How many people follow you on Twitter? Or Facebook? Or Instagram?
How many people do you follow?
As of this writing I have 2083 followers on Twitter. I follow 1610.
Now let’s be clear. I don’t know these people. Not really. Out of the 2083 who follow me, there are a few special people I consider friends. There are probably three or four dozen who I interact with on a regular basis. There’s maybe another hundred or so who I notice interacting with me from time to time, usually as part of a larger thread. The rest? I have no idea.
I also don’t really know the 1610 who I follow back. I could go to the page for each one of them every day to see what they are up to but then I’d never do anything else. Besides, some of them don’t post regularly so there’s nothing to see.
So here’s the question. What does it all mean?
Very existential of me, right? Especially for a late summer Sunday.
Honestly, I never expected to have this many people follow me. I figured a couple of hundred at best. I didn’t go looking for followers. I don’t retweet everything everyone posts. I don’t post naked boobs (which seems to draw followers like bees to bright flowers) and I don’t write political sarcasm (which draws snarky followers like snarky bees to snarky bright flowers).
But the followers just kept coming. Some came because I followed along on Twitter threads like #AbsWednesday or #FollowFriday and some because I engaged with the #WritingCommunity. Others just showed up randomly. Most of the time you don’t really know why your follower numbers climb. Or fall, for that matter. The Twitter algorithms can be crazy and impossible to decipher.
What I do know is that of all the two thousand plus people who follow me, most of them will never trade tweets with me. Fewer still will actually realize I’m a real writer and go to Amazon to check out my books. Even less will actually buy those books.
Despite that, everyone recommends that writers (especially those who self-publish like me) keep a social media presence. We’re supposed to write books and at the same time, write tweets that go viral and impress the world.
Oh, and we’re supposed to blog. About our writing. And about our posting.
Are you exhausted yet? I know I am.
The other problem is that chasing followers can become addicting. I was thrilled to get to a thousand followers and then immediately wondered how long it would take to get another thousand. It becomes it’s own activity. It’s own reward.
We get obsessed by those numbers. By those “like” buttons and how many people clicked them. We try to think of things to post that will draw those anonymous eyeballs to our pages. We get side-tracked by long winding threads that are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
So what’s the point, you ask?
Beats the crap out of me.
I guess right now it’s to help me sell a couple of books since I just published “Marked Hearts: Book One”.
But in general I think I keep going back to Twitter in particular because it makes me laugh. People there, especially those in the #WritingCommunity, are incredibly supportive. Every time I’ve asked a question they probably think is silly, they answer it anyway. They take my angst seriously and help me get and stay motivated. They cheer me up. They offer suggestions. They are smart and cleverly funny. They gently nudge me in the right direction. They are relentlessly positive.
And those are good enough reasons for me to keep tweeting and connecting.
So if you ever connected with me on Twitter or Instagram or wherever, then thank you. Even if you were an ass about it, it’s still a connection and that matters. But for those of you who helped and were cheerleaders and made my life better, thank you.
Oh, and by the way. Did you notice that I just snuck another book ad in?
What’s in a Number? How many people follow you on Twitter? Or Facebook? Or Instagram? How many people do you follow?
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