• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Margie ClaymanMargie Clayman

Marietta, OH

  • About Me
  • Marketing
  • Librarianship
  • Random Musings
  • Contact Me

A friend by any other name could be a spam bot

August 10, 2010 by Margie Clayman 4 Comments

I’ve been trying to get better lately about commenting on other peoples’ blogs. It’s a bit of a challenge for me, not because I’m an egotistical maniac (hi there peanut gallery) but because most of the posts I read are so thought-provoking that I feel like I need to write a book afterwards. Books tend not to be appreciated in comment sections. I don’t know if they’re appreciated in blogs either, but at least this is my space to soil as I might!

I mention this because yesterday I read a post by Julien Smith (co-author of Trust Agents and an amazing mind in general) about follower hyper-inflation. I was inspired not just to write a book. I was ready to write a series.

I can’t really do any justice to Julien’s post by trying to review it. What I can do is tell you what his post made me think about. So, here we go.

I just passed you on the sidewalk. Are we friends?

I have been pretty suspicious of the “fan/follower/friend” thing for a couple of years now, and I can tell you exactly why. When I first joined Facebook, it was really fun. I got to catch up with old friends, including some folks I went to nursery school with (!!). But then I started noticing some things. For example, people who had never given me the time of day in high school were asking to “connect” with me. Adding to my suspicion was the fact that none of these “friend requests” came with any message. You know, like, “I know I didn’t talk to you much during the ten years we were in school together, but I realize now that you were the missing piece in my puzzle, the balm to my soul’s wounds, and all I can ask is that you accept this request so that I may gaze upon your visage.”

No, nothing like that. Just a friend request. I gave people the benefit of the doubt. I would comment on some of their stuff, but they’d never comment back. THEN, all of my doubts were validated. People who had been in completely different social circles were now “friends”on Facebook. Now, I know it’s rude to assume that people don’t grow up, but to think that everyone suddenly had adopted John and Yoko’s Bagism philosophy was a little too much. I realized that a lot of these folks were just collecting people. I cut a ton of these mysterious people from my past (some of them allegedly from my past). I realized that the online definition of “friend” was kind of misleading.

Twitter is something different altogether. You’re not making friends, you’re collecting followers (talk about ego). As Julien points out, in order to be relevant in the world of Social Media, you need to be “popular.” Otherwise you just kind of fade into the ether. This drives competition, pressure, and guess what else? It drives authenticity away.

The power of Kevin Bacon

I’ve noticed something kind of interesting on Twitter (I seem to learn something new every week). Getting your first 100 followers can take forever if you try to do it the “high road” way, aka follow only people you’re really interested in and try to build connections/relationships. Once you get to a certain point though, your followers keep increasing at increasing rates of speed. I am now averaging about 100 new followers a week. Yippee, right?

Well…

If I had all the time in the world (thank goodness I don’t) I would examine my “follow” versus my “follower” list to see how many people I follow are following me back. I would further dissect my follower list to see how many of my devoted fans are offering me “free iPads,” “great blog posts,” “1,000s of followers,” and more. The numbers that you see for my followers category are, I can assure you, inflated.

The problem with this is two-fold. First, as you get more followers, some cool and interesting people feel more secure in following you. You might look more legit. This increases the number of people you wish to interact with. Have you ever tried to have 27 meaningful conversations at once? It doesn’t work. As many Social Media “influencers” have discovered, you end up with a better chance of ticking people off because there simply isn’t time to respond to everyone.

The other problem is that you become a target for more malicious spam bots. I had a message a couple of days ago that said, “For really good blog posts, just RT these people.” My Twitter handle was included. “That’s really sweet!” I thought. “I wonder if it’s real.”

Ah, cynicism. Saves me every time.

Turns out the link that was also included was malicious, meaning my name is now associated with a link that could cause people problems. This makes me very, very unhappy. There’s also nothing I can do about it.

Numbers are meaningless. Friends are priceless.

The general jist of Julien’s post is that the people you want to really nurture and connect with are your real-life friends. Sadly, we are now in an ecosystem where meaningless big numbers create an environment where you can’t actually do what you want. I hope to goodness that I don’t end up having to sacrifice the nice chats and asides that I enjoy with several people right now. But if influence = numbers, that’s the path that we are all on. Kind of depressing, isn’t it?

I just passed you on the sidewalk. Can we be friends? Well, sure. You’re lucky number 1,572.

First image by Svilen Milev. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/svilen001

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. dannybuntu says

    August 10, 2010 at 10:36 pm

    The world is obsessed with numbers. I have 74 friends and most of them are relatives. I've only lately added people I only met on the Internet recently. I should be adding more like crazy but I tend to add only the ones whom I think I could have a healthy interaction with. 🙂 Thank you for adding me 🙂

    Reply
  2. Simon Hay Soul Healer says

    August 11, 2010 at 5:12 am

    I followed Maya to get here. Twitters a strange world, and it's best to be cautious. Do I follow everyone who follows me? I've blocked 100 + that are obviously spammers or at least suspicious. Maybe I'll meet the one person who can do something for me. Does that make us friends? I doubt it, but I try to be sincere. Social media is about platform for me and occasionally I meet some cool people. Tweet ya soon!

    Reply
  3. Kerry Rego says

    August 13, 2010 at 10:39 pm

    I call it "the American complex of bigger, better, more". We are set up to have follower envy, to compare ourselves to others and the sizes of our friend list. I have to remind myself every day that even though my numbers are whatever they are today, I still have only a handful of good conversations with the same consistent people. For all the bad stuff, it is nice to make friends with someone (someone you'd visit in the hospital, I mean) even though we may never see each other's faces.

    Reply
  4. Real Life Mad Man says

    August 13, 2010 at 11:08 pm

    Hi Kerry,Couldn't agree more. Surprised I haven't seen "Can you supersize my follower list" now that you mention it :)Thanks for commenting!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Post: « When the going gets tough, what do you do?
Next Post: What does integrated marketing mean? »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Seeing Double: African American Literature
  • Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Book Review: Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson
  • The portrayal of the infertile woman in entertainment
  • Chapter 3: A Weird Thing Happened Today

Recent Comments

  • Delores Baskerville on Are you locking out blog subscribers?
  • frank c tripoli on Book Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
  • Lyv on #30Thursday number 10 (we’re in the double digits?!?)
  • Fitoru on New Recipes, 2013
  • Anna Wyatt on Help me petition to deactivate driver-side airbags for Little People

Archives

  • February 2021
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2017
  • October 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • December 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • August 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2007
  • April 2007

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Crafts and Charity
  • Gardening for Renters
  • Marketing Talk
  • Molly Maggie McGuire
  • Musings
  • PassionPlayers
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Footer

marjorie.clayman@gmail.com

   

Margie Clayman © 2022