A career or two ago, I had the privilege of leading large teams of people. As I became responsible for larger and larger teams, I always took time to learn something about each of those with whom I worked.
Even when I had a team of 350, I was proud to know each person, and to remember at least one thing important to (or about) each one of them.
But a funny thing happened one year when, as my employer went through an epic growth spurt, my team ballooned from 350 people in one facility to 750 in two far apart states. (It probably didn’t help that the expansion occurred in 90 days.)
As hard as I tried, I simply couldn’t connect with - and stay connected with - all 750 people as individuals. At best I could know about 500 by name and recall some pertinent piece of information.
Now, as I approach 1,000 Twitter followers, I feel a very similar discomfort. Like any new Twitter user, I enjoyed watching a gradual, organic growth in both followers and those I follow this year.
But now, I admit I’m starting to lose connection. I had an extended conversation with a smart, interesting person this past week who had to nudge me to follow him; I had no idea I wasn’t.
So: what’s the optimal follow / following pool size for effective community? Even recognizing virtually no one reads every Tweet (or even 50%), can you truly be following 10,000 people? How about 1,000?
I’ll be fascinated to see how folks cope with this fundamental issue in future. If Twitter continues to grow and expands into more demographics, Twitter follow / follower pool size may become the “I can’t get on top of my emails” complaint of the 21st century.
