1000 Twitter Followers

Posted on by Mike Senczyszak in Writing & Blogging

1000_followersI recently surpassed 1000 followers on Twitter. For those of you with multiple thousands, I hear your snickering, but for me, this was a significant achievement, at least I thought so initially.  I joined Twitter in January of this year, primarily as a social media outlet to promote my Blog, and while I post occasionally, I am not the most active or aggressive member on the perch.

After experiencing a momentary euphoric high for hitting 1000, I stepped back and contemplated the benefits of loyal Twitter fellowship.  Reality crystallized when I took an honest assessment of my situation.  Despite 1000 virtual connections, on average, I’m lucky if two people acknowledge a tweet of mine on any given day.  The norm is usually no response, no shred of evidence that my hilarious barb or inspired muse prompted a single view.  In other words, a response-to-tweet ratio of .002 %.  Perhaps I’m just not that funny, or maybe what I find thought-provoking, amusing, or share-worthy, is not.  Whatever the case may be, I hold no allusions that followers are staring transfixed at their screens, awaiting my next nugget of inspired wisdom, creative genius, or witty meme.  Not happening.

And that’s okay.  For me, Twitter is merely a social media tool, and I’m good with that.  With my Blog’s one-year anniversary approaching, I’m content to occasionally ease up on the marketing side, in favor of quality control, and a handful of subscribers.

In the early days, I was careful to screen potential Twitter followers before following back.  Not that I’m a snob or prude, just that I’m not particularly interested in having my feed flooded with celebrity gossip or your daily dose of soft porn.  After a while however, reviewing potential followers became tedious, and I started clicking ‘follow back’ on the lone condition that the person’s moniker and Avatar fell within the obscure realm of a PG 13 rating.  This strategy worked initially, until I started to become inundated with followers from a particularly large non-English speaking country.  While I welcomed the attention at first, I eventually had to pause to ponder the reason for my sudden rise in popularity abroad.  It wasn’t my dynamic bio or photo, nor my credentials, but I went with it, happily watching my numbers climb.

Then a funny thing happened.

The day I broke the millennial threshold, I went to bed with 1011 followers, and woke up to 947.

I’d lost 64 followers overnight.

While losing followers is not unusual, having 6% of your entire flock abandon you in a matter of hours, was a quandary.

When I checked, sure enough, 58 of the 64 were my recent non-English followers.  Though curious, I didn’t agonize over my fall from grace.  I knew with hard work and determination (insert laugh here) I would once again conquer the peak.  While I had a theory on the sudden orchestrated mass departure, I didn’t fret or over-analyze the matter, opting to side with coincidence, and leaving it at that.

And then something even funnier happened.

Less than 24 hours after my tumble off millennial hill, I was back up to 1068 followers.

How was this possible?

Did they come back?

No.

Did I buy followers?

No.

So?

Istanbul.

turkey-flagUnexpectedly, after following a couple of Tweeters from Turkey days earlier, I gained popularity with the Istanbul Twitter crowd.  Follower after follower, each with a Turkish language bio I couldn’t understand, became my pal.  And just like that, I was climbing the charts again.  Who’d have figured?  Abandoned by one non-English speaking nation, adopted by another.

'Npotcz? I think it's one of those new government regulatory agencies.'

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Perhaps it’s my incomprehensible surname, possibly my inherited Eastern European charm and good looks, but most likely it’s Twitter’s propagation engine at work, increasing their global net worth, one international follow at a time.

And so here I am, chasing my next thousand.

I’m no Twitter guru, in fact I underuse the medium, but the experience thus far has been worthwhile.  My response-to-tweet ratio remains miniscule, but you get out what you put in.  Thank you to all my followers, and especially my Turkish friends for pulling me up when all seemed lost.

To my next thousand,

And to my shameless plug – Follow me at @MikeSenczyszak

Until next time.

