Web Worker Daily

Twitter followers have become the status symbol of 2009, but how valuable are they, really? I think we’re placing too much importance on the numbers and paying far too little attention to the actual reasons why followers can be valuable to us.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t want to have a lot of followers. I’m saying that you don’t want to have a lot of the wrong followers. There is nothing to be gained by accumulating “empty” followers. Why? Because they are not listening to you! Your core followers — those you who actually listen to you and interact with you — are the real value of Twitter, and that’s why you should never, ever automate your Twitter account to increase follower count. Read the rest of this entry »

Image by lacie babenco

This is the fourth in a series of online community management posts. Earlier posts covered online community manager jobs, what community managers actually do, and what skills are required to be successful in the role. I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that community management is all sunny skies, unicorns and rainbows, though. Communities have their fair share of trolls under the bridge, wicked influences and other elements representing the dark side of the force, as Robert S. Robbins points out in a comment on one of my previous posts. Robert said:

“You seem to be ignoring the dark side of the profession. I’ve seen a lot of challenging issues come up in the online communities I participate in. For example: you’ll have to deal with trolls and other disruptive individuals, you’ll have to deal with copyright issues when content providers put up material they don’t own the rights to, and you’ll have to deal with security when women attract stalkers and kids are being preyed upon. YouTube started out as a video sharing site and then became a social networking site but they failed miserably when it came to managing that aspect of the business.”

The dark side can take many different forms. Here are just a few of them. Read the rest of this entry »