The Pros, Cons, and Alternatives to Buying Friends, Fans, and Followers

There are services out there who will sell you YouTube 'views', 'likes' and 'subscribes', Vimeo plays, Tumblr likes, Facebook follows and 'likes', Twitter followers, Instagram followers, even SoundCloud plays, in fact pretty much anything you need to boost the ranks of your social channels if numbers are all you care about.

Whether I think this is right or not - I often have to explain the benefits and the downfalls of this for clients because, put simply, most of them ask. Most people see these services and think "Why shouldn't I throw fifty quid at this to get the ball rolling and get the Pages hopping - can you do this for us Nik?" Let's assume community growth is part of the strategy, here's the impartial answer I give them:

The Pros

Having a healthy number of followers boosts credibility, meaning others are (psychologically) more likely to sign-up and join the community, watch the video, eat the Soylent Green, whatever, because they believe it is of value because of the perception of worth indicated by the 'likes', 'plays', 'friends', 'followers', etc.

It's probably cheaper than social ads.

The Cons

Most of these services are compleatly untargeted and/or fake accounts, even if they claim to be otherwise. As a consequence people don't care about the Page or account they are following, and their interaction stops here. If you could get blood out of a stone Mount Everest would be covered in black pudding factories, it's not, and it's the same thing trying to squeeze interaction out of bought friends, fans, and followers.

Friends might not be as reliable as you think...

There is an ongoing drop off to followers and subscribers that will continue indefinitely. A percentage of these accounts are real people, and eventually these real people will realize you are clogging up their stream with news and stuff they don't care about (probably because your chatting away in a different language or not about Justin Bieber). Eventually they will unsubscribe, and user numbers will start to fall almost immediately - this is especially true with Twitter where many of these are opt-in-bulk-follow-back arrangements.

Channels, notably Facebook, are cracking down on this. Back in August they announced a new automated system to weed out fake accounts and followers, and said they'd penalise numbers accordingly. There's not much point paying for followers if they are going to be removed automatically. If they take this further and penalise EdgeRank, for example, you're in a world of pain. Technically it's against most sites terms and conditions, so you also run the risk for getting your whole profile wiped - which I doubt makes for shits and giggles.

The Alternatives

So I'm going to look at this simply. How would I spend that £50 (or less) to get better results?

• Targeted Facebook social ads (or Promoted Posts if you've got something good to say). At least this 50 quids worth of targeted accounts will care about what you do and you might actually get some shares or sales out of it. How about some LinkedIn ads to target companies that need your services? If you need a bit more money signed of for this, how about creating your own and ploughing anything you make on blogs AdSence back into your social marketing? If you go for tight local targeting that £50 will be much better spent.
• Contests, sweepstakes, giveaways. I've always liked WildFire apps for this, they keep everything under correct terms and conditions and they're cheap as chips.
• Fan-specific (you gotta be a 'liker') coupons and discounts (see WildFire apps again)
• A reveal page. If they don't click 'like', they don't get the good stuff. Here's a simple how to.
• Do some outreach. Here's a trick I use for Hootsuite to find Twitter peeps. The rest is chatting in groups on LinkedIn and being happy to answer some questions on the likes of at Quora, Yahoo Answers, and commenting on blogs and Tumblr etc. It'll cost you nothing but time.
• Posting awesome content - take some time to create some white-paper quality stuff, and to spread it around creatively. With a bit more time build an Editorial Calendar and some user personas, and get your colleagues in sync to produce some serious stuff that people will actually want to read.
• Using viral apps like Questions and Offers. It's all there in Facebook's interface, ready to rock.
• Asking f/f/f's to tell their buddies (which is free, but you gottta give them a reason to do so).
• Embed video everywhere. Videos on YouTube are great for long tail search, but embedding Facebook vids in your blog content is a greater reason for people to click-through to your community.
• Check your literature and website. Are your social channels EVERYWHERE? Have people got the URL and links in front of them so that they can easily find your Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, G+, Flickr, whatever?

I could add a lot more alternatives, but I'm starting to bore myself. Weighing up the pros and cons seems to have obvious results. Personal biased aside, that's a lot you can do with just a tiny bit more effort that will be a lot more effective than paying for numbers. There's no substitute for effort, and that's where you should place your £50. If you don't want the hassle yourself, imagine that money is going towards an hours work and to someones wages within your company, it's often a lot easier to justify to the powers-that-be.

Using Share Code for Twitter

Work's been keeping me busy and I've been writing a lot of social-related stuff over on the JustSearch blog, so here's a super simple (and underused) Twitter thing to keep stuff ticking over.

