Sunday, May 31, 2009

Be Relevant

Okay, we're 1 day into this quest, and we've already begun to execute our first strategy...be relevant. What do I mean by that? Well...I figure that if people are going to follow me, I'd better provide some reason for them to. I don't have a lot of confidence that people will follow me just because I want them to (it didn't work with the girls in high school, it's not going to work now). I'd better keep my 'signal to noise' ratio rather high, and try not to post boring, worthless trash. (Hey, I think I have a hang-nail...hold on...there that's better) Like I said, be relevant.

I think it's okay to post whatever you want to represent. It can be funny, targeted, advertorial, or whatever, just keep it real. So, how's that strategy working so far? Let's find out...

Followers: 18
Following: 12
Updates: 102
Rank: 913,905th

Woohoo! I cracked the glass ceiling and got into the top million! In your FACE! Wait...too early to celebrate. It's better to be on the short side of the million mark, but we have a LOOOOONG way to go. Still, it's progress. And, we BLEW past over a million users, so we should feel pretty good.

I went from 3 followers to 18. So, how do we interpret that? If we said I improved 6x, then carrying the same improvement each day, I will reach my goal in 5 more days! On the other hand, if I say we gained 15 followers, then I will reach my goal almost 2 years from now. I've got a pocket full of Monopoly money that says it won't be the former, but I'm hoping it won't be the latter either. Time will tell.

As always....Follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/campbed

Don

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to my loyal legion of fans! Okay, I'm sure you wouldn't take bullet for me, but you're here, and that's what counts. Thanks for being part of this social experiment. You might be asking yourself what 10,000 Followers is all about. Well....good question...I had an answer written down here somewhere....Oh, here it is....

I'm a 'techie' at heart. In fact it's my job. So I understand the technology behind social networking, but what's even more fascinating is the purely human side of social computing. I understand how we get connected on social groups like Facebook and MySpace and Flicker, but I don't thoroughly understand why. So I thought, "why not find out?", and I created this social experiment.

The goal here is to accumulate 10,000 followers on Twitter. As I have no programmatic way to do it (except perhaps to create 10,000 fake Twitter accounts and follow myself from each one), I'll have to learn how along the way. There are MANY scams (I mean 'creative ideas') that promise to help you get more followers, so you can make money, increase your self esteem, and lord it over your friends. I have no interest in any of them (although the 'lord it over your friends' part sounds interesting). My interest here is purely scientific curiosity. I'm not going to try and spam you, scam you, or monetize you in any blatantly obvious way. I simply want to learn from the experience of playing the social game and trying to develop a significant following. Who knows, maybe I can put what I learn into making the world a better place. Or maybe I'll just smile when I see how tiny your follower count is.

So why 10,000? Well...I looked it up, and 10,000 followers currently represents about 1,500th place on the Twitter followers scoreboard (according to Twitterholic). That sounded pretty good. I've spoken in front of a few thousand people before, but never as many as 10,000, so it seems like a significant number.

Why not 100,000? Well...That would put me about 164th on the list with DOUBLE the votes of the Wall Street Journal. That just doesn't seem realistic. So we'll start small (10,000 followers is 'small'?) and see how it goes.

I'll use this blog to talk about my 'methods'. I'll try different strategies to attract and retain followers and report on their success here. Hopefully we'll all learn a thing or two along the way. I'll also report my progress in the following format:

Followers: 3
Following: 3
Updates: 80
Rank: 2,261,326th

The first number is the one we'll be watching closely, but I feel the others will play a significant role, so I'm planning on sharing them with you.

I've been on Twitter for a while, but decided to keep my timeline private. I let 3 friends see my streams, but nobody else. That's all about to change!

Enjoy the experiment. Feel free to share your thoughts and comments. And most of all, don't forget to....Follow me on Twitter! twitter.com/campbed.

Don