This morning I checked Twitter and saw I had a new follower. Curious as to who this new follower was, I checked his profile. “Buy 500 new followers for $29.”
A friend I follow on Instagram was begging for help in getting her to 1000 followers.
These days, it’s all about the numbers.
Even at work, they follow my stats. It’s not about the effort made to find families, or how I reached out to help them. What matters how many I actually saw and if I closed the case within the required time frame.
When did we move from a species that interacts with one another to a species where interactions are little more than hash marks?
True confessions: Rumpy has close to 5,000 Twitter followers, but regularly interacts with fewer than 50 of them. Some are bots, some are businesses, and some are trolls looking for an opportunity to trash talk. The numbers may be impressive to you, but what does that really mean?
If you’re wondering how far my reach goes- how many of you I can affect with my words- you should see my numbers when I get on a tear about something. Yeah, I can get the word out when I need to.
But mostly what I want to do is be among a community of people who care about something besides themselves and are not consumed with their own personal brand of dysfunction. Funny how I found that on the Internet.
Dogpaddling Through Life 
So true. The same thing happened in education. Learning used to be measured by a smile, an “oh! I get it!,” a nod, a “this is fun,” or a “look what I did!” Now it’s all numbers, stats, bar graphs, and scores. The best teachers work twice as hard to get the good stuff into their kids’ day. The good stuff still matters. Years later nobody remembers their rank. They remember the projects, experiences, stories, and activities that they shared.
And it’s probably why we have such burnout. Funny how an idea that was designed to help disadvantaged youth instead turned more kids into disadvantaged youth.
Lot of “how to build traffic” posts but with about 75 very loyal followers of an alleged 2,000, that’s all I can keep up with. I am getting about 800 blog related notifications a day now. It is overwhelming as I do want to make return visits.I have had to limit interacting with only most frequent visitors but do the others once in a while.
I know, right? And for those of us that have other responsibilities (and I’m pretty sure that’s all of us), keeping up can be overwhelming at times.
I’m happy with my followers, I always try to read all posts and all messages on FB and to have more than 1000 would kill my time-plan :o) … eggs-cept Santa sends me some of that elves…
I need Santa to send Rumpy an elf assistant for his blog…. with cookies, of course.
… you can get a lot of cookies from google LOL
Stats ratings likes hits ..all so impersonal..and people wonder why they have issues..i like who i like and write what i want if liked then good if not then whatev..life is real and stats and ratings are ether ..pee ss Rumpy looking very floofy today 🙂
It’s wintertime here and his winter coat is coming in. Sadly, the fact we live in Florida doesn’t stop nature from doing its thing.
Poor baby…we travelled to the top end of our country last Christmas..this poor mal had his coat so thick…just wanted to give him a big cool towel to cover him 😦
A malamute coat works as a cooling system too. That’s why a mal’s coat should never be shaved.
I know it’s like our sheep here..they get shorn but it needs to be done at the right time so they are protected summer and winter..you still feel hot for them 🙂
Great point. The more platforms of communication have available, the less we seem to connect
>
Ain’t that the truth?
Glad to read that I am not the only one who is not fixated on numbers and just likes to post on my blog for enjoyment purposes. I have connected with a few bloggers whose posts I really look forward to reading. Quality over quantity is more important in my book. Enjoyed the photos of Rumpydog.
It is nice, isn’t it? to meet people you never would have otherwise met, just by sharing thoughts online? Much more fun than trying to sell X-brand dog food on your blog. Ugh!
I bet if Rumpy ran for president he’d ban these things for their stupidity! Are you in, Rumpy? [say ‘yes’ …please! 🙄 😉
Rumpy would run for president, or anywhere you let him run, for that matter!
😆 !!! Well, if he ever decides to run for president, he’s got one very faithful voter! 😉
He wouldn’t need secret service either- he could guard his own home! LOL
A full package!!! 🙂 😆
Congratulations
LOL
Right on! I’m laughing at Marina’s comment about Rumpy running for President. Reminds me of a town who voted a dog as their mayor. No kidding and that town actually got along. Small town, no big statistics there, just a lot of sanity to recognize the intelligence of a dog. 🙂 (I think it was featured on 60 minutes years ago,not kidding).
President Rumpy. I guess that means my title would be Secretary of Pooper Scoopin’.
I agree Numbers don’t bother me too because its all too much work and blogging for me and Speedy is about fun and reading interest things we care about,xx Rachel and Speedy
It’s more enjoyable that way, isn’t it? I tried the “let’s make some money” path and it made me miserable.
right on
🙂
Anytime I get a comment (from a real person) on my blog posts I am genuinely surprised. I forget sometimes that reading someone else’s story makes them **more** real and also helps us feel less alone. Sharing our stories fosters community. To that end, if sharing my weirdness helps anybody… fine with me 🙂
It always helps somebody…. and you too in the process!
Businesses are always about the numbers – even when it concerns human lives.
Yeah, well maybe that’s why I’m never going to be a successful businessman. I like the neatness of numbers, but they rarely tell a good story.
I’m with you. It’s easy to cook numbers to support anything or position. More importantly, Rumpster…digital cookies don’t have much flavor. They ‘look good’ on the stats sheet but that’s about all. Sigh.
Enjoyed your post. I have numbers on Twitter and Facebook that I am comfortable with but the interactions are not very ofter except with maybe 30 or so. That;s why I don’t persue numbers anymore because then you don’t even kno who you are dealing with. Add to that the Trolls tha try to make friends with you so the can steal your money, like I have any. 🙂
I get dozens of PR pitches every day. I know you can relate.
I’m astounded at how many are totally inappropriate for my blog–sex toys, books about war, agricultural products. Anyway, I marvel at the fact that these people have jobs despite sending out pitches that are unlikely to get any attention for their clients.
Do they actually get paid by the email?
Because if I ever worked so ineffectively on my job, I would have gotten fired very quickly.
However, I do think you’re not alone in appreciating the importance of engagement over numbers.
Yes, I think most of the bloggers I’m associated with think similarly.
In my case, I have only 10 or so Facebook friends but they are all very trustable like you, Rumpy to me and I don’t care about getting more friends…twitter, too. I’d love to keep up with those very precious friends for a long time!