Twitter obsession with followers

[OneFrenchEgg]

So, I joined a few years ago and basically 'like' a few things and have maybe commented three or four times. I mainly use it for current affairs and true crime and politics stuff, to see breaking news and things.

But. I have noticed that people who comment and have very few or no followers seem to get the piss taken out of them, or dismissed. Someone recently commented to a politician who responded about their lack of followers and now they are posting a lot about gaining more and more as people are following them because of it? I've seen the same with other slebs.

Am I doing it wrong? Am I going to get the piss taken if I don't have followers and comment? I don't want to draw a load of hate or spite if I reply to something but I also don't have anything interesting to say to attract followers!

Does it really matter if you have followers? I joined a few months ago just for a laugh really and am astonished to have accrued 46 followers but it makes no difference to how I view/post to when I had 1 or 2.

Well thats my question - it seems to.

I’m not sure that poster necessarily wanted more followers. I get the impression he normally uses Twitter the same way you or I do. It’s just that the politician in question is a knob and pointing out that his argument was irrelevant because he only had 15followers led to him ending up with 000s which presumably means she should now respond properly.

I don’t think it matters except to a handful of people and they are mostly not worth bothering with.

Unfortunately in the past few years Twitter has been inundated with bots, which leads to people with a small following to be viewed by some with suspicion. Or, if you’re disagreeing with a poster, they might be implying that the account is used for trolling purposes. Either way, the atmosphere on Twitter can be quite heavy, people can be very aggressive unnecessarily… just ignore them and use it as you want. Followers not necessary.

Rafals think it was they way that instead of addressing his point, there was a dig about followers - seems like something really important from the little I've engaged in.

The only people who see your tweets are your followers.
That's why you need lots.
You're just tweeting into the void otherwise.

I think it's the way social media works generally - Facebook, Instagram, twitter, even YouTube channels. People use numbers of followers, fans and/or friends to either look up to people or put people down.

So it becomes a vicious cycle where to gain respect in that world, you need the currency- which is any or all of the 'f's.

You also make more money with more fs because you have more reach when you become a talking head or "influencer" of some sort. So it's a motivating factor for many on there.

If you're not there for any of that, then it doesn't matter.

I don't use twitter but my DH does. He's got thousands of followers. He regularly posts his own wildlife/nature photography and poetry. He also spends a lot of time interacting and commenting on other peoples posts. He is is a number of twitter communities and regularly shares other peoples posts. He often says he sees people that don't support other people who then wonder why they are getting negative responses or not getting the likes\followers themselves. Basically you get back what you put in.

That's interesting. But I wouldn't want to be self promoting just occasional comment on posts really. I don't have a hobby, job or interest that I want to talk about.
Maybe it's not the right SM for me then.
Thanks all, illuminating.

There’s nothing wrong with just using Twitter to comment on the posts of others. Often if you are following hundreds/ thousands of accounts, only have half a dozen or so yourself and a blank account due to only responding to comments you may get assumed to be a bot. If you have a pfp, brief bio and a handful of tweets or even just retweets on your profile people are much more likely to follow back when you follow them.

What's a pfp? Sorry!
I'm definitely not planning on being controversial or rude, but I've just seen someone comment and someone else reply something like go chat shit with your 20 followers! I'm going off the idea, but thanks to everyone for adding info.

Sorry - a profile picture. It doesn’t have to be of yourself if you want to keep it anonymous, mine is of my cat. But blank pfp, no tweets on your profile plus a handful of followers is the classic sign of a bot

Oh of course! Thank you.

I’m not a user, but the way you’ve described it transported me back to school and the “in” gang… 🙄

Nadine Dorries is an idiot. Most people don’t care or notice how many followers someone has, and commenting on that person only having a few made her look ridiculous. Carry on using Twitter however you like.

Yes! That's how it feels when I read stuff - I'm not interesting enough to tweet myself but sometimes I'm tempted to comment and then see all the nasty responses to people who do. It's like a popularity contest!

Yes she is, it was such a mean thing to say. Didn't name her as I didn't want to draw any negative attention to the person she commented on. Just an example of what I mean. I've seen it a few times, it seems like an important thing.

If you use tags & hashtags your comment/tweet may get more attention. Retweets if you want those. You could write something like "I love @OneFrenchEgg because #MumsnetRocks"

If you write the hashtag out with some capital letters then it gets spoken correctly by text-to-speech translators (useful to visually impaired twitter users).

I regard many of my Twitter followers with suspicion, tbh, I have no idea why they follow me, possibly for some obscure interest.

I've had people disagree with me but no one exactly 'took the piss'. I try to engage constructively with disagreers. Mute or block anyone who is outright unpleasant.

Every time you 'like' something on Twitter you tell Twitter to put more of that type of thing in your feed. Think hard about what you 'like': this is how you make your feed nice or horrible.

ime, hiding bots use pics of humans for their profile, they totally fake being people.

Thank you for the tips. I'm really interested in additional needs, politics, policy etc - will try to 'curate' stuff a bit to start with.