BarbTUSA

When I signed on to Twitter for the first time, I had no social media goals. I was there simply because a client wanted me to check out the service. Since that date, I have accumulated all my Twitter followers organically. I have chosen not to receive email notifications whenever I get a new follower. Instead, each time I log into Twitter from the Web, I browse my list of followers in search of changes. If there are new followers, I click on their profiles to learn more about them. In many instances, I Google for information on them as well. While most have chosen to follow me before I have followed them, the people I choose to follow first is most often as a result of me reading something they wrote elsewhere on the Web or in a publication I read. I remember how astonished I was one morning when I logged in to find Guy Kawasaki following me before I followed him. Of course, I still clicked on his profile just to make sure the account wasn’t that of an impostor. While I’m almost certain he doesn’t remember meeting me in person years ago, I am so grateful he found me on Twitter. To this day, I find his tweets invaluable. He is truly a Twitter Superstar! I, on the other hand, am anything but. In May of 2009 I discovered a third-party app that would generate a list of graphic icons representing my followers. The first time I used it, on May 30, 2009, I had 418 followers. By July 15, I had 609 and by September 20, I had 783 followers. The last time I ran the application, on June 4, 2011, I had 1,664 followers. while I’m grateful for the followers I have, I’m still not going to focus on gaining more. I believe in building quality relationships over racking up numbers.