Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category
Power Interview – @BigRichB Talks Twitter April 3rd, 2009
- originally written for techgeist
Twitter user @BigRichB is one of the most powerful people on Twitter that you have never heard of. He has more followers than Om Malik and all the individual TechCrunch authors nearly combined, 76,000 plus, actually. I asked him a few questions about how he uses Twitter, and where it is headed. Words from the mouth of the expert, lets go.
Questions are bulleted, followed by a completely unedited response from @BigRichB.
- You have had a meteoric rise in your following on Twitter, yet you state that simple mass following is unproductive, do you think that content/value creation is more powerful?
Mass following IS a waste of time. It simply takes too much time because it’s inefficient. Since it’s inefficient, you have to follow and unfollow way more people repeatedly to get more followers.
But here’s a tip to save you some time (wish I did this when I was under 10,000 followers)… use TwitterKarma to do mass unfollows with 1 press of a button. Unfollowing people is where the majority of your wasted time happens.
As far as content/value creation… that is pretty much unnecessary for getting tons of followers. Building relationships and interacting with people is more important.
- What do you find the most useful in Twitter? Is it the ability to meet like minds, or do you find a utilitarian value in such a large following?
I came on Twitter to network. My massive following has allowed me to hang out with and/or talk on the phone with over 5 millionaires. You get noticed and get attention by having a lot of followers. They’ve helped me out a bunch.
Sure, there’s not way to have truly meaningful relationships with everyone when you have 50,000+ followers, but the lines of communication are open. Just about every time I make a post at Twitter, I get over 100 replies.
A large following is pure social proof ala Cialdini. Why not take advantage of social proof to establish your authority? Some people seem to have moral objections to following a lot of people. Seems weird to me since I’d personally object more to celebrities who follow 20 people but have over 100,000 followers.
- What are your methods for reciprocating to the community that you derive so much value out of?
I don’t look at it in the big picture sense like that. I see it simply as this… if you talk to me, I’ll talk with you. If I talk with you, I hope you talk with me. I see it as a 1 on 1 thing, not me VS all 76,000 of my followers lumped together.
But I can also say this. I didn’t set out to create a Twitter product. It just happened. I created Brute Force Twitter because I kept getting 10-15 dm’s and posts a day from people asking me how I got so many followers so fast.
Since a lot of people are interested in that, I created it for them. It’s not like I can explain it in 140 characters. So I made a product out of it.
- How do you monetize your following, if you do, and if you do not, why not?
I don’t monetize the following on my @BigRichB account. That account is strictly for networking and just hanging out and getting to know people. I have a separate Twitter account that nobody knows about for monetizing followers. In fact, I now have 3 accounts.
- Where do you see Twitter in the next six months?
Twitter is the big rage now. It’s becoming mainstream fast. In 6 months it’s going to be HUGE. I just read an article that says Twitter will have 50 million people on it by Christmas. NOW is the time to build up a big following… before millions of people flood onto Twitter. You want to be ahead of the crowd.
- Where do you see yourself on Twitter in the next six months?
Brute Force Twitter will establish me as a top authority on Twitter. I’ll get pushed out of the top 100 because Twitter is promoting celebrities via its suggested users list for newbies that are just getting started. Being in the top 100 is basically meaningless now since those people are hand-chosen by Twitter. I just read Twitter just hired a concierge whose only job is to make celebrities happy on Twitter.
Gee, as a normal person, I really appreciate that (sarcasm). We build up the site and get no appreciation. Celebrities just come on it and have their assistants make posts for them and they get promoted. Ok, rant over.
Me… I’ll still be doing my thing… asking lots of quirky questions and being very random. It’s fun.
- If it is not right now, when will Twitter become mainstream? When will it be fair to say so, and why?
Twitter is almost mainstream. Look at CNN and FoxNews… they regularly mention their Twitter accounts. You keep hearing about Twitter from everywhere. It’s growing like crazy now, but I think over the summer is when Twitter will kinda announce its arrival.
- Do you have any tips or tricks that you would like to share with the readers?
Tips… use your followers. They’re a big asset.
For example… I had problems with my car. I posted about it and got tons of helpful replies. That kind of support is awesome. Another example… I was trying to figure out how to transfer my desktop files to my laptop… I posted the question and got a bunch of replies that solve the problem for me. So for me, Twitter helps me to solve problems.
Another tip… be yourself. Authentic. Don’t be uptight and hide who you are or your personality. That’s boring and not fun. It’s hard to build a relationship and trust a person who “plays it safe” in order not to offend people. Be real.
Tricks… I’ll give you 1 trick, but not 1 of the main ones from my Brute Force Twitter system. Follow the followers of spammers.
Look, everyone hates spammers, me included. But they’re there. Before Twitter kicks them off, follow all their followers. Why? Because if someone follows a spammer, surely they’ll follow you, right? Think about it.
You can find out more about @BigRichB, real name Richard Bryda on Twitter.com/BigRichB. His Twitter system as mentioned above can be found at http://BruteForceTwitter.com. A big thank you to Rich for taking the time to share his insight with all of us.
Posted in Featured, Life, Startup Reviews, Tech Blogs, Twitter, Web/Tech | Comments (3)
How To Get 1000 Twitter Followers – A Guide March 7th, 2009
People often ask me how to accrete followers on Twitter, it’s a fair question. As someone who has gone through the entire curve, from hating Twitter to becoming a self described addict, I have experience to share on how to gain followers on Twitter. Now, this will not get you an amazing account, you will not be like @kevinrose, who has over 240,000 followers and follows just 150 people. He is a celebrity, you aren’t. However, this little guide is a fine and fun way to gain a following on Twitter, and thus a little influence in the world of the internet. A final thought, there is a method here other than, “follow like a demon.” If you just up and follow two thousand people, 7 will follow you and you may get blocked for being a spammer. Let’s begin.
