Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!

We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.

Man in the mirror

Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.

The noise won’t stop

When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what  you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.

Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play

Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.

Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.

I’m popularrrr

Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.

Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.

Put me in coach I’m ready to play

Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.

Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.

What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.

We all live in a yellow submarine

Twitter is for friends not fiends. I don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.

If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends’ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.

I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand

Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.

One last word, before I go..

Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.

Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.

Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.

These are the people that will carry you to great heights.

photo: sydney

Damien Basile guest post

The title of the article is meant to invoke a sense of what is to come, not to just talk about companies but how they will relate to you in a more integrated way. In this article I’ll take a look at what I feel is coming down the pipeline for these areas. The future isn’t set in stone and neither are these predictions. Companies are already starting to track your habits. In the future it will just get more intuitive.

Extreme personalization

Companies will start utilizing your tracking data not only to target you at point of purchase but to craft full experiential life profiles for you. You will also offer up information that is more personal/emotional that can not be tracked, that exists inside you. Think of this as your Personal Purchasing Profile (3P), completely tailored to your every desire.

Imagine if you will a 3P that lists everything and anything you or anyone else would ever want to know about you. With the 3P there will not only be breadth but depth too. All nuances will be delved into as well as all areas you could ever want or know. Your 3P will be segmented into different areas with different permissions for them. Settings will be on a sliding scale of privacy with how much and what you want to share with who.

Hyper specific communications

Companies will be able to tell who, what, where, when and why you are. You heard me- WHY you are.

Geolocation technology is being popularized now, especially in mobile technoligies such as the iPhone. Mobile providers know where you are at all times even without this just by triangulating your position. All of these 5W’s will be cross checked with your 3P to accurately pinpoint what is going on with you at every single exact moment of your life. This integration of brands into your life will happen in a non-intrusive way that enhances your experiences.

Relevantly aggregated information

Information, regardless of sender, will be aggregated into relevant channels. Whatever criteria you preset as a favorite to watch out will be cross checked against infinite amounts of data. Priority will be given to companies who sponsor keywords to target you in the keyplaces and keytimes they’ve chosen.

Amount- speed and velocity

You will choose how much and how fast you receive sponsored results. This will be on a targeted grid that will form more of a web in 3-dimensional space rather than a sliding scale. Linear will be replaced with the multi-spacial for targeting and graphing, as the sheer amount of information will scoff in the face of two directions and two dimensions.

Easter eggs and planned obsolescence

Targeted ads will surprise you at specific locations as you pass them. They will also come seemingly out of nowhere when you must ‘act now’ because there is a limited amount of time to take advantage of the offer.

Multimedia convergence

Advertisements tend to be very linear depending on their channel of delivery. Print is print; video is video. Companies will begin to focus on the immersive experience where many different technologies and multimedia will come together to create a wholly enriched environment. Think all of your senses being as well as inner aspects of you being engaged fully.

Intuitive suggestion and prediction

Building on top of your wants, needs, desires and purchases will be a system for accurately predicting what you will want before you even know you want it. Suggesting of similar products will become more fine tuned to the nuances of categories so instead of someone offering you another type of thing from the category you will now be offered something exactly like the first thing PLUS something that builds on all the characteristics of what you covet. The prediction technology will take into account your patterns, trends occurring and the details of what you like to accurately tell you what you will like.

Choose your own adventure

There are so many companies out there now it can be confusing. You will see detailed lists of companies where you can opt-out of them or their specific service promotions for a set period of time. This will add to your 3P where you effectively choose certain products and companies over others. Companies will take advantage of this to purchase your favor.

Non-traditional synergies

Besides aligning with obvious partners, companies will start to partner with others who don’t normally fit their pattern of business interaction. Ranging from individuals and customer groups to completely out of the ballpark product categories, businesses will start to focus on values and emotions for a mutual engagement plan as opposed to focusing on benefits and features currently.

Automatic feed channels

You can already receive multimedia and news feeds by signing up for them. Multimedia and advertisements will come to a place where they will use your 3P to send things AUTOMATICALLY to you based on a variety of factors- time of day, location, who you are with, state of mind/emotions, weather, breaking news etc. Multimedia and companies will communicate with each other behind the scenes to make your automatic feed channel a smoother experience. Whatever synergies they can find in your life as well as between both of their content they will align them in your feed so you don’t have to.

Life sponsors

Mining information from your 3P, companies will hyper target situations in your life to more accurately serve you. They may even pay you to have the privilege to sponsor that moment of your life. It may range from an extremely important moment where you may want your favorite company involved to something fleeting where you may not care about companies being involved. It comes down to your outlook on certain companies and situations as well as what your 3P says about you. An Evangelist is more likely to have their favorite brand be a major part of a family function. A Casual Consumer is more likely to have a helpful brand around any random time that isn’t of any particular value to them.

These are just some of my thoughts where I see the future of how brands will fit into our lives. Information is coming harder and faster every day. Pretty soon the signal will turn to noise. Out of this noise you will see technologies emerge to turn the noise back to a highly focused clean signal. Things are getting better every day. Pay attention to the signs.