Well, here I am, with supposedly 10k Twitter followers. Yay me.

Here’s what I think. “Big deal”.

What does it really mean? If anything at all?

I Didn’t Try Either
It’s not that I even tried to get them either. The thing is, aside from doing an auto-follow that Twitter themselves turned on for me over a year ago, I don’t even try to get followers. I mean, I have no plan or do no special things to try and get them.

I simply use Twitter as I feel like it. I retweet stuff I find interesting or problem solving or fun. I post tweets about my personal stuff and my business stuff and I’m blatantly promotional sometimes for my stuff. I often have personal conversations with others too. In fact, some, if not many, would consider me a bad follow.

So why do I have 10k followers? Once again, I’m at a Twitter crossroads. Maybe you can help.

Now what? Go for 20k followers? 50k?

What’s the point? It seems to me it’s purely a narcissistic mentality to pursue bigger numbers?

Perhaps I should start a nofollow me campaign like the Burger King “unfriend” me thing on Facebook.

Yeah, that’s it. Do NOT follow me.

Or maybe I should try to be such a bad Tweeter that people will have no choice but to unfollow me.

I wonder how fast I could take my 10k down to 1k?

Yesterday as I was browsing my Twitter followers, I came across a retweet from someone I know in Cleveland who linked to a local fitness company who made a video about their training programs. So I clicked on the Twitter link, went to the blog, and watched the YouTube video.

Then I picked up the phone to call them to find out how I could join.

SALE!!! DING!!! SOCIAL MEDIA JUST SOLD SOMETHING OFFLINE!!!

So let’s review again. Twitter is where I found the link. The blog had a post that included a YouTube video, which I watched. Then I called the company and asked about joining.

See what happened here?

Three very nice social media tools worked together to drive an ROI for an offline business.

This can be done… Don’t believe you can’t do it, because you can.

Here’s the video that I watched, that is very well done in my opinion.

Face it. If you’re a PR or advertising agency, or corporation or anything like that, the time has finally come for you to learn about all this social media stuff.

Sigh, I know, I know. You thought maybe it would go away. You thought maybe your clients would stop asking you about it or your boss would forget that you were supposed to research it. The truth is that social media is here to stay and right now, with this poor economy, there is simply not a better way to not spend money than to market with social media.

Yes, I said “not spend” money. Because that’s what social media can do for businesses. It’s a way around buying those television ads that keep going up in price but bring less results. It’s another, better option to those magazine ads that are great for branding, but bring poor results.

I get 2-3 calls every single day from people asking about how they learn more about social media. Either from public relations agencies or executives at corporations looking for guidance.

Are you a PR or advertising agency?
Are your clients asking you how they should use things like Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed and you don’t know what to tell them?

Never let a client leave you because you couldn’t serve their needs! Now’s the time to educate your team and form a social media plan you can sell to your clients that works. Read more.

Are you a corporation in need of a social media trainer?
Now’s the time to educate your team and form a social media plan that can generate more leads, sales and publicity for your business.

Your team can do it, and do it well… If they have the right road map to success and the knowledge and tools they need to get the job done. Read more.

Sticking with my “the power of free” mantra, I put together a small little mini-site for anyone to use that has business-type Twitter backgrounds. It’s over at TwitterBacks.com. Head on over and download a Photoshop file and customize it to make your Twitter background personalized! Here’s mine.

Why? Well, watch the video. It’s free. If you want to use them, go ahead, if you don’t, don’t.

Being “social online” using things like Twitter and Facebook is all part of having and building a brand online, especially a personal brand. I cannot “not” be on Twitter and be active. If I wasn’t, it would be a liability to me in my line of work as a consultant in the business of online marketing.

So the downside to being so social online is that it can affect my family life. My real life away from the computer and the Internets. Can our love ones and friends sometimes feel that we are more connected to our online friends than the real people that matter most… them? Yes, it can happen, even if it’s not true.

This video talks about those issues. How do you handle these issues?

Twittermethis.com, my grand Twitter marketing experiment, is up for grabs. Who wants to take it over and give it a good home? I just don’t have time to do it. Watch the video for details.