I was reading an article yesterday about Twitter taking a hard look at social media “experts” who signed up yesterday and have tens of thousands of followers the next.

They’re talking about hiding/removing our Twitter follower count, and replacing it with a new metric that would measure how much true reach you have, and how many people really saw your tweet.

What do you think? I’ve got my own opinions on this, which I’ll share after a few more people weigh in, but I’m curious to hear what you think the visible metrics should be on Twitter, and how you’d feel if your follower count suddenly disappeared.

http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/25/twitter-mulls-killing-follower-counts/

@rich-brooks I think they should keep the follower count and add the new metric too.  That way we have more data to compare when deciding who to follow.  @dcoville001 This would allow you to continue your method of choosing connections.

@rich-brooks I think, like all things social, it depends on how the number of followers feeds into your fundamental objective. If, for example, the objective is to drive meaningful engagement, having a trillion (I exaggerate, of course) followers who don’t speak your language, don’t need your service/product, retweet garbage, are essentially groupies, etc, will not help your objective. 

I have followers who fall into those categories, by the way. I didn’t elect to have them, and I’ve found it too time-consuming to weed out “unwanted” followers. I wont be surprised that those groupies are paid to follow — for list-gen and other reasons.

So, for me, the count of followers is essentially irrelevant.

As we all know, genuine engagement, on- and offline, is driven by RELEVANCE.

I will take a few quality followers over an abundance of irrelevant groupies any day. I will welcome the proposed metric if it translates into a better measure of engagement.

@rich-brooks It won’t bother me as like Diane @dcoville001 I have tried to be discerning as well such as blocking rap music accounts (didn’t care for their tweets even as a follower). Still I would be nice to have the follower number somewhere on our account because it is a metric and valid in some circumstances.

Another engagement measurement might be the #FF / Follow Fridays (or other follow lists).

You know, I think we are all discerning with who we follow otherwise there would be no point to twitter.  I do mix business with personal social at twitter so I suppose that keeps my followers on their toes at times. 

Like Rich, I don’t have time to pick out and block particular accounts. IF I run across one I don’t want I do block them but that is happenstance for me.  Iike and appreciate twitter but don’t every set your clock my me and my tweets!  You’d be hard pressed to get anywhere on time. Heh.

Eileen

I am entertained when people come up with new ways to measure – and they others come up with ways to get past that measurement.

HI Rachel @rachelagheyisi  

Completely agree!  I have always wondered how someone who has not worked on the web for more than a year or two can be an expert at social media online. Boggles the mind!  I’ve been on since 1992 and am certainly NOT a social media expert.  I guess I “have a clue” better than a lot of folks out there but that does not make me an expert, at all.  

Most of us are winging it and know what has worked for us and can give some advice but only up to a point, then it’s “your guess is as good as mine.”

Eileen