Don’t get me wrong, we love Twitter. It has become an excellent source for networking, meeting new people, building community, and generating leads. One unfortunate byproduct of this has become a sort of unspoken race to see who can gain the most followers. But, does the number of followers one has determine how important or relevant they are? Not exactly…

There are many instances of attempts by people to gain a large number of followers. See TweeterGetter, the latest pyramid scheme-like system to attracting tens of thousands of followers. It is easy to see why some people have become obsessed with their follower numbers… When you look at people like @ChrisBrogan or @GuyKawasaki it is easy to think that their success stems from the sheer volume of people following them, and who doesn’t want to make $15,000+ per speaking engagement?

Many sources have spoken out about how the number of followers one has does not determine their influence or authority. Here are a few of them:

On Twitter, Followers Aren’t Really Friends

Attention + Influence do not equal Authority

It’s Not How Many Followers You Have That Counts, It’s How Many Times You Get Retweeted

All of this is just to say that as you go about building your Twitter account, remember that it is more about the people and the community you build, connections, and friends you make, than the number of “followers” you have. After all, this is Social Media.