Jeremiah Owyang’s post yesterday was the trigger point for the phenomenon (and it was a phenomenon) where Twitter connectivity spiked between users. I’m guessing there were also a bunch of new users that came on board. Jeremiah’s reflecting on it today.
I personally picked up another 50-60 new followers and while I’ve not fully caught up, I’ve added most of them back. The corresponding increase in richness in the conversations I’m having will be interesting to watch.
That said, as a maven and connector (in the sense Malcolm Gladwell uses them in The Tipping Point), Jeremiah carries more than a little responsibility for this taking place – and I admire and congratulate him for it.
If someone like me, who shares a lot of his opinions, but has significantly less influence had done what he did, the net effect would have been considerably smaller.
Sure, Twitter is incredibly useful (and a lot of fun) and carries a significant load of online conversation, but it’s folks like Jeremiah that can make things really happen.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Stephen for this, I’m glad you’re part of it!
oh and I missed the whole thing? where was I? tsunami indeed!
yeah, I missed it too. Can’t say I mind though. I think it is v interesting that Jeremiah says ‘Most importantly, the value of a network is determined by it’s size, yesterday (which some are calling ‘Twitter Tuesday’) resulted in a stronger fabric across the social network. All of the boats rose with the tide.’
I definitely agree that the value of a network is determined by it’s size, but for lots of people I know – and for me – that doesn’t mean the bigger the network the better.
I see that by having more people ‘following’ your tweets you might get more referrals to your blog, but I’ve also found the bigger my network the more careful I need to be with it, and the less open I can be in it. This feels more like a loss to me than a gain.
Perhaps quality is more important to some networks than quantity? Or perhaps different types of networks have different right sizes?
It’s an interesting question I think.
Nonetheless – if you wanted those extra 50-60 new followers, then congratulations
It is always nice, I think, to have more people following you than you follow… but that’s a whole other post 
Leisa, I agree with pretty much everything you said. While there are some Twitter users for whom quantity is the key metric, for me, it’s quality.
I follow a bunch of people, most of whom work in or around the subject space I do – UX, IA, social media, KM. For a percentage of those – maybe 25 people – I read every word in every tweet; they are my real life friends and colleagues. In a larger percentage of others, I pay attention fairly closely as they usually have something to say that I want to hear. For around 60 per cent overall, I scan what they are saying and follow through on things that seem interesting.
So no, the 50-60 new followers (and mostly follow backs) aren’t that important to me. What’s important is I didn’t know of many of them and they seem to be saying things I’m interested in hearing.
Time will tell.
In my opinion, in all social networks, they key is volume in order to build value and connectedness, but ultimately it’s what you and your connections do with that volume that makes the network worth persisting with.
This is funny this was discussed about a year ago by twitter users that they where tending to blog less and yet twitter was a great was to refer new users to your blog if you had a public feed.
People are tending to have three layers of twitter followers, the personal core (people you associate with regularly in real life), the distant associates (see them a few times a year) and the strangers you are getting to know via twitter.
Of course some people have separate twitter accounts for those groups as well.