There’s lots of advice floating around the ether about how to GET MORE TWITTER followers!  After all, it seems like the name of the game is volume.  If celebrities can get millions of followers on Twitter, everyone else should right?  Well, that strategy is absolutely wrong, especially if you’re trying to build a solid community around your company, product, service or issue.

While planning the Path of the Blue Eye project, I inhaled lots of great articles on online community development.  The best advice on this topic I ever read was this:  “It’s about quality, not quantity.”  Over time, I’ve internalized it as: “Attract people who count, don’t focus on generating a huge people count.”

This is the philosophy that drives our community development efforts.  Because we’re focused on building a community that brings value to its members (and lurkers), we are very careful about who we let in.  For example, we regularly scan our Twitter follower list and block people mercilessly.  We get lots of folks seeking to sell sex, get rich quick schemes or Twitter marketing strategies. (Note: You should read Jonathan Richman’s fantastic post: 10 Sure-Fire Ways to Get Me to Unfollow You on Twitter.)

Others are not in our core audience of people involved in health marketing communications.  Frankly, keeping inappropriate individuals on our Twitter follower list would be padding our people count, but not building a community of people who count.

Take a look at our Twitter account. As of today it’s near the 200 follower mark.  We’re happy that every one of these Twitters took the time to follow us.  However, to the uninformed observer, 200 Twitter followers is an embarrassingly small sum.  However, to us, every person is worth his or her weight in gold, because they count.

We’ll be taking the same approach when we launch our online community later this year.  We plan to screen everyone requesting to join in order to:

1. Prevent the site (which has lots and lots of content) from becoming riddled with spam
2. Ensure we have members who are willing to contribute to the community
3. Demonstrates our commitment to increasing the odds members will connect with people who can add value – either personally or professionally

Question: If you’re building a community, are you focused on people count or attracting people who count?

Read More from Walking the Path:

1. Our Next Casual Conversation Webinar: Building Movements with Social Media
2. Our Next Casual Conversation Webinar: SXSH – Scope, Goals and People
3. Take Our Community Survey: Help Us Help YOU