52 thoughts on “1000 Twitter Followers”

  1. I once had a my twitter followers up over 5000 but I quit the account. It was taking up too much of my time and I felt like people were clicking on my posts and not reading them. My blog traffic comes mostly from Google+ now. I have over 223,000 hits. on my 131 posts and lots of comments. I hope people are reading and enjoying it.

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    1. That’s the key, clicks often don’t mean reads, that’s why I rarely view my stats page anymore. 5000 is a lot, it’s hard to try to keep track of some of my regulars when the tweets pour in a 3 or 4 ever few seconds. If I ever hit 2 grand I’ll step back and reassess once again. Cheers for commenting!

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  2. Ya twitter is an oddity. I only joined because other authors say its a great place to promote books. But the tweeters – twitterers- or is it Twits? Seem to only be in it for the number of follows. I’ll log in and have 10 new people following me and I’ve noticed that within an hour or so if I have not followed them back, they un-follow me. So its a game, follow for follow or you’re gone. My list is up and down constantly. And I am not even sure how the post feeds work because I’ll see the same people posting over and over and yet I follow You and I rarely see your posts? So perhaps we must have to tweet hourly .. who’s got time for that! Oh well just another media outlet where perhaps well make one real contact, or a sale. See you on the Tweet side.

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    1. I agree completely Theresa. While I try to engage, the goal seems to be ‘how many followers can I get’. I know I don’t utilize the medium very well, but like you said, it’s one more way to at least try to promote your blog, so I’ll keep pecking away at it for now. The follow / unfollow game is quite a spectacle, I agree. Thanks for the comment and the FB share!

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  3. I tweeted this. Why? Because it stated how I view the whole up and down, all around, and who really understands the world of Twitter. More importantly, it was a fun read. Loved the eye chart graphic. I also hash tagged #snrtg as they are an automatic retweet, so I know you’ll get 2 tweets on this today. Thanks for making me smile.

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    1. Thanks very much Marilyn! You’ve upped my stats to .004 for today, much obliged! I admit, I’ve not got a handle on the whole Twitter scene, nor will I ever. I’m just along for the ride, until I get fed up, or stop writing altogether. Time will tell. Cheers for the kind words and comment!

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  6. Err… Congratulations? 😂 This post made me smile! I completely understand your feelings about Twitter and all of the non-English followers you gain just by liking one tweet from someone across the globe.
    I’m having a similar experience in other social platform like G+ or Facebook but I think it’s funny and wonderfully weird! 😊🤓 Thank you for sharing this and See you on Twitter!

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  8. Congratulations on the milestone! 🎈🎉 I recently joined twitter and was also perplexed by the followers who found me but remained silent on my tweets. I just followed you and shall do my best to refrain from inundating you with “brangelina” updates or soft porn ads should you do me the courtesy of following back. 😋Insightful post, I’m glad I found your blog. And thanks for reading mine!

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  9. Congratulations! Wishing you more.
    This post is quite amusing though. Thanks for the smiles. 🙂
    I believe that only a celebrity status would do wonders for me. Lol is in order here. I just want to be published and have people buy my books, Twitter or no Twitter. One day 🙂

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    1. It’s all about the writing in the end, I try to keep reminding myself so I don’t spend too much time staring at my Twitter or FB feeds. 100,000 followers would be nice, but if they don’t get to your Blog, or check out your latest release, there’s no real benefit. Cheers Anne, thanks for commenting!

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  10. I am not much of a Twitter person but I do have an account. I had a similar “Turkey” followers with a tweet about wine. I just wrote some mummy loves wine stuff and next thing I know I am followed by some certain wine companies and users with “wine lover” in their bio

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    1. That’s funny! I was initially a bit concerned that I couldn’t understand the bios, but I threw caution to the wind, and went with it. I think I’m still averaging about 6 new Turks per day, we’ll see how long this ride lasts. Thanks for commenting!