This is the code needed to make a share button. Really, rocket science this ain't:

https://twitter.com/?status=Whatever You Want Folks to Tweet

Click Here to see what it does, and to give this post some props.

Oh, and be warned hastags (#) are best avoided in your status as they can mess things up and truncate the message. NB: see a solution for this in comments below, if needed.

Now this may not be Wernher von Braun territory, but this has more cool uses than you'd think. It's not the code, it's what you do with it that counts:

• Say, for example, you just gave your visitors a freebie pdf report on something of value to them, this is a perfect spontaneous way to look like thought leaders and to encourage them to say thanks and spread the word.
• Say, for example, you have a campaign and are trying to get signatures on a petition on another channel, you could even use this to encourage people to send a specific message to a policy maker if you put the MP's Twitter handle at the beginning of the message.
• Say, for example, you want to give your business, cause, or individual Klout score a nudge. Try testing the long-tail in include your firms twitter handle in the code and give people some content worth sharing.
• Say, for example, you are trying to raise awareness of a specific cause or issue from your website. With the right messaging this is a quick win for people to show their support and to get a specific message out.

The limitation is in how creative your prepared to get, not the code. Sure, it's simple, but sometimes simple things can work best if you have the right (and creative) strategic fit for them.

Let me know if you find a cool use for it, and have a great weekend.

Finding Folks Who Need You on Twitter

I've not posted anything for a while, I've been busy with things over at Just Search, so I thought I'd share a quick tip for using Twitter. I'm often asked about conducting Twitter outreach, and here's something you can do that doesn't involve a lot of expensive custom tools.

I use this trick with Hootsuite, having the searches running all the time to look for engagement points for clients and making a point to reach out using these every day. It's really simple, and it's a conversation starter that genuinely leads to interaction, connections, and ultimately sales or donations. Twitter is a weapons-grade listening device, it just takes a few simple tricks to make it easy to use.

Weapons Grade Listening Device

Go to the Twitter search box and try this. Run a search with "-filter:links" in it, that'll search for things with the keywords you use but without links. This is kinda important for what we're going to add next as we're not interested in people 'providing links', we're looking for people who want help, need support, and are looking for info.

Next try typing a few phrases (and add your keywords) like this, and don't forget the -filter:links in your search (I believe using '-http' also works). This'll show the people who are looking for folks who need help or are asking questions about your Twitter accounts subject matter:

• where can I get 'keyword' -filter:links
• how to 'keyword' -filter:links
• anyone know 'keyword' -filter:links
• what's the best 'keyword' -filter:links
• how do I 'keyword' -filter:links
• need help 'keyword' -filter:links

Give it a go. Different phrases will work better for different topics, try your own. Try adding some regional words for better targeting. For me, this was a proper hallelujah moment. Oh, and if you ever need to, 'filter:links' will pull back tweets ONLY containing links. Let me know if you find this useful, and I'll post more stuff like this if you do.

Have a great weekend.

Changing My Twitter Name (without losing followers)

I started on Twitter with a couple of friends the week it came out of Beta, and we had no idea just how big this would get a few years down the line. Back then I happily hid behind the nom de plume of 'Lactose the Intollerent' so that I could voice my opinion while being a part of a large news organization and with out the fear of repecussions. Times, however, have changed.

Now I work in social media and, frankly, my name is my brand. Hindesight is a marvelous thing, and it's unlikely back then we'd have gone for the names we did if we'd have know what Twitter was to become. Consequently I've decided to risk changing my username to my real name, and take close stock of the consequences.

Here is how I changed my Twitter name (hopefully) without losing any followers.

First, I checked my name was available. Important one this... ...bingo, all was clear.

Second, I made the name change. You can change your Twitter name at any time on the ’settings’ page at Twitter.com. Piece of cake. Bob's ya uncle. Yada, yada.

Third, I create a new account with my old Twitter name. I added a pic, chanced the background, added a URL to the new @nikhewitt twitter account, and posted a single tweet telling folks my name had changed. I also had to change the graphic on my background which, luckily, I'd saved as a PSD when I did it.

Forth, I let folks know through my old account, now @nikhewitt, that the name had changed but they needed to do nothing about it. I just did this for 'belt and braces' really, so they don't see something they don't recognise popping up in their stream.

Fifth, I ran around quickly changing the resorces I know used the old name/RSS stream, like the widget on the blog, FriendFeed, a few Ning sites, any links I could think of, PodBean etc. I'm sure there's a few stragglers, but I'll pick them up when I notice them and there's nothing important. Disco.

Including writing this post, the whole thing probably took about an hour.

