The Numbers Games

So you’ve decided to play the game.  You’ve drank the Kool Aid and bought into the idea of doing the highly (highly) frowned upon practice of Follow/Unfollow on Twitter.  You’re taking no prisoners – you just want to get your numbers up.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about – and thank goodness there are people out there NOT doing this – I’m referring to folks who go on their Twitter account, follow others, get the reciprocal follow back, and then go back and unfollow the person.  Shame on you.

First and foremost it’s a waste of time.  You could be so much more productive with so many other efforts for your music career that I could fill up an entire blog with suggestions of what else you could be using that time for.

Secondly, no matter how attractive they make it – including the price – you should never (never) buy Twitter followers and/or Facebook “Likes” (or YouTube views).  Because thirdly…

Yes, club owners, record labels, publishing companies, and members of the media do look at social media numbers to gauge how big of a following someone might have.  Let’s look at the first of those in terms of testifying as to why you should cease and desist with the follow/unfollow game at once.

You can falsify your numbers all you want – and if you think that buying followers and/or playing the follow/unfollow game isn’t falsifying numbers then you have another lesson to learn – however the truth will find you.

Picture getting a booker to schedule you to perform at their establishment.  They’re counting on you bringing in a substantial amount of people to see that gig.  Your fans, essentially, will be their crowd that night.  When it comes show time and you’re up on the stage staring out into an empty venue, you will then realize that you’ve lost the game.  The person who booked you will ask where all your people are.  You’ll (foolishly) say, “I don’t understand.  I put it on Facebook!?” (as though that’s the only form of marketing that one need do).  And they will promptly blacklist you from ever playing there again.

Now take that lesson and – if you really want to picture an even worse scenario – imagine sitting in the office of a record label executive.  They like your music.  They want to take a chance on you.  The one hope is that an audience is going to buy what they put out of yours.  And your insurance policy is a bunch of Twitter followers and Facebook ‘Likes’ that you can’t substantiate much more than a two dollar bill.  (Exactly, they’re remotely possible, but very rare, very few and far between.)

Following people on Twitter and them following you back is a nice courtesy.  But only doing it so they’ll reciprocate followed by you promptly unfollowing them is no way to establish yourself as being serious about the music business.  Twitter is a major international brand, it’s not a toy.