Do you ever come across those Twitter profiles where the user has hundreds or even thousands of followers, yet they’re not following anyone else? It seems a little odd, or maybe a little mean-spirited. But What’s it really mean? It means they’re influential. For one reason or another, this Twitter profile is important enough to be followed without having to return the favor. There are a number of profiles out there like this, most are used for branding purposes or straight information dissemination.
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When Twitter Users Are Too Special to Follow Anyone Else.
Posted by Kristen Nicole in Analysis, Featured Articles, Ideas, Reviews, The Twitter Survival Guide, microblogging on 01 21st, 2009 | 4 responses
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First, it’s not fair to use Barack’s picture to illustrate your point - first they took the man’s (er, Mister President’s) blackberry away, then they gave it back but restricted his access and I’ve never seen a PC in the oval office so how the heck’s he gonna tweet? Finally, when I followed him, he followed me right back. In fact, I’m pretty sure the conversation went, “Excuse me Mr. Putin but it looks like @tomjgray is now following me on Twitter. Give me a sec while I follow him back.”! I did run across a guy, though, who’s following close to 500 and, odder still, being followed by about 60 even though he hasn’t posted a single tweet, peep or twitter.
Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/tomjgray
I see your point Tom, but to be fair we used the White House Twitter Profile (which happens to have a photo of the White House’s newest resident) for an example, and not Obama’s Twitter profile.
We also used it as an illustration of how an influential Twitter profile can in fact drive traffic to related Twitter profiles by selectively following others (like Obama’s Twitter profile).
And even with all the restrictions placed on Obama’s devices and Internet access, the lucky guy still gets to Twitter (at least to my knowledge!).
Look forward to tweeting with you on Twitter as well, Tom!
[...] Only follow your secondary Twitter profile. This is a bit extreme and works best for highly influential Twitter profiles, but it’s a very blatant way in which to show visitors that you only think a chosen few are worthy to follow, as these few are the only profiles that will appear on your primary Twitter profile. We discuss this at length in our analysis entitled “When Twitter Users Are Too Special To Follow Anyone Else.” [...]
[...] thanks for the comment on our article at http://multisocialmedia.com/?p=149 tom! look forward to chatting with you more! in reply to tomjgray [...]