above - I'm just describing them for your benefit. This balance of followers and following is typically referred to as someone's "followers/following ratio" and is worth paying attention to when you view someone's profile as it can reveal a lot about the account.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
If you viewed Kevin's twitter profile and saw he had in excess of 70,000+ twitter followers you might be excused for thinking "wow! This person is one Twitter hot rod!". However, if you then cast an eye on the number of people that THEY are following then you may well find a figure in excess of 70K. This is a sure fire indicator that Kevin has an "auto follow back" policy where if ANYBODY follows him he will automatically follow them back. Many Twitter folks exploit this behaviour to artificially swell their numbers. Therefoe you would be wise to consider the "quality" of the followers which Kevin has (a quick scan down the list of people Kevin is following would probably reveal a lot of spam). Note: it COULD be that Kevin has vetted all 70K followers (ie manually decided whether to follow back, block or report as spam) and he has done so to open up the DM channel. Possible...but unlikely. Dealing with such large numbers means you have to use more powerful Twitter tools to manage it all (eg Tweetdeck, Twitter lists). There is no way Kevin will read all your tweets! "Mary"
Next let's consider Mary. Mary has 25K followers but is herself only following 100. This is a totally different scenario and is a stronger indicator of popularity. Mary is obviously NOT using an auto follow technique to inflate her numbers (such schemes are clever enough to auto unfollow as well if you try to follow, wait a few days and then unfollow!). For whatever reason Mary has decided NOT to follow back everyone - so she does not receive their updates and they cannot DM her. They can reply/mention though and, if they pique her interest, perhaps they'll make it into the lucky 100! "Susan"
Susan follows 50 people and is followed by 250 people. The numbers appear small but perhaps Susan's followers contain people who are VERY important in her sector. And perhaps Susan's followers DO pay attention to her when she tweets. What we see here then is that, despite not having the 70K follower numbers, Susan's quality of followers means that her account is very powerful. There is no right & wrong with the above - I'm just describing them for your benefit. This balance of followers and following is typically referred to as someone's "followers/following ratio" and is worth paying attention to when you view someone's profile as it can reveal a lot about the account.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
