On social media, finding fame can happen due to numerous things. This includes:
Promotion by someone already famous,
Tacticful posting and social media skills,
Using your previous fame for a foundation,
And of course the least enjoyable, Massive posting and hard work.
Today I want to discuss a "fame seeking" tactic that is on the rise on Steemit and has been prominent in most social media sites. That tactic is Follow for follow.
On Facebook, it means friending every person who is a friend to your friend (and possibly even a friend of their friend). Did you join a new group? You friend everyone in it. Did facebook reccommend someone? You friend them. Did you search and find profiles named after famous movie characters? You've probably friended them too.
On Twitter or Vine, well it's simply as the title states, follow for follow. And you
tend to follow every profile you look at.
Youtube? Sub for Sub.
Steemit? Yup, it's follow for follow.
This is a question that most people never truely take the time to think through. They either resent follow for follow or enjoy it. To be blunt with my answer, yes, follow for follow is a problem. Before immediately taking your side of the argument, whether it may be in agreement or disagreement with mine, let me explain why I believe this is a problem.
It disables the sense of community.
A community is created from a group of people with common interests or goals, and is made strong through positive interaction, (including praises, arguments, etc.). If someone follows you, you expect that person to want to read your content and, if they have the time, to also be interactive. If someone follows you and fails to interact, then they are giving you a false sense of community.
Lets use an analogy here: You put your car up for sale by auction. Many people bid on it and it sells for $15,000. You are very happy with this sale, however, the winning bidder decides that he no longer wants the car and refuses to pay for it. In your disappointment, you accept the second highest bidder's offer only to find out, that he/she will also no longer agree to pay for it. This continues until you no longer have a bid worthy of buying your car. (And you were willing to sell it for a few hundred cheaper than it's worth!) Not only did you end up not selling your car, but you also ended up disappointed, possibly even pissed, that those people would make offers and then back out on the deal.
Simply Put:
If you are following more people than you can keep up with, you are limiting your ability to interact with each of those people. (I recommend you look back at who you follow and check out their content, if you realize you are un-interested in their content and you don't care for it, then unfollow them. It's not mean, it's honest. Hint: this will also create a "feed" that contains things you actually want to read/watch.)
In Addition
If you follow people so that they follow you, but you do not care for their content or posts, you are selfishly asking for their time and thought, without returning your own.
(This post is not only meant for the random reader, but specifically written for all of the people below. You all follow too many people too keep up with. I recommend you look back and see if you're actually interested in those you follow. AND, for the random reader who stumbled upon this article, realize that I am not calling for you to hate on those people who follow too many people. They may actually create quality content. Just ask them to re-evaluate why they follow so many people and what they are doing to strengthen the community.)
Have a wonderful day and keep writing everyone!
