Why would you follow someone who never tweets?

I got this message from Twitter saying that @Cayovaofficial had started following me.

Cayovaofficial? Never heard of him, her or them – but it’s always nice when you get a new follower, so I went and looked.

I’m puzzled. Now I know that I simply don’t understand modern networking, but really…

How on earth to you accumulate 32,640 Twitter followers when you have never produced a single tweet to follow? No, really, how do you do that?

I know I’m missing something, but for the life of me I don’t know what. Incidentally, I didn’t become the 32,641st follower.

Did my plan to beat the recession work?

On 15 December I shamelessly asked people to retweet a post: Re-Tweet this post – it’s part of my plan to beat the recession. The underlying purpose was to see if I could manipulate my social Klout score and qualify for a business loan. I couldn’t.

The post got 15 tweets, 3 LinkedIn shares, 2 G+ shares and 5 Facebook likes – and I thank everyone who responded.

Sharing the post…

During this period my Klout score rose to its highest ever: 49 – possibly enough to get me an interview for a job as a janitor in a business under administration; but not enough to fool the money men.

Highest score ever!

Since that time the score has resumed its downward trend, suggesting my natural social score is around 45 (much better than when I opened my Klout account with a score of 30 – at which time Thomas Power of the ecademy social/business network accurately described me as a ‘social muppet’). (Incidentally, ecademy was bought by Lyndon Wood last July and is now, even as I write this, morphing into SunZu – The Art of Business.)

69% of my Klout score comes from my engagement with Twitter. Less than 2% comes from Google+, and the rest from LinkedIn. Nothing comes from Facebook because I do nothing with Facebook.

Source of my social standing

So what can I conclude from this experiment? Well, the simple fact is that my score increased by about two points. The implication, then, is that if I were a more naturally social animal, cultivated Facebook and other networks and told everyone what I had for breakfast despite being hung over from last night’s debauchery (which I would have interrupted every two minutes to explain what base I had reached), then I could rapidly become a better business bet. But I would have to maintain this engagement over an extended, possibly continuous, period. Or, as Mary Branscombe said when she kindly commented on the original request:

What a strange world, this world of ours.

Re-Tweet this post – it’s part of my plan to beat the recession

In order to beat the recession I need to expand. In order to expand I need a business loan. In order to get a business loan I need to improve my Klout.

No, really.

I went to the bank. No.

I went home, juggled some figures on the business plan to improve the bottom line projected profits and went back. No.

Apparently it has nothing to do with business potential, it has only to do with collateral. That is, I can have it if I can prove I don’t need it.

There must be another way. So I checked American Banker and found this in Thursday’s issue:

CAN is joining a growing list of companies chasing small business loans by using alternative data sourcing. These companies include Kabbage, which uses social media data as part of lending decisions… Lighter Capital also uses social networking data…
Big Data Comes to Small Business Online Lending

So I checked back into the earlier issues, and found this:

The company [Kabbage] is incorporating social media activity into its analysis now, Frohwein [founder and CEO] says. “We allow our customers to associate their Twitter and Facebook accounts. As our theory goes, the more active you are at keeping in touch, gaining followers, and responding to them, the more likely you’re running a solid, growing business and you’re worth an additional risk. Or there’s less risk associated with you so we can provide more cash or at a lower rate.”
The 10-Minute Small Business Loan

So that’s the plan; and that’s where you come in. Tweaking the bottom line of my business plan no longer works – but with your help I will be able to tweak the bottom line of my Klout score and get the low-interest business loan I so richly deserve. So please use the ‘share’ buttons below: tweet, like, repost, Reddit, whatever – or all – for this post. Do it for Christmas and the lulz, and I’ll still beat the system. You know I’m worth it.