I found some intriguing thoughts listening to one of my favorite podcasts today at Freakonomics.
Everybody's favorite economists ponder the question - do you have to follow lots of people in order to be followed by lots of people? The answer it turns out appears to be no. Some of the most "followed" tweeters don't follow many others at all. You can check out the podcast for all the details, but (spoiler alert) - Kim Kardashian isn't following her followers.
As a trader, I use twitter to get news, real time insight on the market, and to see how other's chart the names I follow. Clearly there are lots of ways to use Twitter and the social component can be either a large or small contibuting factor in how an individual uses twitter. And actually, this is actually a nuance that I thought the Freakonomics podcast glossed over a little bit. For me personally, I follow people that have content that I am interested in. It's not really important to me how many people follow me, but maybe I'm a social anomaly.
How about you? Does it matter if those you follow follow you back? Is it the polite thing to do?
I love freakonomics! That podcast was intersting. I heard it last week.
ReplyDeletePoliteness is for the birds. But given that we are talking about Twitter, does that mean we *should* be polite?
ReplyDeleteGood point, though. I'm with you, Sco. I don't care about popularity; I care about getting the info I need to trade well.
i blocked many followers and dont want spamtwits. i would rather have a few key people to monitor than a world of morons, pumpers & spammers.
ReplyDeleteright now 'social networking' is popular,, but the 'good stuff' is locked away at the private parties.-tag