Karen Purves

The Fallacy of the Follow You Follow Me Strategy

Posted on 27 May 2009

One of the favourite ways to get followers with this strategy is to find people who are similar to you and follow their followers.

Now this has two problems:

1. They may follow you because you are using the same strategy
   
   
2. They may follow you as well as the person you are poaching them from.

So, you got more followers – but is this the answer?

By poaching them, you will have a hard job getting them to switch their allegiance. Why? Well, in effect you are asking them to admit they were wrong in selecting the original person to follow in the first place.

A fallacy of this strategy is that you are building a tribe – a group of people interested in what you have to say.

If you are saying something of interest, then you will attract people because of that.

If you aren’t, then you’ll have feedback that change is required. By using the follow you follow me approach, you miss the opportunity to learn from your market – and when we deliver what our market wants then the sales just roll in.