One such conversation took place between singing sensations Lee Ryan from Blue and N-Dubz’s Dappy – now that’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d be writing on Mortgage Solutions this year. It seems that in the world of minor pop celebrities it is the number of followers on Twitter that sets the bar for who is top of the popularity charts.
I am ashamed to say that a) I follow them both, and b) I couldn’t help giving out a little giggle on witnessing Lee Ryan’s crestfallen face when he realised Dappy was trouncing him in the follower stakes – 814,000 compared to 283,000 in case you were wondering (at time of writing! – ed.).
This slightly imbecilic conversation brought home to me the important part of using Twitter which is quality rather than quantity counts. You might have more followers than Harry Styles (19.4m) but if every one of them is utterly irrelevant to you then what is the point of having them?
I recently spoke to a broker who was proud to inform me he had breached the 5,000 follower mark on Twitter.
Congratulations I said and asked how much business he had received through that number. His embarrassed silence suggested it was not the key driver of business leads for him.
I suspect it is not for most advisers but by engaging with relevant people and organisations it can be of real benefit – as an aside I am meeting another broker tomorrow for the first time after engaging with them entirely on Twitter to date. We are hoping to work together and therefore he’s definitely a Twitter keeper. However, large numbers of your followers may not be.
This is why I make sure I have a Twitter follower ‘purge’ every few months which means taking a ruthless look at who you engage with and getting rid of the ‘junk’. If the account hasn’t been active in the last three months, it’s time to go; the same can be said for those who just effectively retweet and don’t engage in any ‘real’ tweeting or conversations. The Twitter experience has to be a social one otherwise there’s simply no point keeping the connection.
Now before anyone says to me, ‘If you’re telling us to only follow relevant business people, then why are you following Ryan/Dappy/Styles and the like’, then I would say my account is not purely a work one – it’s a mixture of business and pleasure.
No-one is suggesting you shouldn’t have fun with Twitter – although if it’s a purely work account stick to your employer’s social media code – but you can also make sure you engage with it as a potential business sourcing tool.
To achieve this make sure you don’t get hung up on the numbers game and don’t treat it as a game of one-upmanship – instead be selective and don’t be frightened to play hardball with your followers once in a while. By doing this you’re much more likely to engage with those who could potentially deliver a business benefit.
Emma Mason is business development manager at Blacks Connect
