Do you follow the stars on twitter that don’t follow back?

This question was submitted by Kris Schroeder, a 1st tier connection on LinkedIn

Personally I am on twitter to meet new people, find new sources, find out about peoples interests and so forth. For this, I’m talking to the real people that are around, not following the stars just because they are stars. Ashton & Oprah have made Twitter even more popular so there are more people on it, but they are not the ones conversing. It’s the people in this group and many others that make the real twitter – talking to others, re-tweeting important info, asking questions & learning from others.

I’ve met a great variety of people on twitter in many different locations. I’ve learned a lot and want to keep sharing with others.

My Public Answer:

Hi Kris,

I do follow “stars” on Twitter, regardless if they follow me back. Like Jan said, my tweets will see be seen in their feed. Most of the time their feeds are filled with people of all different genres, walks of life, and places in the world. It’s a matter of getting your message out there. And the fact of the matter is, each “star” probably has a minimum of 10,000 followers. Not every “star” is going to have the same followers. So I almost think of it as an “automatic captive audience”.

If you take my situation for example, I have CEOs of companies following me, people in the music industry, actors, politicians, IT experts…even a 13 year old entrepreneur who sells his products worldwide. If you’re on Twitter to do more than tweet what you had for breakfast, and your mission is to “get the word out” about something, following the “stars” is a great way to “reach for the stars”. All it takes is one @reply or RT from a “star” and your number of followers will go up. It’s instant credibility.

One more thing that I would like to point out. Some people say, “stop with the I just got to 1,000 followers nonsense”. Well, to some that very well may be the case. But getting your message out is a numbers game. The more followers you have and each of them have, the better chances you have of the message being passed along. It will then evolve into a networking experience because it’s inevitable that you will get to know a good portion of the people who follow you and who you follow. I don’t think it’s necessary to say how many followers you have because the numbers will speak for themselves, as will your messages.

And just for the sake of discussion, the first person I followed was Anderson Cooper of CNN. He doesn’t follow me back, and has never @replied or RT’d anything I’ve ever tweeted. Some people just share links and it’s not about building relationships for them. It’s about sharing a message (like the point that I made previously). They didn’t get on Twitter to interact. But that doesn’t necessarily degrade a follower’s Twitter experience. Following a “star” is only, or should only be, one facet of a person’s follows.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

All the best,
Kelly Ann

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