Not too long ago, I typed this into Twitter: “I’m going to plant a tree even though it’s not Arbor Day.” Within minutes, the National Arbor Day Foundation was following me. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but felt a little weird. After all, I didn’t care that much about Arbor Day, trees, or planting trees. It was an idle comment.
Since that incident, I’ve garnered many followers from idle mentions. I haven’t followed a single person, company or cause back because of it. They weren’t paying attention to what was important to me, they were looking for what was important to them.
I would’ve been more impressed by the Arbor Day people if they had sent me a message to ask if I needed advice about planting trees or types of trees that would be good for my location. Follow people at their point of need and then give them a reason to follow you based on their requirements. It’s more work to build a following this way, but the quality of followers you get will be much higher.
If you don’t do this, you run the risk of alienating people or worse, becoming an object of ridicule on social media networks. Twitter has a low tolerance for nonsense.
