Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tweeter Getter—to RT or not to RT

twitter-getter

If you haven’t heard if Gary McCaffrey’s TweeterGetter system, you probably will soon. I expect to see his name cluttering my stream shortly. It’s essentially a pyramid scheme, designed to virally boost your followers. Gary promises you up to nearly 20,000 new followers. The kind of numbers you can usually only hope for if you are “theREALsomebodysomebody”, or if you have something really useful to say.

I was at the page, the signup form before me. Only two slots to fill in. So simple. The standard RT is already written out, ready to fly into the Twitterverse and bring me instant popularity. But I just couldn’t do it, because something just didn’t feel right.

So a Googling I went, to learn a little more about what I was contemplating getting into. On one hand, I’m seeing terms like “TwitterProstitution” and the big ugly ‘SPAM’ word, and people asking “How do I reverse this?! The mob is growing, ready march up to the castle and slay the monster.

And then there are those who are reporting the system working, and even bringing them solid followers. The ones who are interesting, thoughtful, and have likewise solid networks. And, the important part, also noting an increase in sales.

As someone who sells online and realizes the immense importance networking myself has on my business, this gave me cause to stop and put down my torch and pitchfork for a moment. My motto lately has been “Any exposure is still exposure”. Anything to get my name and links out there. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so chances are, the more people that behold my art, the more likely I am to get a buyer.

So, I’m putting it out there. What are your thoughts? Anyone tried it, with glowing or dubious results? Anyone else having an instinctive ‘ick’ reaction? Or am I just being too cautious, as I tend to do?

I will say this though. Kudos to you, Mr. McCaffrey. The basic truth of the pyramid scheme is that the guy on the tip is always the winner. You are in a very nice spot. I kinda wish I’d thought of it first.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Amy! Too serendipitous that I went to my Twitter page right after viewing Gary's TwitterGetter and found your tweet. I, too, had the 'ick' reaction. And I asked myself 'do I really want 20,000 new followers?' And if everyone does this will Twitter be as effective as it is now? I mean there's no way I'm going to be able to manage staying connected with that many folks so how could they possibly stay connected with me and see my random tweets. So it seems to me to be like throwing a needle into a haystack. ...jan

    ReplyDelete