• 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

How I got 1300 followers in just 6 months

October 20, 2010 by Margie Clayman 15 Comments

A lot of times, people in this business, when asked to recount how they got to their current successful place, will tell a story about how they dabbled with this, dabbled with that, tried this, and then…BOOM! Everything made sense.

It could be that people tell stories like that as an homage to humility. Maybe it really did happen that way for all I know. But I think these stories can make people for whom that doesn’t happen feel kind of…not good. For example, when I was still trying to find my way in this world a few months ago, it seemed like every day there was a new post titled, perhaps, “How my first ever blog post got enough hits to knock out my server.” Meanwhile, I was posting 3-4 times a week and couldn’t get a single comment. I felt like a real slow poke.

Factually, I don’t know anyone who has joined Twitter within the last, let’s say…year or so, who has had that kind of “oh look what happened!” experience. Rather, their experiences seem more in line with what I experienced when I was getting started. Periods of frustration, of anger, of disappointment, of unmatched glory followed by feelings of agonizing defeat, and more.

So for those of you who are not finding the Social Media magic potion just yet, let me tell you a little bit about what my experience has been like. Needless to say, my title for this post is rather tongue in cheek!

Who am I? I have undergone three name changes on Twitter. I started as RealLifeMadMan. I decided that people weren’t Retweeting me because my username was too long, so I shortened it to RLMadMan. Nobody really knew what that stood for, but they were pretty nice about it. As some of you know, I recently lengthened my name again – to my actual name.

67…68…60? Around the end of June, I was trying with all of my might to get to 75 followers. I took a trip to Boston and seemed to get more followers without any tweeting than I did when I made a concerted effort. I would check and sometimes be all the way up to 68 followers, then I would plummet back down to 60 or 61. It was really a new kind of torture that I felt had been created just for me. Meanwhile, I was writing posts about how I knew that numbers really didn’t matter – I knew they didn’t matter. I also knew, though, that I had to have more than 5 people to talk to regularly to accomplish what I wanted, and still want, to accomplish.

I’ve made it! Wait, no. When I had hit about 200 followers, I was feeling on top of the world. I was getting a lot of great comments. So I decided I was ready to start a chat. The lovely Linda Machado and Lisa Alexander had my back the whole way. They were the only ones who came, however. I was flabbergasted and more than a little disappointed. I also gave up after just 2 tries.

Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? From the time I began to engage in Social Media, I was blogging at least 3-4 times a week. I tried to blog every day. I tried to blog on topics that seemed hot at the time. I tried to build comments I had made on other blogs into blog posts. I tried to be funny. I tried to be controversial. I literally could not get a single comment on my blog posts. You don’t hear a lot of people talking about a lack of comments. It’s painful and disconcerting! But I was there, my friends, for months and months.

Is it me? Even when the number of followers started going up, I was flat out unable to engage in conversations. In fact, I kind of felt like the conversation murderer. I would see an interesting conversation (often amongst big important people, because when you first start that’s who dominates your stream), I’d make a comment, and boom. The conversation would end. I checked my Twitter deodorant. I checked my Twitter toothpaste. I didn’t see what could be so offensive about what I was saying. Again, I was truly confuzzled.

I will say nice things until my fingers bleed. Since I was haphazardly killing conversations left and right, I decided to try to nice folks to distraction. This also often garnered zero responses. In fact, after my third week of “Friday Following” a few key people, I saw one of them post, “Man, it’s another Friday. We all hate #ff.” Surely they were talking directly to me, right?

Just in case you think I am now entirely full of myself, I want to state clearly, for all to see and hear, that I will always consider myself a newbie. I will always consider myself far behind the 8-ball. The reason for this is that I am, in comparison with others. The journey is never done.

Now, things have gotten a lot better for me. I have met a lot of wonderful people with whom I can chat on Twitter. I’ve started getting some lovely comments on my blog. But this is not a Rocky sort of success story. I can’t tell you that I now am a millionaire and am living in Florida, quietly sipping on amaretto sours. I can’t tell you that I have all of the big names on speed dial on my cell phone. I can’t tell you that I have as of yet mastered doing business transactions via Social Media. I can’t even tell you that I always get responses on Twitter. I still get ignored by the big names the majority of the time. And that’s cool. I’m 1 out of 150,000 or more. I have plenty of people to talk to now, so it doesn’t bother me.

What is the point of all of this? The point is that if some folks out there are making you feel like 48 hours should be enough time to get this all figured out, don’t buy it. To do this Social Media thing right, you need to pay the ticket man and hop into the roller coaster. It’s a crazy ride, and it’s a little different for everybody. It never ends. Each hill has interesting things for you to learn about yourself and the community you’re in and/or building. It does get better, eventually, if you hang in there.

