Stop chasing followers: The web is not a numbers game | Hacker News Reader

Stop chasing followers: The web is not a numbers game

zeldman.com

45 pointsadamhowell14 comments

I think it's obnoxious to hear Zeldman say this; it's kind of like a millionaire lecturing me about how money isn't everything. (Zeldman has 55,000+ followers on twitter and most of the web design/tech community attention at his beck and call when he starts a new project.)

It is a valid point, so maybe this is just sour grapes. I always find dismissive platitudes like this coming from the haves as annoying. (For the record: I admire Zeldman and have read his books. I think he's a visionary and deserves the attention he does command.)

But how did he get to that point?

By staying true to his "brand" for a decade or more and slowly, carefully building up his company (Happy Cog), his online magazine (A List Apart) and his speaking circuit (An Event Apart) to support it.

If I'd been able to stay anywhere near as focused as he has during his career, I'd be a lot better off as far as audience goes, that's for sure (then again, it'd be hard for me to be worse off).

What it would gain you to acquire all the followers in the world?

If I literally had billions of followers, I would have a ton of free traffic that I could direct anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted. That would be worth a lot.

Depends what sort of followers they are.

The shitmydadsays guy has a million followers, but their level of loyalty is pretty low. If he all of a sudden stopped posting occasional funny shit his dad says and started posting "Special offer on new Sprint cellphone plans!" and "Hey, have you heard the good news about Jesus Christ" then he'd find himself low on followers pretty quick.

On the other hand, a band of followers who think you're awesome and really care about your opinions on things is extremely valuable.

Not at that scale it doesn't. As I said, if I actually had billions of followers, there's no way I wouldn't be able to extract a huge amount of value. I might destroy my following in the process, as you point out, but not before I got rich ;)

But if they really care about your opinions on things and you start posting good news about special offers on Sprint Christ plans, then they will cease to care really quickly.

If they care enough you may be in for some hate mail.

To quote angelbob on an adjacent thread, traffic is not created equal. For example, you can't sell tickets to watch cars drive down main street.

That's right, you need to sell beer too.

The question of meta-followers is one that's confounded me for some time. I'd love to see a list of my top 100 followers by their own follow count—are most of them just regular users, or do I have a fair number of large-following followers? I'm sure there must be tools out there that do this, but I haven't come across any.

Ironically, while this would objectively demonstrate the imprecision of follower count, it should be easily translatable into yet another score.

You can sort by follower count using Friend or Follow. http://friendorfollow.com/claymill/fans/

Full Disclosure: That's my app.

Nice app! I learned a few things about my account.

Remember when everyone and their dog wrote and spoke about this 2 years ago? Here's another insight: The Internet is going to change the way we do business! :p

it is if you care about money

Then it's still not a straight-up numbers game. Followers are not created equal, traffic is not created equal, and people do not spend equally on your product or service (at least, if your pricing is at all smart).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com