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The Most Balls-Out Scary Way To Get More Followers

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Scared To Be Alone?

Countless blog posts are clogging up the tubes of the internet right now, all telling you the greatest secrets of how to get more followers. Whether it be by mass-following, using something sleazy like Twiends, or putting “Follow Me” buttons all over your blog, dozens of bloggers out there think they have the key to upping those numbers next to your name.

It’s all a load of crap.

Alright, maybe that’s a little harsh. The fact is, using these methods to get followers can be effective – if you call getting three completely unengaged followers a day effective. Let’s look at a way to really ramp up that follower count – not just with random people, but with people who are interested in what you’re doing and who want to connect with you.

Ready to find out what this method is? I’m going to warn you – it’s not easy to swallow…

Disappear.

That’s right. Disappear. Stop being so ridiculously active in all your social networks. Stop tweeting all the time. Stop posting so much on Facebook. Stop trying to keep 87 conversations going on at once in your LinkedIn Groups. Just drop off the grid for a while.

See, the thing is, being hyper-active in social networks sucks up your time, and it does so in a number of devious ways. First and foremost, being a hyper-active member in lots of social networks and communities just plain takes a lot of time. Sure, tools like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite can centralize and organize your networks, but you still end up using up a lot of your valuable time scheduling tweets, commenting on posts, and doing other largely useless things.

Secondly, social networking gives you a false sense of accomplishment. If you send out a bunch of tweets, comment on a few blog posts, and chime in on some discussions, you feel like you’ve done actual work. Since you feel accomplished, you’re more likely to take a very undeserved break, which wastes more of your time.

Lastly, staying hyper-active in social networks drains your mental resources like crazy. Since social networks are so numerous and widespread, being active in a bunch of them at the same time causes you to switch focus way too many times. The cognitive switching costs of constantly darting back and forth from minuscule social networking actions are massive.

Now that you’ve realized how much time you waste being a hyper-active social networker, the answer to getting more followers by disappearing should be self-evident:

You now have more time to work on EPIC, REMARKABLE projects.

THIS is how you get more – and more engaged – followers. Doing epic things has always been the best way of getting people interested – it’s more effective than following people at random, it’s more effective than always being active, and it’s a hell of a lot more effective than spamming people.

Need proof? Look around – there are a ton of people that have massive followings, yet who are minimally active in social networks. Here are a couple of examples:

  • Seth Godin: Perhaps the most inactive man on Twitter, Seth Godin has a follower base over 100,000 strong. Do a search on Twitter for “Seth’s blog”, and you’ll get countless results. Despite the fact that Seth Godin doesn’t interact with anyone at all on Twitter, scores of Twitter users constantly share and discuss his content.
  • Tim Ferriss: Here’s a guy who never tweets more than 10 times a day, and will regularly go for as long as a week without a single peep. Even so, the man has a following of over 267,000 and is practically a household name amongst Gen-Y’ers.

How did these two people build such massive followings? Easy – they took the time they would have wasted on constant social networking and poured it into meaningful projects that ooze passion and quality. Both are bestselling authors, and both will tell you that writing a book is no cakewalk – it’s much, much harder than writing the equivalent amount of words in tweets or blog posts.

And, sadly, that’s why you probably won’t take this road to success. It’s hard. It’s damn hard – and that’s why it’s so scary. The fact is, constant social networking is an addiction. Every time we get a mention, a DM, a retweet, a Like, or a +1, it’s a little surge of dopamine. These little events feel like accomplishments – even though they really aren’t. Completely eliminating this source of warm, fuzzy feelings is balls-out hard, and that’s why you won’t do it.

“You don’t know me! I’m already doing something remarkable!” – you say. Well, I hope that’s the case. I hope you’ll prove me wrong and release your masterpiece sometime soon. If everyone focused more time on meaningful projects and less time on meaningless social chatter, the world would be a much better place. So go start your project – write that book you had an idea for, create a start-up, or record the most epic album ever. Just do something!

So, what’s it going to be? Will you prove me wrong? Will you use your time for something epic now?

About

Here's a bit about me: I'm a junior at Iowa State University studying Management Information Systems, I run the blog College Info Geek, and I'm a huge DDR freak. I also like to be transparent, so I'd like you to know that I'm working really hard to become a trusted source for college tips.

