Event Launch Strategies

The etiquettes of following people just because they follow you, has a split argument. Some people like Ed Dale are set right against this because they believe that having a large number of followers doesn’t mean that you can effectively follow so many people as well. So if Guy Kawasaki (blog.guykawasaki.com) has 20,696 followers on Twitter (as of October 3rd, 2008), he cannot possibly follow all of them back. More than that, he doesn’t need to. People follow him because they want to hear what he has to say, they may not necessarily have something valuable to say themselves.

The number of people who follow you is a greater yardstick for measuring value of content than the number of people you follow. So make sure you set your content up in a way that would be an incentive for people to follow you. Usually the best way is to let people feel that they have learned something new. This argument is the ultimate conflict in social media - Quality versus Quantity. What’s more valuable; a- having countless contacts across several different networks that result in thousands of crappy connections with a 3% conversion on a call to act, or b- a network of far fewer but quality contacts who all know and trust you personally and respond to you, a tight network of people that all have similarly responsive networks each.

My own personal view on this is that the last 5 years have been about creating vast networks which is about to change drastically. We have been like kids in candy stores traversing distance and time where sheer volume of friends mattered. Popularity or Thought Leadership was measured by the number of connections we can boast. I believe the next 5 years will focus more on the quality of relationships. Communities of 100 people who are all closely connected with a point of common interests will become far more valuable than 1000 people shoving links in each other’s face.

If you can get your message in front of someone who has 100 loyal listeners in your niche you would want to take your online relationship offline with them. You would want to invest time into this person and 10 others like them because if you do, you can effectively sell 1000 widgets with 10 calls. The line where quality meets quantity of relationships is going to find a resting ground and is going to be the nucleus for the most valuable internet opportunities. This is the line where online meets offline; where the amount of time invested into a quality relationship reaps more profitability than servicing a quantitative numbers game for the same financial gain. Balancing this line to the best effect will become the science of social networking into the future.

The rule of thumb is the more value you bring to other people’s daily lives by what you do and say; the more people will follow you. It’s no different to life offline, except its far less forgiving than real life.

Web 2.0 platforms take life as it has always been and makes it possible to maintain relationships with far more people that the offline world ever could. It takes away the factors of space, distances, travelling and communication logistics - and voila, there is no limit to the number of people you can befriend online. Um, yes, you will need high-speed internet. The thing you need to be careful about is that in the online world everything is recorded.

Everything you do leaves a footprint so there is less room for error. In the off line world if you say something you regret, the damage can be limited to those who hear you say it first hand, those that hear what you said second hand and to a lesser extent those who hear it third hand. Make the same mistake online and what you did or said spreads like fire.

Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)

Today’s tip! Twitter delivers Events Listed more traffic than Google search on any given day. Become immune to the Google slap by managing your Twitter campaign professionally.

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