I was going through some Facebook messages last night and thinking about how a lot of my friends have 400 friends or more. I have about 150 friends. They are primarily people I have met and/or liked in real life, or ya know, family. I take as much time as the day allows to get caught up on everyone’s news. I comment, I interact. And I really enjoy it.
On Twitter, I like reading posts a lot more than I like making them. It’s hard to get conversations started on Twitter if you initiate them unless you’ve already got a lot of pull. This is because people are highly driven to gather their own followers. When we’re on Twitter, we post hoping that someone will respond or even better, retweet. We’re not really looking to engage. When you read, you’re the one who is replying or engaging.
This led me to yet another thought. If you are focused primarily on attracting followers or friends on Social Media networks, and you’re not really conversing with anyone, are you really engaging in Social Media? Methinks not.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy sharing my ideas. Boy do I. Anyone who has about 17 blogs going in various states of completeness clearly has too much to say! And when you post something that sparks a conversation, it’s extremely rewarding. However, I encounter more people than I would have guessed who just post post post. People respond. People ask questions. People try to lure this person out of their “I post therefore I am” mentality. But it just doesn’t work. What is the point of this?
I’m curious to know how you (yes YOU) approach Social Media from a business and/or a personal perspective. What do you look at first? If I have limited time, I look at the replies section to make sure I can respond to anyone that may be talking to me. Other people might check their number of followers, while others might go straight to the retweet section. Where do you go first on Facebook? Homepage to see updates or friend requests page to add followers? Why do you go where you go?
Let’s talk. Your turn 🙂
Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/ilco