You Can Sue For Followers But You're Missing The Point

Recently there has been a number of posts about who owns an employee's Twitter followers.  This was sparked by a recent case where PhoneDog.com sued Noah Kravitz for his Twitter followers after he quit.   There have been a number of stories written on it.

NY Times - A Dispute Over Who Owns A Twitter Account

Mashable  - Meet the Write Being Sued For His 17,000 Twitter Followers 

Social Media Today - Why Owning Your Employee's Twitter Followers Is Foolish 

This just shows how much companies still don't get it.  It is not about followers.  What matters in social is relationships.  No matter how much a company wants your followers the reason that the other person is following is because of the relationship.  If a brand can replicate this exactly then no problem but that is highly unlikely especially when the Twitter account represents a person and not a brand. 

This is why brands must take a team approach to social media.  It is not just about the brand account but also the team that you have officially representing the brand in social channels.  There are many roles to play and as I have talked about in the past - people want to build relationships with people not brands.  

So PLEASE focus on relationships and not followers.  Followers just mean that for now they allow you to be in your stream but if your followers are not responding to you (reply, RT or click) then you are just part of the noise.  Relationships lead to the ability to achieve business objectives in social by getting your message heard and reacted to by utilizing the foundation of social networks.

Influencer Rankings Are Not Enough

People love to talk about influencers.  So much so that the word has really lost its meaning.  Businesses can do better and they should do better.  Here are some thoughts that were sparked from the comments from a post I did late last week and Vicki Flaugher was nice enough to comment on.  My thoughts to close out the week and the year.  Have a great New Year.

Dunbar's Number is Interesting For Individuals But Not Enough For Brands

Happy holidays everyone.  After watching a recent video from Gary Vaynerchuk (@Garyvee) on Dunbar's Number and how brands need to break through the noise, I wanted to post this video message to Gary.  I always appreciate Gary's sense for where things are going.  I believe that we complement his thoughts with some new and innovative science that we are getting close to releasing to the world. Gary - we should chat.

Influencer Lists and Your Mental Model of Social Networks

As we hit year end we are blessed by everyone's list of 2011 and predictions for 2012.  This influencer list of social media sparked a post that I wanted to share.  Please let me know what you think.

Here is the Slide Share that I refer to in the post.

Top 10 Picks for the Leading Social Media Influencers of 2011

Tellagence Startup Update #9

Today we are in the office doing end to end testing on our first Alpha.  The last month has been a busy one (as usual).  We brought on two people to the team which we are very excited about.  Now it is about execution and raising our seed funding after the first of the year.