Searching for Yoldash

I think it’s about time we had an Organically Grown certificate for Twitter accounts. As in, “This account is unadulterated by get-followers-quick schemes, pre-scheduled tweets, inspirational quotations from unknown sources, and any link leading to whiter teeth.”

Most of all, it would be nice to know that a community of followers really cared about the ideas being posted and helped shape future posts with their own contributions. Instead, many Twitter accounts today are bloated from reciprocal following, where a person (or a fake person) insincerely follows hundreds of accounts just to cull auto-follows and take advantage of the easily flattered. Like many people, I used to take advantage of auto-follow features in social media tools, thinking that following back was a nice way to thank my new friends. Before long I discovered that my account was following escort services, Southeast Asian freedom fighters, and more get-rich-working-from-home accounts than you can shake an iPhone at.

We need to focus more on constructive relationships, and less on numbers and recognition. As social media consultant Mack Collier puts it, “Social media needs fewer rockstars, and more rockstar ideas.” When I was at South-by-Southwest last year, I saw all the luminaries with their orbiting fans, and even joined a small group discussion with one of them. But I learned the most from a college student who ran a computer lab at a small Texas college, from a New York writer moonlighting at Parsons School of Design, from Ricardo Rabago, the man behind PCC Natural Market’s social media presence. They see their followers as peers engaged in a running dialog about a shared passion. They recognize that a conversation between a few people is much more valuable than a broad communication to 30,000 deaf listeners.

Now that everyone is rushing to join the Twitterverse, there is a growing panic among newcomers that they are too late to succeed. A sense of being stranded on a sinking Web 1.0 island while the social media boat sails away to tropical sunshine. Of being left behind in Backward Town with a flugelhorn in one hand while the sold-out bandwagon rolls off toward the bright city of ROI. And it’s tempting under these circumstances to obsess over getting followers quickly, to rush the growth of the community.

Which is why we need the Organically Grown certificate. To recognize those who build their community one follower at a time, who respond to questions and ideas, who recognize others in the greater social media community, and who lead us, by association, to others who speak to the same passions and do it well. The fast-growing giant gets everyone’s attention, sure, but the naturally grown community is much healthier. It’s not just common sense. It’s true.