Recently I have heard from a growing number of my fellow tweeters who have been receiving “follow” requests from, well, not people they want to follow. I too have been getting them. These requests come from people who are trying to sell me stuff and its the kind of stuff that I don’t want to buy. 

a. I don’t want to work from home and make 50k a month selling god-knows what

b. I have no interest in establishing a relationship with a hooker or stripper. 

c. I do not want to be sold the latest stuff in marketing or branding.

d. I have no interest in a consultant who reaches out to me via Twitter…me and thousands of other people. 

Here’s what I want. I want to follow quality people who help me grow. I want followers who find what I am writing about worthwhile. And I think that is what most people honestly using Twitter want. 

So, if I have 100 followers and they are the right people, I win. And if I follow 100 people and they provide great insights, I win.  If new media is like a cocktail party, then throw a small one, invite the best people you can, and have meaningful conversations. 

So. as we conduct more and more searches at Channel Signal, we are becoming less intrigued with a tweeter who has 3,000 followers. Why? Because many of those followers are just hoping to get followed back. There may be no substance to that Twitter account.

To be sure, there are tweeters out there that have thousands of followers who are sincerely interested in the thoughts and experiences of that tweeter. Think Lance Armstrong, especially now since the Tour is happening. However, that is a minority.

Unfortunately here is the thinking of many tweeters:

“So, you follow me and I’ll follow you. I don’t really care about you and I can’t possibly read 3 thousand tweets,  but understand I’m using you to beef up my numbers. I, in turn, am beefing up your numbers, so you should be okay with it,  right?

Wrong. Twitter is a great tool. It broke the news in Mombai, Tehran, China, and in Honduras. It is the national dialogue running underneath our daily lives. It is a great search tool for understanding the discussions around very important topics. Twitter is wonderful and that’s why it is an important Channel in Channel Signal. 

However, we can not let the riff-raff into the conversation. Hit that “block” button that Twitter provides. And don’t feel bad. These people don’t know you, don’t care about you, and aren’t going to read what you write. They are either playing a numbers sales game or they want to beef up their traffic. 

Soon, technology will qualify the number of followers a tweeter has, and who that tweeter is following. Influencers will be judged not only on the quantity of followers but also the quality…particularly the quality. 

From his first and best album, Ram, Paul McCartney wrote a great rocker called Smile Away. “Block” when you don’t want to enter the conversation, say no thanks…and smile away.