A follower or follower, refers to the user who has subscribed to the profile of other users, in particular in the micro-blogging service Twitter. Followers receive tweets from other users that are displayed directly on their timeline and can retweet, bookmark, reply to the tweet or embed it. Other social networks also use the term follower to identify subscribers, fans or recipients such as Instagram or Lovoo.
The number of followers is a measure of popularity or fame management. From a marketing perspective, number of followers equals reach or coverage. However, this is only useful if each follower is a real person. Recently, social media and microblogging services have frequently removed fake profiles or profiles that have been inactive for a long time. As a result, many well-known profiles of stars and celebrities have lost coverage.[1].
Followers on Twitter
All users who follow a particular user, that is, who subscribe to their messages, are called followers on Twitter. Each Twitter user can search in a list, which users are following that person. Following or following a person has several options. On the one hand, users can send each other direct private messages that do not appear on their timeline. On the other hand, any tweet made will appear in the timeline of that person's followers.
Each user can control who follows their tweets. To this end, a user can set up their account so that he / she will have to confirm any new followers before they can see the posted tweets. This further means that posted tweets are not indexed by Google search engine. If the user does not want to generally prevent tracking, but does not want to allow a certain follower, he can block that user.
If a Twitter account is used to determine large networks of contacts, certain limitations should be paid attention:[2].
- 250 direct messages per day.
- 1,000 tweets / retweets per day.
- 1,000 follow-ups per day.
- No more than 2,000 total follow-ups on a regular basis.
Trying to gain more followers through illegal methods, for example through third-party software, can sometimes lead to Twitter account blocking. Even the aggressive collection and sale of followers can have negative effects. [3].
Followers in other services
Other services now speak of besides followrs. Facebook users have the option to subscribe to other users and profiles. This means that they see the messages of the person who is being followed in their timeline but they do not have any friendship status. Other technologies that allow you to obtain followers are Google+, Blogconnect or RSS.
Logically, you can talk about followers in many social networks, feeds and microblogging services. Even though the term was first used in reference to Twitter, the principle is simply the same on other platforms. By clicking Follow, Like, +1, or Subscribe, a user connects to another user's profile and will be updated with the current content in the respective service flow. The only variation from one platform to another would be the different interaction options or responses to updated content, be it tweets, status updates or new content from a web portal.
Importance for SEO
The SEO industry has long believed that activities on social media channels, such as Likes on Facebooks or +1 in Google+, play a role in Google's search engine rankings. In this video Matt Cutts makes it clear that this is not the case. The deciding factor is much more for website operators to act 'socially' and provide added value for readers. Although this includes any activity on social media channels, not a direct ranking criterion. Consequently, the number of followers on Twitter & Co. plays a subordinate role.
Twitter links are considered worthless as they are passed to Google as nofollow links. In fact, there have been contracts between Twitter and Google in the past for some tweets to be broadcast through a separate channel with Dofollow links to the Google index and Bing through Twitter. This contract has expired. But meanwhile the data is transmitted and even if the links are not being crawled or crawled, the Twitter links nevertheless have some value - no tracking links required for a natural link structure.
Meanwhile, the importance of these social cues appears to have increased. At least it is being hotly debated. The reason for this assumption was the observation that many of the large websites that are in the first positions in the SERP also have many social signals, in other words, lots of user interaction on social media or microblogging services. However, no causal link could be demonstrated, as this may also be due to the popularity and therefore the reach of the web portal. But the fact is that user interaction is an important signal. It is a sign of greater user participation. And anyway, a large number of followers also means broad coverage and remains relevant for the distribution of content and advertising messages, even if it is not a significant ranking factor.[4].
Web Links
