If you were online around noon or so today, you probably saw your Twitter followers and following count at 0.
Zero. Mass hysteria.
Even a Mashable post couldn’t stop people freaking out all across the multiple timelines I follow in TweetDeck. “Where did my followers go?” “I hope they aren’t gone forever!” I want them back.”
Whoa.
Despite the countless number of posts telling us that the followers count doesn’t matter, if any single timeframe could prove that wrong, it happened today. People really cared that their followers were gone.
So indeed, the followers count still does matter. But to who?
I would argue that the followers count means the most to the individual person. People take ownership (and some even take pride) in a singular number that represents, in a count, how much influence you hold in Twitter. (Studies have actually shown that the follower count doesn’t matter with regard to retweets and shared items, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment). It also probably represents the ungodly amount of time all of us spent on Twitter that we, ourselves, take away from our days to contribute to the platform.
But who cares, really? Who goes around bragging that they have 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 followers? People that aren’t on Twitter (and trust me, there are a hell of a lot of people that aren’t) probably perceive you as insane.
What if the followers count wasn’t visible?
Let’s think about the followers count a bit differently, now. What if it wasn’t visible to the public, but you could only see it on your own account? Would you brag about what threshold you have? People would probably be much less inclined to even bring up a followers count, focusing instead on the individual Twitter users that make their Twitter experience so enjoyable. Your closest followers—if you will.
If nobody could see a followers account on any account, the Twitter users with the most followers would lose some of their influence. Many see Ashton Kutcher’s ridiculous followers count, and some listen to what he has to say because of it.
However, the people that still listen to “Twitter influencers” would be genuinely interested in what the person has to say. For example, many of us listen to Chris Brogan—Chris Brogan has a large followers count, so for some, it may be imperative to listen to what he has to say. But without his followers count, the people that listen to him “because he has a large following” would drop out, allowing him to interact with and share content with the ones that truly want to listen to what he has to say.
The Proposal On The Followers Count
Twitter should simply hide or remove the followers count. While I understand that doing so may have tremendous impacts on organizations (and even some self-obsessed individuals), it would be a great step for going back to basics with social networking and focusing around true relationships, independent of a numerical value.
Mass-following and mass-removing would not be totally solved, but most people would stop doing it—the motivation for adding followers at a ridiculous rate would be gone. The Twitter community would become even more individualized—allowing the user to focus on the content shared by their closest network rather than thousands of people (which many people can’t keep up with anyway).
What are your thoughts on the Twitter bug today and the followers count? Have today’s events changed the way you think about your follower count?
(Photo Credit: Flickr)
