Twitter is a tool, albeit a great tool, for sharing and exchanging information 140 characters at a time. Unlike any other communication tool, the power of Twitter lies in the near limitless size of your potential audience. If your 140 character sound bite is deemed worthy others will retweet, or republish your message, to their own group of followers. For this reason, many on Twitter are obsessed with building the largest group of followers for their audience.
Your blind obsession of collecting followers could be sabotaging your chance at forming a true community of similarly interested individuals or tribe. Studies from anthropologists suggest that there is a finite limit to our social groups due to the size of our brain's neocortex. Robin Dunbar, a renowned British anthropologist, pegs the number at 150 for humans.
Dunbar's number has been challenged over the years, but subsequent numbers have still remained below 300. Regardless of the true number, we are preconditioned with the ability to know individuals and how they relate to one another when group sizes are relatively small. The theory holds up in practical application. Did you know everyone in your graduating class? Do you know everyone in your workplace? Odds are strong that if you answered 'yes' to those questions, then both groups are less than 150 people.
Does the same cerebral limitation apply with interactions online? Can you have more than 150 Facebook fans/friends, Twitter followers, blog subscribers, etc? All of the social media platforms extend any one person's reach beyond what is humanly possible. After all, Ashton Kutcher would be hard press to have 4,556,998 real life friends! Little research has been done to find the tipping point between a meaningful interaction (social) to worthless banter (broadcast). Maureen Evans, an early Twitter adopter, began tweeting recipes in 2007. She quickly built a loyal following who were engaged readers that also offered their opinions. But once the community passed the tipping point, the once jovial atmosphere collapsed suggesting the social media does not scale infinitely.
Among the regulars, people knew each other and enjoyed conversing. But as her audience grew and grew, eventually cracking 13,000, the sense of community evaporated. People stopped talking to one another or even talking to her. - Clive Thompson, Wired
Currently, I follow 354 Twitter users who are in some way connected to the printing industry. Even at this relatively small size, it is a daily challenge to review each tweet. With each additional follow, I find myself skimming more and noticing less. Not surprisingly, this is why those with massive Twitter followers only search and respond to direct messages or "@" replies. At this point, haven't we just taken the "social" out of social media and turned it into another broadcast medium?
Shout back: Do you think it is better to build a niche audience for conversations or the largest following possible?