Doing it this way I won’t lose any of my followers (touch wood) and they’ll all see the name change as their Twitter clients refresh. I did, however, miss a couple of @replys direcly after the switch. Most Twitter apps won’t update existing tweets with a new name until they are restarted, it seems. As a result a couple of @replys went to the old account. This was literally just for 20 minutes though, but if you're doing this yourself be sure to monitor your old account for a bit so you can catch missed replies and update your follower of the name change.

Painless.

New Podcast on Microblogging

Just for your info, our informal semi-weekly 'Yank & Limey' podcast is live at Podbean.

This week, a tiny bit late and in a change from the scheduled chat on Virtual Worlds, @alizasherman and I talk microblogging, applications we use to smooth the social media process, tweeting etiquette, and twitter journalism.

There's a good chance we'll be doing the Virtual Worlds cast later this week.

Yank and Limey is also available on iTunes.

No offence, but...

Where did all the new Twitter people come from?

Seems like we've spent the last 2 years tweeting on about how useful Twitter was to everyone who'd throw us a meeting, and now the world (well, the UK) has suddenly erupted in an explosion of iPhone driven textual ecstasy.

Earlier this month, @StephenFry (Englishman, timelord, 2nd most popular person on Twitter) was chatting about the whole micro-blogging thing with fellow abuser Johnathan Ross on Beeb1, causing a weapons-grade leap in users. In the last month alone, UK usership has tripled (yeah, tripled) and the Twitter site is now the 90th 'most-visited website among British internet users'. Heaven help us. "Over the last 12 months traffic to Twitter.com has increased 27-fold," to quote young Robin Goad, at Hitwise.

With long-time users and cornerstone Brit celebs like JohnCleese leading the way, and coming out of the SMS closet this month we also have Radio 1 DJs Chris Moyles and Russel Brand (to name but a few). All this further pushing Twitter under the nose of the masses. Even the local print press is finally hopping on the bandwagon. Most excellent news for us UK social media types who were banging on about this being the next big thing some 18 months ago (phew).

Okay, so, to the crux of this post. Suddenly, every Web2.0 bod, local reporter, camera assistant, media student and virtual worlds pundit I've ever worked with has created a Twitter account and (from having my email address and seeing my Twitter URL on my business cards/footers) has started following me straight off the bat.

Cool folks, thanks. Now, I've been hovered around 600 followers and follow about 80 people. In my opinion, Twitter isn't really the format in which to follow much more than that, maybe up to as much as 120 tops. Anything in excess is what Friendfeed is for.

I don't actively seek followers on my personal account. Now, I'm not saying I won't follow you, but, I sporadically follow people as I find them or because they are interesting and then unfollow them once I need different opinions on different topics or if, for example, they stop posting. I'd expect you to do the same with me.

I don't want to sound like some kind of Twitter-snob, but I look for things that interest me there and then and gather the community I need to bring me the information I want. This could be local news from local friends like @Derbydaz71 and @DexterMixwith (who introduced *me* to Twitter). It could be general or UK news from @BreakingTweets, @BreakingNews or the BBC and tech news from reliable sources (who don't need the links). I follow the virtual worlds info from friends and bloggers like @slhamlet, @BevanWhitfield and @MalBurns and get links delivered by my professional social networking contacts like @publicvoice, @microgeist, Tamar Weinberg, @MoniqueElwell, and @alizasherman. Sure I have international friends who just tell me what they are having for lunch like @TerryLightfoot, @SinTrenton, and @KiraKitty (but it's the best way to keep in-touch with folks not in my time-zone when their kids take first steps, to know how that broken foot is doing, or when the Dingo runs into the patio doors). Yeah, I even get my chuckle-worthy sci-fi geekisums via Twitter c/o @TachyonTV, @LouisTrapani and @JamesNaugton. These are just a few from the many I've stuck with. I have 'friends' on Twitter with whom I have regular contact nowhere else. Twitter for me is an interesting stream of news and data that sums up my personal wants and interests.

Please don't be offended if I unfollow you, or just don't follow you at all. It's nothing personal, it's all about the information. I'd hope you'd do the same to me. Sack me if I'm dull :-) That's how 'I' use Twitter, at least with my @lactose (edit: now @nikhewitt) account anyway. If you wanna chat, grab me on Skype, messenger, in SL, Facebook, or '@' me so I listen.

We all use Twitter in different ways. Have fun with it, enjoy, get what you want out of it, that's what it's about. And no offense :-)

I'm Outa Here :-D

Right.

All SL land fees paid, last SLRFL jobs done, work in safe hands and ticking along, ETC at Mayfair.

I'm off to Scotland to walk up stuff and bike down stuff. I can already smell fresh air, whisky, and hong. Lets pick up some Munro's.

See ya in a week or so. Will post pics retrospectively and Twitter as I go ;-)