I guess if you’re talking cake, you betchya. But when it comes to social media, are more friends & followers better?
I just read a press release about Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter. So, this guy just issued a press release that states he now has over 5,000 friends on Facebook and is part of “the Twitter elite,” whatever that means. Okay, dear readers, how in the name of pete can one person keep up with 5,000 people?! I can barely keep up with the people in my immediate network, never mind thousands of people I have never met, probably don’t care about and, thus, will never meet.
IMHO, more becomes noise and noise is meaningless. I happen to be one of those people who gets very random Facebook requests from people I don’t know. Okay, can you say…creepy! Why would I want you to see me doing a keg-stand if I don’t even know you? You know I’m just kidding (sort-of). To me, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and all the other social media tools lose their value when infused with noise.
But, there’s always two sides to the story.
What about the people who don’t see it as noise. What is it to them? Fame? Glory? Do they get a badge for their blog that says “I’m a Twitter Elite!” Come on now, is that really what this is about? Yes, there are people out there like The Powerful Promoter who appear to be in it for the fame and glory that comes from saying they have millions of followers. There are others like Guy Kawasaki who believe that nobodies are somebodies. Sounds like something my 2nd grade teacher told me.
At the end of the day, I suppose you need to decide what social media means to you. Is it important to have thousands of friends and followers who you don’t know and probably don’t care to know but who can carry your message to their network? Or do you want to have a group of friends and followers who you know, for the most part, and who you are interested in getting to know better? Better yet, are you more interested in a small group of influencers and hearing what they have to say and having them carry your message out to the world?
I grew up in the land of social media where targeting a few leads to the words of many. I am not convinced that a sea of nobodies is better than a pond of somebodies. I’ll stick to my guns for now but look forward to testing out the theory to see what kind of meat is on the bones.