Mumbo Report: Andrew Richardson on how to build a massive Twitter following

Sorry to be a douche about it (hey, why change the habit of a lifetime) but it’s simply Reading Room.
We are the definite article.

Nice one Richo!

Sound is out on my computer, so sadly, cannot listen to what must be a fascinating piece, on how to get lots of followers simply by following everyone back, even if they’re just spamming. That’s not what he says? A quick trawl through his list shows an unending stream of bots and spammers. Of his first few pages of people he’s following (not who’s following him, but who he’s bothered to follow back), i’d dump most. If that’s the case right the way through, then most of the 80k are completely pointless follows. Perhaps he should stop waving his ginormous virtual penis around, and look at what they’re saying.

Tip for @Andrew303, anyone who says “I Just Increased My Followers By Using The Twitter Online System It’s GREAT! Try It Out” (as does
@subsubmit on his Following list) is probably not going to give good tweet. Andrew follows back people who don’t tweet, who don’t have pics, or even bio info – newbie twitter-fail there – but he’s been on Twitter for three years (http://www.whendidyoujointwitt.....=Andrew303). He hasn’t figured out that following spammers is counter-productive? *facepalm* The further i go back, the more affiliate marketers i find. One begins to think that maybe, he doesn’t get Twitter at all.

Always good to respond to what we in the biz call an ‘audio-visual’ piece without listening to the sound @Sheila; it certainly increases the credibility and validity of your comments.
(Although I don’t know what they are, since I didn’t think it worth bothering to read ’em…)

ah, made it to a comp with sound – probably shouldn’t have commented until i did, but i couldn’t help laughing over ‘popular on twitter’ meaning ‘following anyone’. However, i stand by what i said above. I don’t have any problem with what Andrew says in regard to giving good content on Twitter – that’s good advice – but when it comes to having followers who actually care about that good content you’re posting, try winnowing out the resellers, the click-merchants, and the spammers. Robert Scoble, who’s famous on Twitter and off it, agrees with me, he removed 100k of followers last year. (can’t find his blog post on it, but http://friendfeed.com/scobleiz.....tonight-on)

What’s Twitter?

Gosh he must be busy reading all those tweets. Is he really interesting – should I follow?

Smashing T-Shirt Tim.

Interesting comments about the big agency process. I’d have to agree there, after working in quite a few over the years.

Also, I’d have to say, generalising somewhat I know, that their lack of experience (and often lack of interest) in understanding online communities and working with social software prevents good ideas and projects emerging. In terms of digital, it’s mostly all about banners and microsites, and most often as a tag-on to a wider short-term campaign.

But hey, things may change over time 🙂

@matt. I’m not exactly sure what Twitter is but I have a feeling it’s one of those social media thingyamebobs devoted to the famous book by Roald Dahl “The Twits”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twits

I’m not certain, but it’s probably on FaceTube or YourSpace* or one of those other things the kids all seem to be in to these days (when they’re not on my lawn). I did a quick search on AltaVista but nothing came up.

To be honest I don’t really understand all the fuss, but it’s nice to see the ‘younguns’ interested in books again.

On a slight tangent, have you seen this photo of Roald Dahl and Ernest Hemingway?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/156340

It’s also a cracking read. Par 4 has some great quotes.

*I have this friend, @chrisrhyss who’s pick up line when he met a hoochiemama was “Facebook or YourPlace” to my utter dismay it frequently worked.

@christine I wouldn’t, you don’t know what you might catch.

I’m with Sheila on this one. Having 80,000 followers on Twitter is like being a household name … in Luxembourg. In the mainstream digital world, it means:

—You’re using auto-follow, so you have a disproportionate number of spam followers and like-minded folk looking to jack up their numbers; and

—You’re following so many other people you can’t make coherent sense of the multiple conversations going on.

The whole thing reminds me of those (otherwise ordinary) citizens who manage to get into the Guinness Book of Records, simply by choosing a strange and obscure endeavour and focusing hard on it.

You can easily follow a lot of people and still make sense of conversations. You just make some Twitter lists for different groups of people – say locals, close friends, work related etc.

I feel it’s polite to follow people back if they bother to follow me, except if they are spammy.

People use Twitter for different reasons too. If you are famous, I mean REALLY, properly, big time, mainstream famous, you can pretty much use Twitter as a broadcast platform, say like @oprah (3,328,817 followers)
@aplusk has 4,698,383 followers. He replies to quite a few people but only follows a few. His use is more than broadcast, but that amount of followers is certainly useful to him.

The thing about social media, is that there are now quite a few niche celebs too, for all sorts of interests. @garyvee has become the “wine guy” after starting a video blog about wine, in relation to his wine business. He now has 851,041 followers. Smart thinking. He’s turned his business into a $50 mill operation with the help of social media.

@Sheila: am liking the Robert Scoble idea of cleaning our your Follower closet. Have to say, that I’m an advocate of only following back people who @ message me with something relevant.

