Twitter Needs a New Number

Okay… so reading this awesome article sharing some awesome Twitter news sparked a thought. I know...»

Basically, the article, in a nutshell talks about how Twitter is going to start going after “Twitter abusers”.  And what exactly is a Twitter abuser?  As far as Twitter is concerned, at the time being, it’s those who use a software that randomly follows tons of people everyday.  and after a set amount of time, if that person doesn’t follow back, the software UNfollows that person.

So in a nutshell, people gain followers by following them first and triggering the law of receprication…  They are NOT gaining followers through adding value and carrying on meaningful conversations, which is the point of Twitter.

And now, you have Twitter abusers who claim to be social media mavens because they have a grotesque number of people following them (never mind that they have an equally grotesque number of people they are following).

Now, don’t me wrong, just because someone has the same number of people they are following as they do followers doesn’t mean that person is automatically a “Twitter Abuser” but it doesn’t raise some questions.

So here’s my proposal of a new Twitter number (let’s call it Twitter Ratio): the ratio of your followers to the number of folks you are following.

So let’s say someone is super popular… say, Oprah.  Her Twitter Ratio would be ~ 115,982.  Now let’s take a Twitter abuser, his/hers would be <1.

That’s a drastic difference and that’s my point.  It by no means DEFINE a Twitter user, but it does help to pain that more complete picture.

… just a thought

Let me know your thoughts!

Raymond Fong

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