#FollowMe

 

I finally made it! As of this week, I have more than one thousand Twitter followers! 

 

Okay, that’s small potatoes by most standards.(1) On the other hand, most of these tweeps are targeted followers, that is people who are interested in my tweets and will read them. A good number of these people will in turn read SW Oregon Architect because many of my updates announce and link the latest posts on my blog. As I wrote back in 2011 when I first signed on, the goal was to use Twitter to broaden the reach of my blog. I think it’s worked well in this regard. 

 

Twitter is a good place for bloggers to find targeted traffic. Do I want people to read SW Oregon Architect? Sure. It’s gratifying to know—through interactions on Twitter, Facebook, comments on any of my blog posts, or otherwise—that people find what I write interesting or newsworthy. I realize my blog will almost always be limited in appeal and audience, if for no other reason than my focus has always been first and foremost to provide a forum for the discussion of items of interest to AIA-Southwestern Oregon and CSI-Willamette Valley Chapter members. Nevertheless, attracting the interest of readers outside this limited sphere is also something I aim for.(2) 

 

I’ve never used any of the popular strategies to secure additional Twitter followers. I’ve gained (and lost) quite a few—most often users associated with accounts involved with Internet marketing or something like that—that are obviously buying or fishing for followers in return. I almost always never follow these people back, and invariably they unfollow me. A high percentage of these are probably not even human; instead, they’re fake Twitter users—auto-following robot accounts. 

 

For my part I restrict who I follow on Twitter to my friends, folks involved with architecture or construction, those who tweet about local news here in Eugene, or personalities involved with Oregon Ducks athletics (my guilty pleasure). These users generate an endless stream of focused, quality tweets, more than I can ever hope to consume. They make Twitter endlessly fun and interesting. 

 

Forgive me for tooting my own horn. If you like reading my blog, you may share my Twitter interests. I retweet the best and most relevant content I come across. I take part in Twitter conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and remarkable people. I do these and other things because I enjoy everything the Twitterverse offers. News of its pending demise notwithstanding, I believe the platform will survive because of its directness, brevity, and ability to forge connections. 

 

Follow me on Twitter!

(1)   Katy Perry can boast the most of all, with an absolutely incredible 97 million followers. Donald Trump, the Twitterer-in-Chief, has 20 million followers.

(2)   Of course, the quality of content or lack thereof plays the biggest role in determining whether my blog attracts eyeballs. For good reason, Bob Borson’s very popular Life of an Architect blog is literally visited millions of times each year. By contrast, since I first began writing SW Oregon Architect in 2008 the total number of unique pageviews is only now approaching a half-million. Still, that’s thousands of pageviews per month. Even if only a small percentage of these are legitimately interested in what I have to say, that’s amazing to me. FYI, Bob has more than 15,500 followers on Twitter.