Wefollow: A lesson in superniches and mass marketing

Wefollow is the new launch from Digg’s Kevin Rose. It’s a user-generated Twitter directory to help us find each other.

How WeFollow works

You tweet @wefollow with 3 relevant tags that you’d like to be found for. Whever people search for that tag, you’ll appear in the listings along with everyone else who chooses that tag for themselves.

For example, Guy Kawasaki is tagged with #socialmedia – so if I search for ’socialmedia’ on Wefollow Guy will appear high in the listings. And appear high he will.

Forget alphabetical order, that went out with the phone book. Rankings are based on merit, and merit here is the number of Twitter followers you have.

My initial thoughts about current- and future-versions

With only 3 tags per person, this launch version of the site seems focussed only on getting high visibility users out front to draw in the crowds and to get volumes up (which they’ll need later if they want to get some cash from subscriptions or advertising).

If I tag myself with broad professional tags – say #socialmedia #onlinepr #onlinemarketing then I’m pretty generic. In fact, I’d be so low on the rankings that I’d be invisible. With only around 500 followers on Twitter I’m never going to rank highly against the top people in my category.

Is it useful to follow people with mega follower numbers?

So why do certain people have high follower numbers? There are two very visible types:

• Interesting people who do interesting things (BBC promotion aside @stephenfry is genuinely fun and fascinating for lots of people)
• People gaming the system, deliberately hoovering up followers by following thousands of people and hoping for a 70% – 80% re-follow rate.

Search for a popular tag and you’re likely to get a handful of Twitter celebrities who you can’t interact with as they have reached fame’s critical mass, followed by another group of people who are proactively seeking out followers simply to appear in this type of list.

You’ll find people sure, but is WeFollow a sign that with popularity Twitter is now turning into a broadcast channel rather than a place to interact?

My choice of tags, then…

I’ve decided to go superniche and only tag myself with the things I want to be found for. They are #supermodelmasseuse #volunteersuperhero and #someonewillingtobepaidasalaryforlearningtoplaypiano

If you’re looking for these things, you’ll hopefully only find me when you search.

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