the early bird catches the worm. yeah but....
As I was growing up, my parents (mainly my mom) would always tell me...
"Vincent Allen (my mom would call me by my first AND middle name when making a point...), the early bird catches the worm..." I believed her. Until now...
Since day ONE of me getting involved with Social Networks, I have had the same question come up over and over. That question is...
"Vince, how do you get people to follow you?"
Well the answer to that is easy... "Say something of relevance. Feed peoples mind, their soul, and something magical happens ..." People follow you, friend you, whatever the case, based on your substance... In most cases. However; I cant help but hear the "question BEHIND the question..."
"How do you get a LOT of people to follow you..."LOL!! This is the real question they have. I THINK. And to be honest, the fact is, I have never really worried about how many people follow me, or friend me. I honestly believe that the people who are supposed to be following you, will follow, and those who are NOT supposed to be following you will not. It's that easy really. BUT I really want to challenge thinking here. I want to rethink my mom's old teaching... "The early bird..."
I have really thought about this idea, and I have come to the conclusion that this paradigm has in-fact shifted. I think the saying should read this way now...
"The early bird catches the worm, while the wise bird gains influence with the early bird and never goes hungry..."
Early in my approach to Twitter ( http://twitter.com/vincenthunt ) I had something happen to me that fundamentally changed my thinking about Social Platforms... I was working on a project with a very dynamic team "Epic Change" on their "Tweetsgiving" campaign for that year. I was assigned with the task of designing the Tweetsgiving logo mark and add assistance to telling the brand story. Well, upon completion of this task, I told a Colleague of mine, Chris Brogan, about the project... Chris Brogan ( http://twitter.com/chrisbrogan ) is and was an Early Adopter of Twitter, and by this time had TONS of followers. I think at that time I had like 600 followers, or something, not sure. Well, Chris loved the logo mark, and he tweeted about it... Within a day, I had almost 1,000 followers from his one tweet... SO let's look at this...
Chris Brogan = Early Bird
Vincent Hunt = Wise Bird
FOR THE RECORD: Chris is HELLA wise, H E L L A wise... Find out here: http://chrisbrogan.com <-- BUT follow me on this...
Chris Brogran had already built up a sweet following on Twitter, and I had not... He was early (Early Adopter), I was late (but Wise). I somehow gained some influence with Chris, and he in-turn, retweeted something I wanted retweeting about the tweetsgiving project. NOW at this time he had like 20k followers, FAR more than my 600... BUT in an essence, his voice became my voice for an instant...
So as HE had been "eating"... I ate too....
So without rattling on, I could give you many more examples, let's conclude with this idea....
"It's not how many people follow you, it's about what you are saying, WHO you are saying it to, and more importantly, do you have enough influence with them that they listen to what you are saying, AND do they trust you enough to repeat it?"
I could have 5 followers, and have the ear of 3 Influencers who have THOUSANDS of followers and still be effective... It's not how many followers, friends you have, it's the trust and value that you build that's important.


