influence

4 Reasons Why Twitter Should Set the Following limit at 140

How many people do you follow on Twitter? More than 140? Just like your tweets are limited to 140 characters, imagine if the number of people you could follow was also limited to 140 “characters”.

Now 140 is really an arbitrary number. The basic idea is to set the following limit to a small number, anything below 300 or so. This limit however, does not affect the number of people who can follow you. For example, your Twitter stats can be 3000 followers and 140 following. This could greatly improve the Twitterverse. Here’s why.

Reason 1: Reduce Spam Accounts

There are many spam accounts on Twitter. As reported by Twitter, the spam activity has decreased in recent months, but there are still many spammers out there. By restricting the following limit, spam accounts will be restricted to following 140 users at a time.

You might be thinking, this type restriction would not prevent spam accounts from rotating users through their following limit. A spam account could follow a user hoping to attract a follow back. If the spam account receives a follow back, the spammer immediately unfollows the user and follows a new user.

This is a legitimate concern and is related to the second reason. Since all users have a following limit, they are less likely to use up one of their following spots on a spam account. Users are more likely to follow only accounts they find valuable.

Reason 2: Measure of Value and Influence

The number of followers an account has will become a greater and more accurate measure of the account’s value to users and the influence of the account. This is because with the limited following spots, users will only follow the top 140 users they find valuable. If an account has 2000 followers, it means 2000 people find the account valuable enough to “vote” for the account with a follow.

Reason 3: Promote Twitter’s Other Features

With the 140 following limit, users will have to find other ways to discover and promote content on Twitter. For example, Twitter lists will become a greater asset since users will still be able to create Twitter lists to aggregate information from users they can’t follow directly. Twitter’s advertising platform (Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends) will get a boost with legitimate users since it will be more difficult to mass promote messages.

Reason 4: Encourage Real Conversations and Relationships

Lastly, but probably most importantly, the following limit will help bolster real conversations and relationships on Twitter. This is what social media is meant to do. Users who are following more than 300 people are probably not conversing with all of them on a regular basis. Users who are following more than 300 people, are probably not reading all the tweets in their stream. So what is the purpose or value of following all these people?

Businesses and accounts wanting to gain influence through their Twitter account and to gain followers, will have to build real relationships, engage in real conversations and provide real value through the account. Otherwise, it is unlikely they will successfully attract followers.

So do you agree or disagree with a following limit?

Victor Chan
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: conversation, following, influence, limit, promoted trends, promoted tweets, relationships, Social Media, spam, Twitter, value

Social Media Strategy? Spare Me

A friend of mine quietly sent me a slideshare presentation yesterday.  It was created by a long established advertising and interactive agency in town.  She sent it to me quietly because it was entitled “Why You Don’t Need a Social Media Strategy”. I guess she thought I should know I might soon be out of work, if word of this got around.

I enjoyed going through the slideshow.. and I didn’t entirely disagree with its point. However, there is an “it all comes down to semantics” argument to be made against it. Let me explain.

The presentation stated you don’t need a social media strategy.  Instead, you need an engagement strategy, or an influence strategy. My take on the presentation was that it was capitalizing on the nausea widely experienced when hearing the ubiquitous phrase “social media strategy”. Fair enough.  However, in our shop, engagement and influence are key parts of every strategy. Doesn’t that go without saying?  Perhaps what the slideshow was trying to get at is the fact that it is vitally important to venture deeper than social media when designing an online plan. Mobile, website content, optimization, online advertising are all important, sometimes more important than social media depending on the business objectives for the strategy.

There is no question “social media” is getting way too much airtime. But for people new to the concept of having an integrated online strategy, this term can really help get them in the right line of thinking, despite its shortcomings.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?

Tags: digital strategy, engagement, influence, Social Media, strategy