Is buying Twitter followers a good idea?
The BBC has published an interesting article about a company offering Twitter “followers.” But is buying Twitter followers a good idea?
The “followers” can be bought in batches of 1,000, with 100,000 being the biggest amount available.
All have opted in to be a “follower,” so is it a problem? All are profiled and those located closest can be prioritised, so it is targeted to some degree.
uSocial, which offers a paid service, estimates that everyone that follows is worth about 10 cents (Australian I believe) a month to a client.
I think even so big companies, indeed anyone that employs such as service, are missing the point of social networking: interaction.
Hard sell or just selling is not social media although there can be a place, from time to time, to sell.
I am sure that if up to 100,000 “followers” can be bought at a reasonably low price then a Twitter campaign could generate good returns on the investment.
E-mail was used in a similar way and I remember a claim in one magazine that as many as 10% of recipients became clients in its early days (mid 90s). I am not sure I believe that ever really happened unless it was one heck of an offer to a really well researched target group.
Gone are the days when e-mail was ever thought of so highly. Yet the humble telephone can be highly productive for sales and it is about interaction and conversation.
Yes buying “followers” will work for some, but it is going to become a jaded way to communicate if you only talk and don’t listen.
Tags: direct marketing, paying for Twitter followers, Twitter, Twitter followers, Twitter marketing
July 7th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Good piece Rob
I think the beauty of social media and Twitter in particular is the ability to identify very closely the people you want to follow, so making interaction with those people – and they with you – so much more meaningful. I don’t see the point of having a high volume of followers if your interests don’t tally with theirs. Therefore, they become – dare I say it – Twanity followers.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Jon,
the point about social media is that it is two way and everyone can talk and listen.
This points to businesses using social media as they would direct marketing, twisting it to something they understand and feel comfortable with rather than actually using the special nature of it to communicate and interact.
Rob
July 10th, 2009 at 7:18 am
You’re right about email – our experience is that its value as a marketing tool is falling daily. However good your data and however strong your content, response rates are falling as people become used to different kinds of interaction and increasingly sick of clunky old mail.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Tom,
I think people have been wary of any type of e-mail approach for years. Is it a suitable channel for any product or service that has merit? In fact can it do harm using e-mail?
The amount of competition for people’s attention makes it inevitable that social media will be commandeered by marketers desperate to make a quick impression using direct marketing techniques. You cannot force or hurry social media too much.
Rob
October 5th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Jon,
the point about social media is that it is two way and everyone can talk and listen.
This points to businesses using social media as they would direct marketing, twisting it to something they understand and feel comfortable with rather than actually using the special nature of it to communicate and interact.
Rob