- Prepare your account:
- Image: Make sure this is either a real image of yourself, a fun avatar, or something related to what you do. Picking the image of the Statue of Liberty for your account is probably a bad plan.
- Give your location, a city is fine. There is no need to get overly specific. I settle with just “Chicago.”
- Make sure to link to something that you control. Your blog or company website are great links. A good youtube.com link can be fun, but it won’t help you. People find my blog every day through my Twitter account. This is also a good way to show yourself off, if you have a great website to display.
- Your bio section is the most important thing that you fill out. Try and make whatever you do sound interesting. Do not claim to be either a “life coach” or “social media expert.” That means that you are probably an annoying spammer, and people will not follow on account of that alone. A good bio would read: “Cofounder at Acme corp, I work on solving tricky problems. Hit with an @ message if you need any coding help.” This is what you do not want: “SOCIAL MEDIA GOD IN TRAINING, LET ME WORK WITH U ON UR SEO WEBSITE WORK! LETS BE FRIENDS AND CONNECT!!”
- Auto-Dm’s. Whatever you do, do not use these. People will actually unfollow you if you use auto-dm’s. Just don’t.
- Pick your niche:
- What do you do? I work in web tech. Some of my favorite Twitter users are real estate workers; whatever you do in real life, or wish you did, will be just fine. There are now so many Twitter users that there will be other people talking about the same thing. Make sure your bio mirrors the niche you choose.
- Find the top 10 Twitter users in that niche:
- Once you define your niche, get out on Twitter and find the top ten or so people in the genre. Follow them, and keep their names written down somewhere.
- Begin selected following:
- Now that we are prepared, we can start the bulk of the work, following people. Head over to any of the niche leaders that you have found, and follow fifty people that they follow, and fifty of their followers. Only follow people that have avatar images. Beyond that, don’t worry about who they are. The fact that they interact with that niche leader means that probably they share similar interests as yourself. Never follow more than 100 people in a day. There is no need. Do this for about two weeks. You should get about a 40% follow back rate over three days of any group of people that you follow, provided you share interests.
- Interaction:
- Get TweetDeck, and start talking. Monitor your incoming feed, and respond to everyone that you can (only when you have something to say, of course). You should be sending out about fifty tweets a day at this stage. People that would not follow you otherwise, will notice your interaction and follow you. This is where you begin to meet new people, and develop new interesting relationships. I now know developers in Australia, metal drummers in the South, and so many other interesting people that to list them would take all day. This is the best part of Twitter.
- Also, this is how you keep followers. If you never give back, people will let you go. Retweet friends work, bounce new stories around, be active in the community.
- Unfollowing:
- After a week of following people, head back through your list and unfollow that do not follow you, and that are dull. Simply that someone is not following you does not mean that you should drop them. There are so many great people that I follow that do not follow me, that I follow strictly for their great content.
- Continued following:
- Keep adding people past the two weeks, culling as you go. Do this for about twenty days, and you will have about 1200 followers. This is gradual, and take a serious time commitment, but it will work.
- Success:
- You are now following about 2,000 people, and have about 1,200 followers. Success! You now have influence in the Twitter world, and in the internet as a whole.
Here is a warning though, Twitter has following caps. At 2,000 they cut you off. Once you have around 1,900 followers they raise that cap so that you can follow around 10% more people than follow you. This keeps people honest and lowers spamming. So, take care after a point with who you follow, you only have so many slots.
Also, like I said, give back! Twitter is a great grouping of great people. Your generosity will not go unnoticed. Simple things like taking part in #followfriday will build your reputation quickly. Have fun, and I hope to talk to you soon.
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You can follow myself at Twitter.com/alexwilhelm. Mention that you read this and I will happily be your first follower.
Posted in Featured, Twitter | Comments (13)
Twitter Is Mainstream March 2nd, 2009
I found this image on a screenshot of a new deivce on Gizmodo. Read about the device here. However, take a look at this GUI, you will spy a little friend:
Twitter Is Mainstream
Good enough for me!
Posted in Twitter | Comments (1)
How To Fix Twitter October 29th, 2008
I love Twitter. I love the idea, the app, the clients, the reach, everything. I love it so much, I would pay for it. Honestly, if Twitter went paid only today I would rush to pull out my debit card. But most people would not, breaking the reason why I wanted to pay in the beginning. But Twitter needs to start bringing in money, in some way. They have cash, I am sure, but no more investment at any reasonable multiple will come without solid revenue.
This is what I say:
Twitter, you cannot charge for premium features. The moment you restrict your feature set people will jump ship. That cannot, and should not, be your monetization model.
Do not restrict entry into Twitter. This also would hurt what makes Twitter so amazing, the people.
Do not put up ads all over the site. This will make me hurt. Also, most people use a client, so that is moot as well. You will not get enough eyeballs.
Do this instead: Once anyone gets to 1000 followers, block them from getting new followers unless the cough up $10/month. Really people. This is nothing to complain about. $10/month, is nothing. But Twitter, get a handle on spam. No one one wants to pay because 890 fake people are following them.
Lets look at the numbers, Twitter has more than 3 million users. Lets estimate that 1% have more than 1000 followers. That is a ball park number, could be wrong. 1% of 3 million is 30,000. That would give Twitter a healthy 3.6 million a year in revenue. Assuming they can keep costs down, that could put them near break even. A good start.
Also, charge any corporate client $100/month. It is nothing to them, but aggregates well for Twitter.
I love you Twitter, don’t you go bankrupt on me now. People love your service, but only the hardcore users will be willing to pay. The follower number is a self affirming meritocratic metric. Use it.
Posted in Twitter | Comments (2)