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  11. I’m mystified by Twitter as well. The degree of input doesn’t seem to have any correlation to the response rate, so I’ve stopped trying to utilize any kind of strategy. I initially started the account for self-promotion (and actually, who didn’t?), but lately I’ve mostly been using Twitter to highlight posts from OTHER bloggers, doing my small bit to support the WordPress community. Besides, that pesky 140-character limit is anathema to someone like me who can ramble about nothing for 74 pages. Still, I do continue to use Twitter, as the reality of the modern publishing industry is that all it takes is that one post or tweet at the exact right time to launch you into the stratosphere. So, fingers crossed…

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    1. Great point. I don’t post nearly enough to gain any sort of traction, but I do throw the occasional link up, hoping for a nibble. One of the only celebrities I follow is Ricky Gervais, a while back I wrote a post about him, highlighting his fight against animal cruelty. A tiny part of me thought that perhaps he might actually stumble across the post, I soon realized that with 10,000,000 followers – that ain’t gonna happen. But I still tweet the odd older blog post occasionally, like you said, it only takes one tweet. I like the idea of retweeting other Bloggers, I’ve started doing that myself. Thanks for commenting, and BTW some great pics on FB of your trip. Cheers!

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  12. Congrats on reaching 1000 followers, Mike! I guess? LOL. Your post made me laugh because my husband joined Twitter (I am still dragging my feet) and each day he acquires new followers. Why? He doesn’t know. He posts tweets when the spirit moves him but it is a mystery. I do enjoy your posts and your Eastern European good looks. 😉

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    1. Thanks Susan. I think I’m still averaging 6 new Turkish friends per day. We’ll see how long that lasts! There seems to be no rhyme or reason to followers, I can go 3 days with zero, then get 10 in one day. Weird. Cheers for the kind words!

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      2. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I am also a Mike Myers fan (another Canuck who grew up within an hour’s drive of me), so the whole Dr. Evil vibe of world domination is familiar. I appreciate the motivational support!

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    1. Thank you for thinking of me! I am truly honoured. I was actually nominated recently, this past August, and took part. A great experience. Please consider nominating another worthy candidate on my behalf. Once again, thanks for the shout out!

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  14. Twitter is a strange beast that I’m working towards understanding. Nice to hear about your experience. It will give me a little perspective if I suddenly find myself with a legion of followers from an unexpected source. Thanks! ^_^

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  15. Yeah, I’ve found Twitter to be well, it’s Twitter. It’s like the old days of AIM, anyone can be anyone and a lot of people are just on Twitter to play a character. While I have had a bunch of followers I don’t seem them helping my blog numbers that much. But that could be the kind of followers I have.

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    1. Much like me, I don’t see much benefit, traffic-wise for my Blog, but I figure it’s worth keeping the dream alive. It only takes one tweet to garner some extra attention, just depends on timing and luck. Thanks for commenting, and cheers for following on Twitter!

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  16. My own response-to-tweet ratio would be about 0.001% and I find that funny. My stay on Twitter has been over 15 months, and I make sure that I do make a tweet whenever I’m free, but I don’t seem to get people interested with anything I’ve got to say. I have a personal best of 103 RTs on a tweet (I had to mention that).

    Congrats for 1k, and may many come your way, and hoping that both of us get our share of people who would also read our Writings. Thanks for the share, made me smile. 🙂

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    1. Thank you Susan! Yes, Twitter is one of many out there, while I don’t use it near as much as most, it’s still a great way to connect, especially with other writers/bloggers. Thanks for the comment!

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  22. I like that you also spoke about the number of people who actually pay attention to your posts. Quite a few people only care about the superficial glamour of having big stats, even manipulating them for a pat on the back. My Twitter account is private and I only have three subscribers. I follow feeds if I expect something interesting – lots of French politicians and the Pope (of course).

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    1. I agree, seems like many are in it for the numbers, retweeting the same nonsense much of the time. I try to scan for writing/blogging related material, but you have to sort through post after post to find something worthwhile. Still, it’s one tool in the box. Thanks for commenting!

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