@Chris: tools like TweetDeck enable you to create update columns for select people you follow, so no matter how many you’re following, you are able to keep up with conversations in specific interest groups…

…though it’s against what many believe, I personally support the self-selected Follow vs the auto follow-back response. For me, following people is about getting value out of what those people talk about, across many different levels, whether productivity, views/advice, feedback, support, inspiration, fun, the list goes on. I also feel more valued when I’m followed by someone who self-selects; and I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in this.

As the ancient Roman philosopher said
“It is quality rather than quantity that matters.”
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 4 BC-AD 65

I read the headline and became interested. Then watched the interview and felt disappointed. Then I saw the @Andrew303 Twitter account and felt deceived.

Some people actually get Twitter followings based on writing interesting, relevant or valuable prose. Others just follow as many people as they can to build a contrived fan base. Perhaps a better headline would have been “Follow as many people as you can on Twitter and they will probably follow you as well!”

@chris
As a long time visitor to your site, it gives me a secret thrill to be bagged out by you on a public forum but…

1. I love your photos but would it kill you to include some (more) current motorbikes. If you’re short of inspiration can I direct you to current MotoGP bikes. Truly incredible machines.

2. It’s rare that I get to speak on behalf of the good people of Luxembourg, but you’ve forced my hand on this one. I take your point that Twitter is its own microcosm and a popularity contest in this sphere is mostly meaningless but did you have to denigrate the world’s only remaining “Grand Duchy” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy to make your point?

3. Luxembourg is a proud trilingual state, including its own – “Luxembourgish” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....h_language they surely deserve your respect. Don’t even start me on the fact that they have the highest GDP per capita of any country in the world.

I’ll also have you know that I am (relatively) big in Japan. True story, I lived in Tokyo for a while and when I was on a train I could see over people’s heads all the way down the carriage.

Finally, an apology for using “who’s” instead of “whose” in my above post. it’s bad enough to make a grammatical error in public, but our comms director (@acatinatree) will give me a lot of grief about this and to make it worse, she’s a Ranga. I already have to officially apologise to her once a year.
http://shop.abc.net.au/html/rangaday/

The twitter-machine….

Serious business, without the business model.

who’s andrew richardson?

To Andrew:

Thanks for being gracious about being “bagged”—I had no idea you were a fan of Bike EXIF. (I don’t feature MotoGP bikes because others cover the modern angle much better than me, notably Hell For Leather and Asphalt & Rubber.)

Cheers, Chris

This is my first visit and in all honesty, my first impressions were that this is all a bit wanky until we got the the bit about five year plans being bullshit. That was a great line!

And since we’re praising self-promotion….
http://the-billablog.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/Billablog

Thanks!

I think some of the comments are a bit rich.

I suggest that the guy was just having fun with Twitter and it snowballed into his 80k or so followers. Now when he gets interviewed that is what the interbiewer leads with

I am sure the guy doesn’t bring all of his ttwitter experience into the social media work he does for clients.

Jimi Bostock
PUSH Agency
Brisbane | Canberra | Sydney | Australia
jimi@pushagency.net
pushagency.net

Being famous on Twitter is like being famous for singing in the shower.

You may sound great, but no one is really listening. Not to mention that you are naked and wet.

Ok how about this one:

Being famous on Twitter is like singing to yourself on the back of a bus. Sure, people can hear you, but no one wants to sit next to you.

How about this statistic:

If Twitter was the real world of 100 people…

83 would be social media experts or gurus.

10 would be affiliate marketers

3 would be Ashton Kutcher

2 would be self help gurus

1 would be a real ‘consumer’.

1 would actually be you.

Or how about this statistic:

By 2012 everyone on twitter will be a social media expert or guru.

Ok, one more…. let’s try that again:

Being famous on Twitter is like staging a production of Chicago in your walk in wardrobe – I think this one is self evident and needs no further explanation.

Very good question, Mal – who is Andrew Richardson?

I’m surprised to hear that he’s big on Twitter but have come to the conclusion that the wrong metric was being looked at.

I’d respectfully suggest comparing @Andrew303’s Twitter penetration as shown at http://www.epenis.nl/#andrew303 with that of @Happener as shown at http://www.epenis.nl/#happener …. and yes, in the name of transparency I’m behind @Happener.

Seriously though, interesting interview, thanks.

As an analyst, I love the epenis!!

Wow, Roald Dahl really waved his Snozcumber about. Big Friendly Genitalia.

Huh, skimming through the site now and just saw my comment from last week was never published – I blame my crappy work computer and Internet.

As someone who has had the pleasure of spending time with Mr Richardson, both online and in meatspace, I can certainly vouch for his knowledge of social media – for those wishing to try him for yourself, his hourly rates are very affordable.

While I would make no claim as to his character in general – the word blaggard springs to mind and the man is like an Evil Photoshopping God – when it comes to Twitter it’s pretty clear that the @Andrew303 account is designed as an example of how to build influence. Yes, it’s huge and unwieldy, but if you think the creative director of Amensia and now Reading Room doesn’t have a personal, normal account then you’re delusional.

When Andrew “Is That Someone In The Bushes” Richardson talks about building influence on Twitter this way he’s talking to brands and companies more so than personal accounts – while it does go against the “be personal and awesome” metric of social media, people are more likely to follow branded accounts that others follow, combine that strategy with meaningful content and you’ll go a long way.