Sitting Under The Tree, Part 3

Welcome back again, sitting under the tree. Pleased to meet you (again), great to have you around! Especially nowadays when it appears to be hunting season on Twitter!

What? Wait a minute: hunting season? Good question - no, I didn't lose my mind! (Not yet, even though some may have noticed that I'm working on it.) Yes, hunting season!

Just a few days ago we could follow (did we?) the race between Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN (@cnnbrk). Race? For what? A race for follower no. 1.000.000. I won't get into details here. I'd like to focus on that figure: 1.000.000. Maybe you can already imagine my face when @m140z suggested (were they serious?) a similar kind of celeb race for followers in Germany. Reading my own lines, this still makes me shake my head. Anyway.

Just a week or something before that happened, @AppleInvestor (aka @Twitlinker aka @JavaChief) brought my attention to a similar playground. There are a lot of people out there trying to sell nothing less than the ultimate way to gain thousands of followers. 10.000, 15.000, 25.000 - chosse a number, it's up to you! Just hand'em the cash and they will take care. Well, they may - or may not. To be honest, that doesn't take us anywhere here. Again it's in those numbers.

Wow. I can remember the day I started tweeting I was completely blown away as I saw that the counter for followers had changed from 0 to 1, went up to 2 some hours later. Imagine: There's someone out there who's kind of interested in what you've got to say! And it's even more flattering that the number of followers did rise even higher. It's amazing to me!

But why would I feel the need push it? That's the question that's going round in my mind! To me it is one thing if you stay in one place long enough and just find an audience (or real friends, that's left to your proper definition). That may be by chance, that may be because of recommendation (as you may find in tradition of #followfriday or something similar). At least that's my kind of naive approach. Well, I like it - and a couple of people out there appear to like it that way too.

@AppleInvestor brought the idea to me (not personally but by his tweets) that you can use techniques to improve the number of followers. I'm not quite sure if he's serious about it. But assuming he's taking his own medicine it sure works out for him and it's an impressing number of followers he gained, that's for sure. But while reading his re-appearing tweets on that topics a single question came to my mind: Why would I do that?

Sure, his ideas are still kind of a classic approach on it. And he's completely right when he asks again and again: Why would I believe in someone who's trying to sell me followers for money? Why would I believe it's a one-way road that ups my follower counter by a single kick-start? And why would I believe those people won't get back on me, asking for more, offering more?

There is one point in all that, that's for sure, and I think that's why those "salesmen" get a grip on quite a number of people: Many people are around on social networks to make a show of how popular they are, how well-known they are - and they just do believe in that! They don't care about a single follower. They don't care about what they're tweeting and how they interact with their so-called network. They need the biggest house with the biggest pool and the latest Ferrari (continue if you like). That's all.

My conclusion is that - as with most things, especially on the social networks - you're much better off when you just don't judge the book by ist cover. Talking about me, I just started to develop my network on Twitter. But I already found some very, very interesting people out there. Some tweets are just entertaining, some tweets deliver interesting news or great advices. And one starts to get involved: One sends a reply here, gets a direct message there and vice versa. One gets into contact, one gets part of it.

Talking about me, that's my understanding of a social media network. And that is what I learned to like within and about Twitter. There are just great people out there like @JustTooBusy, @markshaw, @ScottGiorgini, @NinaRoosen, @nencetti - just to mention a few of those I am pround of to be in touch with. (All of you, my dear followers, that I didn't mention: I beg your pardon! Space and time are quite limited, you know...) To me it's the old story about "give and take" - I will not get into details on that here. It's just my point I want to make here: It's the respect and the exchange between people that counts - not the numbers (neither of followers nor of tweets)!

In my humble opinion there's no need to be jealous of someone's follower network growing faster than the own one. It's just not about the numbers, it's about the people and the network! There sure is a reason, but who cares. Just share that co-tweeter's happiness about his touch, that he just found his domain and that so many people seem to like it.

On the other hand - and I'm serious about that - I think one can be pround and even more feel honored if there is just one single person out there who follows one's tweets: There must be just something about it! So that is great - and suddenly there are two people who care! (Maybe just the beginning.)

That said, I want to invite everybody who managed to read through this that far to leave a comment, just to let me (and others) know what your opinion is on that! And feel free to contact me via Twitter: It is all about communication and connection!

Now I will lean back again, calm down, and start listening again to the birds singing their songs right here, right now - with me sitting under the tree.

CU - GU!

("Hello friend, welcome home!")