The rule of follow

When it comes to social media, followers are pretty important but, at least on Steem, the number of followers is irrelevant. It might stroke the ego to have many thousands but, unless they are active, they aren't really following. There are many dead followers here.

Last night, a long term user from 2016 was saying that the support they get is very low even though they have quite a few followers and, they barely get comments. As I see it, the rule of follow is, engagement. Yes, you have heard so me and many others speak of engagement saying you need to get out there and actually socialize and this is part of it but, when it comes to 'good followers', I look at it from a value perspective. And, not a wallet value perspective.

Having a whale follow you is only actually useful for votes if that whale is an engaged whale who is actively voting. But, let's take the large accounts out of the equation and look at the smaller followers. The same rule applies here too.

Follower count is meaningless but, engaged follower count is vital for the health of a blog and, this takes a great deal of work to build and maintain for most people. Some spend a lot of time on their content yet, close to zero time on getting to know and understanding their followers, especially those who take the time to actually comment. This is a social media platform, socializing is a large part of it and if the relationship is not a two-way street, pretty soon, one will part ways or become inactive.

Of course, the larger the active group, the harder it is to get to each person every time they comment but, effort needs to be made often enough, even if it is a small vote as an indicator to say that the comment has been read.

Followers are humans, they are not numbers yet, people treat them as some kind of notch on the belt which is probably why people seem to think that this is Instagram when they first come in and start talking about follower counts. At least when it comes to this, it is a little more like Facebook where valuable followers are friends and family with a few acquaintances thrown into the mix.

What this means is that, if you are struggling with engagement on your blog it is likely because a) your content isn't the kind of content people want to comment on or b) you aren't treating your friends and family well.

My point is, you need to stop trying to play the numbers and start treating people like humans. stop shouting into the void and start inviting people into your home. This doesn't mean that you have to pour your life and emotions onto the blockchain, it means you have to act like a human rather than the uncanny valley vibe that many give off as they 'engage' with the express purpose of reward or to only get their views across.

There is much more to this place than reward, content quality, blockchain technology and monetization because there are humans and humans like to interact with other humans. No one really enjoys going to have a beer and a chat with a toaster or a microwave, they want a friend, someone they can talk to. They want someone engaged.

The 'quality' of follower is dependent on the various qualities of the blog and if one is struggling to get engagement, it is likely that one is missing some aspects in their blog conducive to getting engagement which means, change.

Everyone comes here expecting to do what they want and get rewarded for it and when they don't, they see it as a problem with the platform. For the most part here, reward is provided via humans and if you treat them like financial resources, you are in for a tough time unless your content is impeccable or, your wallet is large.

People spend so much time on the numbers of this place and working out ways to maximize their vote, curation or payouts they forget that the driver of it is the community who interact here. Take them out of the equation and the place has almost zero value, especially as a social media and content platform.

The rule of follow is; stop worrying about follower numbers and start engaging with humans as a human.

Nope, that doesn't answer any real question does it? This is the other thing here though, everyone is trying to teach or learn about how to maximize their value that they forget the human aspects of the platform, they forget that this is a place to get to know people, have some fun sometimes, joke around and tease a little. Yes, it is great to get into the deep discussions too but, if that is all there is, it becomes too theoretical for most to keep it up. Some of course love that side of it too.

Economically, this place works much like the real world and much like the real world, social network matters. Funnily enough, this place is called a social network.

Weird.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]