I’ll let y’all know when I get that first cool million!

1st Image by Thais Rocha Gualberto. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/tata

2nd Image by Jenny Erickson. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/windchime

Filed Under: Marketing Talk

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jane Hiscock says

    October 20, 2010 at 6:49 am

    Honesty in a blog post – now that’s refreshing!

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 20, 2010 at 1:39 pm

      Thanks, Jane πŸ™‚

      Reply
  2. Shelley says

    October 20, 2010 at 9:51 am

    I love that you wrote this blog. You broke through all of everyone elses fears when new to Social Media and have become someone that others look to for information and ideas. Its so easy to get discouraged when no one replies to your tweets and when your only followers are bots. Thanks for the repeated encouragement. Also a slight rant, come on *experts* please don’t post something and refuse to converse with your audience. I know they have a hundred thousand followers and a busy life, but a lot of us are on twitter to learn and share, not just read their presence. I like that about you Marjie, you always respond to and welcome those around you in your twitter land.

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 20, 2010 at 1:40 pm

      Hi Shelley,

      I do the best I can. I will continue to do the best I can forever and ever, and I hope I don’t get to a point where I feel like I’m letting people down.

      Reply
  3. Debra Leitl says

    October 20, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    Great Stuff Margie

    I was stuck at the 79 follower hurdle in June for almost the entire month. Then in July I hit another plateau at 120 followers. I think there are stages yet to be defined or named in the Social media profile building lifecycle. Each time I have slowed growth I have worked hard to identify and engage a new knot of the social media graph that I hover in.

    The main key to my network growth has been the “Nice To Tweet You Phase.”

    I identifying a knot of people by looking at followers of my top followers once I find a pattern and I see that they are talking about things that interest my followers, I follow and RT, and drop @ replies when appropriate. This is the Nice To Tweet You Phase

    What other Phases have you identified?

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 20, 2010 at 1:42 pm

      Hmm. That could be another presentation for me πŸ™‚

      Well, let’s see.

      Phase I. Ahhh, what am I doing and what are those hashtags?

      Phase II. Hello? Hello? Echo echo

      Phase III. Nice to Tweet You

      Phase IV. Hey look, I have friends!

      Phase V. Hey look, I have a community!

      Phase VI. Uhoh…I might have a metropolis

      πŸ™‚

      Reply
      • Debra Leitl says

        October 20, 2010 at 2:39 pm

        Wanna go half-seys on a pressi …

        Reply
  4. Nina says

    October 20, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I too was wondering why I was such a conversation killer. I’m witty … relatively savvy … can string more than two words together … I think, anyway … but I seem to have been getting nowhere. I blog and tweet and FB myself all over the place and get very little return. But your post has helped me feel better. For now, it really isn’t about quantity, but quality and bit by bit I’ll get there … I hope … LOL

    PS: I’m now gonna share this post with others on twitter … hehehe

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 20, 2010 at 1:43 pm

      Hi Nina,

      Thanks! You definitely can do it. If I can do it, anyone can. It just takes longer than 2 days and a little more than a “woops, I’m totally successful” πŸ™‚

      Reply
  5. Rhonda Hurwitz says

    October 21, 2010 at 3:26 am

    Thanks for the honesty. It helps to get a candid reality check.

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 21, 2010 at 12:58 pm

      that’s the idea πŸ™‚

      Reply
  6. Heidi Cohen says

    October 21, 2010 at 7:58 am

    Marjorie, Thank you for sharing your feelings and your experience. Unlike blogs which look a lot like news and content sites and Facebook where people can share details about themselves and their friends. Twitter is more complex, at first, and there’s a definite learning curve. Your post gives users support, regardless of how long they’ve been using the site. Happy marketing, Heidi Cohen

    P.S. I like your current @MarjorieClayman handle the best. It’s you and it’s transparent.

    Reply
  7. Joe Hage says

    October 21, 2010 at 3:02 pm

    I enjoyed the article but came away unclear if you delivered on the title. Maybe I missed it, but how did you get 1300 followers in six months?

    Reply
    • Margie Clayman says

      October 21, 2010 at 3:05 pm

      because I kept on keeping on despite all of those obstacles πŸ™‚

      And lots of other stuff. This post wasn’t really meant to outline what the title said – it more was the idea that getting just to where I am (wherever that may be) took six months. Overnight success is rare!

      Reply
  8. Ian M Rountree says

    October 24, 2010 at 9:50 am

    It always kind of makes me squeak inside when people rant about the pace of follower gathering.

    You took 6 months to 1300, I took 2 years to 1800. The important thing is that you’ve clearly found the right people to back you up.

    You’re doing good work. πŸ™‚

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Previous Post: « Social Media as Mirror
Next Post: Do Social Media Conferences Create Divides? »

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 © 2021