Touching Points — Catskill Cottage Seed

: Image by Pranav Singh via Flickr

Touching points are what I’m after, not numbers. It’s clearer and clearer each day as I engage with people in this space and across the social media platforms.

I do notice that the numbers tend to indicate how many touching points I can expect to emerge. For instance, for each thousand followers on twitter, there are about a hundred touching points, and from those roughly ten relationships flower. These are not rigid analytics, but generally it’s how the scaling of reach impacts my practice.

Yesterday’s wonderful discussion on traffic that rippled in a few different directions, including this post by David N. Wilson, does not mean to exclude the importance of reach. For instance, I enjoy how Twinfluence defines second order reach. Guy uses this image to explain the idea and I find it useful.

image via twinfluence.com

In practice I see it working when a discussion takes off on Twitter. It becomes evident that followers of my followers get intrigued by the content and begin to click around to find out what’s going on. If it interests them they tend to follow. If not they move on. Both results are positive, because the self selecting aspect of these networks benefit both sides of the relationship equation.

Richard Reeve

Hi Leo,
You can't read everything, but you can read all your replies and participate in what intrests you...it's about choices, like going to a large street festival...

Leo

Interesting assessment of how many people you "really" reach using platforms like Twitter. I have kind of wondered how much "real" impact a virtual unknown could have in twitterville and whether I was just spinning my wheels posting.

Strangely enough, I have also wondered exactly how effective someone could be when everyone is following several thousand other people (how on earth could you read everything?)

<abbr>Leo´s last blog post..How to Guest Blog to Get More Traffic</abbr>

Jeb Dickerson

Hi Richard,
Though I haven't defined it as you have here, I think 'touching points' have been my aim from day 1. Yes, when I first started using twitter, I went out in search of people to follow. But since then (the first 60 people I followed, or so), I've relied on others either coming to me or others recommending me to specific people.

I don't do this as an ego-feed at all (I only have 200 and some followers). I just don't want to, as you say, make it about numbers. I always marvel when I see someone with 15 updates & 50 followers, but following 500 people. It's obvious they signed up and employed the shotgun approach. I just have never seen the value in that.

I'm looking for value, and to be valuable to others. So for me, foundation-building is a slow process. But I feel sure that's as it should be. The touching points will most certainly be worth it.

<abbr>Jeb Dickerson´s last blog post..My boys have never eaten at McDonalds.</abbr>

Richard Reeve

Jeb,
Your approach always seems solid and well thought out. It's been great watching you develop your practice in this space.

Henie

Hi Richard...
First of all, welcome home (tracked through Tweets:)!

Being the new kid on the blog (and Twitter), I have learned that it is more important to me who I follow rather than who's following me. I am here/there to learn what's true, authentic and what matters to me. And when the time is right that I may have something to offer and give back, then it will be up to the followers what they want to garner. Sure it's all a numbers game in the end, but even then only your own numbers will matter to you:)

I revert to an old saying:
"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

Thank you for writing this...have a fantastic day!

<abbr>Henie´s last blog post..I Want A Divorce, Harry?</abbr>

Richard Reeve

Hey Henie,
Yes, generating reach feels like a game, but the real relationships never do. I'm glad we found each other.

BloggerSavvy

I tend to agree (not that I'm any expert). But I'd have to say that it's not completely about numbers. Sure, numbers can garner added exposure and the increase possibility of touching points. I think however that there is much to benefit from numbers ONLY if the focus is on finding and establishing touching points. One thing I personally wish could be further improved, are twitter tools that hone in more to the inherent real "human" touching point (person-to-person) instead of just matching interest similarities. This would certainly ensure a more valuable following, not only for me, but also any followers I garner. At the end of the day, numbers are worthless because there's not that much effective two-way communication, its the genuine (two-way) connections that really count!

<abbr>BloggerSavvy´s last blog post..Keeping Your Focus Effective and Targeted</abbr>