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{ 23 Responses }

  1. jigar doshi says:
    nice way to grab the eye balls. also loved the insight from a different angle as everyone here is asking to socialise and engage as much more as possible and here you were contradicting them. nice post :) truly helpful.
  2. Susan Tellem says:
    Susan Tellem, APR, RN • As far as I am concerned, the article is seriously flawed. Check out the Klout scores for those two guys mentioned and you'll see a pathetic 10 for Seth and 37 for Tim. What the translates to is that neither is engaged and that is the purpose of social media - engagement. You can have thousands of followers but if you do not engage them what's the point?
    • Thomas Frank says:
      Low Klout score IS the point. If you think the highest measure of success is a Klout score, I can only be sympathetic. It's really not that important. Actually, the number of followers you have really isn't the most important thing either. DOING actual STUFF is what's important. CREATING things. "Engaging followers" is not impressive. It's something that should be done on the side and that should not take up too much time that can be spent creating. Social media is useful; I won't deny that. However, it can become too much of a time suck, and we can place too much value on it if we're not careful. That's the point of the article.
  3. greg ascentive says:
    Nice attention grabbing title. I couldn't wait to hear what this "balls-out scary way" was to improve your Twitter score! I would add one thing to your argument here, although this point really depends on what sort of "public persona" you're interested in establishing, and what type of work you do, etc: Not being so accessible all the time to everyone can create an air of mystery surrounding you in an age where nothing is mysterious and information is everywhere.
  4. HP van Duuren says:
    Thanks for your post Thomas, Good point, personally I also usually like - for example - to keep my Blogposts Somewhat - Exclusive -, and currently I don't even do any Tweeting! Although at the beginning of this months I had the opportunity to play arround a little on one of those handy iPhones, (even wrote a little Post about it) so maybe one of these days for my 'Explosively Growing Fan Base' I need to do it (euh..., this is Famous Bloggers isn't it?) So I might buy one of those iPhones one of these day's and possibly do a little 'Tweeting' now and than. Only I do think that I can also have a Personality without extensive Tweeting. It goes without saying a - Famous - Personality :) All the Best, To your Happy - Home Business - Inspiration, HP
  5. Mel Lifshitz says:
    Are followers really that important? I mean is there a study that shows that the higher the number of your followers the higher the conversion of your website?
    • Thomas Frank says:
      That seems pretty obvious to me... the bigger your audience, the more likely you'll have people that will do what you want. This is especially true if they're engaged and actually interested in you. MLK wouldn't have inspired the world if he gave his speech to a wall.
  6. Brittany P Rubinstein says:
    Definitely a good point. I guess what you're saying is it's more important to actually create the good content first than trying to promote for hours in bogus ways. I think some of us need a wake up call sometimes. You are right. It is easy to feel like you're doing something productive by constantly tweeting and talking to people, but it's not actually helping you improve your product at all. I don't think social media is a complete waste of time, but it's easy to get too caught up in it.
  7. Arslan says:
    A good read....esp the part about time management...
  8. Paul Profitt says:
    I do not spend a lot of time on Twitter or Facebook. I can't really say that I am a big social media fan. But I do understand why it is so important. Especially from a business point of view. One thing that I am pleased about are. The recent changes on Klout. They now rate people by social engagement. and not by just how many followers they have.
    • Thomas Frank says:
      It is important for business; however, the point of the post is that we tend to place too much value on social networking and we feel accomplished when doing it. Working on real, useful projects is much more valuable.
  9. Heidi Angell says:
    A great article. I jumped into the social networking for marketing scene back in February after I started my blog. At first I was all over the place, trying to drum up some interest. Then about mid march I realized that I was spending more time networking than actually working and I was depressed! I didn't become a writer so that I could troll. I have a book about to be published, run a blog, do book reviews on youtube and am working on three other novels (Not to mention my job being a mother and a wife!) Socail networking IS important, even if you have quality work; but it is not the end all be all. I limit myself two hours a day for social networking. One in the morning and one at night. And there are some days where it just doesn't happen and I am ok with that because what took it's place was so much more interesting and exciting!
  10. shan ali says:
    The article is good but it would have been much much better if you have mentioned some epic ways in the niche of famousbloggers.....
    • Thomas Frank says:
      What would you suggest? For bloggers, I think some epic projects would be things like developing your own products, writing amazing blog posts (you know - the MEGA posts that are visited for years), and thinking about developing services around your blog.
  11. Karen Stevens says:
    Thanks for your article, Thomas. I did actually just drop out for 66 days. YIKES. (Insert McCaulay Caulkin face here) I came back today - feeling like a bit of a failure...so glad to now read that perhaps this will help boost my infant blog traffic. :) Probably not exactly what you had in mind when you wrote this, but it is what I have decided to take away. LOL Thanks again! deer
  12. Barry Wheeler says:
    I laugh when I see people flocking to those automatic follower services. John Chow put one online and I thought ... hmmm ... time to try a little experiment. I created an "account" and proceeded to get like all kinds of people who would supposedly follow me if I followed them back. Sure it worked and as he put it ... I had a "positive social proof" but the whole service was crap! It was a way for John Chow to build his email list, that's it.
    • Thomas Frank says:
      Social proof isn't useless, but it's not particularly useful either if you're not doing things that are actually interesting. If you've got 10,000 followers, but you're following 11,000 and do nothing but auto-post RSS feeds and ask people to buy your stuff, you're doing it wrong.
  13. Wong Chendong aka The Bad Blogger says:
    Will both Seth Godin and Tim Ferriss is already famous, so getting so much follower is no big deal to them but believe me, with so much followers, how much actually are real followers, that's the real question, to me I always believe lesser the better, what I mean is having millions of follower doesn't mean you are good at getting followers. For example Frank Kern before he release his first Mass Control, his subscriber list was less then 10,000 and by using the 10,000 he release a product that hits the million in 24 hour, look this means more followers and subscriber means nothing because the real stuff are inside the real followers, though I agree we should not waste too much time in social media, but still social media is way we can connect to the outside world.
    • Nasif says:
      Totally agree with you Wong...
  14. Estava morioka says:
    I 100% agree with u. I sometimes notice people who are constantly tweeting that have very subpar webites. I'm glad someone else said this...
  15. Dave Lucas says:
    AMEN BROTHER! And PLEASE let's stop the junk with these crappy BLOGGING CONTESTS that judge blogposts by the "number of tweets and mentions in social media" Like the ones mentioned here: http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-contests-missing-mark.html STOP WASTING YOUR TIME, PEEPS! Thomas Frank KNOWS THE REAL DEAL!
    • Thomas Frank says:
      Thanks, Dave. I'd agree that blogging contests are pretty bogus - from experience, I know that amazing blog posts that are the product of dozens of hours of work can be outdone by a simple picture of a cat. So I don't think contests like this are worth anything.
  16. Dave Lucas says:
    AMEN BROTHER! And PLEASE let's stop the junk with these crappy BLOGGING CONTESTS that judge blogposts by the "number of tweets and mentions in social media" Like the ones mentioned here: http://dave-lucas.blogspot.com/2011/08/blog-contests-missing-mark.html STOP WASTING YOUR TIME, PEEPS! Tthomas Frank KNOWS THE REAL DEAL!