The followability factor
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Michael Harris recently posted on his blog, “Should I unsubscribe from people who don’t follow me back?”
Felix, a member on FriendFeed, recently released a handy little FriendFeed script called FriendVenn.
The script tells you 3 important things:
- People who you subscribe to, and people who do not reciprocate.
- People who subscribe to you and who reciprocate.
- People who only subscribe to you.
000000
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In the early stages of my experience in social networking, I had very little criteria for subscriptions. You subscribed to me, and I reciprocated. Looking back, that was purely a numbers game. Nowadays I have become more selective with whom I follow on the various social networking sites. I primarily follow people with the same interests as me, whether it’s social media, applications, baseball or boxers. The underlying theme is interests and content value. What value do you bring me? What value do I bring you? Value comes in different forms. It could be the content you are sharing, content you created, or comments you have made. I will not blindly follow or follow for bragging purposes on who has the most followers. I would rather have quality then quantity when it comes to my virtual friends and networks.
The chart above reiterates that fact. There are people who do not reciprocate, and I am totally fine with that. Why? Because they bring to me consistent quality content. Will they reciprocate back? Probably not, if they have not done so by now. Quality speaks for itself and should require no reciprocation. If I lived by the 2 way reciprocation law, I would unsubscribe from them, and I still would be able see their content through FOAF’S. On Friendfeed, when I subscribe to someone, I don’t need or expect instant reciprocation,or gratification. It’s a nice feeling, but not a requirement. I subscribed to Louis Gray shortly after discovering Friendfeed in February. It was 2+ months later that Louis reciprocated back. Louis did not blindly follow me back, It took time for him to recognize quality and value, and then reciprocate. The only way to get earned reciprocation is by contribution. I try to contribute quality topic related content , via blog posts, shared content, comments, likes, bookmarks and other related media as often as I can.
This leads me to the followability factor in social networking. What criteria prompts you to subscribe or follow a member?
- Affiliations
- Quality of content
- Quality of conversations
- Similar interests
- Popularity
- Recommendations
- Networking
Are you expecting reciprocation?
Related reads:
The Talk About Rules for Social Following Is Getting Out of Hand
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