R&R Partners: Build the Brand, Protect the Brand

I have been at 1,560 to 1,570 followers for at least a year. I waver back and forth between the two numbers. My popularity is measured from one to 10 on any given day. I can’t seem to attract any new followers. I feel like Clark Griswold circling Big Ben in European Vacation where I can’t get out of the circle.

Don’t get me wrong; I love each and every one of my current followers. Of course, if some of them were to show up at my home I would probably have to go all Samuel Jackson on them. Of course I would be going all @samueljackson on them since I am not verified and neither is he. But I digress.

I decided to ask the one guy on Twitter who could immediately diagnose my problem, @guykawasaki. He is always sitting there staring at me with that wonderful smile, ready to help those in need.

@GuyKawasaki, I have been at just below 1,600 followers for more than a year. What is wrong with me? Be honest. I can take it.

No answer from Guy. I should have addressed him as Oh Great Twitter Lord Kawasaki since he has over 203,000 followers. I must have sounded like a tiny squeal from a microorganism riding a rodent to the Great Kawasaki. Or the Great Kawasakis, since I have heard he isn’t the only one writing his pieces. He is verified by the way.

What can I learn from Lord Kawasaki? Well, he tweets a lot, 39,779 and counting. He is the firehouse that answers the question, What’s Interesting? That’s straight from his Twitter page. This is not a lie by the way. A little mind could bloat from the large supply of knowledge launched from the giant beak of Kawasaki and Alltop. If Guy did answer, he would probably say – @guykawasaki, the answer you seek is in the tweets, my son.

I don’t need 200,000 followers. That’s when it gets really scary. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are outside Guy’s house right now with high-powered binoculars in a nondescript van. But I should have more than 1,570. It’s getting embarrassing.

So what do I have to offer? Well, I often tweet some pretty interesting stuff. I think I have a pretty good sense of humor. I’m an executive creative director at a successful advertising firm. I’m told that is a good job. I’m an early adopter. I think I have my finger on the pulse of the new and exciting. So what’s wrong with me? Maybe it’s the number of tweets.

Using a highly complicated mathematical formula called “division,” I was able to deduct that the number of tweets really shouldn’t matter since Guy has over 200,000 followers and only 39,779 tweets. Still, it couldn’t hurt to tweet more.

Maybe it’s my profile. Guy is the authority on what’s interesting. My profile says, “I left the iron on.” And there is a picture of a man standing in front of a burning house as my background. I tend to tweet on great pop culture stuff I find: art, advertising, etc. However, my bio and background picture would never alert you to that fact.

Also, I’ve never used any of the services that claim to find you followers. That always seemed like cheating. Plus, they probably wouldn’t be the “right” followers. And who wants a bunch of unqualified followers? Not me. Blocking the twitter hookers is hard enough.

It could be that what I find interesting, only slightly less than 1,600 other Twitter folk find interesting. No, I can’t accept that. I won’t. That’s failure talking.

Another little birdie told me she didn’t like my picture. Guy is looking down from the heavens at his brethren. I am on a boat (not my boat) looking away, detached, nonplussed, unconnected. Guy is saying, “Hey, wonderful little humanites out there, I am thinking for you. Don’t worry, I have you covered.” I am saying, “Hey, I’m on a boat. You are not on a boat.” She also told me that there isn’t enough of you in your voice, people don’t know what to expect from you, use your position and become the authority you are. Wow, I have a hard enough time doing that at work.

The bottom line is that Twitter is a strange bird. And way more goes into it than meets the eye. It isn’t enough to just be interesting. You need a voice, a purpose, a personality, a strong profile, a meaningful picture, the ability to interact with others and a ton of energy to gain more followers. And even then there are no guarantees.

I don’t know if I will ever get past the 1,600 mark. I’d have to change my picture, tweet way more, be more interesting, interact more, be more me, and just plain be more special. And I think I might have reached my “special” ceiling. But I won’t quit Twitter. I like being a part of the collective whole – the giant twitter brain. And every once in a while, when I get a nice retweet or a #followfriday, it makes me feel like I am just that much closer to – GUY.