The Twitter Followholic: a Definition

I have an article coming out on Mashable either today or tomorrow [It's up and you can read it here], and I wanted to touch base with my readers to inform them about what it is I’m talking about.

My article uses dry humor to describe the epidemic going on online. I coin the term “followholic” (and variations like followholism). What exactly does this mean?

In my opinion, a followholic is someone, specifically on Twitter, who is following the same amount or more people than is following them. The reason for this is simple: the only ways for this to occur is if they are following everyone back who decides to follow them, or, they’re clicking follow on many profiles in hopes those people will follow them back.

Both scenarios are detrimental to the purpose of Twitter, in my opinion. Twitter can be one of the most powerful networking tools you can use – if you use it properly. By following only those people who you would be willing to pay for, you allow yourself to keep your group small at first – you’re then able to create value and engage in conversation.

::: It’s like throwing a party with the purpose of meeting and getting to know people, but you invite 5,000 instead of 50. With 50, you can obviously get to know each one a little bit, and find out how you can provide value to them. With 5,000 – there is no legit way for you to do this.

I hope my readers ‘get’ my sense of humor when this article comes out today. The people who have read it already think it’s funny, but I also hope everyone takes away a bit of truth as well.

If online networking is going to continue to replace real-world networking, we need to treat it in similar ways. Respect the people we invite into our space, and serve the people who invite us into theirs.

Posted on Mar 10, 2009
Filed under: Social Media and tagged with: social networking, twitter.